Saturday, June 17, 2017

"1984 levels of deception"

Do you ever see a post on social media and think, "If I could just understand this, I could understand the entire political scene?"

No?  You don't?

Well, whatever.  The post I have in mind is from Reddit--specifically, the /r/conspiracy subreddit.  It's titled, "We're reaching 1984 levels of deception in the media," and it was posted back in August.  It consists of two tweets, presented side-by-side.

The first tweet, from Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip), says "Big, boisterous crowd here in Omaha for Hillary Clinton and Warren Buffett," and it shows the crowd from an Omaha rally held inside a gymnasium.

The second tweet, from #TPPisTreason (@Z3pp3in), says "@CNNPolitics Are you reporting on the 50 people who showed up to Hillary rally in Omaha today?" and it shows the crowd from the same Omaha rally.

Abby D. Phillip's photo gives the impression of a normal-sized crowd.  Z3pp3in's photo gives the impression of an undersized crowd.  And the weird thing is that NEITHER photo really gives an accurate impression of what the crowd looked like.  They were both taken from the middle of the gymnasium.

A view from the back of the gymnasium provides a better gauge of the crowd size.




What was going through @Z3pp3in's mind when she wrote her tweet?  And, for that matter, what was going through the mind of Redditor (/u/moonsprite) when he or she submitted that post?

I'm not looking for the simple explanation which would be: "Derp, it's propaganda!"  I want to figure out to what extent each person believes the thing they wrote.

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