Reading Time: 4 minutes OnlySky has previously reported on the controversial decisions of Elon Musk in his acquisition of Twitter, including the situation of the “blue checkmarks” or “blue ticks.” It appears that Musk hasn’t learned and is keen to double down on bad ideas. Traditionally, blue checks have been an indication on Twitter that someone famous is who […]
Disinformation
Posted inWar and Peace
Can Putin, locked in a bubble of bad intel, spin his way out of disaster?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Colonel General Gennady Zhidko is being reappointed to command Russia’s Eastern Military District. One pro-Russian Telegram user has claimed that the general and others have created “a wall of lies…a sea of blood and a swamp of corpses.” That wall of lies has for many months encircled the Kremlin. Yet, in the world of geopolitics, […]
Posted inThe Secular
The poisoned church: When pastors use their pulpits to spread disinformation
Reading Time: 4 minutes As we see the world becoming victim to the effects of misinformation and disinformation of authoritarian political agents, it is worth remembering that this is also happening closer to home in our local churches. I was reading an article in Atlantic magazine last night about an Evangelical church in Brighton, Michigan (a state in which […]
Posted inSocial Media
Musk will bring Trump back to Twitter, calls the ban ‘foolish in the extreme’
Reading Time: 6 minutes Organisms generally need oxygen to survive and flourish. Certain organisms require more oxygen to reach their peak. In the social media ecosystem, whose habitats include the undrained swamps of the American elite, one apex predator once reigned supreme. And in the misinformation mudslinging and disinformation data-dumping, Trump’s famed Twitter rule came to an abrupt end. […]
Posted inWar and Peace
When Russian propaganda goes hilariously wrong
Reading Time: 4 minutes Russian propaganda is no laughing matter. It’s keeping almost an entire nation under its spell, inoculated from the truth with a constant provision of carefully curated narrative disinformation. The vast majority of Russian citizens appear to be unwittingly sucked in. Whether there are those who have seeds of doubt but who suppress those skeptical desires […]
Posted inSocial Media
Elon Musk buys Twitter. What could possibly go wrong?
Reading Time: 7 minutes Everyone has their line. Even 4chan, a supposedly “anything-goes platform” that many think is the worst manifestation of the internet, had a line. It was an animated depiction of child pornography, as well as concerted attacks on female journalists and others associated with Gamergate. The result? 8chan was started as an even more “libertarian” vacuum […]
Posted inCritical thinking
What we learned when Fox News viewers were paid to watch CNN
Reading Time: 5 minutes Fox News isn’t just a news network or part of a larger media and entertainment umbrella. It is a lifestyle, a political worldview, a cult. This bubble or better, cage, is where Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity are the sect leaders, manipulating and cajoling, provoking and controlling. And like with any cult, breaking out is […]
Posted inPolitics
Is universal suffrage really such a great thing?
Reading Time: 6 minutes As I write this, exactly one year after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionist attack on the U.S. Capitol to subvert the counting of Electoral College votes, I’m more convinced than ever that many, many, many Americans lack enough intellectual integrity and common sense to be trusted electing anyone. It’s becoming clearer by the day that […]
Posted inCritical thinking
Authority! What is it good for?
Reading Time: 3 minutes Greetings, Shoptalkers! In my last column, “Conspiracy cultivation”, I explored three rhetorical moves that our info silos share with the communities that create fringe theorists. In this week’s “Tooling Around”, let’s hash out ways that we can make the conversation less toxic. By reducing our fixation on authority “from the margins”, we can become better […]
Posted inCritical thinking
Conspiracy cultivation (and me, and you)
Reading Time: 5 minutes In October 2020, I had to leave Colombia for a week to reset my legal status. I spent that week in a hostel in Panamá. The old Spanish-colonial building, nestled on a hill closer to the stark residences of year-round locals than to the brightly painted walls of the tourist quarter, was musty and run […]