For all of the amazing, wonderful things the Internet brings
us and allows us to accomplish, the election of Donald Trump lays bare a darker
side of the digital world. I’m not talking about the Deep Web (although that is
pretty dark), but the proliferation of what I call “designer news” outlets and
the influential role they play in today’s political arena.
In the wake of Trump’s election victory, you can find
numerous interviews with his supporters on Facebook and other sources. To no
one’s surprise, they are cringe worthy revelations of just how poorly informed
Trump voters are, but further, how lost they are in a parallel universe of
false facts. How did they get so bamboozled and befuddled? Designer news.
As the Internet has grown, so has the number of so-called
news outlets. You would think that having more news sources would be a good
thing, but that really isn’t the case because I’m not talking about “objective”
news programs, but designer news tailored to a viewers preconceived ideas of
reality. To be fair, the “news” on the Internet runs the ideological gamut from
socialism to fascism and every “ism” in between. However, one group has had a
particularly powerful influence on the political landscape in American — the far
right.
Trump’s surprise triumph in November brought to light just
how pernicious and persuasive the conservative megaphone has become over the
years. From Glenn Beck’s “The Blaze” to Breitbart to the Drudge Report to FOX
News, conservative voters have myriad sources for their daily news intake
beyond the corporate media, and myriad opportunities to have their bigotry
normalized and their worst fears justified.
Fake news is a hot topic right now, but for millions of
Internet news consumers, there is no agreement on what is fake and what is
actual news. Again, watch interviews with Trump supporters and you’ll discover
that real news for them is whatever they read on a conservative site. Hillary
Clinton is a cold-blooded murderer. Millions of illegal immigrants voted in the
last election. Obama is a secret Muslim. This is the kind of “news”
conservative sites offer, and loyal viewers accept as true, and that helped
convince angry hordes of white voters to believe Donald Trump was their savior.
There is no easy answer to this problem. The Internet should
remain a free and open source of opinions of all kinds, and I’m certainly not
in favor of censorship, but when you have a sizable population under the thrall
of liars and misinformers, the problem needs to be addressed. Yet it all comes
back to one’s perception of reality. What will it take to change a person’s
concept of reality when objective facts aren’t enough?
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