The Day the Internet Went Analog
What happens when millions of people believe the internet is something different from real life?
What happens when people say whatever they want in perceived anonymity, with perceived immunity from consequence, among a global audience?
What happens when “just words” are amplified, sometimes by people with high profiles, without fact-checking?
What happens when tweets and posts are shared by enough people on the internet to become a meme (an idea that spreads virally)?
What happens when politicians see that their base has fervently embraced one of these memes?
What happens when tweets and Facebook posts and memes evolve into talking points in political speeches… and they work?
What happens when anonymous message boards turned tweets turned talking points actually help to get someone elected?
This process distillation could continue, but the shorthand answer is simple: An alternate reality enjoyed mostly from one’s couch, and a major incentive for those in power to double down on the ecosystem that created it.
Unfounded claims have always existed in politics and always will — it’s the definition of political rhetoric — but two new variables have emerged in the digital age that change the fundamental equation of how the public is informed: (1) the perception of a safe harbor for any an all claims, and (2) the compounding effect of social media on information distribution.
To get a better sense of the impact these new variables have had, it’s important to remind ourselves of how much media has evolved over the past century.
Historically, mass media contained checks and balances — in fact, it was forced to have them by government regulation because “broadcast” media like TV and radio delivered information to everyone, meaning those technologies could easily be used for evil. It’s why broadcasters have to give equal ad time to each candidate during political campaigns and why they are liable to defamation suits if they don’t carefully label programming as “opinion.”
An (oversimplified) equation for how information was surfaced, proliferated, and perceived within the legacy media framework might look like this:
Claim x Evidence (or public visibility of the individual making the claim) = Newsworthiness.
This formula was quickly followed by a second equation that determined the amount of coverage a story might get:
Claim/Journalistic Investigation = Credibility
The degree to which the claim stood up to investigation, i.e. its credibility, resulted in the amount of coverage, the size of the headlines and, ultimately, public acceptance as fact.
The legacy formula worked reasonably well before the media ecosystem fragmented. When there were just a few major broadcast networks, audiences with limited options ensured a somewhat equal rationing of ad dollars between the three major networks, the primary variable being which hit entertainment programs drove the most tune-in. Dallas gave CBS an edge in the early 80s; The Cosby Show helped NBC in the late 80s; Roseanne gave ABC a winner shortly thereafter… you get the point. The news remained, for the most part, The News — a separate thing from entertainment by which value was assigned to information quality. Information quality had its own definition based on trustworthiness and credibility — or more simply put: how well the information conveyed stood up under the conditions of the every day reality experienced by viewers.
This legacy media model took its first hit in the 90s as cable proliferated and the number of TV channels exploded. Consumers were offered more viewing options, and the ratings race was set into full gear. Suddenly advertisers had more options, many of which were designed for certain audience segments — HGTV helped advertisers shift from targeting the public at large to homeowners and home and garden enthusiasts; Nickelodeon introduced 24-hour kids programming, etc. In other words, the explosion of TV channels and new content shifted the media and advertising businesses in a new direction driven by economic incentives in which relevant audience segments were fast becoming the desirable feature.
Applying lessons learned from his experience with television’s impact on the Nixon/Kennedy election, and taking his cue from emerging talk radio stars like Rush Limbaugh, Roger Ailes founded FOX News as the first news channel to follow niche audience principles — after all, what’s the difference between information about world events and information about remodeling? His job got easier by talk pioneers like Limbaugh who, after 1987, didnt have to content with the Fairness Doctrine — the Federal Communications Commission policy that required public media channels to base their stories on fact and to present both sides of a question. When it was gone, talk radio took off, hosted by radio jocks who contrasted their ideal country with what they saw as the socialism around them: a world in which hardworking white men who took care of their wives and children were hemmed in by government that was taxing them to give benefits to lazy people of color and “Feminazis.” These “Liberals” were undermining the country and the family, aided and abetted by lawmakers building a big government that sucked tax dollars. Fox News took its programming cue from this burgeoning industry and mixed in opinion programming that echoed the right wing radio talk track in an effort to secure the attention of people with conservative political views, and it worked. The news was changed forever. The echo chamber started to form.
The internet was emerging for mass media consumption around this same time, and it was positioned as an open, unregulated forum for free speech — a perception that has largely remained unchanged. But as the internet matured, so did the technology behind it. Like TV, the internet quickly became a place where niche audiences could self-segment according to their interests and hobbies. But unlike TV, that self-segmentation could be nurtured by a carefully constructed user experience powered by algorithms. These conditions helped make the internet the place for marketers to target people based on their search behavior and browsing history. Message boards emerged dedicated to everything from benign hobbies to extremist political views in the race for attention — and advertisers followed (or blocked, as the case may be). The lack of regulation and relative anonymity fueled a perception among internet users that anything goes — the internet is a place distinct from the real world; a place where any and every interest could be easily explored; where sexual fantasies became tangible; where communication around the globe became instant, and in which a fully customized media experience could be catered to your specific preferences. Social media was built upon these exact principles — serving as the pure example of a customized digital universe. And as the algorithms became more advanced, so did the catering; so did the automation.
In fact, the very foundation of the information services on which we now rely is automation. In the old media model we had editors and journalists sifting through what is credible; what is true — remember the formula. This created a sort of shared perspective, at least insofar as one’s framework for reality was concerned. Want to argue the subjective elements? Go for it, but we’re going to do so within the same shared reality. All of that has changed.
Today, we can each be convinced to share our views and interests, and we’ll do so for free (we are the useful idiots that make the distribution platforms profitable and appealing to capital). So instead of paying journalists to produce quality information and paying an editor to validate information according to its veracity, we have ourselves as reporters and an algorithm that validates (and rewards!) information according to its popularity.
“What are people clicking on the most?”
“What do they share the most?”
“How many likes? And by whom?”
The answers to these questions are asked at an individual and small-group level, not a macro/societal level and without the fact-checking part. The incentive has changed. We no longer reward good reporting, but achieving attention (“OMG I went viral! I’ve gained so many followers!). And once your attention is earned, the algorithm is designed to get you to engage — to like or share or comment. As you give off these signals, the technology seeks to give you more of what pulled you in.
However, it’s not always a 1:1 correlation. For example, if you are a mother who has shown interest in homeschooling, it’s very likely that you will be targeted with content related to the dangers of GMO foods. Say you’re curious and explore the topic. Next, it’s likely you will begin to see “related content” about vaccine dangers, which, if effective in drawing your interest, will produce adjacent content about chemtrails, which in turn will profile you for conspiracy content from QAnon. It’s a slippery slope, and the entire experience will feel quite organic and natural — easy, even. Hell, you were likely just passing time at the end of a long day by scrolling through your News Feed when it happened. But along that surprisingly common and easy journey into Crazyland, people lose their tolerance for complexity and nuance, and begin to opt in to black and white worldviews that easily clash. Black and white. Right and wrong. Good and evil.
Welcome to now.
If information must stand up under the conditions of the every day reality experienced by consumers in order to be reliable, then what happens when the dominant experience of the consumer’s reality is algorithm-led consumption from a smartphone screen?
The digital era has transformed how humans perceive reality because the curated worlds within our screens have become our realities, but without the analog rules of cause and effect, or worse, repercussions for lying or being an asshole.
The algorithm-fueled attention bubbles on social media have become mainstream (and profitable) enough to incentivize an explosion of alternative “news” websites and even the creation of entire TV networks. The result is that it is now possible to completely isolate yourself within a worldview on every screen; to build a network of personal connections based wholly on ideology rather than geographic convenience or shared life experiences. There is a new, much simpler equation for media success:
Claim x Virality = Newsworthiness.
This formula is quickly followed not by an equation designed to filter for credibility and truth, but instead by a virality multiplier within a well-funded communication structure that has been designed to mimic the appearance of the traditional, credible journalistic platforms of the past. The full formula might look something like this:
Online Message Boards x Interest = Proliferation of Mainstream Social Media Posts; followed by: Post x Virality = Coverage.
Coverage of viral content is inherently useful to a new media organization looking for an audience — it is free R&D that offers reliable proof that a piece of information will command attention. It’s why the Twitter profile of a new media organization like OAN has this pinned to the top:
That entire value proposition is driven by an impenetrable worldview that must not be touched by reality — and when it is, it becomes competitive positioning.
The meme that the mainstream media is biased (or, now, the “enemy”) has its genesis in Fox News’ mid-90s go-to-market strategy — it has been around for almost 30 years. In practice, “news” organizations like OAN and Newsmax are utilizing the same exact messaging and tactics that Fox News utilized to compete with the broadcast and cable news media incumbents of old. The difference is that OAN and Newsmax (and Fox, when applicable) have an enormous leg up by simply reading what’s trending before creating their programming schedule. Internet memes taken offline easily earn attention, which earns dollars. And when engagement is the gold standard of attention it’s not hard for a producer to separate the wheat from the chaff. Hundreds of thousands of shares? Hundreds of comments? Gold! “Tonight on OAN…
OAN, Newsmax and other entrants in the war for conservative viewership are basing their entire business models on bringing comment threads and anonymous tweets to life through sight, sound and emotion.
But what happens when that comment thread becomes a physical gathering instead of a TV show?
What happens when that “investigative” story incites violence?
What happens when an alternate reality is force-fit into offline experiences taking place in real reality?
What happens when the digital world meets its analog counterpart?
We found out on January 6, 2021 when an angry mob of American insurrectionists stormed their own Capitol on entirely false pretenses.
Yet while millions of Americans are shocked, saddened and angry about the riots in D.C., millions of others are spending their time opining that social media companies are banning accounts and purging content. The majority of an entire political party isn’t upset with the bedrock conditions upon which the violent events at the nation’s capitol unfolded, but are instead furious with Twitter and Facebook for “silencing conservative voices.” Even those since arrested seem to be confused about why they are experiencing consequences after just being “caught up in the moment,” or worse, feeling violated given that they were doing what was asked of them by the United State President. One sitting Senator claimed that “the media and members of the Washington establishment want to deceive Americans into thinking those who raised concerns incited violence, simply by voicing the concern.”
This is where the realities of digital and analog worlds collide, and where a dose of real reality is desperately needed.
Perceived anonymity, a lack of consequence for years of threats and lies, and an algorithm-greased slide into online extremism have dulled the senses of millions of Americans. This has been compounded by the example of a leader who has said and done whatever he wants throughout his most life without consequence.
Is it really any surprise then, that Trump and his enablers being held to account — even by some in his own party — has shocked and angered many conservatives? That’s not how it works! Those aren’t the rules! When I copy and pasted that meme revoking Facebook’s use of my pictures, information, messages and posts, you mean to tell me it didn’t override the terms and conditions I agreed to?
The trouble is this idea — a dangerous meme in itself — that if propagandists use digital platforms to proclaim the arrival of a new Civil War then it’s ok because it happened online and everything can happen online so it can’t be taken too seriously. Just because “news” channels spread unfounded lies about widespread election fraud and the President of the United States tells you to save the country and fight for him doesn’t mean any crimes are going to be committed. After all, they were just reporting or asking questions or “voicing concerns” about what was online so that can’t be taken too seriously or blamed either. Come on, people were interfacing and sharing information via a screen and the miasma that is social media, not in real life. The actions people took in response that information are… not real? Well, maybe they are, but that’s the individual’s fault — the fault of a few that should be held accountable! It’s not my fault for sharing the memes that made them angry…
Hm.
This dangerous, unaccountable worldview is easily tied back to to the alternate reality fostered by digital tech, which has also generated a misperception of free speech. Destructive, demonstrably false, often insane lies and conspiracies are not protected speech — and sharing them and leveraging them for personal gain or to further incite emotion from people is not “voicing concern.” Just because a lie goes viral does not change that. The fact that all of the people within your bubble or network agree with you is not proof. Retweets, likes, and shares are not proxies for evidence or truth.
This is where we need to step out from behind our Twitter handles and look in the mirror.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees free speech — it even protects the speaker against incitement to the extent that the resultant illegal action happens in some murky indefinite future. However, speech is not protected if it used to incite a violation of the law that is both imminent and likely.
Were the illegal portions of events that occurred at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 imminent and likely? And if so, was the violence incited by tweets and other social media postings and incendiary language used in speeches and interviews?
If the answer to these questions is yes, then it’s time to stop whining about being banned from Twitter and Facebook.
You tell me.
In June, President Trump started sending out fundraising emails with the stated goal of enlisting people into the “Trump Army,” framing loyalists as “the first line of defense” in fighting the “liberal mob” and fighting against the Left’s efforts to “steal the election” with mail-in voting.
In August, Trump tacitly endorsed QAnon, a disproven and discredited far-right conspiracy theory alleging that a cabal of Satan-worshipping cannibalistic pedophiles is running a global child sex-trafficking ring and plotting against U.S. president Donald Trump, who is fighting the cabal. Trump frequently retweets posts from QAnon supporters throughout the months leading to the election — and several GOP candidates for office are adherents to Q. One specific QAnon conspiracy theory asserts that Trump is planning a day of reckoning known as the “Storm”, when thousands of members of the cabal will be arrested. This is known as the “Plan”.
There are thousands of pre-election examples of misinformation that set the stage for Republicans to distrust the American election results well before the election takes place, but it was post-election where things get ugliest.
After November 3rd, Trump repeatedly insists that the election had been stolen and regularly urged people to “fight” to change the results, tweeting: “WE HAVE ONLY JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT!!!” on December 12th. Six days later, Trump echoed this message, tweeting: “Republican Senators have to get tougher, or you wont have a Republican Party anymore. We won the Presidential Election, by a lot. FIGHT FOR IT. Don’t let them take it away!”
The president’s lawyer, Lin Wood, posted such things as, “Our country is headed to Civil War… President Trump must follow the precedent of Abraham Lincoln and declare martial law,” and “We’re going to slay Goliath, the communists, the liberals, the phonies. Joe Biden will never set foot in the Oval Office of this country. It will not happen on our watch. Never gonna happen.”
The Arizona State Republican Party responded to the tweet “I am willing to give my life for this fight,” by saying, “He is. Are you?” GOP accounts also tweet a clip of the 2008 movie Rambo, as the character proclaims, “This is what we do, who we are. Live for nothing, or die for something.”
In December, Michael Flynn began to share the idea that President Trump could use the United States military in response to what the President falsely claimed to be a rigged election. In response, Republican State Senators tweet and post on Facebook for President Trump to “declare a national emergency” and “invoke the Insurrection Act” in response to those false claims (something still apparently being discussed between Trump and a shrinking group of supporters).
Days later on December 19th, Trump tweets that its “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election” and tells his follows that there will be a “Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”
The chair of the Arizona GOP tweets, “We are working every avenue to stop this coup & to stop our Republic from crumbing. Patriots are united. Those who are against us are exposing themselves. #Liberty & #freedom are on the line. #CrossTheRubicon @GenFlynn.” Crossing the Rubicon is a reference to Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon river on January 10, 49 BC that precipitated the Roman Civil War and ultimately led to Caesar’s becoming dictator. The hashtag #CrossTheRubicon soon proliferates across pro-Trump social media.
As the January 6th MAGA event nears, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) says on Newsmax that as a consequence of the dismissal of his lawsuit enjoining Mike Pence to overturn the election results, “you got to go to the streets and be as violent as Antifa and BLM.”
The next day, a domestic terror group known as the Proud Boys announce they will attend the event — no one from the GOP responds to discourage them. Instead, the following day, January 3rd, Ted Cruz (R-TX) says at a Georgia rally how, “We will not go quietly into the night. We will defend liberty. And we are going to win.” Donald Trump, Jr., introducing his father, tells the crowd, “We need to fight.” President Trump then takes the stage, telling supporters, “They’re not taking this White House. We’re going to fight like hell.”
On the day of the event, newly elected Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who had earlier in the week made a video purporting to carry her firearm into the Capitol, tweets: “Today is 1776.” Her QAnon-supporting counterpart Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) tweets: “FIGHT. FOR. TRUMP.”
In his speech on the National Mall, Rudy Giuliani tells the growing crowd, “If we’re right, a lot of them will go to jail. So let’s have trial by combat… I’ll be darned if they’re going to take our free and fair vote…We’re going to fight to the very end to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Then Donald Trump, himself, takes the stage. He starts with a wish that he could gather his supporters in the military and law enforcement to march toward the Capitol:
“I would love if those tens of thousands of people would be allowed — the military, the Secret Service…I would love it if they could be allowed to come up with us.”
He tells his followers to show their strength and fight:
“You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
“Something is wrong here, something is really wrong, can’t have happened and we fight, we fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
And ultimately directs them to march on the Capitol:
“So we are going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I love Pennsylvania Avenue, and we are going to the Capitol, and we are going to try and give — the Democrats are hopeless, they are never voting for anything, not even one vote but we are going to try — give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don’t need any of our help — we’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country. So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.”
We know what happened next.
Yet at 6:01 PM, President Tump tweets: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”
Five people die in the assault on the Capitol, including U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick. Another fifteen officers are hospitalized, with 56 in total reported injured.
So back to free speech.
Were the illegal events that occurred at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 imminent and likely?
Yes. Leading up to the event, specific threats of violence were numerous. Hundreds of social media posts promoted violence, with thousands using hashtags promoting a second civil war. Such threats and chatter were publicly visible on social media and a day before rioters stormed Congress, the FBI issued an explicit warning that extremists were preparing to travel to Washington to commit violence and “war,” with plans including individuals sharing a map of the complex’s tunnels, and possible rally points for would-be conspirators to meet in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and South Carolina to head in groups to Washington:
“As of 5 January 2021, FBI Norfolk received information indicating calls for violence in response to ‘unlawful lockdowns’ to begin on 6 January 2021 in Washington, D.C.”
“An online thread discussed specific calls for violence to include stating ‘Be ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, and blood from their BLM and Pantifa slave soldiers being spilled. Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal.”
So we know violence and crimes were imminent and likely, but were they incited by the President and others on social media now being shut down?
To answer that, one must ask why all of these people were gathered in Washington D.C. in the first place, and the answer is simple — they were told to be there to fight for an easily disprovable lie that the election was stolen from President Trump through some combination of an international communist conspiracy, rigged voting machines, and an electoral fraud scheme coordinated by hundreds of state election officials from swing states (who only tampered with the presidential results, and not the down ballot results that tended to benefit GOP candidates…).
The premise for this fight has been rejected as totally meritless by numerous state and federal judges, state and local election officials, governors, the Justice and Homeland Security departments, the Electoral College, and numerous independent commentators, journalists and news organizations. And the President clearly knew about the above-noted violent threats, yet during his rally stated: “When you catch somebody in a fraud, you are allowed to go by very different rules… You’ll never take our country back with weakness.”
I don’t think we need to go on…
Losing your tweets or Facebook profile because you helped proliferate information that led to a violent insurrection is not a violation of the Bill of Rights. Being banned from Twitter or Facebook because you won’t stop sharing false information that resulted in murder is not a violation of your right to free speech — in fact, you’re lucky that access to an online fantasyland is all that is taken away from you (assuming you weren’t filmed inside of the Capitol). To think that you have lost some sacred right because Parler was taken down is just plain wrong — an example of your digital brain meeting the analog world with which you’ve lost touch.
And that is the larger issue that still remains.
The digital era has provided us an anonymity and an ability to untether ourselves from inhibitions that we otherwise would not have. What you would do online and what you would do in the analog world is disconnected, and that’s a fundamental human problem that needs to be overcome. Our alternate digital realities offer a lack of accountability in our speech that we have never encountered. The laws on the books against incitement to riot and violence have been on our books for as long as we have been a country — they have been tried and tested in the courts — this is old hat. You can’t call for civil war in the analog world without getting into trouble — turns out the same needs to apply online. Just because you’re committing the crime under a pseudonym or in response to bad information doesn’t change anything. And if you are the creator of that bad information, then you have committed a crime.
The fact that this is a point of confusion for millions of Americans is a problem. Improving our education system and disrupting our alternate realities is where we need to start fixing that problem.
The solution requires shutting down provably false memes and relegating them back to the fringes where they’ve always been, and for those who know better to start telling the truth. How much political paralysis and anger and potential real world violence could be avoided if our leaders uniformly acknowledged that the very premise upon which the riots were held is false? Couching lies within the safe harbor of just “voicing concerns” of a misled constituency that you know has been misled will not help — that’s the analog version of retweeting the latest conspiracy theory.
After all, if you genuinely believe that your family is going to be locked into a concentration camp by evil socialist democrats, or that there’s an international cabal of pedophiles running the world, or that the United States is experiencing a coup organized by state election officials and foreign nations and makers of voting machines (on and on…) then you can justify your violent zeal to yourself. However, ignorance and delusion are not reasonable alibis, as many are now learning. When everything upon which you base your actions is shown to be false, your anger must face both inward and toward those by whom you have been misled. This isn’t a risk many in the GOP are willing to take, and their cowardice is a detriment to their party and country.
So how do we move forward when those who have been misled and are now experiencing repercussions are painted as victims by the very proliferators of misinformation that led them here? Sure you stormed the Capitol and made some bad decisions, but hey, you vote Republican… and it’s bullshit that your Twitter was suspended! We were only voicing our concerns...”
How do we move forward when the very echo chambers that incited the violence in D.C. continue to reinforce ad nauseam that the “mainstream media” — that is, to say, any institutional media that isn’t the worldview that we, conveniently, supply you — can’t be trusted? How do we move forward when any member of the Party who challenges the veracity of conspiracy claims is immediately outcast?
Can we?
Will the cold dose of reality now being rained upon conspiracy theorists and wannabe revolutionaries force a change in thought?
It’s unlikely.
So where do we go from here?
As long as violence and anger are driven by purveyors of lies who know that they tell lies but continue to tell them because of the economic or political incentive, we will be lost as a nation — and potentially as a species. And the same goes for the platforms that enable them. The algorithms that validate and reward information according to popularity and relevance could use a refactoring to include that old-fashioned formula developed by the legacy media companies of yesteryear, and it would be a boon for the human race if news could, once again, be The News. Maybe, just maybe, starting here could shrink the extremes at the each end of the political spectrum and we can somehow find our way back to middle ground as a nation.
Reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine and applying it to all media could be a good start. By requiring that controversial issues of public importance are presented in a manner that is honest, equitable, and balanced — but most importantly, accountable to reality — could serve as a counterweight to the algorithms pressing us to the extremes.
President Dwight Eisenhower said, “The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.”
We need to find our way out of the delusional gutters designed by our digital worlds and back to real life. We need to remind ourselves that, in the end, neither side will win. The “other side” will always exist, and that’s ok — they are your neighbors. The anonymous handles in your digital neighborhood should not replace the people in your community. Ours is not a struggle that will result in one extreme conquering the other — it is a struggle from the middle out, by which the extremes need to be tempered and held accountable wherever they arise.
The only cure is truth.
On January 6th we got a good look at what happens when the digital world goes analog for a day. It likely will not be our last unless we begin to look up from our screens.
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