America is undergoing a devastating erosion of trust that threatens the foundations of democracy.

…

Disinformation is the deliberate use of lies to manipulate people, whether to extract profit or to advance a political agenda. Its unwitting accomplice, misinformation, is spread by unknowing dupes who repeat lies they believe to be true. In America today, both forms of falsehood are distorting our perception of reality.

In a democracy, the people need a shared set of facts as a basis to debate and make decisions that advance and secure their collective interests. Differences of opinion, and even propaganda, have always existed in the United States, but now, enemies of democracy are using disinformation to attack our sovereign right to truthful information, intellectual integrity, and the exercise of the will of the people. Online disinformation is particularly insidious because of its immediacy, its capacity to deceive, and its ability to reach its target.

  • Ekybio@lemmy.world
    0·
    8 months ago

    Conservatives never have facts and reason on their side, so they just drop them and stop caring for reality.

    Speaking the truth and being right-wing are always mutually exclusive!

      • Balinares@pawb.social
        0·
        8 months ago

        Not sure why you’re being downvoted. Wasn’t it shown that e.g. Russia is targeting our side just as heavily?

        • ghostdoggtv@lemmy.world
          0·
          8 months ago

          The left don’t fall for it as easily and they don’t spread it as virulently, and when they do it’s for what? Policies that generally benefit and are agreed on by enormous majorities of real people.

          • rhacer@lemmy.worldEnglish
            01·
            8 months ago

            Did I miss the left not falling for Hunter Biden’s laptop was not genuine? Or maybe the Steele dossier? Or maybe cloth masks will protect us from Covid?

            • Vespair@lemm.ee
              0·
              8 months ago

              I have not seen a single actual real left-leaning person who gives even half of a shit about Hunter’s laptop, I think the most I heard about the Steele dossier was basically “we should look into that and see if it’s legitimate or not,” and cloth masks were never supposed to be a COVID killer, just a reasonable step to reduce transmission, much like the masks surgeons wear in surgery, and they remain even today a reasonable step to reduce airborne pathogens.

              Did you just pop in from Bizarro-world?

              edit: To be clear, we on the left do fall for misinformation and are coerced effectively constantly, but you chose terrible cases of this as examples.

              • rhacer@lemmy.worldEnglish
                01·
                8 months ago

                Seems like maybe you missed the press about the Biden laptop being Russian disinformation, or the President himself calling it that during the debate?

                https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/19/hunter-biden-story-russian-disinfo-430276

                The fact that the NY Post’s Twitter account was suspended, and Twitter did not allow the link to the article shared on the platform even via DMs. While FB deamplified the news may have had an effect on the election. So obviously some left leaning individuals cared about it very much and wanted the news about it shut down prior to the election.