Fake Images and Social Trust

~ Clarissa

The spread of these fake images will sound the death knell to the remnants of social trust and cohesion that we enjoy. We are only at the beginning of this journey but soon enough we’ll be in a place where the first immediate and visceral reaction to anything unpleasant will be a refusal to believe it’s real.

The absolute bastards who spread this fake photo are complaining that the government is not taking the catastrophe of Helene seriously. In the process of complaining they are making sure that the government will simply deny the reality of the next Helene and that denial will sound believable and realistic to everybody affected.

And please don’t tell me this is inevitable. People who are caught plagiarizing are eviscerated and destroyed even though they aren’t meddling in a humanitarian catastrophe where lives are at stake. And good, they should be held accountable for this egregious violation of academic rules. Why, however, are we accepting Thai bastardization of our newsfeed?

That whoever created and spread this fake image (or the fake quotes from Vance’s autobiography or the fake images of mass graves in NYC during COVID, etc, etc) is not eviscerated like the plagiarizing Columbia profs is a terrible mistake on all our parts.

Unknown's avatar

Published by Clarissa

9 thoughts on “Fake Images and Social Trust”

  2. “The absolute bastards who spread this fake photo are complaining that the government is not taking the catastrophe of Helene seriously. In the process of complaining they are making sure that the government will simply deny the reality of the next Helene and that denial will sound believable and realistic to everybody affected.”

    Just as important is to start recognizing psy-ops that seek to influence our decisions. We have a major election in a few weeks and I’ve seen a lot push by some groups to try and push the narrative that the Biden administration is not handling the hurricane Helele disaster properly. I do not know whether the administration is doing a good job, but what I can certainly say is the narrative is being pushed a lot and this fakery is part of that psy-op.

    It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Meta just released a tool for generating videos:

    https://x.com/kimmonismus/status/1842192500393402512

    You can bet your ass this will be used to generate fake videos to push all sorts of agendas.

    There will need to be legislation passed to severely punish the people who actively push these operations and try to pollute our political process with fakery.

    Like

    Reply

    1. A lot of that is, I suspect, psyop as you say. It’s alphabet agencies sabotaging attempts by normal people to organize at the grassroots level over shared grievances and needs. You can watch it happen in realtime: any issue where people are starting to collect evidence, muster resources, where it looks like there might be an emerging political movement… all of a sudden the schizoposters move in, with their random antisemitic illuminati bullshit, and their self-assembling nanobots, and “they’re building concentration camps for us all” etc. etc. etc.

      It’s quite brilliant, actually. All the sane normal people start looking for the exits. It’s the same COINTELPRO-style thing the feds used to kill the nascent militia movement back in the 90s. If you’ve seen it up close once, you start to recognize the style.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      1. I’d just add this is now being done by private interests, PACs, foreign militaries, and just about anybody that has a dog in this.

        We all saw this when Kamala was announced as the new Democratic nominee. A mediocre politician was turned into this savior of Democracy overnight. It was insufferable for a few weeks and beyond obvious a lot of that was not organic.

        People REALLY need to start seeing this so that we can all understand the manipulation going on behind the scenes. If you train yourself a bit and apply some critical thinking skills, you can see right through a lot of it.

        Liked by 3 people

        Reply

        1. On the one hand, yes. See it a few times, the pattern fairly jumps out. None of this is organic.

          On the other hand… Ellul is right. The easiest people to fool are people who think they’re smart enough to spot propaganda.

          We can probably spot a few of the more overused strategies. That doesn’t mean we are catching them all, and never being taken in. This is why it’s important to have other filters, other authorities, and stay in close touch with what’s going on around you: people you talk to IRL, communities you are a physical part of, virtues that you are not willing to violate, no matter how compelling the reason, or the person asking.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

    2. It’s already very easy to make a video showing you or me saying all sorts of horrid things and then persecute us for it. People online are piling on those who didn’t recognize the photo as AI but I didn’t recognize it either. I saw it on a small screen, and who has the time and energy to pore over every photo in their newsfeed? “You are to blame for letting yourself be duped” is a dangerous line to push. (I’m not saying you are pushing it, of course. I’m talking about those who are laughing at the duped re-posters online).

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Leave a comment