Beware of propaganda
When the population is large enough it is the only thing that works.
I’m getting irritated day by day. I hate to see that all news channels are now propaganda machines. Everything is PR. No authentic responses or communication. It’s close to impossible to get out.
A form of communication
What is the most challenging thing to do these days? Politically or systematically? To Influence is the answer, in my opinion. Think why all these content creators are called influencers.
It’s not easy to influence people's opinions, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.
That’s when the people with power try to spread a misinfo mostly pure lies. Usually against a person or a group. Sometimes it’s against a particular cause or idea. The end goal is to be the majority and maintain the majority without doing much and at the cost of people.
I have seen many people arguing about a topic without even conducting research or sometimes even thinking. Honestly, we've all been there. One way or another.
These people have a herd mentality. It’s very easy to sell an idea with these people. Imagine a person has an interest in a topic, he/she will believe almost anything about that topic from a source, say a news channel or a public figure.
That is why misinformation spreads like wildfire. Usually, the cost of misinfo is unimaginable, and impossible to analyze the real impact.
What is simple?
Really, think about this. What is simple? Formulating an honest opinion based on our critical thinking or just sharing forwarded content? Well, this is the root cause of misinformation and the booster of propaganda.
They don't want you to think. They will do the thinking, you just have to share. For a long time, I thought the atomic bomb is the biggest enemy of humanity. But it’s not. Humans will be the end of mankind.
Controlling what to amplify and what not to amplify is what these social media algorithms do. They will not do anything that hurts their engagement rates. We are on our own in this battle.
The screenplay
Propagandists use emotional language, images, and music to trigger strong emotions like fear, anger, or happiness, which can influence people's opinions and behaviors. Instagram/YouTube/Facebook/WhatsApp is the soil for these. Watch the video.
They will trick you. I mean they will take a topic out of context and will repurpose it simply. Due to the herd mentality, people will not question the main issues. Well, I have an example for you. Watch this video. It can often create a sense of unity and group identity among people who share similar beliefs.
By dividing, they can simply make you say “us versus them”. All you need is a little push. That they will provide within regular intervals. So, it will create unity among both supporters. An important thing to notice is that it will only last until there is no “us versus them”. Then you will become the “them”.
By planting an idea into the people’s mind they can easily create problems that don't exist. Take the example from Inception. What if anyone tells you that “Don’t think about elephants”? Of course, you will only think about elephants.
And then they will repeat this. Multiple times. It can make it more familiar and accepted. And slowly the planted idea will get acceptance. Influencing people's attitudes and beliefs over time is one of the most dangerous things. They won't even know what they want or what they like.
We hate some people/groups/causes/ideas for no reason. Nobody will check the root cause of this hate. Sometimes no one - absolutely no one - has any clue why we are hating this particular person or a cause or a group or an idea. Mostly it is because of the Bandwagon Effect (The bandwagon effect is when people start doing something just because they see other people doing it). Sometimes, they will artificially (or organically) create a negative image which can create a sense of fear and hostility toward them.
Tail end
Be aware of this. Act against this. Don't trust dictators and monopolies. Or leaders of herd mentality groups. They will make your life miserable. Finally, try to escape from their centralization. I’m not talking about breaking the law or doing anything illegal. You just think and act outside of their bubble. Joker did the same thing. When he realized, Batman is not breakable, he picked Harvey Dent. And he succeeded.
Think about this.