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| Photo courtesy of NBC News |
Before I get to writing... The fact that I typed "President Trump and a Turkey" into my search bar and came up with this image, is proof that you really CAN find anything on the internet.
But I digress.
I recently read a NY Times article titled "Government Interference Online is Getting Worse." And no, not out of sheer curiosity or interest; it was a homework assignment. But it did turn out to be informational and generally interesting. And, bonus- it provided fodder for writing.
I was surprised to learn from the article that "according to the Oxford Internet Institute, the number of countries with political disinformation campaigns nearly doubled to 70 in the last two years or so."
I was not surprised to see that, in a map of the world with highlighted parts of countries indicating government disinformation, that the United States was completely highlighted from border to border. The article states that "The countries shaded on this map were found by Oxford to have either a permanent disinformation operation integrated into the government, temporary campaigns flaring up around elections, or both."
Now, that's pretty scary. But still, not surprising, considering our last circus. I mean, election.
Studies show that disinformation tactics are spreading across the world, and countries are learning from one another.
In Turkey, posting the wrong thing on the Internet can get you thrown into the slammer. Wikipedia is banned in Turkey under President Erdogan's censorship regime. How crazy is that?
Facebook is the most used platform to push disinformation and propaganda. But, we already knew that (a reference here to the last election once again seems pretty pertinent). Organized information operations were found on Facebook in 56 countries.
My synopsis of the article?
Although Facebook is the social media platform with the most government interference and active disinformation, I am betting that Twitter is catching up fast, and with it's far-fetched, ludicrous, deceptive, corrupt, phony, deranged posts from our 45th, it will surpass Facebook in no time.
It's a good thing I don't live in Turkey! Phew!