Disinformation, psyops and the CBC

Logos of CBC throughout it's history - Source

There never has been this much information, there never has been this much disinformation. From bot farms to active agents aided by AI, there are clear players, with clear goals, clearly and presently acting against Canadian democracy.

Our way of life, with nationalized information network, socialized healthcare and education, bothers the forces that be, which have effectively turned to attacking theses infrastructures for years now, and plowing them under piles of problems in order to privatize them. This became an established attrition strategy, or"Starve the beast", as described by Robert Reich herebelow :

Source

As noted over recent years, there's been a growing dissent from one particular party to, and I quote, "Defund CBC". This was almost forgotten, as the election came and went by, and fresh current events, such as the Alberta seperation, led to online activity that caught our attention, when social media fumes of a recognizable ilk started randomly appearing on social media.

Facts matter

While Canada's national broadcaster remains a bastion of information recognized internationally, pseudo-journalists, social media and crisis actors are paid to foster a sentiment of discontent towards it's work, even after a member of parliament openly tried getting elected on the idea of defunding CBC, and failed. Some of the recurring themes used by these actors seem to align behind ideas such as being a "liberal media", that there is a "bias" towards "left leaning" things, such as human rights and freedoms, LGBTQ rights, science, and the very concept and supremacy of law.

Fact : After world war II, the world chose to create things such as the United Nations, the IRCC, and the notion that we would, never again, tolerate fascism, genocides, or the use of the nuclear weapon. History proves that some wars are inevitable, but all wars are bad, and genocides, famine, the nuclear weapon, are to be avoided at all costs, for they bring out the worse of humanity.

Also a fact: CBC's Journalistic Code of Conduct, aka it's Journalistic Standard of Practice (JSP) is publicly available. Think of it like a gestapo police, but instead of being deployed in zones that didn't vote for the current administration and murdering civilians or disappearing them on made-up pretenses, it's working at making sure that there is no, or as little as possible, disinformation dissiminated by the public broadcaster to prevent our cities from devolving into chaos, fear, or just plain drowning in lies.

Facts matter, because facts make science. Without science, forget the world you live in, you're dead within days, if not hours. Without facts, you may also forget your history, and possibly your very identity - but you also forget that you live in a world where science is used to look into your life as a citizen, daily, even as you read this very paper. And true, there is some virtue to be able to speak your mind, but to quote Neil Degrasse Tyson, science doesn't care about your opinions or feelings - only the facts, and the science, matters.

It's very well understood what impact Fox news will and have had on american society and politics over the past 10 years. By amplifying sensationalism, populism became a flavor people latched on to because it is easy, leading to the results we're currently experiencing. Can't blame the user - The human brain is wired to look for the simplest explanation, so when you have a figurehead claiming that the "immigrants are eating the cats and the dogs", it's normal to have a vivid reaction. It should be followed by what doesn't happen in a flood the zone scenario - which is validating that claim, so to form a proper opinion.

Canada having historically chosen to be informed from one ocean to the next early on, and having dedicated some of its tax revenue to having quality journalism, ethically representing facts in their context, is a big problem for those who gained so much momentum by pushing the boundary between fact and opinion.

A recent example of disinformation by a fox news representative - source

Time and again, history also demonstrates that you don't bite the hand that feeds you - which ends up meaning that any privatized media will have interests, represented via it's ownership, and will utlimately wind up pushing certain lies to make a profit. Fox news turned that into a whole other thing, became a pay-to-play arena for lobbies to have their interests front and center, disguised as news. This model started with print media itself.

A vintage ad promoting cigarettes as a healthy alternative to obesity, literally saying "Smoke our brand so you don't cough" - Source

At this time, when climate change is peaking and devolving into a series of yearly catastrophes repeating themselves and amplifying, now constant and predictable observable fact compared to an "arguably episodic event not related to climate change" just yet a few years ago, the energy lobby clearly has defeated most measures any governments tried to put over the years to leverage it's impact on human life.

This unfortunately makes some sense, as we're towards the end of the fossil fuel era. While historically and economically justifiable to build a pipeline in Canada, can we garantee that oil will have an economy to sell itself upon by the time it's completed is a worthwhile question, seeing how Big Tech, and it's AI revolution, are adding to the mix. And that's before we talk about spaceX, who crashes projects on the moon, while creating an actual layer of junk both in the athmosphere, but also in some farmer's fields.

Progress is inevitable, but dont we know enough by now to do it more intelligently, and with a little bit less inequality? This is, or should be, the very conversation here, that's been had on the political level forever: Is it better to let the market speak and may the strongest man win, or is it better to let the science put guardrails, such as inspections and recalls, preventing the taxpaying population from being sick whenever it's preventable? With the current state of the USA , who's battling resurgence in diarrhea inducing lettuce amidst a measles outbreak and a side of screw-worm epidemic, and seeing how integration and collaboration led us to lower our gards in the Canadian food inspection sector the past couple years, one must question the value of paying taxes for a government that wouldn't protect it's citizens - or worse, take bribes so that contaminated produce, grown by underpaid inmate labor, does make it to market, while the CEO is in Hawaii working hard on his tan.

Ignorance is bliss

Ignorance is bliss, and this is why they want to silence CBC. Without accurately presented, curated information, the population is simply submerged with the constant, growing noise of a very flooded zone, which is more and more market driven, and will lose it's ability to chose in a full, healthy way without the safeguards that science procures us. A prime example of such a thing is the Manosphere, recently named by Wired magazine as being some sort of a pyramid scheme based on the need for young men to find role-models, and express their grievances about the world they're in. The beauty industry has long been doing it to woman of all ages, and the market spotted that opportunity, and tapped it in a significant way, just like Facebook tapped into the minds of woman all ages around their appearance, leading to an explosion of eating disorder cases, mental health, and so on - all so that a few may profit from the many's needs. We could also talk about the emerging cases of AI-Psychosis, as more and more people are turning to AI to fill the void of a growingly asocial society.

This is a choice, at some point. The same way some countries choose to elect a vengeful, spiteful bully in office and hope it works out for them, we can choose to be better informed, to ask our government to protect us from preventable harm whenever possible (hint: Do you need an army if your answer is no?), and not be part of the millions now absorbing the costs relating to disastreous policies made in haste so the few may profit faster, and passing the consequences onto the little guy, dven furthering inequalities.

This is entirely a political choice, a cultural approach to building a society, and it has been paying off for some time for Canada to have it's citizens well informed. This may be a key difference between Canada and the USA : They both chose capitalism, but one of the two chose to acknowledge colonialism, and to do better, for everyone's benefit. Some call it the greater good, and by defnition, anything else can't be great.

"Ignorance is not bliss. Bliss is knowing the full meaning of what you've been given." - David levithan

Tags : #AI, #Politics, #Science, #humanrights, #USA, #Canada, #marketing, #news, #CBC, #information, #culturewar, #Manosphere, #disinformation, #Tech, #Law, #Education, #MentalHealth, #ForeignInterference