· Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola February 09, 2022
Abridged for readability.
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
· Investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson explains how virtually everything you see and hear online has been co-opted or taken over to serve another agenda.
· Fact-checking is one part of the campaign to control what you see online, and therefore what you think and how you perceive reality
· Instead of real journalists and reporters, the media is infiltrated with propagandists who dictate what’s “fake news” and what’s not
· The public is being manipulated to want their information censored by third-party “fact”-checkers, which were introduced as a tool to confuse and control the public further
· “Conspiracy theory”, “debunked”, “quackery” and “antivaccine” are examples of terms that are being used as propaganda tools; if you hear them, it should make you dig deeper for the truth
· Those who rely solely on the internet for their information are being controlled. You can fight back by doing your own research and trusting your common sense
Before 2015 or 2016, information was freely available online with little interference. But since then, propagandists have infiltrated the internet. Working with Big Tech and government, they began to control information. “Fact-checking” is a once-obscure term that has since gone mainstream. This is one part of the campaign to control what you see online, and therefore what you believe.
Speaking with Jan Jekielek, The Epoch Times senior editor and host of the show “American Thought Leaders,” investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson explains how almost everything you see and hear online has been taken over to serve an agenda:1
“One has to understand that nearly every mode of information has been co-opted. Fact checks are no different. They have been either captured or created to distribute narratives and propaganda. Your common sense will help you decipher what is true.
Information Is Being Controlled
Several key online sources are heavily manipulated. These include Wikipedia, Snopes, most “fact” checkers, and HealthFeedback.org. This last is a fake-science group used by Facebook and other Big Tech companies to make real science seem false.
Fact-checkers are often referred to as scientists, but this is propaganda. And while there have always been efforts to shape media information, news reporters formerly would try to get both sides of the story.
But beginning in the early 2000s, efforts were started to prevent some information from being reported. Pharmaceutical companies hired global PR firms to do this. These firms also partnered with government.
Suppressing and censoring information took off in 2015 to 2016, when Donald Trump was perceived to be a unique threat by both Democrats and Republicans. Since then, these techniques have become commonplace.
After he won the election, a campaign was organized that exploited the already frenzied media. The result was today’s crazy information landscape. Journalists no longer try to uncover the truth. Instead, they parrot whatever establishment scientists or politicians want them to say.
The new media is infiltrated with propagandists who dictate what’s “fake news” and what’s not. Many believe that fake news is a product of Trump, but Big Tech created a lobbying campaign of propagandists. Fact-checking and censoring were born.
The term “fake news” was popularized after Trump was elected, but came from before— it was an invention of the political activist website First Draft News, which is partially funded by Google.4
Propagandists were invited Into the Newsroom
We’re in the midst of an information war where it’s difficult to tell the truth from lies. Journalists are no longer watchdogs. They are taking information from sources with agendas and then trying to convince the public of whatever today’s lie is. Censorship and “debunking” are now standard operating procedures.
Efforts are underway to program the public to request that their information be censored and “fact-checked” by agents with an agenda.
When you only hear one side of the story, and you can’t access contrary information, it becomes impossible to decipher what is real.
While there used to be a firewall between reporters and the people they reported on, that’s long gone. Propagandists are now part of the media.
The COVID false information Campaign
In early 2020, as the pandemic first started brewing, it was painfully obvious to investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson that the public narrative was a pack of lies.
Many few scientists she spoke to were questioning the advice being given by government scientists. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and lead spokesperson for the president’s COVID response, was questionable early on. She asked the scientists if they would speak out about their concerns, but
“They said they dared not speak out for fear of being controversialized and for fear of being called coronavirus deniers because that phrase was starting to be used in the media. And secondly, they feared contradicting Fauci, who they said had been canonized in the press.
These scientists’ opinions deserved to be heard, but their fears silenced them. They feared losing their government funding and their careers.
Attkisson went on:9 “That started to strike me as, this is a really dangerous environment when esteemed scientists who have valuable information and opinions are afraid to give them, and instead we’re hearing a party line that many of them disagree with but won’t say so.”
She mentioned the controversial U.S. government funding of gain-of-function research in China, and the notion that SARS-CoV-2 could have come from a Chinese laboratory — both were glaring issues that no one would talk about.
“These are the kinds of things early on that were sort of a red flag to me that says somebody’s trying to shape the information,” she continued. “They’re using reporters to do it. Public health figures are involved and that makes me want to know what’s really behind it.”10
The term ‘Conspiracy Theory’ was Devised by the CIA
This is now used to dismiss narratives that go against the grain. According to Attkisson, it is intentional. These words were originally used by the CIA to debunk theories about the assassination of JFK.
She writes, “Agents (were to) go out and talk to reporters about these things as conspiracy theories. I’m married to a former law enforcement official who has said to me many times, you know the conspiracy theory phrase as it is used doesn’t make sense. Nearly everything is a conspiracy.”11
Anything that involves two or more people is technically a conspiracy, but now when people hear the term, they’re conditioned to think it’s false. Attkisson goes on, “It’s designed to pluck this little part of your brain that says, ‘well that thing’s not true.’” When she hears the term, however, she thinks that information may well be true. “If somebody’s trying to debunk it, it usually means a powerful interest is behind it and it makes me want to go search for more information.”
The term “conspiracy theory” has lost meaning now because it’s used so much. “Debunked”, “quackery” and “antivaccine” are all terms that are similarly being used as propaganda tools. Attkisson says, “There’s a whole cast of propaganda phrases that I’ve outlined that are cues. When you hear them, they should make you think, ‘I need to find out more about it,’”
Fact Checkers Try to discredit an Accurate BMJ Investigation
In another example of the lengths that fact-checkers will go to discredit a story — even if it’s true — take an article published in the BMJ, titled, “COVID-19: Researchers blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial.”12 Written by investigative journalist Paul D. Thacker, it details a series of problems with laboratory management and quality control checks by Pfizer subcontractor Ventavia Research Group, which was testing Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
A regional director formerly employed by Ventavia witnessed falsified data, unblinded patients, inadequately trained vaccinators, and lack of proper follow-up on reported adverse events. After repeatedly notifying Ventavia about her concerns, she made a complaint to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. She was fired the same day.13
Soon after Thacker’s investigative piece was published in BMJ, it was “fact-checked” by a group called Lead Stories, which called her investigation a “hoax alert.” Along with “correcting” statements that Thacker did not make, Lead Stories claimed the investigation had “missing context.” Investigative reporter Matt Taibbi explained, “‘Missing context’ has become a term to disparage reporting that is true but inconvenient.”
Lead Stories took further issue with the BMJ investigation because it was shared by people such as Dr. Robert Malone and Robert F. Kennedy, who themselves have been targeted by fake fact-checkers. Taibbi added:15
“The real issue with Thacker’s piece is that it went viral and was retweeted by the wrong people. As Lead Stories noted with marked disapproval, some of those sharers included the likes of Dr. Robert Malone and Robert F. Kennedy. To Lead Stories, this clearly showed that the article was bad somehow, but the problem was, there was nothing to say the story was untrue.”
Thacker also called the “fact check” against his BMJ investigation “insane,” telling Taibbi:16
“Here’s what they do. They’re not fact-checking facts. What they’re doing is checking narratives. They can’t say that your facts are wrong, so it’s like, ‘Aha, there’s no context.’ Or, ‘It’s misleading.’ But that’s not a fact check. They just don’t like the story.”
Reality is Being Altered in Real-Time
As it stands, information is being changed in real-time to meet a common agenda. This includes definitions in dictionaries and on official government websites. Examples of definitions that have been changed recently include those for the pandemic, herd immunity, vaccines, and anti-vaxxer. Attkisson goes on:
“Virtually every form of information and sourcing that can be co-opted has been. That even includes the dictionary definitions and many other sources because these are important ways to influence thought. Language is powerful. People don’t want to be affiliated with certain names and labels.
It reminds me of ‘1984,’ the George Orwell story about the futuristic society, under which history was being rewritten in real-time to jive with the version that the government or the party wanted it to be. Definitions are now being rewritten and changed in real-time to fit with the establishment’s desired vision.”
For now, you can still use the Internet Archive, commonly known as Archive.org, as a historical archive. In addition to digitally hosting more than 1.4 million books and other documents, Archive.org acts as a historical vault for the Internet, preserving cached versions of websites that are no longer accessible to the public.18
Archive.org’s Wayback machine preserves digital information that has been removed or deleted, whether intentionally or for other reasons, but it, too, might disappear one day. Attkisson says:19
“It’s been a fascinating way to prove the effort to change our perception. All we really have now is the electronic record, by and large, and if that can be manipulated, there could be a time when — if they get rid of the Wayback machine, for example — that we can’t ever prove that anything had changed.”
Attkisson is maintaining a running list of things the media or public policy got wrong during the pandemic. These can still be verified using the Wayback machine, but they are not acknowledged as having been “ corrected” by the press. They include:20
Claims that the lab theory about the release of coronavirus had been debunked, when it had not been debunked
Public health officials saying masks don’t work, and then saying masks do work
Fauci testifying to congress that the death rate for coronavirus was 10 times worse than the flu, yet Attkisson found a published article by Fauci where he said the opposite, that “the overall clinical consequences of COVID-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza”21
It was wrong to send infected people from hospitals to nursing homes
It was wrong to isolate at home and close down parks and beaches; early data from New York City showed the vast majority of people hospitalized with coronavirus had been isolated at home, while people outside were not getting sick
It was wrong to tell people to wash their groceries off to prevent COVID-19
It was wrong to say COVID-19 shots prevented infection and transmission, and that the shots prevented 100% of hospitalizations and deaths
It was wrong to not focus more on therapeutics prior to shots and also post-shots
You Can Be Controlled if You Live Inside the Internet “Box”
Attkisson references a whole generation of people who live inside the box. Those who rely solely on the internet for their information are at serious risk of being controlled. She explains:22
“They didn’t know a time when information could be gathered elsewhere by looking around, seeing what you hear, seeing what you saw, talking to people around you, and looking at books and research.
And the people that want to control the information understand that if they can just control a few basic sources including Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Wikipedia where they have a lock on the information because we’ve all been funneled to those few sources. That has been the goal all along.
There’s a whole lot of people that get pretty much everything they know through the internet. And the goal of the people trying to make the narrative is to make people live online and to think that’s reality.”
The danger of this is that the internet paints a different picture from reality. You may read something that doesn’t sound quite right, or that you don’t agree with, but the internet makes you feel like you’re in the minority — even if you’re are not.
Attkisson goes on, “Understand that you may actually be in the majority, … but the goal of what they do online is to make you think you’re an outlier when you’re not, to make you afraid to talk about your viewpoint because they want to control you and make you think you’re the one who’s crazy You can be made to believe that — if you live in the box. So, I’m constantly telling people to live outside the box. Yes, you can get information there and do what you do online, but trust your common sense and talk to people around you. If you travel, talk to the people in the places you go. You’ll get a whole different picture, as I do, of what’s happening.”
The Truth Will Find a Way to be Told
While there are powerful forces at play to control information, all is not lost. Attkisson is aware of three entities that are actively working on a solution, which include:
1. Investors who want independent news organizations
2. Technical people trying to invent platforms that can’t be controlled and deplatformed by Big Tech
3. Journalists who want to work or contribute to these efforts
The Substack.com newsletters and the video platforms Rumble, Bitchute, and Odysee don’t censor. They are getting around Big Tech censorship, and Attkisson believes that these efforts will accelerate in the next few years.
Further, she says, “The propagandists may have overplayed their hand by being so obvious about the control of information and their censorship. It’s no longer deniable. Even people who want their sources curated can’t be always happy with the notion that they’re not able to get the full story, or that they’re only getting one side of something. I think the truth finds a way to be told … while there are a lot of people who are willing to be fooled, humans seek the truth. Follow your own common sense and reason.”
She continues, “Do your own research, make up your own mind, and trust your intuition. You’re going to be right more often than you think. Read a lot, think a lot, and don’t buy into the face value of any narrative.”
Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked. The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your health care professional before using products based on this content.
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