Modern Propaganda

There's a fascinating article in The Guardian about Robert Mercer, a computer billionaire who uses his money and his expertise to influence voting. There is also an interesting article in Politico about the ways in which online social media are influencing military attitudes. Combining the information in the articles makes for some disturbing thoughts. Most of us have already been a little creeped out about how social media watches us to track our purchases and then advertise similar items to us. Then there is the whole separate issue of security for our personal information, not limited to stealing from our bank accounts and credit cards but also our health records.

So watching Trump affect reporting and investigations is like a master class in disinformation and propaganda. The problematic side of the equation is that too many people don't understand that they are being manipulated. We hardly even teach civics to students any more let alone the pervasive effect that social media can have.