TOTW: Fake news

This website has no hard standard for establishing what’s real and what’s not. If someone says something happened, it usually gets posted as-is. And indeed, in anarchist space, anonymity and vague details are usually the rule, especially when it comes to talking about illegal stuff. But this also presents a dilemma - how do we know whether something is true or not?

"News" isn't something often held in high regard among anarchists - we're skeptical of mainstream news sources, and self-described "objective" reporting is widely known to be anything but, if it's even possible to begin with. But when something happens and someone tells us about it - a broken window, a protest, graffiti, etc. - we only know what happened and how it happened because someone else told us, be it often hostile media sources or people who claim the action. So who to believe, the cop-friendly MSM reporter at best attempting to be objective or the bombastic reportback from someone high off the fumes of teargas and attempting to make the best of an otherwise modest action? Do you have different standards for truth in anarchist spaces? Is objectivity possible, or do how do you avoid fake news?

Add onto this the fact that "we" may not be who we say we are. The recent Anarqxista Goldman kerfuffle is another in a long line of a-world celebrities who have presented themselves as something other than they really are (though usually this honor goes to cops and informers). Though let us also consider - if you were to dig below the surface, how many anarchist personas, particularly online, would hold up? Anarchists don't tell the truth about themselves for lots of reasons, for fear of surveillance, desire to avoid attaching socially unpopular opinions to our names, or even just to avoid attacks from hostile actors, be they fascists, anarchists or otherwise. They may also just want to be someone else. But a culture of anonymity also opens the door to bad actors, who, like AG, gain cred through gathering a social circle that will then vouch for them, creating retroactive proof of their existence. When does an identity go from secure to sus?

How do we tell truth from falsehood, and how do we do so without compromising ourselves and others?

There are 44 Comments

Is knowledge possible?

You can't know what you can't know, even if they show it to you, if you weren't there, you can't know for sure. The Internet , news, media, television only create illusions. Perception has its limits, but at least its grounded in where you are, it's there to rudimentarily orient you as you traverse this world, not to make truth claims, but telemedia displaces that perception.

Some people fake their own deaths, which is crueler than making an online pseudonym and having them killed, which in turn is crueler than writing a novel with a beloved character, and then killing them to the readers' dismay. Fake news vs plain stories, kind of like the difference between a scammer and a magician: both lie, both tell a story, both intend to fool, but the person consents to a magician's performance, and pays willingly knowing what they're in for, the stand to gain enjoyment from the illusion. The scammer exploits the person's feelings and fools them for their own gain.

All news is gossip and propanda because just as the victors are the ones who write the accepted history, so does a culture or ideology write its own news which is their own self-justification for their existence and trueness.

You know what I mean, and I wasn't referring to Anews, I was referring to corporate owned global media and State controlled media, not free or uncensored news, and I don't regard the deletion of dumb troll comments as censoreship!
-- Le Way

media literacy is a good skill to cultivate. sure, the msm has its biases, but rather than ignoring all of it, learning to read with and against those biases can be helpful. as an anarchist i like to stay aware of what the mainstream / dominant culture thinks about itself and the world, i don't get not wanting that. this doesn't mean taking what they say as Truth. it means, yes there is a point of view, and putting it together with other sources and/or my own pov gives me some information i might not otherwise have.

there are many good reasons not to disclose legal names or locations online, as we all know. i would argue that omitting such information is different from giving false information, particularly if one's intent is to deceive.

it seems to me too that how we as anarchists deal with official news outlets and how we deal with individuals are necessarily going to be separate processes. i don't need Truth from an anon online in the way I'd like Truth from a media outlet, always keeping in mind that Truth is unobtainable in any exact way.

as to the AG situation-- i tend to follow anarchist accounts but almost from jump that account seemed off. i don't mean i had it figured out but with hindsight there were more than a few red flags. like using real* photos of themselves.* and when i finally got around to reading their writing it was simplistic boilerplate @.

it is always good to keep a healthy skepticism about news one does not witness in person, to keep in mind that all sources have biases and don't reveal personal information about oneself online.

Can't you see that it's the end of social media as we know it? CrimethInc. getting banned from twitter was the canary in the coal mine. That ex-worker canary is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late canary! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed it to the fediverse, it would be pushing up the daisies! It's rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-canary!

Should anarchists be using fake news of their own? If we're going to say we're at war with the state/society/totality/society! then disinformation is a part of warfare that anarchists don't seem to be making much use of. Attacking fake news, yes, creating fake news, not so much. The AG thing shows the loyalty of a lot of anarchists have towards capital T truth as an idea that's worth something. The

Why aren't anarchists vastly inflating the numbers of people involved in riots? The right wing in the US is constantly talking up the power of the left/antifa/anarchists as being this major city burning threat that must be confronted and the first thing I usually see out of the mouths (or keyboards, more accurately) of the left/antifa/blahblahblah after this kind of fake news happens is a refutation. Is there a strategic value to leaning into the exaggeration that we're totally overlooking because of the value we place on Truth and objectivity? I could see this opening the way up for anarchists/radicals/w.e to become more of a target for the state than they currently are, not a great outcome. But I could also see this image of ourselves we're projecting making anarchism more attractive.

This has come up on the podcast before, ideas about making fake communiques about real actions. Some random (not anarchist) person shot a cop, robbed a store, burned a building down? Write that an anarchist did it! Make shit up! If it feels like this conflicts with the means/ends thing anarchists are into I think it's worth asking why lying does but actual physical violence doesn't.

All warfare is based on deception and we only ever deceive ourselves!

Be the fake news you want to see in the world!

Like any literature, fake news is directed at somewhat specific audiences. Do you want "anarchists" to use fake news on anarchists? Good idea! How about doing the fucking same thing for a three-letter agency and getting a paycheck from a sniveling mustachoed boss! Or just be that what's-his-name internet pedo creep who impersonated an edgy anarcha-feminist!

So it's like, rethink your shit, alright?

writing fake news in a sea of fake news is as effective as screaming into a blaring foghorn. it's like commenting in this comment section. it's like telling people to log off.

I enjoyed this hot take a lot. Certainly anarchists could do more to capitalize (ha!) on its cache in fashion, music, visual arts, etc. Like a good example would be the Colombian painter Oscar Murillo, who could reasonably be fake-news claimed as an anarchist (why not?) Then set off the Robin Hood myth of the anarcho-art-scammer who took the rich by storm.

i hate this take. someone tweeted andrew lloyd could use his “talent” for “good”. sure sure, good intentions everyone is double triple quadruple spy in a cold war spreading disinformation and terminally online schizophrenic post ironic memes. great job. i’ll have my 20+ anarchist alts like and retweet it for anarchy, then publish 30+ variations of a thinkpiece about it (chatgpt generated) in my 30+ fake news sites with low traffic and engagement, save for my alts, for anarchy! oops, far right and capitalists beat me to it

Doing fake news especially for anarchos... FBI and fascists already are on top of the game, so why fucking do it unless you're a cyberpig yourself?

The "truth", regardless how some despise this notion, is still what all these influencers can't provide with, as they're all about attention-seeking, zero about effecting the world IRL.

There is an important qualitative difference between a person wearing a mask and a fake news story. both the mask and the story can be evaluated in accordance to ends they were means to. In the case of the story, it may refer to things that never took place, it may deny things that did take place, it may alter details. in the case of the mask, it does not hide the actor, their presence, or their actions; it's not an invisibility cloak. In that sense it's not much different than makeup. a costume used to preserve the anonymity of a bank robber is not the same as the literal and figurative masks that people wear everyday in mundane interactions. But in both of those cases, the detail omitted is such a subtlety compared to the outlandish blatant lies of fake news, particularly of the conspiracy theory type.

"There is an important qualitative difference between a person wearing a mask and a fake news story. "

Yes there is.

Masking has to do with concealment (of one's identity) and is not a guise, as everyone knows that a person is concealing themself.

Fake news is deception, i.e. an intentional, toxic mean to deceive someone into thinking you're or this is for real. Unlike concealment, its basic idea involves having to fool people into thinking you're *not* wearing a mask.

Ergo, one seeks to not be recognized by masking, and the other seeks to be recognized for *not* masking, and also being something else than they really are.

Also in your grand confusion, you are amalgamating masking, with fake news, with cosmetics.

Cosmetics are a social layer of adherence to a more or less specific culture, and its referents. Or in other words it is a way of dressing up within a character, a role, or a cultural function, in order to function within social relationships. In here the person behind the make up is still identifiable, as the cosmetics are only a signifier to the person's adherence to a social form. Their purpose is SOCIAL RECOGNITION, not deception or, much less, concealment.

So while this may often feel like artifiical behavior this is never about truth or lies, facts or fiction... and neither it is about hiding someone's identity (which cosmetics never fully do).

liberals fond of debunking and fact-checking news online are also fond of “mask off” cancelling. they enjoy the role of policing truth

“Falsehood is never in words; it is in things.” ― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

Has anyone read “The Gulf War Did Not Take Place” by Jean Baudrillard?

In it, I'm reminded that the “spectators got to know about the war was in the form of propaganda imagery. The closely watched media presentations made it impossible to distinguish between the experience of what truly happened in the conflict, and its stylized, selective misrepresentation through simulacra.”

Every war is surrounded by propaganda; maybe every war ever fought has also been a conflict on the level of information belief perception etc.

the first thing coming to mind here is Ukraine and how a lot of “radicals” have adopted viewpoints identical to that of the wealthiest states and their media, including the obviously wack syllogism that “Putin is a Bad Guy, therefore any criticism of anything related to Ukraine is Russian propaganda”

So I guess to answer the question one good if obvious heuristic is- if you find yourself agreeing with the powerful then you need to dig deeper and be sure you have some idea what you’re talking about! Maybe this goes for people or organizations influential in your own scene as well as in the wider world.

In this #short video https://www.youtube.com/shorts/6bcD7_ERcfo], Captain Disillusion expresses his frustration about how visual effects (VFX) used in viral videos he's previously explained, or "debunked" in the case of videos where the effect was passing for being a real thing, continue to be used and circulated, still fooling people. While it's true that this is proof of this youtuber's content's relative obscurity, it's also true that for every VFX artist or media literate person that knows better, there are literally billions who are fooled. While a VFX class could teach people how to spot and produce effects, and a whole curriculum could try to teach the skills of logic, analysis, research methodology, and critical thinking, such an endeavor would not be able to dispel illusions at the same speed and cost of an image (think of a fooling thumbnail with a clickbait title). As long as an infrastructure is in place where people are submerged and bombarded by media, propaganda, spectacular superstitions that favor those in power, there is no pedagogical project that will be able to counteract that.

In that case assist the lemmings off the cliff.

The feedback loops only work if behavioral patterns are kept predictable.

Conditions change. There are extreme weather patterns.

Over-stimulation is real. Attention has been hijacked by emotions in such a way that memory is amnesiac. Burnout. Schizophrenia.

The fun would be that the internet provides a foil for how to be in person, offline. Put that shit in its place and go after some quietude. We have nothing to lose.

You wrote a lot of great analysis. But, I'd add that the machine works well at promoting herding behaviors up to a certain point. It cannot salve the undue stresses of its expedited loneliness.

Predicting behavior is still a reactionary frame of mind. The current corporate, techno-industrial food distribution system is a fucking joke. The system in place isn't good enough, smart enough, or creative enough to improve conditions...

Bro, at least get my name right. Ignorance is not permitted, your brainworms are real.

Alhamdulillah

" Nothing is true. Everything is permitted. "

(keep in mind the vagaries of translation and the constantly shifting meanings of words even absent translation).

my takeaway from that article, as it pertains to this totw is if i want to find out if a news or person is fake or not, i have to blast them through a particle accelerator and then do math to them

scientists proven spooky action at a distance: checkmate, Einstein and Stirner!

Einstein was the atomist and maths, Stirner was psychology and social relationships.

Einstein believe spooks are real; Stirner believed but the "real" is a spook. Baudrillard believed that spooks are made to be "real".

did no one read AHAL? if you adopt the tactics of the enemy is does not take long until you are indistinguishable from the enemy.

that's one thing.

parody and satire are another thing.

i would argue for a radical sincerity in inter-group interactions. what purpose is there in lying to people one supposedly wants to act with?

what's AHAL? i agree with you about radical sincerity under certain conditions

but i gotta say, assuming you're being serious, tactics are supposed to be neutral, meaning they don't usually carry intrinsic values? the values of the users, using the tactics is where to look imo. obvious exceptions include things like: collective punishment or torture but those are very extreme tactics that involve direct, literal violence.

MOST tactics are neutral tools, including calculated disinfo/propaganda imo

against (his)story, against leviathan

you were gone a long time, lumpy!

hi chisel! the trolls are welcoming me back too

blah blah blah, i have returned and stuff!

some context: i'm weary of the endless anarchist claims of what we can/can't do or use, based on how other shitty people also do or use those things. for me, it's a weird, incoherent type of magical thinking.

there's an entire zine about how high visibility vests (protest marshals) somehow dictate the behavior and values of the wearer of the vest and i understand why the people who wrote this zine are saying this, they clearly got treated like shit by wannabe cops, etc BUT

a high vis vest is about getting squished by cars less.

no. shut up. that's what it's for. let people get hit by fewer cars.

do you want anarchists to get run over because you convinced them that only homophobic reactionaries can be more visible in low light conditions? that's fukin stupid. end of discussion

^just one example

no need to be reductionist.
hi-viz can be about not getting hit by cars and ALSO a cue that someone has (and/or wants) authoritay. you don't need to respond to some simplistic binary thinking by promoting your own!

just sayin'

also, hi :)

think i'll stick to my own system of watching what people do and listening to what they say. my method i developed outside the anarchist ghetto! it's served me pretty well

it isn't a bad tactic (lying to people) because shitty people use it. people become shitty by using that tactic (among others).

there are, of couse, strategic uses of not telling the truth. these usually are also about relationships of power imbalance. lying is not a non-hierarchical tactic, in other words.

There are a few ways to tell if a news story is real or fake:

1. Check the source: Is the news coming from a reputable news organization or a known fake news site?

2. Verify the information: Can the information in the story be independently verified by other credible sources?

3. Look for bias: Is the story written in a way that is clearly biased or intended to elicit an emotional response?

4. Check the date: Is the story recent or is it from an old date?

5. Be skeptical of sensational headlines: If a headline seems too good to be true, it may be fake.

6. Use fact-checking tools: There are several fact-checking tools available online that can help you determine the accuracy of a news story.

It's important to remember that even reputable news organizations can make mistakes and that not all news stories are completely true. So it's always good to be a critical consumer of news.

Additionally, catfishing is a form of deception in which someone creates a fake online persona in order to trick people into believing they are someone else. Here are some signs that you may be talking to a catfish:

They have very limited information on their social media profile: A catfish will often have very little information on their profile, or the information they do have may be contradictory.

They avoid video chats or meeting in person: A catfish may make excuses for why they can't meet in person or have a video chat, such as "I don't have a camera" or "I'm not comfortable on camera."

They ask for money or personal information: A catfish may ask for money or personal information, such as your social security number or bank account information.

They have a lot of inconsistencies in their story: A catfish may change their story or give inconsistent information about their background or circumstances.

They're not who they claim to be: A catfish will often use pictures and information from someone else's profile or steal pictures from the internet.
If you suspect you're being catfished, it's important to stop communicating with the person and do your own research to verify their identity. Additionally, you should never provide personal information or money to someone you've only met online.

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