It Has A Name: FASCISM

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Fascism: A political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition. - Merriam-Webster

[NOTE: This was written well before the January 6h insurrection to overturn the 2020 election. Donald Trump lost that election and is out of office, but not out of power with his party. The governor of Florida, Ron Desantis, is an alternative candidate for the Presidency in the event Trump doesn't or can't run again for office. It is uncanny how the descriptions below fit both men equally. The fascist movement in this country is advancing. - Brian T. Lynch, 8/29/22]


It's time to call a duck a duck. Putin's Russia is a fascist state.

While scholars may debate what fascism is, we all know it when we see it, or so we think. We have been slow to see it in Russia. Perhaps the shadow of communism in the former Soviet Union is blinding us to what Russia has become, a totalitarian fascist regime.

Correctly applying that label to Russia is important to understanding our own national politics and the growing swirl of suspicious connections between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. The most direct links, so far, appear to be a network of contacts between a shady collection of Trump's operatives and shadowy Russian oligarchs. Whether or not Russia influenced our elections as alleged, this web of contacts by crony capitalists and intermediaries is just what one would expect between two fascist authoritarian leaders. Yes! Trump's political movement in America has a name. Fascism!

Growing income inequality, the insurgence of the political right here and abroad, rising nationalism, the vilification of differences (racial, religious, ethnic, etc.), the ascension of an authoritarian leader in the U.S., and the confluence of billionaire capitalists bent on undermining democratic institutions for self-gain are unmistakable signs that fascism is reemerging in the 21st century.

A few words about fascism may be necessary since the term has been muddled, perhaps intentionally so. In general, it is an authoritarian form of government empowered by a multi-class nationalistic populism and a power-sharing alliance with the wealthy elite. Fascism may take different forms as it metastasizes, but it is always built on three legs: A ruthless authoritarian leader, an extremely nationalistic base and a loyal cadre of uber-wealthy crony capitalists. The goal of fascism is always the same, to optimize power and prosperity for the fittest members of society, as defined by those aligned with their leader. [For more information on fascism, see My Guide to Recognize Fascism ]

Without this understanding, it is difficult to grasp the transnational collaborations we see surfacing, not just between some conservative billionaires in the West and Russia but also between them and other rich oligarchs the world over. Without understanding fascism, it is impossible to grasp the national transition undermining our own democracy. It is impossible to grasp the extent to which fascism has already infected our democracy.

With or without Russia's help, Donald Trump won the election without the popular vote through every available method used to rig elections. These included voter suppression measures in all their forms, traditional precinct dirty tricks, exploitation of electronic and mail-in voting, publication of hacked DNC emails, an FBI email investigation dust-up days before the election, and the latest in mass marketing methods funded by billionaire campaign supporters. But it also included something new, the latest in "cognitive warfare" technology. These are essentially internet mind control techniques unleashed on us by Cambridge Analytica, a political propaganda company employed by Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign. (See Propaganda in the Digital Age - Mind Control on a Massive Scale)

All of this activity requires coordination among highly loyal followers, the kind of coordination that the Alt-right's alternative media machines and crony capitalists' connections can accomplish. And it requires the kind of loyal followers who know what Donald Trump will do for them when in power regardless of what he says to get there.

Does all this seem too incredible to believe?

Good! We should all be skeptical about what we read on the internet and what messages are issued from the halls of power. So in keeping with my Data-Driven Viewpoints theme, let's conduct a rigorous, scientific-style thought experiment to test my hypothesis.
The hypothesis is that: Donald Trump is the leader of an American fascist movement.

Experimental methods aim to disprove the hypothesis by proving the opposite to be true. This thought experiment must therefore prove the opposite by showing that Trump does not do what fascist dictators do. Here there is space for readers to pick their most important markers of fascist dictators. There are many such lists to help you choose fascist characteristics.  Select the characteristics most convincing to you and state them as their opposite. Wikipedia offers helpful lists under their definition of fascism page. So, for example, characteristic on one of the lists, entry #4 reads:

#4. Anti-equality: Fascism loathes the principles of economic equality and disdains equality between immigrant and citizen. Some forms of fascism extend the fight against equality into other areas: Gender, sexual, minority or religious rights, for example.

To state this in its opposite form, the null hypothesis is that: Donald Trump and his administration will:

·         Assure all immigrants are afforded the same rights and due process as U.S. citizens

·         Respect and enforce the civil rights of members of the LGBT community

·         Respect  and enforce the civil rights of ethnic and racial minorities

·         Guarantee freedom of religion and civil liberty for all religious groups, including Jews, Muslims, and other religious minorities in America.

We can now count up all the qualifying future incidences where this proves true or false. Let's try one more example from a different list of fascist characteristics. This list contains the following point:

"Disagreement Is Treason" – Fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith.

[Note: The word syncretistic used here means the merging of different ideological strains to assert an underlying unity that may or may not exist.]

The null hypothesis to prove might read:

Donald Trump and his administration will: Encourage intellectual discourse from diverse stakeholders to critically examine and analyze legislative and policy options best suited for the common good. 

Or this: 

Donald Trump and his supporters will: Express appreciation for those who may disagree with him).

The point here is to keep looking for signs that President Trump, his administration, and his supporters are not acting like fascists. Be as objective as possible and take a fairly large sample over the next several months. Once you have your own results, you can decide for yourself if my hypothesis is true. If you accept the description of fascism but reject the null hypothesis, then the conclusion is that Trump's MAGA movement is a fascist movement. 

Propaganda in the Digital Age - Mind Control on a Massive Scale

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

"World War III will be a guerrilla information war with no division between military and civilian participation." - Marshall McLahun

 I noticed it during the 2016 election. My Twitter and Facebook accounts were awash in anti-Hillary comments. Many comments seemed to piggy-back on my own reservations about her. Other comments were wildly inaccurate and mean-spirited.

I was a Bernie supporter and not happy with the way the DNC and Democratic leadership conducted the primaries. Still, Hillary Clinton seemed the better choice in my view.

When anti-Hillary tweets and messages mirrored my concerns I sometimes "liked" the comments or added my own to support of my views. But then there were many outrageously false anti-Hillary claims. I mostly ignored these, but sometimes took issue. This often lead to debate with some implacable troll on social media. I engaged them not to change their minds (impossible), but to make sure others would be exposed to a reasonable set of facts.

During these internet encounters I noticed a lot of respondents chiming in with "likes" or retweets  supporting the opposition side. The longer the debate, the greater the number of these silent opposition supporters. sometimes as many as 20 or 30 different accounts, Some mute retweeters even continued to piled on days after the conversation ended, and they latched on to randomly stupid or statements made by the original Hillary hater.

That's when I realized something unusual was happening. I assumed these respondents were part of a coordinated system of trolls. I didn't know I was experiencing a technically advanced propaganda attack.  I managed to resist the feeling that the consensus was against me, but did start to wonder if I was talking to myself.

After the election, all these feverish Twitter and Facebook respondents suddenly disappeared. Did anyone else notice that?

Only now am I beginning to learn the full horror of this new cyber based propaganda.

Many of us think of propaganda we think of what spies call "active measures" like dropping fliers from airplanes, broadcasting news on Radio Free Europe, writing op-ed pieces under pseudonyms or stealing and releasing classified documents to publically embarrass adversaries. The Russian connection to the DNC email hacks and subsequent Wikileaks publication appears to be of this sort. It seems a little high tech because the theft was by hacking, but at its root it old style propaganda.  And media attention to it only serves to distraction us to the whole new world of electronic propaganda unleashed during the election.  New, covertly developed, military grade propaganda techniques were used by private corporations, and perhaps foreign actors, to tip our election results on a scale never seen before. The internet was weaponized against us.

COGNITIVE WARFARE:  Cognitive warfare is a toolbox of cyber propaganda techniques that both models mass populations and profiles individuals to change their beliefs or attitudes. It has many aspects and methods that utilize super-computers, massive databases and sophisticated computer algorithms to weaponize information gathered from our digital footprints to use against us.  Some techniques model and manipulate whole societies to bring about social change while other techniques profile and manipulate individuals or groups to alter a person's attitudes and behavior.  These methods go by names such as  Bio-psycho-social profiling, Recoding (of mass consciousness), Strategic drowning (of mainstream media content, for example), micro-targeted propaganda, etc. These propaganda techniques can be highly effective and operate on an emotional level without our specific awareness.

So where to begin? The amount of information needed to fully explain the new propaganda is way beyond the scope of this blog post. It is honestly beyond the scope of my own understanding at this point as well. This article can only serve as an introduction to the topic. At the conclusion I will point you to several lengthy articles that go into more detail.

ALGORITHMS: To understand the basics of cognitive warfare methods we must start with computer algorithms. These are sets of computer code instructions that allow a computer to analyze huge amounts of data and automatically make complex decisions for further action based on their continuous analysis. Algorithms can be simple or mind-bendingly complex, as their use in modern day financial trading illustrates. In the area of financial investments algorithms monitor the markets and social media sites (like Twitter, to see what's trending) and then make split-second decisions on buying and selling stocks. It is estimated that over 70% of all stock trades are computer generated transactions.

But algorithms are ubiquitous in social media as well. From Google's search engine to Twitter's suggestions as to who to follow, algorithms have become our window on the world. As such they have an enormous impact on our outlook. Each of us who searches a term on Google may receive different information in a different order, depending on our digital footprint on the internet. This impacts our thinking. Robert Epstein, of the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology says,".. these personalized results impact our opinions and behavioral patterns without our awareness." Of Google he writes, "We are talking about the most powerful mind-control machine ever invented in the history of the human race. And people don't even notice it."

There is much more we need to know about these algorithms running in the background of the cyber world, but for our purposes here it is sufficient to know that a knowledge of them and how to manipulate and exploit them is the basis on which cognitive warfare operates.

BIO-PSYCHO-SOCIAL PROFILING:  When I type "Daily Record" into my iPhone search, my local newspaper site come up. Years ago this wasn't the case. I would get a newspaper with that name in Scotland. We don't think much about the convenience built into our media systems that allows computers to make assumptions about us. These assumptions are based on our digital profile, where we live, where we are presently located, what we have looked up in the past and other such personal information kept in a database about us somewhere. This is the friendly face of social profiling.

Advances in data storage and retrieval systems, sophisticated algorithms, and methods to analyze and manage massive amounts of data allow media platforms to develop comprehensive profiles on us. This allows them to deliver the content we most want to see. Formerly, the level of detail was based on some grouping we fit into, but increasingly it is based on who we are as individuals. This has been  a boon to commercial marketing but it has a very powerful dark side as well.

In the case of Facebook profiles, for example, scientists found that profiles can be correlated across millions of people to produce remarkably accurate individual profiles. When results are combined with data generated by the "like" button people click on approve certain content, the individual profile gets ever more perfect. With just 150 "likes"  our profile can predict personality better than our own spouses can, and with 300 likes it knows a person better they know themselves.

Of this profiling data, Paul-Olivier Dehaye, a Swiss mathematician, said, "People just don't understand the power of this data and how it can be used against them." This level of understand our personality allows those in control of our profiles to send micro-targeted messages to us that subtlety manipulate our feelings and the association with which our emotions are evoked.  For example, if a person is on the fence over how to vote in an election, the people behind the propaganda machines know this about you and can custom tailor messages to that will influence you to vote one way or the other. This technique is called micro-targeted propaganda. There is evidence that this type of propaganda was used in the 2016 election to help elect Donald Trump.

STRATEGIC DROWNING:  This is another tool in the Cognitive Warfare arsenal used to influence public discourse and alter our mass consciousness. While bio-psycho-social profiling targets individuals, this technique targets certain segments of the population or even the whole population at once. The idea behind this technique it to flood the cyber-media network with specific alternative messages that drown out conventional news and information. It exploits the algorithms used by media platforms that bring desired content to us. So, for example, if you type "Jews are" into Google search, it will return answers like, "Why do people hate Jews" I just did the experiment as I write this and the picture below shows the top results.

[EDITORS NOTE 7/15/2017: Following the election the example below no longer holds true if you try it today. The alternative medial narrative emphasis has shifted to other areas of focus, such as Islamic jihadists and sharia law as an alternative to Russia's election tampering and Trump Administration investigations. For a more contemporary example google: "Sarsour is" and then "Linda Sarsour" to see how strategic drowning has altered the search results.]

  Clearly these are unexpected results for most people who might enter the search terms. (Try it yourself, and don't be surprised if your results differ from mine based on your profile.) The result over-represent hate groups and the proliferation of these results are the work of nefarious operators who flood the "media ecosystem." 

Cyber media would normally be dominated by conventional information sources such as The New York Times, Fox News, MSNBC etc., but these sources are swamped with hundreds of thousands of links from much smaller alternative information sites. These links to alternative information are intended to exploit the structure of Google secret algorithms to bring these articles to the top of the search results. This has a psychological impact on us personally and gives a false impression about public consensus in America. It blurs the question as to what is really true.

The operational structure for strategic drowning includes a coordinated network of alternative information websites, referred to as micro-propaganda machines, or MPM's. Each MPM controls a vast warehouse of "bots" which are bogus Facebook and Twitter accounts, etc. These fake accounts exist by the hundreds of thousands. Some are always active to drive public dialogue while some are "sleeper bots." These are held in reserve and triggered en mass by propagandists to overwhelm news cycles or cover up information unfavorable to their goals. It is also used to create trends and alter public discourse, or change public attitudes.  

A picture is worth a thousand words. Jonathan Albright is an assistant professor of communications at Elon University in North Carolina. He analyzed the activity of these MPM's during the 2016 election and was able to create "spatial map" of that activity. The picture created shows the relative dominance of traditional information sources in the media ecosystem, as he calls it, and the impact on that system by MPM's during the election.  The red nodes are alternative information (propaganda) websites and the red lines radiating from them are links or activity of these sites.  

In effect, what you see here is the cognitive warfare battlefield during the last election. This new propaganda arms race is between pro-democracy advocates and their adversaries. It is a war still being waged here and in other Western democracies. It is being waged by both foreign attackers and billionaire Western oligarchs who share converging interests. It is being waged by Russia, who just announced the creation of a new branch of their military calling them "information warfare troops".

 "... Russians have moved into an offensive posture that threatens the very international order." said Ben Rhodes of the Obama Administration last year.

The propaganda war is also being waged by billionaire controlled corporations specializing in this field, companies like Cambridge Analytica. This is essentially a propaganda company featuring Steve Bannon on its board of directors.

This outline of Cognitive Warfare attacks we were subjected to, and are still experiencing as an attack on our journalism institutions, helps make sense of my social media experiences during the election. I see now how I was being stroked, on one hand (micro-targeted), to fan my discontent with Hillary while being made to feel my views were in the minority (strategic drowning) on the other hand. I know now that many of the trolls I encountered were really computer generated cyberbots. All this has caused be to completely rethink my own on-line presence.

I have presented a great deal of information here and a number of quotes and facts without specific attribution. That is because virtually all of the quotes and many of the fact are from the remarkable work of Carole Cadwalladr, published by The Guardian in London. I have vetted her information by going to her original source and found them to be accurate. If you have stayed with me to this point, I urge you to read Ms. Cadwalladr's two article for even more background information. She also outlines the connections between the companies providing propaganda services for the wealthy ideologues funding them and the Trump administration. 

Bibliography

Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage

Carole Cadwalladr, 26 February, 2017

Google, democracy and the truth about internet search

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/04/google-democracy-truth-internet-search-facebook

Carole Cadwalladr, 4 December, 2016

The #Election2016 Micro-Propaganda Machine

https://medium.com/@d1gi/the-election2016-micro-propaganda-machine-383449cc1fba#.gl16j8e9c

Jonathan Albright, 18 November, 2016

And for further reading from my blog on algorithms,

Algorithms Hidden Impact on How We Think 

http://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2017/02/algorithms-hidden-impact-on-how-we-think.html?spref=tw …

Brian T. Lynch, 9 February, 2016


UPDATE: For the sake of fairness, I returned to Jonathan Albright's website and found an updated analysis of the propaganda machine analysis including left-leaning websites as well, and the full picture of the activity is seen in the following picture. Obviously, there were left-leaning websites competing for a share of the media attention as well. I don't know the nature of the information from these left-leaning sites, or if they were part of a propaganda campaign. I'll share more when I know more.

Professional and Citizen Journalism in the Age of Fake News

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

With all the talk of "fake news" in the news lately, people are starting to look around for guidance on how to judge news worthiness. Some folks are all to happy to supply it, which has led to some homegrown efforts to make sense of news bias and the wildly tossed around accusation of "fake news".  Below is a graphic that recently turned up on the internet to classify news, and quasi-news outlets. 

This graphic, which attempts to depict the quality and bias of news media outlets, appeared on Facebook. It may look interesting, but it is really misleading on many levels. The creator of this work is unknown That is enough to dismiss all credibility.  Furthermore,  nothing is known about what criteria the graph maker used or how vigorously those criteria were applied?  

The very premise behind this depiction is flawed as well. The editorial leanings of a news outlet is an independent variable. It isn't directly related to journalistic accuracy. Accuracy is a less subjective measure than political leanings. It is also objectively measurable, unlike the idea of quality, as the term is used on the Y axis. It would be a mistake to assume, for example, that the Wall Street Journal has inaccurate or poor quality reporting just because it has a conservative editorial board. Some conservative bias is evident in its editorials and also in what it covers or considers newsworthy. But the choice of content is a bias that is present in every news outlet. In fact, the choice and treatment of content are the leading criteria for judging a news site as conservative or liberal. This bias, however, does not render the content false or inaccurate. Any two witnesses of any event will give different accounts. This doesn't mean they are lying or making it up. It is only when obviously important facts or events are intentionally ignored, as in a news blackout, that the omission becomes an egregious bias error.

There are also sites included above, like The Daily Kos, that aren't strictly news sites. It has a very left-leaning following for sure. Some of the writing on this site comes from professional journalists, or freelance professionals, but a lot of often accurate reporting comes from non-professional journalists as well. Hybrid information websites like The Daily Kos blur the line between professional journalism and citizen journalism. This blurring of the line between the professional and citizen journalist is happening more broadly as well. Amanda Harper's article, Citizen Journalism vs. Professional Journalism, is a good primer on this topic. 

Why does it matter if a journalist is a professional or not? 

The theoretical distinction is sharp, even if the practical distinction is sometime blurry.  A profession, any profession, is characterized as a field of employment requiring specialized skills where members abide by a common set of standards and moral principles that are monitored and enforced by peer review and peer pressure. To be a profession there must be an organizational structure to review , refine, promulgate and enforce standards among its members. Being a member of a profession is a broader obligation than being an employee of any particular business or agency. Professionals are obligated to push back against employers or clients who would compromise their professional principles or standards.

So even, if I, as a blogger, hold myself to the same high standards as professional journalists, I am still not a professional journalist. I am not subject to the same journalistic peer review and enforcement procedures.  I am not under editorial supervision and I am not under a news agency's employment. I am merely a citizen journalist. I am on my own.

So is it OK to call myself a citizen journalist? I think so, providing I am aware that there are serious caveats. The question brings up a very tricky point worth exploring.  Do "civilian journalists" have the same constitutional protections as other working journalists? Specifically, are bloggers protected by their states shield law?

Shield laws allow the public press limited ability to protect the anonymity of its sources. This protection is a constitutional interpretation of what a "free press" implies. Some form of shield law exists in every state with the exception of Wyoming. If there was not respect for the confidentiality of their sources, journalists could be reduced to law enforcement snitches. That would severely hamper their ability to gather the news. In fact, without this protection the press could not serve as a check on government power. It is because of this freedom that the press is sometimes referred to as the fourth estate. Regardless of how you feel about the press, their ability to protect their sources is really the last barricade between the us and government tyranny.

While the courts may show some deference to citizen journalists on a case by case bases, as a class they do not have the same constitutional standing. Specifically, there are currently no shield law to protect a blogger's sources in the United States.  This is partly because they cannot be held to the same high standards as professional journalist who work in a peers group within a recognized news outlet. The editorial supervision and peer milieu help to challenge and reinforce professional standards.

 While I may hold myself to the same high standard as professional journalist, you have no reason to believe me. I am not subject to the same peer review and peer pressures.  And governments, have some reasons to draw a bright line between professional journalists and current events bloggers. It would cause chaos if every person engaged in shady dealings could simply start a blog and claim journalistic privileges as a way to thwart law enforcement. That said, all of us have significant constitutional protections of free speech, free association and unreasonable searches and seizures. So if I respectfully videotape police publicly arresting someone on the street, for example, I can't be forced to stop videotaping to to destroy the recording.

On the other hand, if you are a whistle blower and want to assure anonymity you had better talk to a professional journalists. You might first want to check on the shield laws in your state as well.

Given the changing nature of society, the internet and the press, it may be time to rethink ways to strengthen protections for citizen journalist who increasingly provide invaluable news reporting to the more traditional news organizations.  As financial constraints continue to shrink the size of news bureaus around the country, citizen journalism have become an increasingly important supplement. Who knows? Maybe in the future citizen journalists might be trained and licensed to establish their integrity.  Until then it's reader beware.

Mortal Night

Mortal Night

by Brian T.  Lynch

Sometimes at night, alone, awake

Entombed in darkness, laid in state

While yet my breath the stillness breaks

Oh fragile heart, my soul awaits

And glories of this mortal veil

Pale in certainty of breath to fail

An event horizon of the flesh

From certain life to certain death

Discerned, not seen with naked eyes

Nor what beyond horizon lies

Yet having sensed the dark abyss

And felt it's silence in the night

I cleave to senses yet undimmed

Now more exquisite in morning light

New breath, new life, this feel of flesh

This splendor passion for beating heart

What privileged state this conscious spark

Today to claim, today to start

(A poem I found among my papers that I wrote 42 years ago, back when I was writing poetry.)

The Rise of FAKE, Fake News Checker Websites, Are They Russian Cyber-Ops?

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

It all began with a conversation on Facebook with a conservative friend of mine and ardent Trump supporter. I had posted an article about Erik Prince. He is the founder of Blackwater, a solders for hire firm that is also providing very militarized training programs for our domestic police departments. I was surprised to learn that Betsy DeVos was his sister. The story is about him being a quiet Trump advisor.

My friend immediate responded  with a link to FakeNewsChecker.com that lists Democracy Now as a fake news site. I went to the FakeNewsChecker site for myself and saw that it lists perhaps hundreds of new sites as "fake news" sites. I was suspicious about this site as I am confident that Democracy Now, while progressive in its editorial decisions, present fully accurate, verifiable information.

Also overdue, is a discussion of what makes news "fake" news. In my view it is willfully false information presented as news either for profit or propaganda. It isn't mistakes in reporting or accurate reporting, but selective reporting. It isn't obviously intended satire either.

What follows it our Facebook discussion and my findings about the rise of fake, fake news checker sites here and abroad.

ME: WOW!!! This a really scary. I didn't know

Scahill: Blackwater Founder Erik Prince, the Brother of Betsy DeVos, Is Secretly Advising Trump

The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill has revealed Betsy DeVos’s brother, Erik Prince, the founder of the mercenary firm Blackwater, has been quietly advising Trump’s…

DEMOCRACYNOW.ORG

Friend:  Don't believe it: http://www.fakenewschecker.com/fake-news.../democracy-now

Democracy Now

Democracy Now has been added to the growing list of untrustworthy and fake news sources.

FAKENEWSCHECKER.COM

Me: Thank you for sharing this. I. Was unaware until now that there was a fake, fake news reporting site. Democracy now is Progressive in terms of its editorial content but it is one of the most respected news sites on the web for its accuracy in reporting.

Friend : Again, We have to agree to disagree.

ME: your discovery of the Fakenewschecker site and it's obvious flaws lead me to do some checking of my own.

First you will notice that there is no ownership information or "about us" menu on the Fakenewschecker.com website. This is a sure sign that the owners want to remain anonymous, not a good thing for a site that claims to check facts. There are no links or statements or any other evidence of an attempt at transparency. There is no discussion of what criteria or process the site uses to make hits findings. There are no references to source material used.

Next I learned that fake news checker sites are popping up in other countries lately. There is growing concern around the world that this may be a coordinated attempt to undermine confidence in news gathering. There is some evidence in Europe linking these sites to Russia (See a portion of an article below).

Then I looked the domain up on WhoIs.com. The site was only created on November 17, 2016. This is very recent. The time it would take to thoroughly vet the content of so many "fake news" sights far exceeds the three month window that the website has been active.  

 

Finally, you will notice that the registrar for "FAKENEWSCHECKER.COM" is 1&1 INTERNET SE.  When you go to this registrar's website (http://registrar.1and1.info)  you discover that the site is registered in Germany or Austria. Check out the flags below for 1&1 Internet SE. The first is Germany and the second is Austria. When you go to these sites the writing is all German. This is odd in my opinion because the owners are both secret and foreign based. I don't have the skills or resources to track this suspicions that this is a Russian cyber-op, but I wouldn't put much faith in the veracity of this site.

Below is a clip from an article on the recent appearance of fake, fake news checker sites. (Also see 1/16/2017 addendum below it.)

ADDENDUM:  2/16/2017 - Here it is just days after I first posted the above article, Donald Trump goes on a tangent impugning the honesty of the press. These rants, along with the political rallies he continues to hold, are red meat to his base. If it is true that Russian covert cyber-operations help influence the election in his favor, as our Intelligence Community has claimed, then is it possible they are still supporting him while in office? Is anyone looking into this? I hope so.

  http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/319914-trump-blasts-out-of-control-media-dishonesty

Algorithms Hidden Impact on How We Think

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Never before has human society experienced anything like it. Depending on who you talk to, algorithms are now, or are about to be, significant drives of human culture. (If you are hearing this for the first time from me, we are both way behind the curve on this topic.)

Algorithms are powerful programs that increasingly influence an individual's world view. Their ubiquitous use may explain our growing political polarity, our growing knowledge gap in current affairs and even why our neighbors seem radicalized. That's not including their impact in other area of our life, from high speed stock trading to NSA cyber spying. But for impressionable or vulnerable individuals searching the internet, the impacts can be devastating.

Internet companies like Google and Facebook are among those who rely on algorithms to provide the content that individuals user most likely to want to see. When you search for something on Google, or like something on Facebook, for instance, you develop a record of your preferences that results in you seeing more and more of the content you prefer over time. This essentially creates a positive feedback loop. That is, each time you search for similar terms, Googles algorithms amplifies the results to bring you more and more of the related content in your search results. In other words, what we want to find is what we tend to see more of in a self reinforcing cycles. This will eventually alter our view of how we see the world. 

Dylann Foot Roof is a cases in point. You will recall he was a 21 year old white male who killed nine people in a 2015 massacre at a historical black church in Charleston, South Carolina.  Authorities found his manifesto that showed he was involved in white nationalist websites on the internet for about three years. A recent report by the Southern Policy Law Center details how Google search engine algorithms served a key part in radicalizing this young man who grew up in an otherwise stable, normal home.  Can the effects of algorithms also help explain how citizens living here can become radicalized terrorists for ISIS?

Increasingly, algorithms decide what gets attention, and what is ignored; and even what gets published or censored in our search for knowledge on the internet. It is a powerful force with unforeseen consequences at best. Just as easily they can be used for sinister purposes as well if we aren't careful.

The following are excerpts from a report presented by the Center for Internet and Human Rights (CIHR) entitled, Ethic of Algorithms. It serves as a good primer on what these powerful programs are and can do.  CIHR promotes academic research about technology and society to inform public and academic debates.  

• Algorithms are increasingly used  in hiring (and firing), deciding who gets a job and who doesn't. It is among the most powerful gate-keeping function in society.

• Algorithms influence how we perceive the world, often without us realizing it. by channeling our attention.

• Facebook algorithms decide what we see or don't see. Newsfeed algorithm filters content without our knowing why.

• Facebook won't say how the algorithm works, It's proprietary. Without knowing the exact code, nobody can evaluate how your newsfeed is composed.

• Complex algorithms are incomprehensible to outsiders but they have values, biases, and potential discrimination built in

• Without algorithms many applications would be unusable. We need them to cope with the enormous amounts of data. But we must be aware how they work

• Algorithms are not neutral, but rather they perpetuate the prejudices of their creators. 

They must be known to the user

"Since algorithms make increasingly important decisions about our lives, users need to be informed about them. Knowledge about automated decision-making in everyday services is still very limited among consumers. Raising awareness should be at the heart of the debate about ethics of algorithms."

We are already at the point where regulating computer algorithms is essential for our collective well being, yet most people aren't even aware the threats and problems they pose. I know I wasn't until very recently. I hope this brief blog posting and the links above encourage others to explore this topic further.

(NOTE: The second paragraph at the top was added on Feb. 13, 2017 for further clarity.)

For an excellent TED Talk on Algorithms and their impact in daily life, see the following video:  http://www.thewayoftheweb.net/algorithms-rule-our-lives-for-good-and-bad/

Police Blow-back on a Judge who Calls Out the Police Union

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW (and former civil servant)

The judges statistics and the goals being attempted in the reform are absolutely correct. Civilian oversight is a false term, however. The police are civilians. They are us. They are not solders or foreign peacekeepers. They are certainly not above the law. They work for their local community. They are civil servants who should have the same respect as most other civil services and no special privileges beyond the necessary latitude required to keep themselves safe on the job. 

Statistically speaking, police work is not one of the top ten most dangerous jobs in the country. That isn't meant to downplay the significant risks they face, but those risks aren't excessive relative to other working men and woman. Police in other industrialized countries manage to keep police action homicides to levels well below 10 times the US numbers. Germany has a higher rate of police action homicides than other Western Europe countries. They average about 5 per year. Adjusted for population that means, if they were our size, there would be about 20 police action homicides per year. so there has to be room to improve our policing procedures. 

While African-Americas are over represented in police action homicides (and this is a big concern of mine), the overall number killed, over 1,100 victims per year, is the bigger picture. Besides, most of the problems with departments are confined to particular areas or departments. The vast majority of departments are perfectly fine. The public should keep this in mind when talking about police reform and police officers shouldn't be painting reform advocates with the same broad brush either. Let's just admit the statistics prove we have work to do and get about the business of fixing this problem.

PS: Read the comments in this article.

Federal Judge Accuses Police Union Of Killing Black People, Proclaims 'Black Lives Matter'

Seattle, Washington - U.S. District Judge James Robart recently expressed a…

BLUELIVESMATTER.BLUE|BY BACK THE BLUE

Few Facts and Much Innuendo on Russian Election Tampering So Far

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

First, let me say from the start I have little doubt that Russia is capable of carrying out operations to mess with our elections. What I write here is not a defense of Russia, but a clarification of what the US government has released so far regarding the US intelligence agencies assessments, and press reactions. I see a tendency by the media to over state what has actually been said. It seems possible that the degree of Russian influence over the election is less significant than what we have been lead to believe.

For example, Russian hacking of the DNC, and the WikiLeaks publication of DNC emails, is linked together in the public mind. Google it all you want, however, and you won't find any "official" US government claim that documents published by Wikileaks were obtained from Russia or Russian sources. You can find a clear denial from Julian Assange that any of the emails published by WikiLeaks came from Russia or any other government source.

There is a steady stream of innuendo against Wikileaks and Julian Assange. The following is an explanations of how hacked emails got released to the public. Pay close attention to what The Hill is actually saying (I numbered the points for discussion below:

1) The Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence publicly blamed Russia for the hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and other political organizations this year. 

2) “The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts,” the [above referenced] statement read. 

3) Security experts have long believed that the previously-unknown hacker Guccifer 2.0 was a front for Russian interests, despite his claims to be a single Romanian hacker. He — or they — published the DNC and DCCC documents on a Wordpress blog set up shortly after the hacks.

4) DCLeaks.com, which published the Powell emails, claims to be American but is also thought to be a Russian intelligence front.

5) The anti-secrecy platform WikiLeaks also published the DNC emails, but would not reveal where it got them.

(http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/299874-obama-administration-publicly-blames-russia-for-dnc-hack)

Beginning with the third statement above, it summarizes a case being made that Guccifer 2.0 has a direct connection with the Russians. You can read fairly compelling arguments for this claim elsewhere. The fourth statement ties DCLeaks.com to Russian intelligence with respect to the Colin Powell emails, a lesser know breach of a less relevant set of email. The fifth statement doesn't attempt to tie WikiLeaks to Russian directly, but manages to taunts Julian Assange by contrasting his "anti-secrecy platform" with his not revealing from where his DNC emails came.

The Hill's reporting in the first two statements above, however, is really misleading. There is general agreement that Russia is among those that hacked the DNC. Hacking political organizations is rampant. All governments do it all the time, including our own. But notice how the Hill worded their reporting of this joint statement. They say that the USIC statement blames Russia for "the hack of the Democratic National Committee." (emphasis mine)

Was there only a single hack of the DNC? Did the joint statement actually say this? This reporting gives a false impression. It has been widely reported, and confirmed, that the DNC  and the RNC were both hacked multiple times. Here below is an excerpt the actual language in the U.S. Intelligence Community's joint statement. Compare it to what The Hill reported:

" The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. "

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-department-homeland-security-and-office-director-national

What is and isn't being said here? You can read this joint statement in full and you will find no specific mention of the DNC. The compromised e-mails were clearly from various "institutions" and "people," both plural terms. You will see that "recent compromises" is also plural, not singular. You may notice that compromises seems to refers to the "disclosures" of allegedly hacked e-mails. It doesn't directly state that Russian intelligence was the actual hacker. Most importantly, the statement says that the release of these e-mails to websites "like" those mentioned is "consistent with" Russia's "methods and motivations." The statement doesn't directly accuse Guccifer 2.0, DCLeaks or WikiLeaks of any complicity with the Russian government.

So, to restate the facts in this USIC joint statement, as I would report:

According to a joint statement by the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, on behalf of the U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC), e-mails from various U.S. political organizations and people were allegedly stolen by hackers. The contents of these stolen emails were publically release by websites such as Guccifer 2.0, DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks.com. The USIC believes that the manner in which these e-mails were allegedly stolen and publically released is consistent with the way Russia does things, and Russia has the motivation to do these thing. The USIC says it is "confident" that Russia directed this activity.

When you accurately report the facts released by the USIC statement, it becomes clear that little new information was actually provided. Furthermore, the implied logic of the statement is that because what Russia does looks like what happened, and because they wanted it to happen, the did it. This is seriously flawed logic.

Hopefully, the USIC , Congress and the President will do a better job in the future to present actual body of significant facts to support their allegations of Russian meddling in our elections. It is too serious an allegation to conceal evidence from the public. I am keeping an open mind, but the American people deserve to see the facts.

The Illusionist in the White House

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

I have had to work with people like Donald Trump before. Not folks as materially successful of course, but just as wily, and with very similar personalities. It was my job to extract accurate information from them to assess whether or not their children were at risk of harm. There was always a lot at stake, so simply taking them at face value was out of the question. These interviews were among the most difficult and exhausting of my career. It was like engaging in an emotional game of three-dimensional chess. Extracting even the most innocuous facts was challenging. The experiences, however, had the effect of inoculating me from the expert emotional manipulations that are their genius.

Donald Trump spoke directly to the emotions of many voters during his campaign. It was a campaign like no other, but I recognized him right away. He constructed an elaborate emotional tableau, devoid of factual distractions, that resonated with a frustrated, angry electorate. People read into him whatever they believed. Other candidates and the beltway press tried but could not penetrate his invisible cloak with facts, logic or reason. His burgeoning movement of follower would not be dissuaded. Eventually, enough people aligned their feelings about him with the well crafted self-portrait he created through his speeches. He got just enough votes in just the right places to win the Presidency.

So here we are, a people habituated to the ubiquitous marketing assaults we succumb to every day, unprepared to see through the marketing cloud of Mr. Trump. Now we have a new President about who we really know very little.

Donald Trump. The marketer-in-chief. Master illusionist. And because no one could pin anything on him during the campaigned, he is free to define his term in office any way he likes. 

But beware! His disdain for the press, verbal assaults on journalists and his thank-you rally's around the country are not short lived anomalies. They are harbingers of how he will maintain his power. The deflection of facts and the creation of strong, emotionally evocative impressions is how he operates.

Here is one way to help visualize what is happening. People like Donald Trump have the ability to do with language what a scrim does on a theatrical stage. A scrim is a special type of fabric that can be translucent, transparent, or opaque depending on how stage lights are directed. You can project any image you want on the front of it and it will mask everything from view behind it. When you only light the objects behind it, the scrim disappears like a pane of glass.

Donald Trump created a campaign, and is now building a Presidency behind a giant scrim. When he takes office we will only see what he chooses to project or to reveal. He will continue to divide us and play our emotions like the maestro that he is. My fear is that our only hope of revealing what he is up to will be either by taking control of the lighting board or storming the stage.

Of Poverty and Proverbs - An Excuse to Blame the Poor

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

There is some wisdom in this old English proverb. It seems obvious that our survival instinct compels us to use our skills to meet our basic needs. The point being made by this proverb is that It is  more worthwhile to teach someone to do something for themselves than to do it for them.

As a nugget of wisdom, however, the expression is also insufficient. It assumes that resource and circumstances are otherwise favorable for the fisherman. The proverb shouldn't be taken too literally or applied too broadly, but it often is. This is especially the case when it is applied to social welfare.

Specifically, it becomes a problem when policy makers believe that all you have to do is give someone the skills they need and they can do the rest on their own. It's the notion that skills plus self-determination are sufficient for success. This reductive thinking forms the rationale behind the conservative politics of poverty. It's destructive corollary is a belief that when skills have been properly transferred, yet success remains elusive, the fault lies within the character of the person. It is a belief that fails to consider scarce resources or other barriers beyond a person's control.

To make this point, take the proverbial fisherman as an example and ask yourself the following question: What else, other than skills, might be required for the fisherman to catch his daily meal?

You won't get very far down your list before you see the point here. The fisherman's success still requires the right conditions, many of which are beyond his personal control. And some of the conditions are dependent on social factors, or environmental factors over which we have societal influence. Examples of these include having clean water, allowing public access, or requiring a fishing license.

The devil is always in the details. There are no simple formulaic ways to think about poverty. There is only the need to critically evaluate the impact of policies that influence everyone's well being, and to seek out, and overcome the barriers people face every day to putting food on their table. Do that and every able bodied person will act with self-determination.

Fake News vs. Poor Journalism

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

When journalists report on real events and get the facts wrong, or spin the facts to fit a point of view, that's bad journalism. When a non-journalist makes up a story about events that never even happened, that's fake news.

Fake news is a real phenomenon. It is a new phenomenon as well. It's fake news because it makes up totally fictitious stories from scratch and publishes it as news... to make a profit. These merchants of lies are not citizen journalists, but hucksters motivated by internet ad revenue. They do it for the hits and clicks that generate their income. Some may fall into the category of propagandists with an ideological agenda, but it hardly matters. Either way, the internet trolls pick up these fictitious stories and run with them, spreading the lies far and wide. The damage is done. Reputations are ruined. Public distrust is multiplied. Misconceptions are created, fears are stoked and ill conceived ideologies are reinforced. American's have become more hopelessly divided because we no longer form our opinions based on a similar sets of facts.

Business is brisk for the fake news scammers. They are filling a vast and pernicious need for the folks who no longer trust conventional journalism, corporate media, their government or the establishment. The creators of fake news are tapping into the anger, frustration and despair of millions of American's who have been cut adrift in our declining middle class. These are mostly good folks who feel forgotten and betrayed by the broken promises of politician's pretending to represent them. Establishment leaders have hidden the truth behind our economic and social decline. This opened the way for false and divisive narratives to fill the gap in our understandings about what is happening to us. It made us vulnerable to propaganda and exploitation to win our votes. And, it has created a financial opportunity for these unscrupulous fake news scammers.

Most of the fake news internet sites can't be traced to their original source or owner. It is hard sometimes to tell them from real news sites. Some of the sites have a URL address and a look of legitimacy, such as the ABcnews.com.co site that has no connection with ABC News. An explanation and list of the 58 most prominent fake news sites can be found at "Here are all the 'fake news' sites to watch out for on Facebook"  Some of the sites are well know satirical sites, like The Onion, which sometimes is mistaken for real news. Other sights, however, just make stuff with no higher literary purpose.

A recent investigation by NPR (National Public Radio) enlisted the help of an internet tech company to track down the owner of a fake news website called "Denver Guardian.com" and uncover just how the fake news industry operates. This is a brief excerpt explaining their reasons for this investigation:

" A lot of fake and misleading news stories were shared across social media during the election. One that got a lot of traffic had this headline: "FBI Agent Suspected In Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead In Apparent Murder-Suicide." The story is completely false, but it was shared on Facebook over half a million times.

We wondered who was behind that story and why it was written. It appeared on a site that had the look and feel of a local newspaper. Denverguardian.com even had the local weather. But it had only one news story — the fake one."

More and more American's are getting their news from the internet, including you if you are reading this. The NPR report is a cautionary tale of what to expect as we move forward. Once these scammers get a taste for the profits to be made on fake news, there is no reason to believe the market for lies will dry up any time soon. And given the way our President Elect ran his campaign, the prospects for a private/public partnership between his administration and the budding fake news industry is frightening.

It is important to maintain a distinction between fake news and bad or biased news reporting. If we blur that distinction we completely undermine confidence in journalism, the only institution we have to investigate the real events that matter in our world. We need to hold journalists accountable for accurate, unbiased news accounts but we shouldn't confuse them with unscrupulous creative writers who publish pure fiction as if it were news in order to make money on their websites.

Trump, the Marketer-in-Chief

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

If anyone seriously thought that Donald Trump was running for President out of high mindedness, you can give it up now. He was running to elevate his brand and market the Presidency for personal gain.

How so? 

Well, he just spent months on the campaign trail wearing a red cap with his campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again" on it. It became part of his campaign swag.

Every president in history, and any future president, would retire that cap and donate it to the Smithsonian Museum or feature it in their future presidential library. Not this guy. He fully intends to market the image and make a killing off of it. Expect to see some version of it for retail next Christmas while Donald Trump is sipping brandy in one of his Presidential palaces. Billionaires!

How much does this true-spirit-of-Christmas ornament go for this year?

It's yours for just $149 dollars and no "sense"! This is the sort of change I never expected, the selling of the Presidency by the President-elect himself. 

More than 45 million people, or 14.5% of all Americans, lived below the poverty line last year. I'm certain none of them can afford this overpriced campaign schlock. Perhaps the proceeds for this sale are going to fund food pantries or house the homeless over the holiday season?  Well, there is nothing mentioned in the advertising to suggest that.

Maybe this isn't really being marketed by President-elect Donald Trump. Maybe his business isn't really financially benefiting. Could it be that some other enterprising fool is cleaning up on his political success?

I thought of that, so I checked. According to the internet advertisement, the link to buy the "classic red MAGA hat" is DonaldTrump.com. It's his Trump store. To be sure there wasn't a mistake, I went to the Whois.com website and confirmed that the domain name is registered to THE TRUMP ORGANIZATION (see below). 

So there it is! "Get Yours" America! (If you can afford it.) Is this supposed to be our new normal? Do we really have a President who is a businessman for himself first and President for the people last? 

This Christmas you should grab a bottle of Trump wine and drown your sorrows, because no one at the highest reaches of government will be marketing your cares away.