Interesting, seems like the Russian „Firehose of Falsehoods“ model seemed to work pretty well on a sizeable demographic of even HN to make them distrust anything:
I‘m not saying I‘m blindly following either sides‘ narrative, but to me there is a clear trustworthyness hierarchy between the narrative of a society where I can still freely read, discuss and criticize these obvious pieces of misinformation (while they stay on the record!) and a society that changes its own narrative every other day and where just mentioning the word „war“ can lock me up in jail for 15 years by now.
A society that changes its narrative every otver day sounds like America. And it is becoming less free by the day, though less by government coercion and more due to private actors falling in line behind ideology and the idea that neutrality is not just overrated, but wrong and immoral.
That the punishment is not prison but people going after your job (and often succeeding at it, and people thinking such thibgs are ok) doesn't mean the society is free.
Contrast a society where the government executes you for being gay, where it throws you in prison and a society where everyone looks at you funny and your family disowns you. The degree of coercion differs in all, but are gay people fully free in any?
>to me there is a clear trustworthyness hierarchy between the narrative of a society where I can still freely read, discuss and criticize these obvious pieces of misinformation
This no longer describes US society. We are better than Russia, but fall short of this description. Google actively delists information, including publications and statements from the US government and private citizens.
This extends beyond "misinformation" to categorical topics which citizens are not allowed to learn about
https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html
I‘m not saying I‘m blindly following either sides‘ narrative, but to me there is a clear trustworthyness hierarchy between the narrative of a society where I can still freely read, discuss and criticize these obvious pieces of misinformation (while they stay on the record!) and a society that changes its own narrative every other day and where just mentioning the word „war“ can lock me up in jail for 15 years by now.