America’s Misinformation Crisis

[ZenMode]

No, it did not. Have you read the report?

Yes. It's been awhile, but I've read many parts more than once.

To clarify, there were two parts. I don't remember which is which, but the one that talks about the social media campaign and Trump's campaign involvement or lack of involvement in this case.

 

[ZenMode]

Could it also be that the only video of his murder was on the body camera of the officer and was not released for more than three years due to stonewalling by the Dallas PD? Every person in the country saw George Floyd get murdered because of the cell phone footage. Most people didn't hear about Timpa because the police lied and refused to release the body camera footage.

It's a tragedy that the officers involved in the Timpa murder weren't charged. But the fact that you only bring him up in the context of the George Floyd murder leads me to believe you don't actually care that he was murdered by police who faced no consequences, and are merely looking to be a shitass.

Do you think the Timpa story would have been as big, outrage and news coverage , if there were equal amounts of cell phone and body cam footage available as quickly?

 

[lawtig02]

Yes. It's been awhile, but I've read many parts more than once.

You remember these parts?

• Senior members of the Trump campaign, including Paul Manafort, Donald Trump, Jr., and Jared Kushner took a June 9, 2016, meeting with Russian nationals at Trump Tower, New York, after outreach from an intermediary informed Trump, Jr., that the Russians had derogatory information on Clinton that was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
• Beginning in June 2016, a Trump associate “forecast to senior [Trump] Campaign officials that WikiLeaks would release information damaging to candidate Clinton.” A section of the Report that remains heavily redacted suggests that Roger Stone was this associate and that he had significant contacts with the campaign about Wikileaks.
• The Report described multiple occasions where Trump associates lied to investigators about Trump associate contacts with Russia. Trump associates George Papadopoulos, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn, and Michael Cohen all admitted that they made false statements to federal investigators or to Congress about their contacts.
• The Report contains no evidence that any Trump campaign official reported their contacts with Russia or WikiLeaks to U.S. law enforcement authorities during the campaign or presidential transition, despite public reports on Russian hacking starting in June 2016 and candidate Trump’s August 2016 intelligence briefing warning him that Russia was seeking to interfere in the election.
• The Report raised questions about why Trump associates and then-candidate Trump repeatedly asserted Trump had no connections to Russia.

 

[UNCatTech]

Police treat both wrong, but if it's a black person that's killed by police, it gets significantly more coverage. Everyone's heard of George Floyd. Almost nobody has heard of Tony Timpa. That's not a coincidence.

Agreed, the police were wrong in both cases, and it is a shame that in the case with Timpa that they were not prosecuted.

According to what I read, the news wasn't the first source in the Floyd case, that is a significant variable in the difference in coverage of these two people.

But ultimately I don't understand your point here. Are you saying that the news has an agenda against police and that is why they report more stories when black people are involved? It would seem that any story where the police kill an innocent person that it would elicit the same response from the public.

So, what is the agenda, what is behind the reporting?

Could it simply be that black people are the victims of police violence at a much higher rate per capita?

From Google: According to data from the Washington Post, in 2023, the per capita rate of fatal police shootings in the US was highest among Black Americans at 6.2 per million people per year, while the rate for White Americans was 2.4 per million people per year; this data shows a significant disparity in police killings based on race.

 

[ZenMode]

You remember these parts?

• Senior members of the Trump campaign, including Paul Manafort, Donald Trump, Jr., and Jared Kushner took a June 9, 2016, meeting with Russian nationals at Trump Tower, New York, after outreach from an intermediary informed Trump, Jr., that the Russians had derogatory information on Clinton that was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
• Beginning in June 2016, a Trump associate “forecast to senior [Trump] Campaign officials that WikiLeaks would release information damaging to candidate Clinton.” A section of the Report that remains heavily redacted suggests that Roger Stone was this associate and that he had significant contacts with the campaign about Wikileaks.
• The Report described multiple occasions where Trump associates lied to investigators about Trump associate contacts with Russia. Trump associates George Papadopoulos, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn, and Michael Cohen all admitted that they made false statements to federal investigators or to Congress about their contacts.
• The Report contains no evidence that any Trump campaign official reported their contacts with Russia or WikiLeaks to U.S. law enforcement authorities during the campaign or presidential transition, despite public reports on Russian hacking starting in June 2016 and candidate Trump’s August 2016 intelligence briefing warning him that Russia was seeking to interfere in the election.
• The Report raised questions about why Trump associates and then-candidate Trump repeatedly asserted Trump had no connections to Russia.

Yes. The report talks about a lot of things related to the campaign, however, in regard to the core claims of the Trump campaign's involvement in the Russian social media/interference, the report is clear that there was no involvement, other than basically being super into interacting with some social media accounts.

 

[MendotoManteo]

Incorrect terminology aside,

Yes I used the wrong term. Collusion and conspiracy are a reference to the same accusation again Trump and the Trump campaign in regard to Russia's social media interfere in the election. Regardless of the term, the Mueller report clears Trump and the Trump campaign of being involved in that social media campaign.

No! It did not!

 

[ZenMode]

Agreed, the police were wrong in both cases, and it is a shame that in the case with Timpa that they were not prosecuted.

According to what I read, the news wasn't the first source in the Floyd case, that is a significant variable in the difference in coverage of these two people.

But ultimately I don't understand your point here. Are you saying that the news has an agenda against police and that is why they report more stories when black people are involved? It would seem that any story where the police kill an innocent person that it would elicit the same response from the public.

So, what is the agenda, what is behind the reporting?

Could it simply be that black people are the victims of police violence at a much higher rate per capita?

From Google: According to data from the Washington Post, in 2023, the per capita rate of fatal police shootings in the US was highest among Black Americans at 6.2 per million people per year, while the rate for White Americans was 2.4 per million people per year; this data shows a significant disparity in police killings based on race.

My point, which I struggle to remember now, was related to the fact that peoples' views of truth vs misinformation are impacted by their bias and political views, which are also impacted news coverage. TV news tends to give attention to stories that get ratings.

It would take some time to find it, but the most recent study on police shootings showed that white people, as a percentage of police interactions (vs per capita) are more likely to be shot than black people.

 

[lawtig02]

Yes. The report talks about a lot of things related to the campaign, however, in regard to the core claims of the Trump campaign's involvement in the Russian social media/interference, the report is clear that there was no involvement, other than basically being super into interacting with some social media accounts.

See, this is a great example of the disinformation we’re talking about in this thread. The Mueller investigation was not limited to social media interference. This is a quote from page 1 of the report you’ve read several times:

“As set forth in detail in this report, the Special Counsel's investigation established that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election principally through two operations. First, a
Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Second, a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations against entities, employees, and volunteers working on the Clinton Campaign and then released stolen documents. The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign.”

 

[MendotoManteo]

Concerning the Russian collusion, I'll never forget a great mind once scoffing at me about the effect of propaganda. (We'll likely never know, but I suspect the Manafort - Kilimnick handoff was to target specific swing state demographics via social media.) Anyhow, long story short, this wit told me, "You think propaganda has any effect on my vote?!" No, wit, I do not. You're an asshole. You're going to do asshole things regardless. But do I think it affected around 70,000 voters across three key swing states? Yeah, yeah, I do!

Governments have invested lots of time and money in propaganda and misinformation for millennia. Basically since the ur-government, whatever that looked like. But I guess this guy thought that a waste of time. I'm sure he went on to reinvent the wheel.

 

[farce©]

The other issue is that what people are inclined to see as truth vs misinformation is skewed by their bias and/or political leanings. If the aforementioned report about Michael Brown corroborated what a specific group of people want to believe, they're likely to give it much more credence than if it didn't. Another example is the Mueller report. Despite the fact that the report says there's no evidence that Trump collided with Russia, I still run into people who a) believe he did or b) believe the report says he did.

The other issue is the media. George Floyd and Tony Timpa are basically identical situations. Why have few people heard of Tony Timpa? He was a white drug user who died while being held, face-down, by cops, so the story got SIGNIFICANTLY less coverage. Why did it get significantly less coverage? Because white cops killing black guys gets ratings. White cops killing white guys doesn't.

Obviously you’ve never read the Mueller report. You shouldn’t offer opinions on subjects of which you have no knowledge. Or worse, your only knowledge is based on misinformation. You should sit this one out. You’re out of your depth here.

 

[MendotoManteo]

Obviously you’ve never read the Mueller report. You shouldn’t offer opinions on subjects of which you have no knowledge. Or worse, your only knowledge is based on misinformation. You should sit this one out. You’re out of your depth here.

The Bill Barr assessment of the Mueller Report sounds more accurate to Zen's take.

 

[finesse]

And they've still diverted attention away from the current problem.

 

[ZenMode]

See, this is a great example of the disinformation we’re talking about in this thread. The Mueller investigation was not limited to social media interference. This is a quote from page 1 of the report you’ve read several times:

“As set forth in detail in this report, the Special Counsel's investigation established that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election principally through two operations. First, a
Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Second, a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations against entities, employees, and volunteers working on the Clinton Campaign and then released stolen documents. The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign.”

I agree with the bolded section. There were a concerning number of, sometimes odd, interactions between the Trump campaign and Russia. However, the report is clear that there's no evidence that the campaign conspired with Russia in regard to social media interference. In fact, the report says that the Trump campaign interacted with Russia social media accounts because they were duped (that came out as "super" previously) by the accounts.

 

[lawtig02]

I agree with the bolded section. There were a concerning number of, sometimes odd, interactions between the Trump campaign and Russia. However, the report is clear that there's no evidence that the campaign conspired with Russia in regard to social media interference. In fact, the report says that the Trump campaign interacted with Russia social media accounts because they were duped (that came out as "super" previously) by the accounts.

 

[ZenMode]

Obviously you’ve never read the Mueller report. You shouldn’t offer opinions on subjects of which you have no knowledge. Or worse, your only knowledge is based on misinformation. You should sit this one out. You’re out of your depth here.

This is directly from the report.

Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit
electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

 

[MendotoManteo]

This is directly from the report.

Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit
electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

And? They still colluded.

What do you call "I love it!" regarding a meeting with known Russian government agents in Trump Tower? No one cooperated so nothing could ever be proven to the degree of crime.

Farce is right. Take a clue.

 

[lawtig02]

This is directly from the report.

Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit
electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

Also directly from the report:

“Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a
crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

 

[ZenMode]

Also directly from the report:

“Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a
crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

I believe that's in reference to obstruction, not conspiracy. The OLC didn't allow Mueller to charge Trump with obstruction, so all he could do, in his mind, was not exonerate him and lay the groundwork for future charges.

If you want to say Trump obstructed the investigation and should be charged accordingly, I'd absolutely agree with that. In fact, it's kind of baffling that Trump hasn't been charged with obstruction since he left office.

 

[lawtig02]

I believe that's in reference to obstruction, not conspiracy. The OLC didn't allow Mueller to charge Trump with obstruction, so all he could do, in his mind, was not exonerate him and lay the groundwork for future charges.

If you want to say Trump obstructed the investigation and should be charged accordingly, I'd absolutely agree with that. In fact, it's kind of baffling that Trump hasn't been charged with obstruction since he left office.

Mueller made it clear in his testimony, as is clear in the report, that he didn’t exonerate Trump for anything.

 

[JCTarheel82]

Taco pulling into this thread...