The fluffy kittens of Brexit

Another nice video from IAI about post-truth. This one is much more analytical than philosophical. There's a rather long intro, but there are also several very interesting and novel points.

1. In the Philippines, Duterte uses social media and troll factories to attack critical voices. Why bother with physical interventions when enough coordinated trolls can ruin the credibility of a source ? There's not even any need for direct censorship, because these attacks fulfill the same function. When journalists say they're under attack, the regime simply says, "no, there are real people voicing real concerns". Freedom of expression is being used as a guise for disinformation, which is just another way to shut people up.
2. Self expression is not the same as empowerment. Social media gives an unprecedented scope for self expression, even in countries which still have some direct censorship. But this doesn't necessarily give you any direct influence : the link between expression and empowerment is broken. Worse : the more you express yourself, the more manipulatable you are. Although still crude, the ability to micro-target individuals for persuasion is a whole new arena for propaganda not available in the previous century.
3. Something's changed in the audience demand - it no longer seems to matter as much if politicians lie. You can't hold someone to account if they don't care that they've been held to account (a sort of ignorance-based Stoicism, I guess). Even the Soviet Union would at least pretend to be offended if accused of lying - modern Russia doesn't even do that. Why have the nature of lies changed ? Previous ideologies, even the really bad ones, were based around the notion that they were making evidence-based improvements. They needed to cloak themselves in the language of truth. Following the collapse of Communism, a new ideology of nostalgia took hold that didn't need (and indeed would prefer to actively disregard) the truth, because the truth wasn't appealing. 
4. In the West, this change took longer and wasn't due to any single event, though wars and economic recessions play contributing roles. But the effect is the same. The old political definitions are less meaningful. This leads to populism not as an ideology, but a strategy : politics of pure feeling, sending out different messages to appeal to different groups. In this way politicians can collect disparate, deliberately very loose groups that cannot possibly hold together for more than a moment, but that's sometimes enough. Use this to rally them for one campaign and then let it fall apart, because by then you've already won.
5. The head of the digital aspect of the Brexit Leave campaign used exactly this strategy. Forget such notions as left and right, or major issues like immigration that people have already decided about. Instead, look for other, much less obvious unifying factors. In this case, the most successful advert was about... animal rights. Apparently this cuts across traditional political boundaries (I even remember someone on Google Plus - an undecided voter - raising this very issue). Then unify all the different groups with their targeted messages, all under one overall theme, and bring them together just for one crucial moment - which is all you need.

The War Against Reality

When information is a weapon, everyone is at war. With political campaigns using our data to tap into our deepest fears and desires, freedom and democracy are under attack too.