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Fake news is a tool to undermine and control.
People are noticing how confused and uncertain everything feels these days. Reporters are exhausted from just trying to fact check DJ's tweets. As one woman put it: He'll say one thing at 9:00, the opposite of that at noon and by 3:00 he will deny saying either of them.
This is totally by design. It is not just left over from his days as a businessman where it was to his benefit to have the upper hand in negotiations by putting others off balance. No, this is patterned after a tactic used by Russia as a means of control. Raising doubt as to what is real and what is fake, trying to delegitimize the press and sending out distracting tweets is all part of the disorientation package.
ADAM CURTIS, BBC: So much of the news this year has been hopeless, depressing, and above all, confusing. To which the only response is to say, "oh dear."
What this film is going to suggest is that that defeatist response has become a central part of a new system of political control. And to understand how this is happening, you have to look to Russia, to a man called Vladislav Surkov, who is a hero of our time.
Surkov is one of President Putin's advisers, and has helped him maintain his power for 15 years, but he has done it in a very new way.
He came originally from the avant-garde art world, and those who have studied his career, say that what Surkov has done, is to import ideas from conceptual art into the very heart of politics.
His aim is to undermine peoples' perceptions of the world, so they never know what is really happening.
Surkov turned Russian politics into a bewildering, constantly changing piece of theater. He sponsored all kinds of groups, from neo-Nazi skinheads to liberal human rights groups. He even backed parties that were opposed to President Putin.
But the key thing was, that Surkov then let it be known that this was what he was doing, which meant that no one was sure what was real or fake. As one journalist put it: "It is a strategy of power that keeps any opposition constantly confused."
A ceaseless shape-shifting that is unstoppable because it is undefinable. It is exactly what Surkov is alleged to have done in the Ukraine this year. In typical fashion, as the war began, Surkov published a short story about something he called non-linear war. A war where you never know what the enemy are really up to, or even who they are. The underlying aim, Surkov says, is not to win the war, but to use the conflict to create a constant state of destabilized perception, in order to manage and control.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/10/12/bbcs_adam_curtis_how_propaganda_turned_russian_politics_into_a_circus.html
People are noticing how confused and uncertain everything feels these days. Reporters are exhausted from just trying to fact check DJ's tweets. As one woman put it: He'll say one thing at 9:00, the opposite of that at noon and by 3:00 he will deny saying either of them.
This is totally by design. It is not just left over from his days as a businessman where it was to his benefit to have the upper hand in negotiations by putting others off balance. No, this is patterned after a tactic used by Russia as a means of control. Raising doubt as to what is real and what is fake, trying to delegitimize the press and sending out distracting tweets is all part of the disorientation package.
ADAM CURTIS, BBC: So much of the news this year has been hopeless, depressing, and above all, confusing. To which the only response is to say, "oh dear."
What this film is going to suggest is that that defeatist response has become a central part of a new system of political control. And to understand how this is happening, you have to look to Russia, to a man called Vladislav Surkov, who is a hero of our time.
Surkov is one of President Putin's advisers, and has helped him maintain his power for 15 years, but he has done it in a very new way.
He came originally from the avant-garde art world, and those who have studied his career, say that what Surkov has done, is to import ideas from conceptual art into the very heart of politics.
His aim is to undermine peoples' perceptions of the world, so they never know what is really happening.
Surkov turned Russian politics into a bewildering, constantly changing piece of theater. He sponsored all kinds of groups, from neo-Nazi skinheads to liberal human rights groups. He even backed parties that were opposed to President Putin.
But the key thing was, that Surkov then let it be known that this was what he was doing, which meant that no one was sure what was real or fake. As one journalist put it: "It is a strategy of power that keeps any opposition constantly confused."
A ceaseless shape-shifting that is unstoppable because it is undefinable. It is exactly what Surkov is alleged to have done in the Ukraine this year. In typical fashion, as the war began, Surkov published a short story about something he called non-linear war. A war where you never know what the enemy are really up to, or even who they are. The underlying aim, Surkov says, is not to win the war, but to use the conflict to create a constant state of destabilized perception, in order to manage and control.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/10/12/bbcs_adam_curtis_how_propaganda_turned_russian_politics_into_a_circus.html
