{"id":11472,"date":"2019-12-05T11:54:56","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T16:54:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=11472"},"modified":"2019-12-05T11:54:56","modified_gmt":"2019-12-05T16:54:56","slug":"inventing-conspiracies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=11472","title":{"rendered":"Inventing conspiracies"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s a clich\u00e9, but I’m serious: If you read just one thing today, it ought to be this account of an ex-Infowars<\/i> staffer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Days before, we spoke to the sheriff and the mayor of Deposit, N.Y., a nearby municipality. They both told us the people in Islamberg were kind, generous neighbors<\/span> who welcomed the surrounding community into their homes, even celebrating holidays together.<\/p>\n

The information did not meet our expectations<\/span>, so we made it up<\/span>, preying on the vulnerable and feeding the prejudices and fears<\/span> of Jones\u2019s audience. We ignored certain facts<\/span>, fabricated others<\/span> and took situations out of context<\/span> to fit our narrative, posting headlines like:<\/p>\n

Drone Investigates Islamic Training Center<\/p>\n

Shariah Law Zones Confirmed in America<\/p>\n

Infowars Reporters Stalked by Terrorism Task Force<\/p>\n

Report: Obama\u2019s Terror Cells in the U.S.<\/p>\n

The Rumors Are True: Shariah Law Is Here!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Everybody with a properly functioning mind has known this all along, but it’s good to have it in black-and-white from one of the participants. Unfortunately, the people who fall for this nonsense won’t believe it; they’ll think somebody ‘got’ to the author.<\/p>\n

In the very early days of the Internet I made the same error that was made in the early days of television: I thought it was such a magnificent educational tool that it would be a benefit. The sad reality is that it has become a device for triggering and manipulating idiots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s a clich\u00e9, but I’m serious: If you read just one thing today, it ought to be this account of an ex-Infowars staffer. Days before, we spoke to the sheriff and the mayor of Deposit, N.Y., a nearby municipality. They … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11472"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11472"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11474,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11472\/revisions\/11474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}