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JChoe

Feb 15 • 8 tweets • 4 min read

We say "information war", I'd argue, because it's about information theory at its core, and it's not about raw data nor the manufacture of facts.

It's unbelievably contentious to provide a complete account of how people read, but at least for disinfo, you could think of it like this:

A fact is an objectively existent thing/event.

A reading is what we make out of that.

The narrative is the story we tell around it.

People just, like, making stuff up is pretty easy to handle, we know what to call that.

So, like, George Santos.

As in, literally anything George Santos says about himself.

That's pretty clearly intentionally making stuff up, or disinformation.

When we deal with a true fact, though, and assign a misleading reading, or use it to advance or make more real ("reify") a false or hateful narrative, then it stops being so cut-and-dry.

This sounds hand-wavey without examples (a lot of disinfo theory does, actually).

This is a really good example I just came across today courtesy of fellow... uh... #nafo #fella (#nafellow?)

That video isn't forged or a deepfake. No one is saying that.

https://twitter.com/Fella_IA_X25/status/1625594969913188399?s=20&t=jT3To1-iGABrzaFb-3XQaw

The issue is the misleading framing - the way that it's produced, using a POW under coercion - and the misleading narrative coming from it.

It's not exactly a neat solution, but the solution on the table to contest those readings right now seems to be us.

As in, #NAFO.

I suppose we could say "even Mark Cuban gets it".

Copypasta and AI-generated disinfo are actually already out there, but chatGPT has everyone putting 2+2 together.

That 2+2=4 here means, you're not enacting a supply-side solution here for disinfo.

cnbc.com/2023/02/12/mar…

And if you want to enact a demand-side solution, you aren't doing it with an app, or for that matter anything else that's all "stagey" and cringe and artificial like that.

It requires something that looks a lot like NAFO actually.

https://twitter.com/JoohnChoe/status/1603932242903937024?s=20&t=jT3To1-iGABrzaFb-3XQaw

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More from @JoohnChoe

JChoe

@JoohnChoe

Feb 15

This one's fun. From an old meme deck.

What we see out here on Twitter by and large are, like, 99% operators & useful idiots.

The owner class are harder to find but out there in CNN (Wiredu) & MediaMatters (Llugaliu).

But what's really interesting is the trainers.

We don't see trainers out there too often, but from Wired's investigation, the Netyksho indictment, Adrian Chen in '15, and CNN in '19, we know they're there.

This is the only one I've ever seen, from '19.

Souper's network topography was unusual in that he appeared to be given administrator status - and even explicitly acknowledged - by a Pakistani spam ring.

Souper is not from Pakistan.

You don't see that very often.

Read 7 tweets

JChoe

@JoohnChoe

Feb 14

This quote from Altered Carbon - 'take what is offered' - resonates a good bit lately.

It's basically saying 'be resourceful' and it sounds portentous, like it offers some esoteric meaning that isn't available on the surface, the way that a good sci-fi religion should.

'Dune' was like this; the Litany Against Fear got integrated into a lot of people's self-concepts (I'm one of them, I'll admit) without really thinking critically about it, either in terms of internal flaws with it or externally to culture or personal aspects of Herbert.

Potlatch has additional meanings in terms of the superfluity of consumer culture, or systemic "potlatch".

Potlatch, by itself, is a First Nations custom of ostentatious wealth distribution with the expectation of return.

Read 6 tweets

JChoe

@JoohnChoe

Feb 14

"Anti-war" is a politicized term. People just kind of assume they know what it means.

When I identify as an "anti-war activist", while also arguing that Mick Wallace or Noam Chomsky aren't, it's real simple: for me, that "war" in anti-war includes Russia.

Let me explain:

Modern anti-war activism goes back to Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" speech.

It's complex and there's parts I don't agree with like the US giving up UN participation; I don't see how that'd help anything.

This part is pretty inarguable though.
americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkat…

What you're looking at in Ukraine is Putin's Russia doing exactly what Martin Luther King, Jr. said America was doing:

Interfering in the self-determination of a sovereign people based on lies and nationalist hate-rhetoric.
bbc.com/news/world-eur…

Read 8 tweets

JChoe

@JoohnChoe

Feb 14

The interesting things about paranoia to me are that it requires some degree of imagination, and it's exacerbated by social isolation.

Also, sometimes it's right.

As in, you can be paranoid, AND they can be out to get you; these two don't logically preclude each other.

So, therapy for paranoia means things like actually talking to the people you think are, like, CIA agents, or whatever, and finding out they're just your neighbor walking the dog.

That's about more than just realizing they're not, like, CIA spies with an elaborate pretext.

An important therapeutic intervention for paranoia is re-establishing healthy social connections with people.

Grounding yourself in the consensual social reality we all share prevents you from spinning off into your own world, basically.

Read 17 tweets

JChoe

@JoohnChoe

Feb 14

There are two basic tricks to being a guild leader. They apply perfectly to digital movements.

One, be the one who talks. The one who leads isn't the best player or the best-equipped; it's the one who talks the most.

Two, and this one is hard: you can't punish anyone.

1/6

It's a consistent mistake I see people make: they think punishing people on social media, or calling for punishment, is some kind of audience-builder.

I get it. I've felt the same way.

But on social media, as with video games, by and large, you can't really punish anyone.

2/6

It makes zero sense to accept being punished; I'll just ignore you or ridicule you, why would I consent to that?

There's deplatforming, sure, but that's an exception, not the rule, and it's the network doing it anyway.

3/6

Read 8 tweets