-
Ragebait Governance

Image information: “Trollface” by Me in ME is licensed under CC BY 2.0. Oxford University Press’ 2025 Word of the Year is “ragebait.” The term captures a defining feature of today’s information ecosystem: content engineered to provoke anger, boost engagement, and overwhelm our ability to think clearly. Fake news is a potent form of ragebait, […]
-
Democrats’ Digital Dysfunction
“HAVE A GREAT LABOR DAY WEEKEND, PATRIOTS!!! GOD BLESS THE WORKING PEOPLE WHO MAKE AMERICA GREAT!,” read an August 2025 tweet, capped with three American flags and a photo of its author in a convertible, sunglasses on, peace sign raised. This wasn’t 2016. This wasn’t President Donald Trump. It was California Governor—and presidential hopeful—Gavin Newsom. […]
-
From Manufactured Scandals to AI Misinformation
FAKE NEWS This section chronicles some of the most pressing examples of disinformation and fake news from the previous two weeks. I define fake news as information that appears to be real news but is baseless, inaccurate, misleading, or false. Fake news isn’t just a headline problem — it’s a cultural crisis. A tattooed Justin […]
-
The Media’s Role in Lying about Amsterdam Violence Just Keeps Getting Darker

The media’s role in peddling disinformation over last week’s violence in Amsterdam just keeps getting darker. Owen Jones has interviewed a Dutch woman who shot the footage used by major outlets – from Sky News and the BBC to the Guardian and New York Times – to suggest that locals in Amsterdam carried out “antisemitic […]
-
The Government’s Propaganda of Fear and Fake News

It is the function of mass agitation to exploit all the grievances, hopes, aspirations, prejudices, fears, and ideals of all the special groups that make up our society, social, religious, economic, racial, political. Stir them up. Set one against the other. Divide and conquer. That’s the way to soften up a democracy. ― J. Edgar […]
-
Postmodern Tyranny: States of Deception from 9/11 to Covid-19

It’s been well over a year now since the health scare dubbed the Covid-19 pandemic has had any widespread impact upon the lives of the vast majority of humanity. Since the “fog of war” has lifted, so to speak, there has been very little introspection regarding the knee-jerk authoritarianism imposed upon humanity in the liberal […]

