The Great American Hoax Hoax

Perhaps the most obvious hoax on the American people is that which claims that most news reports that oppose their beliefs are hoaxes while none of the reports that reinforce their beliefs are hoaxes. There are many examples of this phenomenon, of course. One that continues to thrive in July of 2017 regards whether news reports of a Trump-Russia connection are a hoax. Whether we are labeling these reports as humorous deceptions or malicious deceptions, there are informative news reports that present verified facts; they are not "hoaxes."

I’m not sure whether many people are amenable to changing their mind about whether the news reporting on the Trump-Russia connection is factual. It’s extremely difficult to let go of a belief that any of us have embraced. If you aren’t interested in knowing information that might question the Russian-Trump "hoax" belief, I respect that. I know I have strongly held beliefs that I’d have a hard time giving up. I believe that direct statements and observable actions by politicians tell us what these people are saying or doing; anything else is a secondary source that is likely to cherry pick “facts” or is a theory about what we don’t actually know to be true. Sometimes those primary sources are telling the truth, but all you can say about what they’ve said is “this is what they said; this is what they observably did.” I’d have a difficult time changing that belief about primary “evidence” being the best source of information! I also believe that conspiracy theories are damaging the U.S. as a nation and that the Russians are exploiting this phenomenon. At least that’s what I’ve heard a Russian operative say in a recorded interview.

I’m thinking we might want to consider what Donald Trump, Jr. has shared directly of his email messages and his personal comments rather than citing the “reprobates” at CNN, for example. To wit: He tried to collude with Russian operatives to get “dirt” on Hillary Clinton but (at least as of July 15th) claims he got nothing and instead was lobbied to lift sanctions on Russia. Both activities are illegal; neither attempt by the Russian operatives was reported to the CIA at the time. Someone left that room with a folder of papers that arrived with one of the Russian operatives who attended the meeting. Who took the papers had not been confessed as of July 15th. There should be no speculation but a lot of further investigation.

President Trump is now saying that, yes, the meeting took place; yes, his son and son-in-law (and others) were eager to know what dirt the Russians had on Clinton. However, Trump, Jr. did not do anything wrong. “Opposition research” is the name of the game in politics, and Trump, Jr. didn’t realize it was illegal to deal with the Russians on this. (The Trumps are new to politics, after all, say the apologists. For the rest of us, ignorance of the law does not confer innocence.) Jared Kushner has gradually added over 100 incidents in which he met with Russians when providing his security clearance application form. The additions have come after he was given a security clearance. Reports of these situations are not hoaxes. Trump, Jr. and Kushner have acknowledged these facts. That they did not report these facts in a timely way is not proof that they did or did not know it was wrong to deceive. Knowing the intent for the deception (or oversight) is extremely difficult to prove, so jumping to conclusions about innocence or guilt about intent is not appropriate. However, it's what they did that matters.

Back to one of my beliefs: Avoid all second-hand sources, whether it’s CNN or FOX, Hannity or Maddow. Look at the collection of email exchanges that Trump, Jr. released and clearly stated are what went on (including his “I love it!” statement regarding Russians interfering with U.S. elections). Listen to what Trump, Jr. and the others who attended that meeting are saying about what transpired. Even information about who was in that meeting has been released like a slowly dripping faucet that needs a new washer. There may be more details coming, but Trump, Jr. has already made it clear that there is a “Trump-Russia thing” (to quote Trump, Sr's term).

All of the intelligence agencies in the U.S. government had independent investigations regarding whether Russia (via operatives or directly with Putin’s leadership) interfered with the 2016 U.S. elections (not just with the presidential election). All of the intelligence agencies came to similar conclusions: Russia did interfere and they know many of the situations where this took place (e.g., state elections as well as federal). It is not a hoax that Russians interfered. It is almost surely not true that all federal agencies are in collusion against Trump and, therefore, are going after an innocent Russia or an innocent member of Trump's entourage. Look for transcripts of summaries of those reports; listen to the directors’ public comments on the subject.

CNN has been accused (and found guilty) many times of rushing forward with a story that is unconfirmed in order to have a larger audience. That they pushed forward with a Trump-Russia story before we had the facts we have now would not surprise me, but the timeline suggests that CNN’s Van Jones spoke before having the facts that were revealed the week after his sidewalk comment that there was little substance to reports of the Trump, Jr. meeting with Russian operatives and less substance in Democrats’ response to what was known at that time.

Many Americans believed that those closest to Trump and his campaign would not have met directly with Russian operatives, but now know they were wrong. CNN’s Van Jones could have been post-rationalizing about his nothing-burger comment on the day after O’Keefe published his edited version of Jones’s dialogue. However, the nothing-burger comment and its post-rationalizing was made before all the factual revelations came to light. At the time of the nothing-burger comment, a lot of people thought that Liberals were attempting to light a bonfire without any wood. Jones was apparently one of those people. And, let’s face it, the Democrats are not getting out a coherent message that people are listening to.

Believing this hoax theory after the Trump entourage's confessed activities were made public is amazing, but not surprising. It’s a belief that some Americans are holding on to, though fewer since Trump, Jr's statements indicate that there’s a lot of burger in that sandwich.

We Are the Leaders of the Social Media Data-sharing Conspiracy

There seem to be non-diabolical explanations for what goes on with social media profiles and how Russian operatives might obtain them. Those operatives don't need oligarchs or billionaire high-tech CEOs to give them a key to the social media data kingdom.

In fact, we are semi-unwitting accomplices in the sharing of our personal information.

Anyone with a social media account has made a Faustian bargain. It's now been explained to all of us (many times over) how all social media monetize their assets (which are us). Facebook is a good example.

If you haven't read the Facebook terms of service lately, here they are in non-technical English: https://www.facebook.com/terms. Facebook is quite up front about how users' privacy works and what users' rights and responsibilities are. Many Facebook (and other social media) users have not properly secured their profile information. They have left the permissions for viewing their friends list, for example, to "public," i.e., anyone with a Facebook account can see that list.

Creating a Facebook profile means that what you read and write can be used to characterize you. That is what is valuable for monetization. That's what we "pay" in order to have "free" use of Facebook. We "let" others-- even Russian hackers-- access our information with our own privacy choices.

Customers (not us, but rather people who pay Facebook actual money for services) can pay for Facebook to provide clickbait postings on the walls of those who have certain characteristics (things like "people who look at Breitbart News but not The Washington Post"). One monetization strategy goes a little like this: Paying customers don't get the account owners' profile or even the name on the account. Facebook uses its internal matching and distribution services to decide who gets which news feed articles and wall postings. When a user suddenly starts seeing posts on their wall from OccupyDemocrats without "following" that group, it's most likely because they have "liked" other liberal-leaning posts or they've been writing with liberal language. They're a good match for what OccupyDemocrats is “selling.”

Do you know people who log in to a site using their Facebook login credentials rather than by creating an account with a unique, hard-to-guess password? They're raising their hand to have their Facebook profile information shared.

Here's another gotcha that Facebook users tend not to think through: http://wfla.com/2016/02/24/hackers-using-facebook-quizzes-to-get-personal-info-from-users/ Those who take sponsored "quizzes" on Facebook are deciding that not only their privacy but also your privacy are worth less than finding out which animated character they are most like based on the first name used for their account.

Facebook could do better, but it can't totally protect us from ourselves.

Fighting for Freedom of the Press through Reliance on Investigative Journalism

In his January 11, 2017, press conference, the president-elect, Donald Trump, would not answer a question from a CNN reporter because he does not like the coverage he gets from that news organization. This is a violation of the First Amendment, and yet journalistic colleagues did not unite against this violation of the rights of Americans to hear answers to questions that represent diverse interests. The president-elect and his staff have previously denied press credentials to entire news outlets even before they could ask the tough questions that Trump assumed he might get. It’s not just Trump’s insistence on not being shown in a bad light that motivates his refusal to respect these journalists. Trump's primary desire is to punish those he sees as opponents. He's quite above board about his determination to "get even." This will continue to result in Trump’s pre-emptive strikes against the First Amendment unless we find a way to stop them… or to work around them. In reality, we must do both. If President of the United States Trump is allowed to violate our right to a free press, we must fight that all the way to the Supreme Court.

Investigative journalism is so fundamental to dealing with this next administration, and yet it is under fire, in part, because news consumers are not willing to put their money behind their claims to want such responsible journalism and more factual information. With an administration that refuses to answer questions or even to listen to those questions, journalists now have a much more challenging job: finding and nurturing confidential sources and getting access to reliable documents and other forms of information they then need to verify.

I've come to believe that we exacerbate the problem of a healthy free press by referencing sensationalized and unverified information on social media. We're stealing eyeballs away from reading responsible, factual journalism-- even our own eyes. Reuters, Associated Press, verbatim transcripts, and verbatim documents: We need facts on the “front page” and opinions based on facts in the editorials and opinion columns.

Journalists need to step up, as do we. It's not just supporting the ACLU’s prosecution of First Amendment violations or paying for a newspaper subscription so that journalists have the resources to nurture those confidential sources. It's what we choose to share on social media. The supply of responsible reporting will increase if the demand does.