After duck, tacos decision to quote down rank. Russian disinformation. I was interviewed by slate.com to get a general idea of why someone would be skeptical of such a decision. So the first thing I did was I listed a number of examples where people thought they had the truth about something and it turned out to be incorrect. Now, it's not impressive to go back hundreds of years or to even state. Today that very few people
believed. It's important to say something recent that a lot of people believed to be accurate, but turned out to be misinformation. This is the sort of humility training that a lot of people need before. They think they could confidently in this David Cross Way. Just say I know what the truth is. I don't need any process. I don't need a scientific method. I don't need certain incentives or profit and loss. I basically can just hear it and know what it is immediately.
Here are some mainstream. You examples CNN on October 21st. 2020 says, feds say, Russia and Iran have interfered with the presidential election. This was a project by for journalists. You can see on the screen here, herb Cohen, Perez and Murphy. So they had four people on this story in October of 2020. Now, where is the second molar investigation, Russia again, interfere to with our sacred
democracy? Also, you cannot question the election results, even though it was interfered with again. Allegedly by Russia to question. The results of this election makes you basically a terrorist Nazi Politico, even said, Hunter Biden. Story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former Intel officials say so dozens. Not one, not two. Not even a dozen dozens more than 50. Former intelligence officials signed a letter casting doubt on. Provenance of a New York Post story on the former vice
president son. If you remember Donald Trump Juniors story about a meeting with someone from Russia was absolutely given wall-to-wall coverage. So one thing is said about Hunter Biden and possible. Favoritism or corruption by Joe Biden. And all of a sudden, the Intel Community is is up in arms. Well, it turned out that all of this was fake. Notice. They call it Russian disinfo not information promoted conveniently by the Russian government. They said it's disinformation.
That's not really Hunter Biden's laptop. Of course. This was totally fake. This was Russia gate 2.0. Let's go back to Russia, gate 1.0 Hillary Clinton said in the Third presidential debate, it roughly like 80 million people. Saw this happen.
She said that we have 17 intelligence agencies who say that Russia took my emails and gave them to WikiLeaks that there has been Russian interference in this election on behalf of Donald Trump. Now forget the fact that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia donated between 10 and 25 million dollars to the Clinton Foundation, according to the In Foundation website, as Heroes like Glenn Greenwald have pointed out but apparently it's really bad now. Yes, Trump did a lot of business in Russia.
He even did more business in Bangladesh where his ties were made and a lot of other Trump. Products. But you know, Bangladeshi interference is not as sexy as Putin interference. So after she had said that in 2016 and the LIE circulated and Sam Harris, thought he was so clever bringing it up to Scott Adams, 17. How could all 17 be wrong? These are the experts we have to listen to The Experts. There was a correction by the New York Times, June 29th. 19. A White House.
Memo article on Monday, about President Trump's deflections and denials about Russia, referred incorrectly to the source of an intelligence assessment. That said, Russia orchestrated hacking attacks. During last year's presidential election. The assessment was made by for intelligence agencies, the dni, the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community. So They totally fake consensus. They said, you know what?
It wasn't 17. It was only for and it's the for that have probably the worst reputation that any any organization in America has continuing with widely spread stories by people, in high positions of power that are widely, accepted by the population, March 8th. Tony fauci, head of the NIH. National Institute for health went on 60 minutes and said there's no reason to be walking around with a mask and continuously said that masks will not do anything to stop people.
From getting covid-19. Now is this disinformation? Apparently, they think masks are literally the difference between life and death and they're so vital to wear. So this guy kind of told people to go out and more or less kill themselves. Isn't this terrible disinformation? Isn't this worse than I don't know anything. Alex Jones has done according. Their worldview. How about the World Health? Organization says not to use masks to prevent the spread but
frequent. Hand-washing not wearing a face. Mask is the most important step. The public can take to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the World Health Organization said, Thursday according to ABC News on February 28th. So look at this isn't this disinformation isn't this terrible and evil and why did they stop telling us to watch the hands? It went from totally vital to non-existent sort of like the Kurds in Syria. Oh, the Kurds are the most vitally important thing.
We have to go after Assad and you haven't heard of him since also the US Surgeon General. So these are the top people. This isn't we once heard a tea party member say something irrational about Medicare. These are like the most powerful people in the country. US Surgeon General says seriously people stop buying masks all capital letters. This is on February 29th. They are not effective in preventing general, public from Catching coronavirus.
But if Health Care Providers can't get them to care for psych patients, it puts them and our communities at risk. So other ones that I mentioned, New York Times said, Putin put bounties on American soldiers, in Afghanistan, Wolf Blitzer. I said, Gaddafi gave his troops Viagra as a tool for Mass rape.
That was on CNN, yellowcake, uranium going from Nigeria to Iraq, was promoted by the sitting, president at a State of the Union Address. So they focus on all these trivial accounts of oh, Alex Jones said something, potentially misleading. Yep, and then totally ignore the most powerful people in the country that actually do harm. And then one of the biggest ones is that the Branch Davidians in their Church in Waco, Texas defended themselves on. What was it? February 28th.
They defended themselves with guns, refused to succumb to the FBI for 51 days. But then the moment, the FBI entered the church and started spraying CS gas banned by the Geneva Convention. And Went in with tanks and guns. They simultaneously all decided to commit suicide at that moment. Wouldn't they have continued to resist? Why not continue to live on the people defending their lives for 51 days? All just committed suicide as opposed to.
It couldn't have been the people threatening their lives pointing guns at them and driving a tank spring CS gas. No. No, it was probably the people defending themselves for D1 days, who just all up simultaneously, killed themselves, absolute nonsense, but these are Big lies that people believe. So the concept of disinformation is not easily spotted. So what you're down raking, you have no clue. If it's accurate or inaccurate after that.
My main points in my conversation with the journalist from slate.com, involved my case for large-scale media skepticism. So the first thing Was the great Thomas Soul quote, the most basic question is not, what is best? But who shall decide what is best? So even if we take something like education, we want people to be educated. Let's assume that that is a Justified goal that is not enough to tell us who should be making the decision.
If it's someone who faces competition, who knows, he might lose customers. If he doesn't provide a good product or service, that's going to be a lot. The decisions that person makes is going to be a hell of a lot different than if he has a legally recognized Monopoly and gets money, whether or not, he provides a good product or service. So the same thing goes with
disinformation. Yes, we want, accurate information, but who is going to decide, and my main point with starting out by listing, all of those fake news stories, that the mainstream press reported on for years on end, without An apology and seldom with retraction is that they are just as bias as the Alex Jones is of the world. Even if you take something ridiculous like white supremacy, something that a microscopic amount of Americans believe in.
But it constantly is making the headlines, the average member of the corporate press Advocates, government Supremacy, which is the concept that government officials have the right to make edicts and you have a moral obligation to blindly obey them. And that is equally as ridiculous and historically, far more deadly. So even then pointing to the
It's ridiculous. Whether it's the fake Patriot front or even, you know, they go to Charlottesville and they see a couple klansman there, who have no institutional power. But either way, they see some of them.
The person working for CNN, holding the camera has an ideology that is just as deadly and immoral as the person they think they're so high and mighty against, we see it all the time with you know, I can't believe Putin would kill civilians as they justify the actions of the US government who was killed far more people. And so that's important. Also, there is no such thing as unbiased news.
I you continue to push this point that any time you select to report on one thing you are choosing not to report on something else so I could be totally honestly reporting on Abu ghraib and it's the only thing I ever talk about. Well, that's not they perfect or it's a not even a generally good image of what the military does but if that's all I focus on, If the only thing I ever say about the Catholic church, is that there are a number of pedophiles among the priesthood.
Well, that's not me lying. The even if I tell the whole truth about it, it's not lying if I only focus on that. But what I'm doing is I'm giving the consumer, a distorted view of reality, or they only talked to big government. Believers both in the Democrat and Republican party or the Woman on CNN will be totally shocked and amazed that Thomas Massie. Would question, whether or not the gas attack in Syria was really done by the Assad government. That is.
They're working bias. So because you choose to report on some things and not others, and choose a different intensity with which to investigate. Those is a bias in and of itself. Yo, went on to say I got this from a doctor Michael. In his book, knowledge, reality
and value. That the news in general is absolute nonsense, everything almost falls into sensationalism them, trying to tug at your heartstrings and make something out to be a bigger deal than it really is ideological propaganda, which is when they cherry pick some things at the expense of others or laziness people in the fields of Economics or philosophy or finance will report on it, but don't really have a good understanding. Ending of of the subject. Then I went into the title of
something. Doesn't make it a reality. So duck tacos, operation. Anti-russian disinfo down. Ranking does not mean they will necessarily down ranked Russian disinfo. Just as the Patriot Act is not necessarily patriotic just as election Integrity reform bills don't necessarily increase the amount of Integrity in elections the pro-education Necessarily mean, you're going to help people operation. Iraqi Freedom doesn't mean you're increasing the amount of freedom in Iraq.
So, just calling something. A name does not actually give you the intended goal. The alleged goal that the that you want. I'm constantly asked. Well, why would we listen to Putin? Why would you listen to a song and Bin Laden? Would you listen to a rapist or a serial killer? The answer is absolutely absolutely gets up in America. There was a serial killer Ted Bundy who famously defended himself, as opposed to having a lawyer and this is still vitally
important. There were Nuremberg trials for the National Socialist regime in Germany. It's referred to as taking the stand or giving your testimony. It's always important to get both sides just so and that's not to victim blame. Its to make sure you find out who the victim really is. And, and then, finally, on the RT Point Russia. Today, you know, being taken off YouTube. Look, I want to see what they're talking about. If you go to YouTube right now
and research. I'm sorry for the very boring, very predictable example, but it's just one that everyone knows if you research Nazi propaganda, you'll get a lot of results. So we could even assume that it's Russian propaganda that RT is giving it's still important to study. It's still important to research. Just As YouTube realizes, it's vitally important to research what the national socialist government used. As far as propaganda methods.
I want to finish by going over the contents of the article published by Aaron mock slate.com., The journalist was very respectful. I thought he was a gentleman throughout this and I thought, overall, this is a pretty fair in his reporting here. The title is the DuckDuckGo users furious at its response to the war in Ukraine.
Now, realize when people are talking about the war in Ukraine, they're usually talking about Russia going into Ukraine in February of the Year. 2022 almost never does it start with another war in Ukraine. Starting in 2014 known as the donbas war between Russian separatists. Who wanted their democratically elected? President Viktor Yanukovych to serve out his term while people that are part of the u.s. Regime, John McCain, Victoria
nuland. Amy Klobuchar went over there to incite a revolution of dignity to overthrow. So that government. So get realized even in the title war in Ukraine. We can't come up with an objective starting point or even objective reference as to what that is. So that should just go to tell you how difficult it is to find truth and objectivity in things like this. So this is sort of the middle of
the article. Aaron mock says Keith Knight a contributor to the nonprofit libertarian Institute started using DuckDuckGo. About five years ago, quote when YouTube /, Google started removing people for Thought crimes and quote. He recently switched to using another privacy Focus search engine called Brave after learning of duck, tacos decision night's main grievance with duck tacos decision is that he thinks major institutions and media Outlets are also spreading comparable amounts of
disinformation. So users aren't getting the whole story. If Herbs are focusing only on some types of false narratives, but not others. Well, first of all, I had provided him with all of the examples that I gave and those are vitally important examples because they were not just some things that some people thought some of the most powerful influential voices in America.
Very recently thought these things that are provable lies, so it's not that he thinks major institutions are also spreading comparable amounts of disinformation. And I know and I've proven that they absolutely are, but other than that, I thought he was a pretty Fair article continues. However, search engines are inherently about ranking results. Also, a very fair point.
There's no such thing. As, you know, things should be equal, which is just why you need to embrace one competition and have a variety of choices and to recognize that everything. You're looking at has a bias. There is no holy land of Narnia where there's unbiased information. So, some sources of information are necessarily going to be prioritized over others. Yes. This is important.
There is going to be something at the top of every search engine, whether it's Odyssey or YouTube, even if it's left to right, something is going to catch your eyes. First. Some things are going to be promoted more than others. In some ways, the search algorithm is already going to be picking winners and losers in the marketplace of ideas. This was another thing.
He had said that this Marketplace of ideas, you know, it's good in theory, but in reality and then I had to stop and say, look, it's not a theory. I just gave you examples of main mainstream institutions with a lot of power giving fake news. So it's not like I just have a theory that if the information is controlled at won't be as good as It's more or less decentralized. I have real-world examples. It's not just a concept in my head that might eventually come to fruition.
Right now. We have examples of it. When asked how a search engine could rank results in a completely unbiased way night, couldn't quite put his finger on it either because unbiased opinion does not exist. So what I said was I don't specifically know how the algorithm could be designed because if it's just popularity dot dot dot Then you know it's not necessarily the truth at the
top its popularity at the top. So this kind of transparency is what I was looking for and a lot of times when you're the consumer of a product you don't exactly know. You just know some things you like and some things you don't I put YC's Mongolian Grill in the like category and Burger King in the. Don't like category II can't get into specifics. All I know. Is that some things I like and enjoy?
And Others, I don't. So when I see DuckDuckGo saying, we're gonna take the establishment side and say that most popular thing that we possibly can now. Well, I don't like that. I don't know what they should be doing. But I like what Odysseys doing better. It's just a default position. If I had to write a book about it. I put a little more thought into it. But the point is, is that one when it comes to should they, engage in active dis ranking of alleged disinformation?
I'm on the no camp. He said, though, he later added that pure popularity would at least be better than trying to factor in disinformation, in the results. Mr. Mark, then ask me. Well, what about Flat Earth at that point, isn't it? Okay for, you know, search engine companies to say, nope. We're going to down like this. This is fake and it's obviously fake and go. Well, that is a really good example because it's specific and they could come out and say we don't believe the Earth.
Flat, we believe it's around for a b and c reason. And that sort of transparency is more or less exactly. What what I'm looking for here. And then I actually added, I was recently wrong about the Flat Earth. Well, not recently probably five or ten years ago, but it feels recent when I had thought that everyone thought the Earth was flat until Columbus. Sailed, the ocean blue in 1492. What happened was? I had been watching. How the Catholic church built Western Civilization.
The series of 26 minutes shows with dr. Thomas E. Woods Junior. Where he discusses the myth of the Flat Earth and this is the myth that everyone thought the Earth was flat until Columbus. You can find evidence going back to Hellenistic astronomers observing the existence of an eclipse claiming that the Earth is spherical as opposed to flat. So even some things related to Flat Earth pin bring out. Examples or can bring to light
information. You didn't previously have but only if I had had a discussion or watch the video on Flat Earth what I've ever come across that information.
So yes, it's it's always good to look into things article continues night, ultimately landed on transparency, surrounding how algorithms work as a possible solution to his concerns of bias and just as As you know, the wise man always says it's not necessarily solutions that you're looking for because there is no solution where a problem is solved as like a solution in mathematics, which are looking for. Are a cost-benefit analysis that will give you the best outcome,
that you're able to reach. So everything is going to have shortcomings. That's why the concepts of competition and general levels of skepticism are We important. He quotes me saying that sort of transparency, that might increase the likelihood that people know, they're not getting necessarily something objective because it's damn near
impossible. He said night even mused that if DuckDuckGo had just explicitly said that it was on the side of the quote American establishment and the quote Ukrainian people. He might have seen it has more quote morally acceptable than trying to describe its down ranking initiatives, as just trying to Combat, disinformation. I stand by that. What I should have said, stupidly. I said Ukrainian people.
I should have said, it's the Kiev regime, because that's really, who is calling the shots there that the Ukrainian people are suffering under. So it's, it's not like people generally have and what ukrainians in the west. They're very Pro current Kiev regime, but in the East they were very Pro Yanukovych and are U.s. Russian separatists, so even Ukrainian people that's that, that was a little ridiculous of me to say because that's not even a valid monolith article lens.
He said so long as there's transparency, then there's no illusion that there's the correct stuff and the incorrect stuff stuff. What a dumb way to say. I should have said information, but we had spoken for like 40 minutes at this point and I was sort of just going off the cuff. So that is an summary. A good summary of what I discussed with mr. Mark, from slate.com. Overall. Like I said, I thought he did a
very good job. Thank you for watching Keith Knight. Don't tread on anyone and the libertarian Institute.