Wednesday Morning Rant [Joe Mannix]

The internet is effectively in two parts. These parts are not in conflict and there is no difference in operation. One part could be considered the Industrial/Commercial internet. It is through this internet that you connect your Zoom calls, engage in eCommerce, check your bank account balance, buy an airplane ticket, etc. It's through this internet that companies manage supply chains, transportation, payroll and business functions.

The other part is what could be called the Information Internet. It is through this internet that you get news, find out about political candidates, read up on the latest scientific discoveries, learn how to repair your car, etc. This internet is being killed off and the process is accelerating. The Information Internet is being crushed under the weight of two phenomena: censorship and disinformation.

The censorship is obvious. The migration of most individual sites and voices into the vast social networks have given tremendous power to censors. It's difficult to censor a lot of small sites, but it's fairly easy to kick dissidents off of a few huge sites. Individual blogs like this one are an echo of the past, a relic. The norm is now that you post what you want on one or more of the sites with vast audiences - that is, on one of the social networks. Even if you do make your own site, it is vulnerable to censorship thanks to the infrastructure conglomerates. It's harder, but it can be and is being done.

But censorship is not enough. Silencing dissent doesn't remove dissent, and silencing all dissenters is difficult. It will always be a leaky process and all the algorithmic censorship and AI-based auto-silencers in the world will never fully snuff it out. Beyond censorship, killing the Information Internet also requires drowning out that which cannot be silenced. This is where disinformation comes into play. Disinformation will finish off what's left as the censorship regime stabilizes.

Disinformation is a finely-tuned system already in the legacy media. Virtually everything in the press is a lie, either in fact or in framing. The press is flooded with lie after lie from all outlets. Nobody who depends on it knows the truth about anything, and there are no dissenters left to point out the lies. Anyone who does manage to point out a lie will himself be accused of spreading disinformation and kicked out.

So it will go on the Information Internet. There are human liars but there will be many more algorithmic and AI liars. They will produce a flood of lies. The lies are inconsistent and many are mutually contradictory. Far from being a problem, this is a benefit. The signal:noise ratio on the Information Internet is collapsing. The closer it gets to zero, the better. Controlling the flow of information to get everyone in agreement is difficult and may be impossible. Poisoning the flow of information so that nobody knows anything is much, much easier - especially if you happen to control the outlets.

With effective censorship and disinformation operations, they will achieve utter chaos in the Information Internet. Nobody will be able to rely on it, and fewer people will even try to make sense of the poisonous fog of lies that permeates all corners of it. People will either shut up and tune out, or go to the sources of Official Lies that they are expected to know.

The Information Internet will collapse under the weight.

posted by Open Blogger at 11:00 AM

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