You Had Me At Jell-O

“Now, there’s no question China has been trying to crack down on the internet … Good luck! … That’s sort of like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.” That joke delivered a couple decades ago by Bill Clinton hasn’t aged well. Countries like China and Russia have done a pretty good job cracking down on the internet, but not just by limiting what people see. Instead, they’ve followed a model famously described by Steve Bannon. “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.” The Jell-O can’t be nailed to the wall. But the zone can be so flooded with garbage, the Jell-O ceases to matter anyway. And the zone extends from remote areas in Africa to college campuses to a social media account near you. Wait, are we talking about Jell-O or shit or zones or democracy or media or truth or lies? Welcome to the flooded zone. In The Atlantic (Gift Article): Anne Applebaum does a great job explaining The New Propaganda War. “If people are naturally drawn to human rights, democracy, and freedom, then those concepts have to be poisoned.” And sadly, these efforts know no borders—ethical or geographic. “Here is a difficult truth: A part of the American political spectrum is not merely a passive recipient of the combined authoritarian narratives that come from Russia, China, and their ilk, but an active participant in creating and spreading them. Like the leaders of those countries, the American MAGA right also wants Americans to believe that their democracy is degenerate, their elections illegitimate, their civilization dying. The MAGA movement’s leaders also have an interest in pumping nihilism and cynicism into the brains of their fellow citizens, and in convincing them that nothing they see is true.”

+ Meanwhile, all of this is about to get super-powered: Brad Parscale helped Trump win in 2016 using Facebook ads. Now he’s back, and an AI evangelist