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Fact, Fiction and Politics in a Post-Truth Age. | David Patrikarakos | TEDxAthens


Translator: Amani Hassan Ali Mohamed Khair Checker: Ayman Mahmoud

The first time I met Vitali was in the spring of last year

He speaks little English

But he is a very charming man

On his right arm is a tattoo of the singer Marilyn Manson

And on his right leg and sniff the honey and me!

( Laughter )

It was actually a strange experience!

I was there to listen to his story

And that story was unbelievable to me!

And since I was not myself for eight months of 2014

And so when I was in Ukraine I cover the war between Moscow and Kiev

And now in the same period of August 2014

Vitaly found himself in the city of St. Petersburg with no work

Vitaly was a journalist

But the website he works for has gone bankrupt and has lost its funding

So he completed his duties with them

He did not hear anything

Finally, something appeared

He said he had a lot to send

And he could not even remember any work entrusted to him

And when he went to inspect the job got it in a timely manner!

And she was in _the_

Well, just let me go!

The building is indescribable in the center of St. Petersburg

On the 55th street of Suvaskina

And when Vitaly began work

I realized that working in a media company every day was not quiet

He had lapped a contract of action for a project known as “Ukraine 2”

His task was to write mainly articles about Ukraine –

Which was just enough

I mean, it’s a topic of interest to the Russians

With some minor variations

His job was to write articles

Of sites ending in terms of sites belonging to the Russian government

That is, sites that pretended to be Ukrainian.

So he took _ for example _ newspaper (Donetsk) news

A newspaper from a city in eastern Ukraine occupied by pro-Russian separatists.

He will write out articles on the subject.

And that was not too bad

He will abide by the facts

But he was not allowed to use the word terrorists or separatists.

He had to be called the militia.

Ukrainian army, on the other hand,

It should always be referred to as volunteer battalions

Or national guards

These battalions are still present today,

Which has a good reputation

To grind on elements of the extreme rightists and bandits!

Now, after a while

It became clear to Vitaly

That he was working on what would become known later on the media

B “factory of the mighty” or “Farm of the mighty”

The farm had a clear organizational structure.

On the first floor there was Vitaly writing fictitious news stories

And with his colleagues

On the second floor was the Department of Social Media.

And here the drawings and figures were created

To spread across all platforms, media and social media,

And spread the Kremlin style in Ukraine.

On the third floor there were bloggers.

There were two types:

The first type: Ukrainian bloggers

Who will be briefed about how terrible the situation in Kiev,

And how there are parts of the city that did not have electricity,

And how young children were suffering from lack of food

The second type was: American bloggers

And they had to write about how all Americans are in Putin’s policies!

And that Ukrainians are fascists!

And all those kinds of gossip.

Ironically, and perhaps, ironically, what will happen is:

Bloggers on the third floor

What they produce will become the primary sources

For false news articles on the first floor!

So the result was a mating between many lies

And now on the fourth floor, where a lot of time

These were men and women

They are charged with commenting on Facebook, Twitter,

Most important of all is the comment by (Vkontakti)

Which is similar to Facebook but is the Russian version

It is a very famous Russian social network

For the Kremlin and for the Russian government

And now, after working for a month in these false pages

Vitaly was sent to the social networking department

He began his work by taking a different direction

And so what has to be done

When Vitaly sent to that section

I initially give loads of different phone identification cards

This is because in order for you to be registered in Vykontaki network, you must have a telephone number

And the farm of the titans had inexhaustible funding!

His job was to send only spam

Pages of each form and type

What I have seen is that sometimes he sends pages that contain nothing of politics

As one example: Once a newspaper was sent as spam

Dedicated to meeting couples of people having sex in a small Russian city

And there was no logic in it!

Women’s figures have always been impersonated

This is because their accounts are more credible and reliable than male personal accounts

And the second thing to do

This is essential for the dissemination of information in the era of social media

It should have been visible

And that was something I learned

From the State Department to the Israeli Defense Forces

If you want information,

If you want people to look at what you would like to say

It has to be visible!

And in fact

People, when you look at the electronic link to your words they often do not pressure it

So what you have to do is leave a message to them in a visible place

Well, here we have a picture that looks sad to President Obama

He says: (I want to start a war, but none of my friends wants to fight with me)!

Here, too, we have two portraits of Obama

In the first it seems very serious and he says: (we do not talk to the terrorists)!

The second painting shows a smile

He says: (we are just watching them)

The target was the attack

On people who seem hostile to the Kremlin war against Ukraine.

That is what Barack Obama, Angelina Merkel, and the political leaders of Ukraine were

And now, after a while, this was what happened to Vitale

He felt dirty

He did not like the work he did

He has had many problems with anxiety

So in the end, he decided to withdraw

His boss at work (Anna) asked him why he did it? Tell her the truth

Saying: (I do not believe what we do)!

So he left

And yet he could not erase that period of his memory

And felt that he must atone for those mistakes

So he decided to write an article telling him about his experience

So he wrote under a pseudonym

As if the writer was a woman

This is because most of the workers in Al-Jababra farm were women

And then it emerged to the world and was very good

And attracted a lot of attention

Even the leader of the Russian opposition (Alexei Navalini) re-twittered

Unfortunately, Vitaly’s attempts to hide his identity failed!

And an hour after the article appeared

He received a letter from his manager (Anna)

I mean its former President

Tell him that if he thinks himself a hero

It is really wrong, what is only a despicable

He can not do anything for himself but only has to spoil the actions of others

And then the calls began to increase

(What the hell do you think you’re doing) ?!

One evening he received a call from one of the bad guys

And he says to him: (Do not know that people receive punches on their faces because of such things)?!

For a while afterwards Vitali was afraid to walk the streets alone

And now …

If you have been seduced –

I’m sorry, just so (Putin)

I can not really skip that picture, it kills me every time I see it

If I were tempted to ignore Vitaly’s story

As one of the widespread Internet rumors, do not do!

It is indeed impressive

I have seen its impact on the ground

In the east of Ukraine during my travels between its cities and the occupied cities

During spring and summer of 2014

That influence was evident among the pro-Russian separatists

And now, as the Canadian philosopher Marshall (McLuhan) said:

(That all media are considered additions to human physical and psychological strength)

Travel through eastern Ukraine in 2014

It was as if the central nervous system of Putin was on the screen.

The content that came from Vitale’s pen, directly,

It was all around me

The virtual world was rapidly moving into reality

On the land of eastern Ukraine,

And the aging of geopolitical concepts

Like (Novorossiia)!

The caesarean term refers to the part of eastern Ukraine as a subordinate to Russia

And who barely understands!

My teens showed me irony

Through posters of Barack Obama’s image expressions on their smartphones,

Which emerged through the Titans Factory

The belief that Kiev was a fascist military council,

And they really want to destroy talking about Russia in the East,

Has been held honestly.

This was not, as I realized, just propaganda,

There were no novels;

It was a reinvention of reality.

Now, we have to ask: How did we get here?

Putin’s era of information can only be available in the post-truth era.

What created this era is social media.

Now, social media connect people together, we know this.

It’s transboundary.

You can talk to your friend in India or … well, not China –

India, the United Kingdom, America, or wherever

But he does something else is to reduce the discussion:

It shatters unity, and divides people.

It does so in two comprehensive ways.

The first is clear:

It facilitates direct confrontation.

In case you are a supporter of Hillary during the campaign,

You can join Trump fans online.

I saw that happen when Britain came out of the EU

I’ve seen friends turn on Facebook when Britain leaves the EU,

It actually facilitates direct confrontation.

But he does something more subtle:

It creates what has been called homophile, which is known as the attraction of those with the same tendencies

Now, when you are on Facebook, you have your friends –

We understand “friends”, okay? –

Most of your friends are likely to share world views in a similar way.

Now, I’m not saying that everyone is voting for your party,

There are left, there are right,

But it is unlikely that anyone in this audience

He will become a friend with a group of Nazis …

As I hope anyway.

So what happened was,

First of all when you are in a cocoon with individuals asymmetrical thinking

Who publish articles that tend to your point of view.

Second, it is even the most insidious, is the Facebook algorithm.

People think that social media platforms are these neutral means,

But it is not

They are capitalist institutions and their producers are us, their users.

This algorithm has been designed

To keep us on their platforms for as long as possible

By feeding us the content you know we love.

So, if you are a supporter of Hillary

When you click on the links that support Hillary during the campaign,

The algorithm will provide you with more links to support Hillary

Vice versa

Thus, our prejudices reaffirm and hatred of the other worsens.

and that is

In all his wonderful stupidity!

How come we got here, Part II

The emergence of social media coincided with the crisis of faith in the West

Especially in their institutes

Since the 2003 Iraq war,

And in each of our policies that took us to war based on a lie,

To the 2008 global financial crisis,

Which led us to the bankers into the Great Depression,

To the detection of the NASA (Snowdon) project for espionage

Along with long-term declines in confidence in the media,

Which means that the basic institutions on which the West is based

Suffering from its credibility.

As a result,

We see the rise of popular demagoguery, national demagogues,

Great unknown lands in the Netherlands

(Nigel Faraj) with (Breaksite),

(Marin Le Pen), recently in the French elections,

And of course the most revered among them is:

Mr. Trump!

Sorry, here we go again.

So, what is the end result of all this?

The end result of all this is that we are now living in a post-truth era.

Now, this has been defined.

And this is through the Oxford dictionaries “vocabulary for 2016,

I will read your definition aloud

Because I think it’s worth thinking about.

It has been defined as an attribute relating to or referring to circumstances

In the merits

Less influential in shaping public opinion

From appeals to passion and personal belief.

This was quoted from the main Oxford dictionaries,

Which states: “It is not surprising that our choice reflects a year

Dominated by a shipment of political and social talks.

Fueled by social media inflation as a source of news

And growing mistrust of the facts presented by the institution,

Beyond the truth as a concept has been found on a linguistic basis for some time. “

Now, what are the problems?

The problems are that in both Europe and the United States,

Public broadcasters must adhere to the guidelines.

This budget, integrity of professional journalists, etc., etc., etc.

There is no such organization for social media.

Cost makes it easy to see

Facebook, which has been named

As the most suitable platform for the spread of false stories,

Has recently announced that the resort to start to use third-party applications to double security

People who love the whole truth or.

They will resort to self-censorship

It will try some ways – incorrectly, in my opinion –

To combat this phenomenon.

But what are the results?

The results are, this is very serious,

A post-fact world has created a post-fact leader.

Of Vladimir Putin, who reinvented reality in eastern Ukraine,

Down to Donald Trump

Which the White House will tell you about

That the crowds of his inauguration were greater than Obama

While you can see they were not

And now they are different to be fair

One is a dictator in everything except the name;

The other leads the world with the greatest democratic forces

But in both cases the goal is one

Whenever more suspicion is planted in people’s minds about all information,

The more they weaken their tendency to recognize the truth when they see it.

The aim is not to develop this idea,

Evolution of truth,

As practiced by older politicians:

“I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” he said.

But to sabotage the very idea that there is no objective truth at all:

“My crowd was bigger!” – “It’s just an alternative fact.”

So this is all very delightful.

So I would end up looking a little happier.

What can we do to survive in this post-truth age?

Now, I believe, in the end

The change will be at the legislative level:

Governments will intervene.

But I put together, in the meantime, a group to survive in the post-truth era

To survive, in negotiations

And try to make your way

Through this environment with false information this unhealthy informational environment,

Where we all live

One

Get out of your way to a friend or follow people

Which are not necessarily consistent with your point of view.

Please do not go abroad and become a supporter of Golden Down.

But try a bit to expand your circles of knowledge

Two

Go directly to credible news websites

Or better yet, buy the same newspaper!

Read all the reports written by them

Do not just choose to read articles that agree with your preconceived beliefs

three

I also read the publications articles

Which do not correspond to your political views

And you will learn many things

Trust me !

four

Read the books

Yes, still available for reading

In fact, I want to recommend reading a particular book

Title: (War in 140 characters:

How can the media (reshaping) conflict in the twenty-first century)

It is available for purchase from Amazon even through modest servers

It will only cost $ 30 of any one of you money

five

close

Closing your Facebook account will only turn your life into the worst

Left your home

Go to meet your friends

Get some fun

And will benefit

thank you very much

(clap)

Thank you, thank you

(clap)

”

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