The web is a Blade Runner nightmare, but there is a way to stem the tide of lies Peter Pomerantsev https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/17/web-blade-runner-lies-misinformation-internet

decades of academic communications research have shown, people tend to adopt opinions they think are common, what the internet researcher Samuel Woolley calls “manufacturing consensus”. Faking social media accounts leads not just to individual users being deceived, but to a society that loses touch with what it really thinks, where what it “really thinks” can be reprogrammed...

In the social-media slums and darknet alleys of our Blade Runner internet, you meet the sleazy dealers of semi-legal and downright illicit services to help you manage this reality-warping game to your advantage...

“Team Jorge”, an Israeli online black ops unit uncovered by the Guardian and its partners in a stunning sting operation, is part of a whole scuzzy industry (“Team Jorge” deny responsibility)....

the brutal fact is the whole way platforms have been built is both a priori exploitative of citizens, and simultaneously easy to exploit by bad actors. It’s a system built on surveillance and sucking people’s data to manipulate them; where citizens have no control over, or even understanding about, the algorithms that dictate what we see and subsequently feel and ultimately do online. The Jorges are not a bug, they are a feature of our current internet.

Instead of the malign Blade Runner city, where all is owned by exploitative companies with an underbelly of online bandits, it would have the digital equivalent of public parks, libraries, town halls. But we are nowhere near it now.

So can we survive today? What can you do if you’re, for the sake of argument, an activist who wants to undermine mobilisation for Russia’s genocidal wars? Or you’re running a campaign to disrupt the far right in Europe? Or the narcos in Latin America? Will you wait for a new internet? We don’t have time. No, you will go to the dark alleys of our Blade Runner internet and seek out a Jorge.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/17/web-blade-runner-lies-misinformation-internet 

As decades of academic communications research have shown, people tend to adopt opinions they think are common, what the internet researcher Samuel Woolley calls “manufacturing consensus”. Faking social media accounts leads not just to individual users being deceived, but to a society that loses touch with what it really thinks, where what it “really thinks” can be reprogrammed.

In a discourse that can be so easily distorted, it is tempting to give up on any hopes for a democratic public sphere, where ideas and evidence are weighed and debated, and decided on by real citizens, and where one person has one voice. This is a challenge to the primacy of democracy as a model for governance. The message of today’s digitally driven dictatorships, from China to Saudi Arabia, is that democracy cannot cope with the online dimension, and in the confusion it’s better to surrender freedom of choice to centralised powers that use our data to make decisions for us.

Like any dodgy salesman, they promise you tantalising dreams of unverifiable victories. At the right price they claim to have the “magic sauce” to win you elections, manipulate the behaviour of your enemies, bankrupt your rivals’ business.

“Team Jorge”, an Israeli online black ops unit uncovered by the Guardian and its partners in a stunning sting operation, is part of a whole scuzzy industry (“Team Jorge” deny responsibility).

Instead of the malign Blade Runner city, where all is owned by exploitative companies with an underbelly of online bandits, it would have the digital equivalent of public parks, libraries, town halls. But we are nowhere near it now.

So can we survive today? What can you do if you’re, for the sake of argument, an activist who wants to undermine mobilisation for Russia’s genocidal wars? Or you’re running a campaign to disrupt the far right in Europe? Or the narcos in Latin America? Will you wait for a new internet? We don’t have time. No, you will go to the dark alleys of our Blade Runner internet and seek out a Jorge.

Ravish Kumar Live debate // रवीश ने अंधभक्त को धो डाला // Ravish Kumar Atack On,Mod Bhakt, News 21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQH89ArmkOE
Ravish Kumar asks us to be conscious consumers .  Dont clap hands when someone makes a point, even myself.. just think and do your own research as all this fake news is happening only because they think that you do not think... . no news is also fAKE NEWS...