Andrew weissman: on political lies and propaganda bubbles.
On the bulwark pod this was the topic or Friday for a while and it’s something I’ve been struggling with for decades. The problem with holding people accountable for lies seems to be the question of who is empowered to make that judgement.
On the news silos or bubbles that people find themselves in, which I think is also one of the most damaging and underrated problems in current society, there may be an effective approach. It would obviously depend on a democratic majority and rely on a renewed and strengthened CFPB and FTC, possibly in addition to other agencies. I’m thinking of the early American history of corporate charters that required a public benefit and more accountability not just to shareholders. Using the Fox judgment as an example when they had to pay $787m I think it’s reasonable to say that they betrayed their basic function of informing the public and should have faced the corporate death penalty as well as total forfeiture of assets. The issue here is not simply egregious incidents but dedicated propaganda. I wonder if a strong CFPB could take that on to restore some semblance of shared facts in the American news ecosystem.