Facts, Myths, and Disinformation

This looks like a good place to begin a little inquiry. The editors of the Washington Post are alarmed at the disinformation and distortions being promulgated:

“WHERE ARE the protesters?” asked several accounts on Twitter early Monday morning, after most Washingtonians had gone to bed and the Web-waves had quieted. Using the hashtag #DCblackout, they claimed that communications downtown had been blocked to cover up police violence. Then came a series of suspicious missives in identical language declaring that all was well — spurring more concern among observers that something fishy really was afoot.

The entire thing was a ploy, carried out through fraudulent accounts and designed, it appears, to instill panic.

The #DCblackout scare is only one example of the disinformation flourishing amid the week’s anguish and unrest. The favorite tactic of Internet meddlers has been to exploit existing rifts in our society rather than to break open new ones on their own, and this crisis in particular may be ripe for infiltration. The largest Russian troll farm on Facebook leading up to the 2016 election had a go-to topic for sowing discord and division: Black Lives Matter. The Internet Research Agency even attempted to recruit the family members of African Americans killed by the police. America’s endemic racism is an Achilles’ heel.

Let’s start compiling a little list of the disinformation and distortions presently being promulgated. This is just a first approximation. Feel free to contribute your own candidates for the list. If you disagree that something on the list is either disinformation or a distortion, please provide evidence. The best sort of evidence would be multiple independent corroborations, especially from disinterested sources or sources on differing parts of the political spectrum. For example, a news report from the Washington Post and another distinct news report from the Wall Street Journal would be convincing evidence.

A few cautions. Extrapolation from what we believe to be true is not evidence. It’s an unproven hypothesis. Absence of an alternative explanation isn’t evidence, either.

Here we go:

• Communications blackout in Washington, DC to cover up police violence (see above)
• The rioting and violence in many American cities is being coordinated by Antifa or some left wing or anarchist groups.

  I have been unable to find a corroboration from a reliable source of the reports that loads of bricks have been pre-positioned in some of the riot areas or any other evidence of coordinated activity by left wing or anarchist groups. That having been said I would be tremendously surprised if there were no individual or even group left-wing or anarchist participation in the rioting and looting (the distinction between coordination).

• The rioting and violence in many American cities is being perpetrated and/or aggravated in an organized way by white supremacists.

  Again, no evidence but I’d be tremendously surprised, etc.

• The rioting and violence in many American cities is the work of organized criminal gangs.

  Despite Mayor Lightfoot having mentioned this multiple times I have found no corroborating evidence of it. Getting a panel van does not require a great deal of organization.

• There is systemic racism in America’s police forces.

  More on this later.

• President Trump’s entourage used tear gas on the demonstrators to enable Trump to have a photo op brandishing a Bible.

  Trump denies this adamantly. I suspect it was pepper spray rather than tear gas.

It might be entertaining to come up with a list of the disinformation and distortions associated with COVID-19. There’s certainly a lot of it.