{"id":55054,"date":"2020-09-17T07:32:39","date_gmt":"2020-09-17T12:32:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55054"},"modified":"2020-09-17T07:32:39","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T12:32:39","slug":"misinformation-was-always-dangerous-social-media-has-turned-it-into-a-viral-sickness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55054","title":{"rendered":"Misinformation Was Always Dangerous. Social Media Has Turned It into a Viral Sickness"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Misinformation Was Always Dangerous. Social Media Has Turned It into a Viral Sickness<\/a><\/h3>\n

Facebook\u2019s reach is being used to create division, spread hate and harm democracy. And the corporation doesn\u2019t care.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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\u2018Almost three-billion people now see the world through the personalized and profit-driven filter of social media.\u2019\u00a0Photo via Shutterstock.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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In 1486, a German priest named Heinrich Kramer published a manual called\u00a0Malleus Maleficarum<\/em><\/a>\u00a0or the\u00a0Hammer of Witches<\/em>. Kramer wrote the book as an act of\u00a0revenge<\/a> following his expulsion from Innsbruck by the local bishop after he tried \u2014 and failed \u2014 to convict a woman he was sexually obsessed by of satanic practices.<\/p>\n

Eventually reaching 30,000 copies, Kramer\u2019s book detailed the theory and practice of witch persecution that catalyzed a frenzy of female torture throughout Europe and claimed at least\u00a040,000 victims<\/a>. History teaches us that indulging petty ignorance can be decidedly deadly, a lesson we ignore at our peril.<\/p>\n

Dangerously dumb ideas of course continue today. Thousands recently took to the streets in Montreal and Vancouver to\u00a0oppose<\/a>\u00a0mask mandates that could save thousands of lives. Many also proudly pledged their support for Donald Trump or\u00a0QAnon<\/a>\u00a0conspiracies about a secretive cabal of Satan-worshiping elites who for some reason harvest the blood of children.<\/p>\n

The world has always had whack jobs. However, the multiplier of social media has made spreading outlandish ideas ever more dangerous, especially at a time when there are plenty of other very real problems that demand our attention and action.<\/p>\n

Cities on the West Coast choke in smoke from historic wildfires driven by accelerating climate change. Increasing human encroachment into the natural world propelled this pandemic, and others. Democracy in the world\u2019s largest economy apparently hangs in the balance.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Misinformation Was Always Dangerous. Social Media Has Turned It into a Viral Sickness Facebook\u2019s reach is being used to create division, spread hate and harm democracy. And the corporation doesn\u2019t care. \u2018Almost three-billion people now see the world through the personalized and profit-driven filter of social media.\u2019\u00a0Photo via Shutterstock. In 1486, a German priest named […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[204,1493,17283,1426,12132,1169,23884],"class_list":["post-55054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-democracy","tag-facebook","tag-hate","tag-misinformation","tag-mitchell-anderson","tag-social-media","tag-thetyee-ca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55054"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55055,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55054\/revisions\/55055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}