There is nothing new about this. Mobs, riots, and mass unrest have occurred as a result of rumors, conspiracies, and "disinformation" since the beginning of human civilization.
It was a major concern during the Constitutional Convention that:
> In Massts. it had been fully confirmed by experience that they are daily misled into the most baneful measures and opinions by the false reports circulated by designing men.
What's different is we're coming out of a time when a very small class of people had near-total functional control (or so they thought) over mainstream media, so there were huge swaths of people they really had no experience of. Now these people are @ing them on Twitter. And seeing these people out there makes them very, very uncomfortable.
The arguments you're making are not new arguments. They're the exact same arguments made by authoritarian regimes for millenia. From the article:
> In a March meeting, Laura Dehmlow, an FBI official, warned that the threat of subversive information on social media could undermine support for the U.S. government.
The problem is dissent. Much of the government is run and controlled by a class of people whose beliefs and values are becoming increasingly divorced from other segments of the population. And rather than re-adjusting their policies and goals in line with a democratic consensus, they want to stay their course and tighten control of speech and even thought in the name of social order and harmony. None of this is new at all.
200 years ago, everyone had about the same power to reach people. Oh, sure, it was easier the richer you were, but the difference was not dramatic and wealth inequality was not as dramatic a factor. Then in the 20th to early 21st centuries, broadcast television and media consolidation put a lot of one-way power into the hands of a very small set of hands. Now everyone is on the same playing field once again.
The issue is not the strawman you put up, where you mention it is scary to the leaders that people are getting access to information and making choices. The issue is that people are riling up large groups of people based on lies and making deadly threats (like Trump's "beat up the people in the crowd who are protesting"), leading to threats, attacks on govt - these attacks are based on absolute lies, and deadly threats of violence and some of them end up happening. Also your broad arguments about "authoritarian regimes did things, so they are bad". It's the specifics that matter. Dictators who controlled everything in say Russia also controlled the production of milk, that doesn't mean milk deliveries are authoritarian and bad.
Everyone is not on the same level now. Some are willing to make incredibly outlandish claims about stolen elections, and make personal threats to others, they are fine with that and they have enough power to make it hard to stop them or counter their reach.
> so there were huge swaths of people they really had no experience of. Now these people are @ing them on Twitter. And seeing these people out there makes them very, very uncomfortable.
"These people" have brought us a mass convergence of social panics (some recent, others remixed):
- Anti-government zealotry (a la sovereign citizens, accelerationists, Ruby Ridge, Timothy McVeigh, Turner Diaries readers, Amon Bundy militia, 3 Percenters, Boogaloo Boys, neo-nazis)
- traditional family advocates / anti LGBTQ+
- sexual slavery/trafficking
- anti police-violence (both the pro-police and anti-police movements)
- local community book burning
- "abortion is genocide"
- "white genocide"
- 2020 election fraud
- anti "Jews control the [elite organization]" (millennias old)
- Pizzagate / adrenachrome / HollyWeird / "cabal of [elite people] who [some secret sex or slavery acts]" / QAnon
- Obama birtherism
- numerous things with the Clintons including "the Clinton Kill Count", "HER EMAILS!!!", and Benghazi
- numerous things with Donald Trump (too many to name)
- George Soros (theories about uses of dark money)
- The Koch brothers (theories about uses of dark money)
It was a major concern during the Constitutional Convention that:
> In Massts. it had been fully confirmed by experience that they are daily misled into the most baneful measures and opinions by the false reports circulated by designing men.
What's different is we're coming out of a time when a very small class of people had near-total functional control (or so they thought) over mainstream media, so there were huge swaths of people they really had no experience of. Now these people are @ing them on Twitter. And seeing these people out there makes them very, very uncomfortable.
The arguments you're making are not new arguments. They're the exact same arguments made by authoritarian regimes for millenia. From the article:
> In a March meeting, Laura Dehmlow, an FBI official, warned that the threat of subversive information on social media could undermine support for the U.S. government.
The problem is dissent. Much of the government is run and controlled by a class of people whose beliefs and values are becoming increasingly divorced from other segments of the population. And rather than re-adjusting their policies and goals in line with a democratic consensus, they want to stay their course and tighten control of speech and even thought in the name of social order and harmony. None of this is new at all.
200 years ago, everyone had about the same power to reach people. Oh, sure, it was easier the richer you were, but the difference was not dramatic and wealth inequality was not as dramatic a factor. Then in the 20th to early 21st centuries, broadcast television and media consolidation put a lot of one-way power into the hands of a very small set of hands. Now everyone is on the same playing field once again.