{"id":33748,"date":"2022-10-30T17:30:18","date_gmt":"2022-10-30T22:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/blog\/?p=33748"},"modified":"2022-10-28T10:21:07","modified_gmt":"2022-10-28T15:21:07","slug":"internet-manipulation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/blog\/internet-manipulation\/","title":{"rendered":"R. Paul Wilson On: How You\u2019re Being Manipulated By The Internet Without Even Realizing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
A great wave is coming. Not of water but of\ntruth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not real truth: Selected, approved, manipulated\nand fabricated truth that will engulf each of us from all directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The digital age creates new opportunities and\npresents new dangers to all who engage with information online and as more\ncountries come to rely on the internet for entertainment, commerce, financial security,\nand news, this ethereal platform on which billions have come to depend will\nbecome increasingly deceptive and manipulative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this article, I\u2019m going continue my\nreflection on how increasingly difficult it has become to avoid being deceived,\ncontrolled, and manipulated in the modern world but in particular, how\nsomething that in theory was meant to unite us, has in fact divided us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gamblers know the dangers of going into tilt<\/a> where, on a rush of confidence or despair, enormous bankrolls can easily be lost on foolhardy bets made in moments of panic or misplaced certainty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve all experienced it ourselves from time to\ntime in our daily lives and with honest reflection, we might recognize where we\nstrayed from balanced decisions to reflex reactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the poker<\/a>\ntable, bad decisions by opponents can be provoked or anticipated by experienced\nplayers using psychology and long-proven tactics that capitalize on a multitude\nof scenarios and this is extremely similar to how a professional con artist\nmanipulates their victims. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As I\u2019ve stated many times, if I know what you\nwant, I can take everything you have but if I know what<\/em> you think, I can\neasily shape how <\/em>you think. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At the most basic level, this is how scams work\nbut it\u2019s also the secret to politics, propaganda, and population control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the enormous downsides to social media\nhas been the ease with which we have become polarized to one worldview or\nanother thanks to algorithms that learn what we like in order to feed us even\nmore of the same, until we find ourselves living inside information bubbles of\nour own making. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As a result, it has become increasingly easy for\npeople to go on ideological tilt<\/em> where anything that challenges their\nworldview is immediately (and sometimes violently) rejected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For those who seek to divide and control large\nnumbers of people, this is a Godsend and as technology has evolved, so have the\ntools that influence us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One person\u2019s truth is another\u2019s conspiracy and\nas we navigate online platforms we find ourselves constantly dissected into\nvarious \u201cus and them\u201d categories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Democrat or Republican? Are you vaccinated? Are\nyou for or against the latest thing? Do you like Marmite?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The moment you can be accurately categorized,\nyou become subject to an online barrage of positive or negative bias depending\non where and with whom you choose to engage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Even now, readers will be trying to nail down my\npersonal affiliations, unaware they are following their own internal tilt\nmechanisms to decide how to interpret this article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This isn\u2019t about my personal preferences (or\nyours) it\u2019s about the weapons being levelled to keep us in a state of perpetual\nideological conflict. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Social media has been the most powerful new\nforce for mass influence since the invention of the printing press and as\nengagement with platforms increases, so does global dependence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The more we feed these beasts, the more we are\nlabeled, separated and ultimately, controlled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Much has been written about how historic events such as Brexit have been influenced by firms like Cambridge Analytica<\/a>, but the tactics employed by that company have not been diminished by exposure; instead, their methods have been refined and better concealed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The version of ourselves we present to social\nmedia helps software gauge our preferences then shape what we see and therefore\ninfluence how we think about what we see. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s entirely possible to influence two very\ndifferent people in different ways to provoke the same outcome in both cases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Equally, it\u2019s possible to amplify the opinions\nof one group and suppress the feelings of another simply by adjusting who gets\nmore coverage on selected platforms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you can\u2019t change an undesirable opinion, you\ncan at least smother it, isolate it, discredit it, and ultimately neuter it\nthrough multiple methods of data control. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A powerful method used to disarm any piece of\ndata is to control the data that surrounds it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s say you post something that disagrees with\nan online majority and your post gets a little traction or even goes viral. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are several ways to discredit your opinion\neither by prioritizing dissent and surrounding your post with opposing views or\nby linking your post to extremists and radicals, thereby attracting a horde of\nequally radical and extremist opinions from the other side. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Quickly, your post – even if it was the absolute\ntruth – is tainted by the support of extremists and smothered by the voices of\nopposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Best of all, almost any revelation can be\ndismissed by characterizing it as conspiracy theory or right-wing or left-wing\nor racist or sexist – or all of the above. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Many times, there\u2019s truth to this but there are\nlots of crazy conspiracies flying around; all one needs to do is associate an\ninconvenient fact with some seemingly similar nonsense and you can quickly and\neasily quash anything anyone tries to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These tactics are all right out of the con artist playbook and have now become so common that if the Watergate scandal<\/a> story broke today, it would be old news in a day and respond into a dozen versions, each casting doubt on the other until the majority obediently dismiss it and anyone still pushing the story sounds like a nut.<\/p>\n\n\n\nConspiracy Theories<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Beyond Likes And Shares<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Trunami<\/h2>\n\n\n\n