Episode Transcript
The collective perspective podcast is set on a mission to understand some of the most impactful and controversial trends and topics in our lives today. Hi, I'm Jeff. Hi, I'm Travis. Can we find common ground in the middle in a peaceful manner, but with real community benefit, we believe as veterans and concerned citizens that we're striving to bring together diverse views with fact based research to navigate this tough terrain in search of a viable path.
How do we unify as American citizens and prove we aren't all that much different? So meet us in the middle, not the right or left. In season two, we have decided to focus on research and exposing fake news and fake information. And we're tired of the media lying to us. We're tired of fake news. And we're tired of the government lying to us.
We want the truth. And our mission is to seek the truth. Everybody. This is the collective perspective podcast. And we're here in sunny Jacksonville, Florida, talking to you from the new collective perspective studios. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the collective perspective. My name is Jeff and I'm here with.
This is Travis. And we have a special guest today. Jawad Mills. Hey Jawad. What's up? Hey, how you guys doing, man? Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? I am a professional recording engineer. I own a studio called icon recording studio. Located in Orange Park, Florida, we provide professional recording services for local and industry artists.
Ironically, we're sitting in that studio right now. Really, you're a great treat to have you guys here with me. Thanks, man. We're honored to be here. Yes, and it's nice to be back in a studio proper. Yeah, it's great, man. It's good to see you guys again. So in episode 22, we spoke about freedom of speech. One of the first things that we opened up with was how do you find your information and how do you know it's true?
So we'd like to extend that question to you so we know we're on the same page. And what I mean by the same page is that You use some critical thought, and I know you do, so please tell us about it. I get my information like pretty much everyone else does. Social media, you get it from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.
Me personally, I don't watch TV. I'm like the normal person. That's where you would normally get your news, from like the feed on Facebook, or you would get it from the feed on, on Instagram. You pretty much take that stuff with a grain of salt. Media a lot of it's in entertainment. We did talk about that too.
We call I call it the crime report The nightly news is the crime report. Yeah, I Think in the beginning we did talk about how Every news episode was filled with all the doom and gloom up until that last story that they try to keep everybody hooked on That feel good story at the end of the newscast cool.
So, how do you evaluate do you? search other sites. Or how do you validate that information as it pertains to you? As if it's true or if it's just bogus or somebody's not interpreting the information correctly. One of the things that you're force fed that information or it's a consistency, you hear it over and over again.
When a celebrity dies or something, the first thing that normal average person does is go to Wikipedia. They want to see on Wikipedia, if it's true. So a lot of people just on the surface validates certain information, either via Wikipedia or Google, they'll Google that information to see if it's something that they.
Agree. Or they, they confirm. Then if you were a little bit more extreme, it's, it's TMZ. You, you know, you touch TMZ and oh, is that really what's happening? Again, I don't watch TV like that. So the actual news I'm, I don't, um, you know, it's crazy going in the store. You don't see the inquirer anymore because the inquirer is really just.
It's been debunked and, and, and they've made it such a running joke now, no one takes it serious. I'm almost thinking like what Jeff just said, that the conspiracies in there are hitting a little too close to home and it's more accurate news. Then it is conspiracy anymore. Yeah. I used to see aliens on there, UFOs, all that kind of stuff.
It was only inquire. Now they're saying that it's real. Yeah. Like you got the bat boy. Like we didn't already know that. The bat boy, you know, the classic one with the bat boy and stuff. Which version of alien do you like? Do you like the Will Smith men in black alien or the Sigourney Weaver alien? The friendliest one.
Yeah, yeah. And I guess that's the reason why no one talks about the Inquirer anymore, because it came kind of jokey, hokey jokey kind of news kind of, you know what I'm saying? It was like, you'd read it and really, you'd laugh or you'd giggle about it. I think I question more news now than I ever have in the past.
And I think one of the For sure. I think that one of the anecdotes that people say is, what's the difference between a conspiracy theorist and a normal person?
That's true. One of the interesting things that I've discovered recently, to be honest, even as of today, was something called the Crap Test. Have you guys ever heard of the Crap Test? No. I haven't heard of it before. It's two A's, so it's not crap as you'd think it would be, but it's kind of funny. Fun. The test provides a list of questions to ask yourself when deciding whether or not a source is reliable and credible enough to use.
In your academic research paper. What does CRAP stand for? Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose. Currency. What do you mean by currency? Money or how current it is? How current it is. I had a good analysis here, or a good list of stuff here. So currency is the timelessness of the information.
When was the information published or posted? And this is by researchguides. com. B n dot edu. Ironically, you know, universities actually study and post things that are interesting. When was the information made? So you have to turn the alien. When was the information published or posted? Has the information been revised or updated lately?
Is the information current or out of date? So it's like. You know, there's a lot of stuff that I see on Facebook and social media and stuff where they're posting this stuff. You look it up and you're like, dude, that was 2015. Yeah, like you, you, you have, like, guys. Why are you bringing up this old thing as if it was today?
That's, that's ridiculous. That's… That doesn't pass the crap test. I would say that's mal information. Yeah, yeah. Which we'll get into what the difference in information there are. And are the links functional? Do they actually, if you're following something, you go to your, your search engine and you type it in, are the links that lead to it functional?
If they're not, then they're probably dead leads. Also relevance. Does the information relate to your topic or answer your question? And who is the intended audience? There's a target audience is a pretty big thing. The authority, the source of the information. Who is the authority? Does this person have a degree or credentials that solidify what he said?
For example, our buddy Jawad here is a studio owner. If he's talking about being a studio owner to other studio owners, or potential studio owners, or people that is interested in it, he would be first hand information. He would be very knowledgeable stuff because he's been through it. In that sense, you're collecting primary data from this gentleman that has the experience firsthand.
I would say he's authority. His opinion matters. He has credible authority. Yes. Right. And then what is the purpose, the reason, why does the information exist? What is the purpose of the information to inform, teach, and sell? So basically, what is the intention of this post? Is it intended to mislead, or is it intended to be accurate?
Here's one that I saw today, and I immediately did a, another search engine. So, I saw this person, they're talking about the fires in Maui, and how it's all done by microwave, how cars are melding in the street. And that people were jumping in the water, because their skin was burning. So I immediately just go right to the search engine and say, I type in, people jumping in water Maui.
And it brings up a video and this lady's talking about jumping in the water, not merely her skin, she didn't say one thing about her skin burning. You're on an island. And the whole thing is on fire. Where do you go that's safe in the ocean? It may not be the safest with sharks and all that other stuff going on, but I think animals can sense that something's going wrong, we better stay away from this island.
They're pretty smart like that. Nonetheless, they were in the water for eight hours. They didn't complain about their skin burning. It was just dark and cloudy and, you know, ashy, ash everywhere. But it totally just debunked whatever that person was saying, saying that it was microwaved. I don't know if it was microwave or what they're calling a DEW, D E W.
What's a DEW? Directed Energy Weapon. Lasers. Maybe, maybe look into it and see, but that, that goes beyond what we're talking about today though. Well, that's a little bit down the hole. See how easy that is? I was going to say there's a consistency because it's happening, I think in Spain, right? Or something?
No, Turkey, Greece, there's fires all over the place right now. Anyway, my reason for bringing up the crap test is that validity for what you are trying to post to someone else I understand you're not going to go through the extreme of looking at multiple different sources, but if you just take a second or third chance and see if something's different and actually read it Just read it and see what it is and see if it doesn't mesh up and there's usually, what'd you say about the truth, Travis?
There's three sides to every truth. Yours, mine, and the truth. You ever, you ever remember, you remember when we were in um, they did this in, in when we were like third or fourth grade. They'd make everybody get in a circle. And they would tell one person, they'd tell the first person, whatever they needed to say.
And by the time that got around to the very last person into the circle, Uh, the telephone. It had a whole different interpretation of what they, it was in a completely different message than what they started in the circle. I enjoyed that in school because it was kind of funny to hear how How much different that last person's information was than the original.
And what it did, it shows us how people actually don't listen. I think you have a lot more imagination at that age as well. Logically, they listen through their emotions, or they listen through their personality, they listen through their, like you said, their imagination. And when it started in the first person, It filtered through this human thing that gave a different interpretation that made you give the information different or in a different perspective of how you heard the information.
That's what you, when you say my truth, your truth and the truth, but everybody has their interpretation of what they think is the truth that kind of connects with their personality or where they come from or how they perceive things. Well, brother, you're definitely leading into the topic we're talking about today.
Today's topic is misinformation, disinformation. What's up with all this information? Great leading up to it. The collective perspective is, if you took the definition of the words, it's a collection of perspectives. We have taken people off, well, they're not off the street, but we could say they're off the street.
They will be soon enough when we get a little bit bigger. Maybe we'll get some interviews where we have cars passing by and stuff like that. We'll get there, but we also asked them how did they get their news source and how they know it's true So let's listen to just two of those guys. Listen to this. I don't get my news from any one particular source The way I do it and I recommend this to other people too is read everything But don't believe any of them Because none of them are gonna give you the whole truth Well, at least usually they're not But by the time you've read an article from the New York Times about it, and then the New York Post about it, you've gotten two different perspectives.
And then you go see what Breitbart has, there's a third perspective. And then you go see what CNN has to say about it, and there's a fourth perspective. And you'll find details that don't add up between the articles. So, if you're gonna… Find holes in their story. That's usually the way you do it the average American is not Fact checking.
They're not truth seekers. They're just Sponges. Yeah, they just oh really and they take that and they're like, okay, well, they don't have the time Yeah the time so they're not Like really digging deep for the truth. They, they just, as long as it doesn't directly affect their, where the, how they have compartmentalized their life and the safety of that womb of their lifestyle, people don't care.
I was going to add that. And here we go talking about patterns again. There's patterns in everything, and we've discussed it in three episodes now. How that through patterns you can tell specific things. Usually when information is 100 percent right, there's conflict. There's holes in the story, like he said.
And throughout the holes in the story, you can then research those holes in the story and Come up with a pretty good educated guess at that point. I mean, let's face it, if you're taking that much time to see if it's real, you know, the example I gave earlier was I read that information and then I instantly discredited her and said, I don't want to hear any more of this.
This is bogus. But I think there's a problem there with when you find the holes in the story, you have to be paying attention. I don't think a lot of people are paying attention to the story. They hear the gotcha, the taglines. And they run with that. We're so used to a spoon fed, a lot of us have a spoon fed mentality.
Tell me what I need to know, and let's move on. They want the Cliff Notes version, but the Cliff Notes leave out a lot of details, usually, that will, that can lead to a different opinion of something. When they don't take the time to really research it or look into it, even just a little bit, you can usually find the holes and find the error in the judgment that they're coming to.
Thank you. With a little bit of critical thinking, a little bit of Looking into it just a little bit more, but we want it all now. I think someone once said, called it the microwave generation. I want it now. I don't care how it tastes, just heat it up and feed it to me. Prime example of that is Jonathan Majors.
Who was that? The actor, he was accused of assaulting his girlfriend, but, you know, everyone rushed to judge and it was all kind of misinformation. And now that the picture is kind of clear, he's actually pressing charges on her. It was actually her who actually, supposedly, allegedly, tried to inflict bodily harm on him.
It cost, for a duration of his time, as an actor, it cost him movie roles. Who was that? Jonathan Majors. Who's that? Um, he was, he starred in, um, Quantumanium.
He's a big actor, he's like, he's like one of the young, rising actors that they were anticipating big things for this guy and for a period of six months, he lost a lot of jobs, a lot of roles. I think another one that was really captivating America for a while was the Johnny Depp Amber Heard case. Yeah.
Similar situation to what you're saying. Yeah. Will and Jada. Yeah, Will and Jada, don't forget that. Um, and this is, this is the general public, like you say, the holes in the story and rushing to just go, rush to a narrative that is not completely accurate. I would call that a distraction. Yeah, that's true.
Let's listen to what somebody else says about how they get their news. Thank you for the question, Jeff. Hey, uh, you know, a lot of times when I'm looking at news information, it's, it's got my curiosity. And if it's something that's important, I can always check it against multiple sources. I often have news aggregators up like, uh, Google News and, Drudge, so that I get multiple sources and then I can always cross check against reliable sources like Reuters and the Associated Press.
Those are my primary verification areas for real news. I used to use… Use Drudge, but I think around 20, 2015, maybe 2014, somewhere in the mid, mid 2000 teens, Drudge changed. They sold and they went from being like very conservative and right leaning news, polar opposite. Drudge is not what it used to be. I think now the closest thing to drudge would be Zero Hedge, that's more of a libertarian slant, but it's a news aggregator, and so is Just the News, but Just the News isn't necessarily an aggregator from different areas.
John Solomon is the one who came, he runs Just the News, and I do find that it has less bias in it, there's still bias in it. He does, whenever he writes an article, you can tell that he's trying to leave as much of his opinion out as possible. I agree. I like what he does. You know, going with the Google News, I would even go into, like, CNN or MSNBC and compare their stories with the stories I was seeing and say the opinion pieces on American Thinker.
American Thinker is another one of those libertarian or… Some may even say conservative type of website, American Thinker and Thomas Sowell. He was a very good commentator on current events with the market. We're in now. I mean, you've got these, these news outlets and they're watching other news outlets, get all of the sponsorship.
It forces them to. Kind of concede to sensationalism. And I think that is the issue with what we're talking about. As far as misinformation, no one wants to hear just bland, straightforward news. They want some kind of sensationalism to it. Like you said, drud, they kind of switched shift gears because that old format, that old concept of music, of news is not paying the bills.
It's all about embodying sensationalism, shock jock sensationalism, so that the general public can gravitate to what they're force feeding them to try to believe that they want to see. I like to think that these people, a lot of people, and even, I mean, we can talk. Maybe not all conspiracy theories are wrong, we could say that, but let's face it.
There are still a lot of them out there that are pretty far fetched, and… Oh, absolutely. And it's hard to determine which one do you, okay, which one is credible. You have to either follow some type of group, uh, online and social media, or… Have great friends like I do. And we talk about it all the time.
We're all and laugh at each other and laugh at each other. You know, you guys are on the other side of the fence as well, man. You you've, you've lived through being on the front line of something and then coming home to America and likes and hearing a different narrative. In the news, like you guys have been in the military.
You guys have seen like actual brutal truth, and then you've seen them tell that story different. So you heard the movie Black Hawk Down? That movie that helped those helicopters came off the aircraft carrier that I was on, USS Kitty Hawk. Wow. I forget the exact year. I used to smoke cigarettes back then, and the only way that on an aircraft carrier you can have a cigarette is to go out on…
The fantail, the smoke deck, you would have to wait 45 minutes to an hour, sometimes regular work hours. And if they're running ops, you can't go out there. Taking on fuel would be a whole day without smoking a cigarette for obvious reasons. So there's a lot of every night, that's where you would hang out and bring a book and go in line, hang out with your friends.
So 45 minute wait, you'd have five minutes to smoke. Nonetheless, CNN was out there one time. I can see jeeps on Somalia driving. That's how close we were. The reason I bring that up is because they had so much influence that they almost ruined. The launch of the Marines, Blackhawk down, it went down. The news kind of alerted the enemy before we were actually there.
That's extreme. I saw it with my own eyes. Jeeps on Somalia. We were that close to Africa. That's firsthand knowledge. Someone who saw it happen live. That is not misinformation. Well, I guess disinformation or malinformation. It's. The correct. Yes. They said disinformation. I guess it's just information. When you live overseas though, and you get away from the Americanized sections in the military and you make friends with locals, you get a better understanding of their viewpoint on how we are, you know, a lot of the, when we were in Spain or even in Japan, when I was over there.
The people, they love America. They love the idea of America. They love, and the people, they would go out of your, out of their way to help you. In Japan, that is. In Spain, it was a little bit different. They still liked America, but the people, their opinions of you would be different based on how egocentric you were.
I think a lot of people that tried to speak the native language. We're highly regarded. They were welcomed in a lot more easily than others. It's the same way in Paris, man. If you go to Paris and you try to talk English and expect them to talk to you only in English, guess what? You ever heard of a guy, his name was Rick Steves?
He was like a travel guide. He had like a show on PBS. Rick Steves? I do. Rex Kwan Do. No, no, no, no. It's this guy named. Do you know what Rex Kwan Do is? No, I don't. The Kwan Do instructor in Napoleon Dynamite.
But look, this guy, his name was Rick Steves and he would go into, he would, he, he toured Europe. And he had an unbiased, it was just, he just would travel to these countries. Let me see what misinformation you're giving us right now. Yeah. First of all, he was female, but
he, um, he just, you saw. How other countries viewed America piggybacking off of what you said, and you see the, uh, fear mongering through the media, how they paint these countries and the people in these countries. And one of the things he exposed was that these people are human and normal, just like you, and they don't hate you.
Actually, they actually think that America is still the land of opportunity. He's a philosopher that encourages people to explore less. touristy areas of destinations and to become immersed into the local. So he would be right culturally in the normal neighborhoods. Travis and I lived maybe a hundred yards from Club Med in Spain.
Puerto Santa Maria. Five bedroom Chateau that we line the whole. Living room with couches. Wow. The bar had our DJ set up. So you guys were living the life in some perspective, man. You guys had some stuff going on when you were younger. So let's talk about misinformation. So on misinformation, we have a couple of recordings here.
Let's start off with the first one. Uh, someone defining what fake news is. In their opinion, what fake news is. What is fake news? Usually if there's more than one person sitting on the screen. If you're watching television, if there's more than one person, it's editorial, it's opinion. They're opining. Back when I went to school, we learned that news was the who, what, where, and when.
That's it. That's what news is. Any of the other stuff. It could be a statement of his opinion, it's conjecture. It could also be setting the stage for what may or may not happen. Projection. Fake news is just ridiculous made up lies with no backing source. All based on opinion that is generally for a specific purpose.
Fake news. I really like what he said there about how if you, if there's more than one person on the screen, it's an editorial. I don't think you should take that as news. I think you should take that as their opinion. I agree with him on that one. That's actually pretty good. So what is fake news? What is misinformation first?
Misinformation. I would say fake news is a… The technical term for misinformation. I can agree with that. Fake news, misinformation. So I did some looking up at the dictionary online, and misinformation is to give incorrect or misleading information to someone, or to inform wrongly. The dictionary definition does not take into consideration intent.
It merely defines the word. Words have meaning. Intent is what separates misinformation and disinformation. We'll get into disinformation next, or in just a little bit, but misinformation is usually… Not always, but usually unintentional, such as sharing a post from a social media account as, as fact, because you feel it's plausible, or only to be incorrect when more information becomes available.
Or you didn't look. Other places to kind of see if it was a fact, or if… To corroborate that, that information. It's… You're being lazy. It's false or misleading or out of context. It's shared without intent to deceive. That's the key there. It's without intent to deceive. Right. You're doing it. You saw the post.
You go, hey, I like this, and you pass it on. You don't have… I don't have any intention to mislead anybody. I'm guilty of that. I have, uh, I used to call you on it and I didn't think you, I was like, man, I don't want to sound like I'm being a jerk, but, uh, And I never took it that way. You actually, when someone called me on it, like Jeff, it actually made me look into it a little deeper and then I'd go back and say, hey, you're right.
That was bad information or, you know, I appreciate, personally, I appreciate that. Some people don't like to have their beliefs shattered or what they believe to be said is a lie. They can't come to grips with it. For me, I'm inquisitive. I do like to find the truth. And Jeff helped me out with that a lot. I think when you said belief.
I don't think it's that deep. I think it's just intriguing. I think it's something that intrigues you or, or, or captures your attention for, for a short period of time. But belief is like, you know, core, yeah, it's core influence. It's like, okay, this changed my perspective on how I see reality kind of thing.
But I think what we're talking about on the surface is just how it intrigues you or. Inspirational, or is it something that triggers an emotion at that moment? Thoughtco. com says, Someone can spread misinformation innocently by saying or writing things that are untrue while believing them to be true. So it's something that you see and you believe it to be true, not thinking that, Hey, this is BS and I'm going to, I'm going to put it out there.
That actually has come up in some of the research I did for this. They call that the illusory truth. And that's something that according to this article that I found here by. Sander van der Linden on nature. com. It's in the scientific journal, Nature Medicine. He talks about how given the fact that many falsehoods are often repeated by popular media, politicians, social media, the relevance of illusory truth has increased substantially.
For example, the more a claim is repeated, the more familiar it becomes and the easier it is to process. In other words, the brain uses fluency as a signal for truth. Importantly, research shows that prior exposure to fake news increases its perceived accuracy. And it's always have, it always has a negative silver lining in it.
It's, I don't know what that is. It's just, it always has like a negative thing that sticks to the mind easier than anything positive. That's why you hear like mainstream news, like you said, the crime report. It's always like this horrific thing that happened. I think you said it earlier that it's attention grabbing.
It's, uh, sensationalism. That's the word you use, sensationalism. Yes. We have one other person that has their description of fake news. Let's hear what he has to say. To answer the question, what is fake news? There's the simple answer, which is when the media is not telling us the truth. And then there's the more complex answer.
Which addresses the connotations behind the term fake news. That it's intentional misinformation. That it's meant to keep people in the dark. Not to show them the truth anymore. It definitely seems like the media is no longer ran by journalists chasing the truth. It seems more and more that the media is run…
By shills for the military industrial complex, and big pharma, and big tech, and big agriculture. And all of these special interest groups that many of us would argue have been soiling the very fabric of these United States with lobbying and, you know, buying politicians and apparently controlling the media.
Now he does talk a little bit down the rabbit hole, but I'm okay with that because we're just going to kind of gloss over, not gloss over, but summarize. He's rabbit hole ish. Oh yeah, he's got strong, we have used him before. Oh yeah, he's… So I was just going to put this out here about misinformation.
Misinformation, this, and this was said by CISA's, but it is, misinformation can be harmful in other, more subtle ways as well. It prevents people from making truly informed decisions, and it may even steer people toward decisions that conflict with their own best interests. Once a person adopts a misinformed viewpoint, it's very difficult to get them to change their position.
Now, I think this is a very disturbing thing to say. Changing people's minds if they disagree with you, I think that can be a slippery slope. However, I think the way that you would have to, that you would do that is to speak with them And present your case as to why they're wrong and have them see if they have a rebuttal and if not.
Does it change their mind or does it solidify where they're at? Experience will tell you that if you're on Facebook or these social media platforms, there's gonna people that want to argue with you. Just for argument's sake. There's people that are just freaking weird. Working with the general public.
And some people that agree with you. I've learned that people just, I've had people have problems, right? And you've come up with a perfect solution to create resolve. And I've learned that certain, certain groups of people just don't want to have resolve. They want to have a problem. They, they are completely comfortable with having a problem.
Would you say that they're the target audience of all this misinformation? Absolutely. Because guess what makes them relevant? Peace and harmony doesn't, doesn't make them relevant. Having a problem, having an issue with you that, that makes them… Relevant. I think a lot of people were just afraid of change as well.
Targets of misinformation, who would be a target of mis Who's the target audience of misinformation? Uh, that, it depends on the information. I think a lot of it can be. Some people are more susceptible to misinformation than others. Who are they? Some of them can Gullible people. Well, some people say elderly people are, can be targets of misinformation.
Let's put it this way, you know why dumb people are so happy? Because they don't know what they don't know. Cause they don't know any better. One of the things from a spiritual perspective, religion and tradition, I mean, and you, you know, those things hold precedence in, in any culture, in any community, is tradition and religion, and, and you could manipulate anything through tradition and religion.
I think a lot of it though is also, like, who, who would be… You can use tradition and religion to misinform people or disinform. I think that would be more of a disinformation. I think the spreading of misinformation, though, could be more targeted towards people on extreme sides of a story. That would be a better definition of who is targeted by misinformation or disinformation would be those that are on the extreme ends.
Hey, if they inject a certain amount of, like you said, misinformation to protect a certain narrative, whether it's wrong or right, they just want that narrative to be maintained. You brought up the Bible. I thought this would be a good point to bring up 2 Timothy 3 and 4. The Bible says, For there is going to come a time when people won't listen to the truth, but will go around looking for teachers who will tell them just what they want to hear.
Exactly. They won't listen to what the Bible says, but will blithely follow their misguided ideas. And those are the people that they solicit to. They don't care about it being right or righteous. They don't care about it being healthy and beneficial. Mentally, physically, and spiritually, they just want, they have a certain narrative and they want to maintain that narrative regardless of whatever it's going to cost them, they want to maintain that narrative and they target that particular audience.
So I think that brings us to disinformation. Disinformation, obviously from the Webster, is false information deliberately and often covertly spread as by the planting of rumors. In order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth. The intent behind disinformation is to cause disruption, harm. Three common motivators are power, influence, money, profit, or just to see the world burn.
Desire to sow chaos and confusion. Sure evil. I like that, uh, just to see the world burn. That was, uh, what was that, Batman? The, the first one with, uh, are you talking about, um, um, Michael Keaton? No, not, not Michael Keaton. The, the, the re the remake of him. Oh, you, you talking about, um, with the joke C Christian Bale Yes.
With Christian Bale. That was, uh, Alfred's line. Just some people just want to see the world burn. Yes. Yeah, they have literally no intent for peace and harmony, and they'll push that agenda until
it is completely destroyed. They do not care. So when it comes to disinformation, it's often part of a bigger effort, such as a campaign or an agenda. It may take advantage of well established facts while tweaking details, omitting content, blending falsehoods, or distorting circumstances. I'm reading this from thought co.com.
We're your mom's a hoe if you thought co or so , if you thought so, , you know what comes to mind with disinformation? And I don't want to go down the rabbit hole 'cause you gotta stay lightly, but um, uh, Oswald is a Oswald beautiful example of disinformation. Um, COINTELPRO is a beautiful example of disinformation, Watergate.
Is a perfect example of disinformation. You got a whole plethora. Plethora. A plethora. Plethora. You have a whole plethora. I, I, I think the, I think the, on something more current would be. I don't, I don't know how deep you want to go on. No, not, not, we're not going deep on this. It's just, uh, Stay at the mouth of the hole, Travis.
So I'm thinking I named those off because people's minds can go to them. Well, I think without going down a rabbit hole, the disinformation more recently within the last. Eight years or so would be the Hunter Biden laptop when it came out during the 2016 election, that it was Russia, Russia, Russia, disinformation from Russia, and you had a lot of people saying that, and now they're reporting on, they're not denying that it is accurate at this time.
So ThotCo, ThotCo. com said, in the modern era, the 2016 efforts waged by Russian targeting U. S. elections is perhaps the best known example of disinformation campaign. Uh, one thing that I wanted to talk about… What did they say about that? Did they, did they mention the, uh, laptop? In this case, the perpetrators used Facebook and Twitter to disseminate fake news, as was revealed by the hearings of the Capitol Hill, which was examined, exposed the scheme.
In 2018, members of Congress ultimately revealed that more than 3, 000 Facebook ads, which had been purchased by Russian agents during the 2016 election, The ads were full of deliberate falsehoods designed to steer outrage. The placement of the ads have been fairly sophisticated, targeting, and reaching millions of Americans at very little cost.
Did they give an example, though? So they published a cover story warning about Russian disinformation? No. This is where you, where, where people got to, where they have to think critically. They mention all the key topics and key hot words. But they didn't give an example. I could give you an example about the, the masks, and this is in a scientific article, not the masks, but COVID vaccines.
They were talking about, for example, the conspiracy theory that the coronavirus was bioengineered in a military lab in Wuhan, China. And the false content that COVID 19 is worse than the flu have been repeated many times in the media. Now, was it in Wuhan that it was developed? Not sure now, but it was a bioengineered lab leak for the COVID Vax, uh, virus at this point.
That's what we're seeing now. And this, this article is only a year and a half old. I think the virus has backfired on those that distributed it. Is there any… I say distributed because that's what I, nobody can tell me any different and I will, I'll tell them you're full of crap if you tell me, oh, it was accident.
Okay. So just to summarize what's happened in the last couple of years is like the topic of misinformation wasn't even a topic until COVID hit. Was it? I, you know, I don't think it was really on many people's radar as misinformation. You know, Donald Trump was the first president that I, that I. That we've experienced that.
Used social media as a source to be To disseminate information. Closer to the edge of the stage, if you'd say. It was him and you, and you heard what he said. And, uh, it was the first time news posts, or posts on social media actually made the news. Because that was where they got the source. That's all he said it to.
And I think it was a way of him to, Okay, if you want to, everything else is false, listen to what I have to say. If I'm saying it, then it's not false. I think that he went that route because that was the only way he could get his message out without it being grossly edited. Well, let's put it this way. If you're in a news media organization, And you don't follow the script, what happens?
You don't, you don't tell the news anymore. You're not, you're not in the news anymore. Yeah, you're gone. If you fall out of line, that's it. And it's happened to everybody. You've seen it. And they try to, they try to take people out. You know, like we, we mentioned Joe Rogan. They try to go after our boy. Oh yeah.
I can recall in memory of… Where misinformation or disinformation became popular was never really on TV. It became popular through 9 11, online, and distributed through DVDs of the so called truth seekers. The inside job. Yeah, that is where we are here today. Uh, that's how everyone lands on the narrative of misinformation and different disinformation.
I remember being completely, completely submerged in finding the truth out about 9 11 and what actually happened to 9 11. Because you'd speak to people that lived in New York and it was like, there's no way two planes knocked down those huge buildings. It's no way. I think that started the popularity of finding the truth out.
Why would you say that somebody, what would be the reasoning or the purpose behind disin, disinformation, disinforming someone? Well, I mean, you gotta, you throw the rock and hide your hand. I mean, that, that narrative has always been kind of… Okay, who threw the rock? Is it a distraction is what you're saying?
Exactly. I think that we have an agenda, but we don't want to, we don't want you to know that we had to pick the lesser or the greater of the two evils. We just want you, as the American, to just go home and go to sleep and don't question what we have to do to maintain sovereignty. Do you think the government paid Johnny Depp?
Um, I think anything that… Johnny Depp to sue his wife? I think anything in, on, on the No, do you think they get kickbacks? These, uh, celebrities, Will Smith, do you think Hey, Will, if you go up there, man, we'll You know, we got you this year, you know, 14 million, we will pay you. I mean, anything we need, we need you to distract the population with this man.
Absolutely. And then we're going to flood the media with it. Absolutely. There is an, a, there is a, a strategic agenda. Anything that reaches mainstream media is on TV or anything that is boosted, what they say, like magnified for the general public to see it, for them to be influenced in certain way. There is a hidden agenda behind that.
That, that news. Anything you see on TV, there's a hidden agenda. Behind that news that Sounds like you're talking about a dark psychology. Sound sounds close to it. Or even gaslighting. Absolutely. Without a doubt. There's something else to consider. We got misinformation, disinformation, what's all this information?
So confusing. All this information. I'm just gonna throw another term at you. Mal information. Do you guys know what that means? Of course you do. This is the true information that is deliberately spread to cause intentional harm. Have you ever heard the term, the truth hurts? All the time. I think we need to be careful with this one because it's truthful.
The intent to cause harm, does that need to be implied, or overt, or… Can it be a mistake? Examples of malinformation include phishing, catfishing, doxing, swatting, and revenge porn. Which, right, by the way, revenge porn was just recently added to free speech that is not protected. So I don't, I don't know. So, you know what revenge porn is?
No, I do not. What's, what is that? You and your girl back in the day when video cameras first came out got a, ha ha, got a camera and got it. And the guy puts her on blast, and now you put it on the internet and expose her. I agree that that should be something that's not protected speech because there is a victim in that situation.
There's someone who is doing it out of spite, and there's someone who did not give their consent to post that private moment. That person that did not give their consent is now the victim. Do you think that what's crazy is though. It's true information. It's gifted. It's gifted. Like, okay, I want to gift you this, this content of me.
And they usually when you, before you send information or anything, there's, there's guidelines and, and, you know, restrictions to it. You, okay. Don't, don't show anyone this don't blah, blah, blah, this blah, blah, blah. It's because they didn't give them instructions on the guidelines of, of the material they gave them.
Is it up to their interpretation of how they view it as sacred or private? I think in specifically for the revenge porn, that's more of a heat of the moment, a passionate situation. Things happen, you get a little wild, you do a little, you know, you get a little crazy. I don't think that there should be a statute of limitations on, Hey, don't send, don't share this with anyone.
If it comes out, then I, I didn't share it, but you did. I, I, I don't think that something that personal, that private, that there is a, that there are guidelines for that. That should, unfortunately, you know, I say that that's like one of them unspoken truths or one of them unspoken kind of, uh, agreements. No, this does not get out to anybody.
Because it could be damaging. It depends on the spin. I mean, if a guy's doing it for a girl and she's like, Oh, I didn't want that to go. That's so, you know, that's bad. Well, what if she were to come out and say, Hey, look at how, you know, how bad this guy is. I mean that, you know, it goes both ways. It's just depends on the spin and maybe who would put it out first.
But I, I think for someone to put that out, you've really got to be a hateful person. Oh, you really, like you said, spiteful and you want to really kind of tear that person down. Or sometimes it spins into someone becoming a billionaire, like some celebrities we know. So I think one important thing is why would someone want to misinform or disinform or malinform anyone to begin with?
Is it someone with hate and discontent? Is it somebody that's pissed off because their parents lied to them that Santa Claus isn't real? And their fantasies are destroyed? Is it, as we discovered in one of our episodes earlier, were they abused from the age of one and six? Did it affect their way of thinking or the ability to have logical thoughts?
Are they marketing tactics, con artists, government, or people that want individual power? Is it someone that doesn't want you to know the truth? Is it the controlling personality? Are you gaslighting me, dude? I don't think that, uh, people necessarily, when it comes to misinforming, I don't think that has anything to do with hate or discontent.
I think it's generally an honest mistake by someone not doing their due diligence on the information that they're sharing. And everyone, well, somebody created it though is my point. So it must've started out as disinformation and then, Oh, no, there's nothing good about maliciousness or malicious information.
There's nothing righteous about it. Everything about it is, I want this person's character to be destroyed. I want to destroy this person's cancel culture. I think Jeff's hitting on a point there. Misinformation doesn't just come about necessarily naturally. I think it can in some instances where somebody interprets actual factual information wrong.
The kids sitting in the circle and they're communicating. Example you gave earlier would be that. Yes. Uh, but I think in what you're alluding to maybe is the original purveyor of that information, if it was disinformation to begin with, what was their motive to put that out, and then someone else runs with it thinking, oh, that's, that looks plausible.
That looks good to me. I think that's true. I'm going to send it on. Then it becomes misinformation. I think the original intent of the of where it started would be disinformation because there is an intent to cause some sort of harm somewhere or benefit to them say, Hey, we're the only companies that have this patented.
Vaccine and we've got this virus going around. You need to buy it from us. The patent was 2018, I think, wasn't it? And COVID comes out in 19? No, no. But, uh, I think the original person to disseminate the information with the intent to either one, get power for themselves, money, or just to see somebody else fall.
I think, and you're right. Misinformation is innocent. It's unintentional. Disinformation is economical. It has more of a corporate intent to it. And malicious or mal malinformation is, okay, I want to destroy either this group of people, or I want to destroy that person's character. I want to, I want to eliminate their ability to make money, their ability to, to be seen as a healthy human in society.
I want that person to be kind of like viewed as a leper in, in, in many perspectives. Shunned. Exactly. And that's what I think mal information is. Um, and we, we've seen that in many different perspectives with those agendas that are being implemented in the media on a regular basis. And that's the way I see those three different perspectives on information.
And I think that Jeff nailed it, uh, on the examples of malformation. Uh, phishing. Yeah, catfishing. Doxxing. Absolute, absolutely swatting. Now, I, I don't know if swatting would be considered mal information because it's not factual. When someone is swatted, they could be playing a game, Call of Duty. And that's when a lot of it happens is kids online playing games.
Somebody doesn't like their style of gameplay. They call the cops and say, Hey, this guy's doing this, this and this. And they send the SWAT team over to his competitor's house or a Congress person's house. That's crazy. That's happened, man. I think somebody actually got killed because of it. So that's, that's the extreme.
Absolutely. That, so malinformation is the intent, like you said, to destroy somebody's character or them personally, figuratively or literally. Yeah. Send them out of society. They, they have, they don't have the right to function in society. We want to destroy this group of people or this person. And eliminate them from any contribution to our culture, our system, our government.
We want to eliminate them. I want to tie it into gaslighting and propaganda because they carried, they were a big vessel of that for the longest time. You know what I mean? Like the only way that you could get propaganda or that was to go to the movies and then they had commercials in the war world, two videos about, you know, they had this big thing where, you know, they would hire soldiers where there was even a movie about it where they hired these people and they were just puppets for recruiting for people to join the military during that time.
Where we are now, you look at. Avengers. Avengers Infinity War. They tell you, they hide their intent in plain sight. You know, you're talking about half of humanity or half of existence is gone. Distraction is that video I showed you earlier, Travis. But I mean, COVID was somewhat a light or like a kind of a direct connection to that movie.
But these people can't come back from that. You know what I'm saying? In some perspective. Hey, everybody. I want to say thank you for listening to us again. If you could support us. We are. A legit corporation, non profit, and we really want to help the community. You can go to GoFundMe, also the Collective Perspective page on Facebook, actively posting things on there, or, you know, instant message me.
Anyway, hey everybody, this is Jeff from the Collective Perspective, my buddy Travis, my buddy Jawad. Thank you so much for the good conversation. Very knowledgeable. We hope we can change your perspective or enlighten your perspective and maybe be your source for somewhere to go where you're in the middle and not right or left.
We're all in the middle. Everyone needs hope. Everyone needs hope. And hopefully we can provide the truth. They need love too. People need love. So hey, we must be the change we want to see in the world. Peace. Later. God bless.
