The Storm Is Upon Us

 The Disinformation storm. On Earth-2, an alternate universe where Elon Musk didn't buy Twitter and dismantle it in the service of the far right, when Hamas stormed across the border in a surprise attack on Israel we were able to get credible breaking news from Twitter (now X . . . Xitter).

Alas, here, where we live, on Earth 1, we can't. It's a sea of disinformation, misinformation, speculation masquerading as information, and so on. If you believe that the Main Stream Media is like that two, you are an idiot. No: the MSM is not a disinformation factory--and they are doing the only reporting The Omnivore trusts these days--however, there is one thing they weren't good at: on the ground, real-time information from people in the disaster area.

Now that Elon has carefully broken all of it (from internal systems that prevented the spread of misinformation to the removal of verification checks to cozying up with the far right, etc.) we are stuck with a service that was pretty vital to those of us prising real-time data with a minimal filter being replaced with a service that feeds us 3rd Riech propaganda in real time.

It's worse than that: the information eco-system ain't simple. A lie repeated on Twitter can be picked up and repeated by someone you trust--or, if you fall for it, someone who trusts you. The maneuver was just read an assertion that Israeli media is reporting they got a heads up from Egyptian intelligence about the attack.

This person did NOT say "and I read it from someone I don't know on Twitter." But they did. Fortunately, when The Omniovre asked "where'd you see that?" the answer was "someone I don't know who they are on twitter--so . . . yeah . . ." and to be fair it was presented as unverified "ruminint" anyway--but the fact remains that if The Omnivore had been running out the door and hadn't asked about this, The Omnivore would've been inclined to believe it. 

It sneaks past The Omnivore's internal defenses by hitting some priors (intel services must've known something) and the person relaying it is trusted--so . . . yeah.

If you are getting any information that is NOT from AP, Reuters, the BBC, and so on--that group in the very small group of outlets today that we call the "Lamestream Media"--you may be feeding from this disinformation well and not even know it. That means culturally we have to roll back to like 1998 or else we're all gonna end up like the boomers: stuffled full of bullshit and not even aware of it.

Dammit.