Citizens are complicit in the spread of alternative facts. We reject news we simply dont like the danger we become lost in that fog of unknowability if truth is pushed into a wood chipper, leaving us to say, i dont know what to believe, then alternative facts have just havent just fought truth to a draw, alternative facts may have already won. Sean spicer our press secretary gave alternative facts to that. But the point is what do you mean, alternative facts are not facts. Alternative facts are not facts. Theyre falsehoods reporter on the first full day of the trump administration, the president directed his aides to sit on a disprovable lie about his inaugural crowd size, a touch point in an era when facts are under attack of course, twisting the facts is nothing new in the politics. It depends on what the meaning of the word is that sound a lot like this. The truth is truth. I dont mean no, it isnt truth. Truth isnt truth. But the scale is new. As of december 10th, the president made 15,413 false or misleading claims in office, that according to Washington Post whats also new the scale of the campaign against the press. Just remember, what you are seeing and what you will reading is not whats happening. In a pew survey this year 30 of republicans had a great deal or fair amount of confidence that journalists will act in the best interests of the public, compared with 76 of democrats, a 46 point gap. If you just listen to the main stream media, its pretty much slanted left. Facebook is the Number One Network for disinformation organized propaganda campaigns were found in the platform in 56 countries this year. In the u. S. , facebook users shared the top 100 false political stories over 2. 3 million times in the first ten months of this year. Among them, trumps grandfather was a pimp and a tax evader, his father a member of the kkk and nancy pelosi was diverting Social Security money for the impeachment inquiry, clearly both false. We dont stop people from posting on their page something thats wrong. Reporter mr. Trump is leveraging the polarized political climate. There are four things actors do if they want to attack their enemies or defend themselves against criticism. You can think of them as the four ds. Number one, dismiss, attack critics to erode their credibility and invalidate the facts. Fake news. Mr. Trump has used the word fake on twitter more than 800 times. Number 2, distort. If the fact are against you, make up your own facts there are many places like california, the same person votes many times, not a conspiracy theory, folks millions and millions of people. Number three, distract im rubber youre glue defense, if are you accused of something, accuse someone else of the same thing. The phone call was perfect. The word that werent perfect were joe biden with respect to his son. Number four, dismay, threats and intimidation. We are going to take a strong look at our countrys libel laws one fear, if both sides normalize disinformation as a political tactic in fact, in the 2017 Alabama Senate race, a group of democrats did use online disinformation in the campaign against roy moore, circulating false eftd evidence that russian twitter bots were working to elect moore. My big concern when it comes to disinformation is that we are going to see more and more people trying to do the same thing that the russians did in 2016 joining me now is the executive editor of the Washington Post mark baron and the executive editor of the New York Times, dean mackay, gentlemen, welcome to meet the press. Thank you for having me peter baker wrote recently, there are days in washington lately when it feels like the truth, itself, is on trial well, help us make sense of that i mean, its true of course, its ridiculous to say that truth isnt truth of course, thats a ridiculous construct. I mean, our job and its a hard job, but our jobs is to sort out fact from fiction and to very aggressively work to make sure that people trust us and understand that thats our job i mean, marty has a very extensive factcheck operation as do we and those things didnt exist three or four years ago and theyre an acknowledgment that one of the jobs as a news media is to sort through all of the bs, if i can say that, and come to some and come do the deep reporting that we all grew up doing, to come so some sort of understanding of whats actually happening in the world. I think thats one of our largest new jobs. Marty, you actually tweeted a quote from a column with a question that i actually think crystallizes the challenge you did this tweet about year. How do you tell someone im trying to treat your fears seriously but your facts dont exist. How as an individual and how as a country. This is a challenge. It reminded me of sharia law theres nothing like that. Theres no facts here to support it well, look, we live in an environment where people are able to spread crazy conspiracy theories and absolute falsehoods and lies thats made possible by the internet and social media, feel are drawn to sources of information, socalled information that confirms their preexisting points of view. That whats contributing to this environment that we have today dean pointed this out about the increase in Fact Checking that both of you as news organizations, we have been doing more of it but you chronicled over 15,000 false or misleading claims just by the president why do you believe thats important and are you concerned at some point 15,000, arent people numb to it . Well, they might be numb to it thats concerning. We still have the responsible for determining whats true and whats false and in particular holding our government officials accountable for what they say and telling people whether theyre telling the truth or not telling the truth. Thats fundamental to the responsibilities we have a journalistic institution. Heres a challenge to both of you, i want to put up this poll number, when folks were asked in a poll where do they go for trusted information, among Trump Supporters, they cited the president himself, 91 of Trump Supporters said thats where they go for accurate information. Factchecks be damned here. Thats true and i think thats the way the president would like to have it. He has described you sees a the Opposition Party that goes back to the president ial campaign. He wants us to be perceived as the Opposition Party so people will dismisses anything that we anything that we have to say. He wants to disqualify the Mainstream Media as an arbiter of facts and truth and disqualify others, disqualify the courts, historians, disqualify scientists, any independent source of information. Do we have to market the truth . What i mean by this is, hes out there a lot, essentially, delegitimizing our professions we dont fight back like a candidate. We dont fight back like a campaign do we need to start campaigning around the country to say, no, no, heres how facts works, heres what journalists are, if i utter a fact on tv on purpose, i get fired. Journalists took for granted and believed that people believed everything we said. They believe that if i file the story from afghanistan, that we were there they believe we believe that everybody thought we were in war zones and we believe that people trusted us and we went through generations of just assuming everybody believed us. What i think were going to have to get very aggressive at is to be really transparent, to assume nothing and make sure people know where we are, how we do our work, to show ou work more aggressively thats a different muscle for us to my mind, thats a form of marketing our journalism when the post did their great project last week about the build up to the war in afghanistan and the lies, they put their documents online they put them online so that i could read them, readers could read them and could see that it wasnt just three reporters or, i guess, in this case, one reporter sitting in a room making stuff up. The stuff was there. That is not something that we knew how to do ten years ago we did the same thing when we broke the story of trumps taxes a year ago, we show you the stuff. And i think thats a form of marketing our journalism i think thats a form as well as doing what were doing now which is to be out in the world talking about what we do and very aggressively defending our institutions, defending the truth, and defending our Important Role in democracy. Marty, you go out of your way, i believe you anytime one of your journalists are namechecked publicly in a demeaning way, you always publicly go out there and defend them and it seems as if you dont want to miss anybody that happens too. Why . Well, i think we have a responsibility to stand up for our journalists when theyre right. If were wrong, we should acknowledge that as well when theyre unfairly attacked and an individual uses vile language to describe our journalists, i think its something that we have to fight against. And i want to do that. I want to read you guys a letter to the editor that we found in the lexington Herald Leader it was a fascinating attempt to try to explain why some people support President Trump. Its because people have been trained to believe in fairy tales. The more lies he tells, the better they feel show me a person who believes in noah ark and i will show you a trump voter. This gets at something that my executive producer says, voters want to be lied to sometimes they dont always love being told hard truths im sure i buy that politicians have lied to people. I dont want to keep flogging martys terrific afghanistan story, but that was about a generation of political leaders who lied in the most aggression way which was to say a war that was failing and leading to american deaths was succeeding im not convinced that people want to be lied to people want to be comforted and i think bad politicians sometimes say comforting things to them and our job is to jump into the breach and to jump into those conversations, to do the deep reporting, to say, look, im sorry. What i have to say may be uncomfortable, but that thing that you just heard that made you feel good is a lie i think thats our job. Coal jobs is what comes to my head and youre like, its not going to happen, right, marty . Yeah, i think we have to be careful. I dont want to be dismissive of the people who support the president. Theyre owed our respect and they have mine but they feel that this socalled elites in washington have not paid attention to them. They dont understand their lives, their concerns. That they theyre not being heard. And they feel that the president is actually listening to them and addressing their concerns and so they tend to believe him and theyre deeply suspicious of socalled elites, people who are described as elites, and so they turn to him. Dean, this is something my late father was one of those folks, those new yorkers, they think theyre better than us he would say that every once in a while. Do you feel that as at the New York Times that because a lot of people dont listen to the New York Times reporting because they say, i dont understand your life so why should i believe what you report do you think you have to get the New York Times as in touch with manhattan and brooklyn as they are with rolla, missouri. I grew up in a poor neighborhood and had never been outside of louisiana and mississippi until i was about 17 years old. When i go home and my family teases me that im now considered one of the great leaders of the elite, i do think, however, that we have to do a much better job, i agree with what marty said, understanding some of the forces that drive people in parts of america that maybe are not as powerful in new york or los angeles. We have to do a better job covering religion. We have to do a better job understanding why some people support donald trump i agree we cant dismisses everybody who supports donald trump. I think we have to get out in america much more than we do and talk to people and sort of figure out ways other than the traditional diner story. We need to go deeper and i think both of your institutions have gotten better at this just to stew in and let people talk. I often talk about religion because i grew up in a very religious family and i think, look, people in new york and los angeles, the places ive lived in, not everybody, but people in the worlds we travel dont always see religion as the powerful force that it is and i think we have to do a better job understanding that i think we cannot dismiss everybody who supported donald trump and everybody and we cannot dismiss them. First off, thats not journalistically moral its journalistically moral to reach out, understand the world and to be read thats our job. Whats the correct frame when we describe what our journalism is is it objective . Is it fair whats the term you prefer what do you think is the correct framing to describe what our journalism is, i guess, in these mainstream news organizations. We should be fair, we should be listeners more than talkers and we should be willing to listen to everyone and i also think that we need to be fair to the public which means that when weve done our reporting, when weve done our jobs, when weve been thorough, then we need to tell people what weve found. We cant disguise it we need to be direct and straight forward and tell people what weve actually learned. And so i believe in being fair in the sense of being open minded, going into a story but being fair with the public at the end, once weve done our jobs, telling them what weve found. I like to go ahead i was going to add, i agree with all those too empathetic, great journalists are empathetic, they listen and try to understand. Thats not pandering and i think the most powerful word for me is independent it means independent of everybody, by the way. Except our principles and our readers. All good words there. I use a phrase these days, dont round the edges. Say what you see thank you both much appreciated have a great new year. Thank you when we come back, the anatomy of a lie, how a story can gain currency in our new media landscape. Listening and observing are Critical Skills for scientists at 3m. One of the products i helped develop was a softer, more secure diaper closure. As a mom, i knew it had to work. There were babies involved. And they werent saying much. I envisioned what its like for babies to have diapers around them. Thats what we do at 3m, we listen to people, even those who dont have a voice. At the end of the day, we are people helping people. And my lack of impulse control, even those who dont have a voice. Is about to become your problem. Ahh no, come on. I saw you eating poop earlier. Hey my focus is on the road, and thats saving me cash with drivewise. Whos the dummy now . Whoof whoof so get allstate where good drivers save 40 for avoiding mayhem, like me. Sorry hes a baby that will makeout washington insiders very uncomfortable term limits. You and i both know we need term limits, that congress shouldnt be a lifetime appointment. But members of congress, and the corporations whove bought our democracy hate term limits. Too bad. Im tom steyer and i approve this message because the only way we get universal healthcare, address Climate Change and make our economy more fair is to change business as usual in washington. Welcome back when President Trump spoke to president zelensky in the infamous july 25th phone call, one of the favors included crowd strike crowd strike was to look into the 2016 server. And determined that russia is responsible. Mr. Trump has suggested that crowd strike is a Ukrainian Company. That it was ukraine not russia that interfered in the 2016 election the claim, itself, has no places if fact. Clint lock fe is a security analyst and author of messing with the enemy and will help us understand how unfounded allegations spread we are calling this anatomy of a lie. All successful lies begin with a kernel of truth. Simply crowd strike hired to investigate dnc server hack. Quickly, why crowd strike not the fbi . Crowd strike is a Cyber Security company, one of the best in the world and one of the best for america and they work for groups like the dnc and many large United States companies and Even International companies. And they have great cyber forensics and the ability to investigate and determine attribution. Theyre also a resource for our defense, our u. S. Community department of defense. They would all rely on a company like this. This was taken for fact got it by the spring of 17, this is the first time that the president started to question crowd strike he tweeted something, an ap reporter asked, crowd strike what did you bring up crowd strike thats what i heard. Its owned by a very rich cranen this is not true but how do we get to the seeds of doubt here . We saw in the first part, you take a fact to propel the lie. This is essentially how you make that falsehood to where you want it to be the answer, the story they want out there is ukraine meddled in the election there is also entities that want that story, too, russia, where crowd strike is one of the biggest measures take a look at this date, this is april of 2017. Lets go to the next slide that we have here this is President Trump last month in november on fox and friends where essentially he starts to put it all together. The democrats, national they gave the server to crowd strike. Its a Ukrainian Company thats what the word is. 2 1 2 years later, he still perpetuating this and they asked, you know, theres not a lot of truth to this but he says it anyway. Yeah. If you want to propel your lie, just keep issuing falsehoods the truth has one voice. Lies are infinite. It wears out anybody trying to rebut them. The president says these things and it gets covered you can do all of this in social media, you can write 1,000 stories. But the thing that powers all of these narratives the most is when a very influential real human being uses those narratives and advances them. Its not just human beings, its news organizations or we can put news in quotes here. I want to single out two in particular, rt and sputnik they seem to be the launching pad for this specific conspiracy. Thats right. There are four attributes you look for in terms of spreading some sort of propaganda. Be there first, repeat it over and over and over again. The human mind cant resist repetition its got to come from a trusted source these are trusted sources for some people, and block out all rebuttals. If you can narrow people in, you can put people in an information cocoon. If you do push back and you dont have the facts, then you can do this. Lets go to the next slide ask questions. What is going on were not sure what the deal is. Maybe where are those servers . Ive never seen them why arent they looking why didnt the fbi go into the dnc offices and here we are. You can make lies faster than you can refute them. Just continue to ask questions, question more. Also, the motto of a certain russia state sponsored actor, the audience will walk away. As of november of this year, the nrcc, which is the Republic Campaign arm for house races, use crowd strike, and you said this is a russian effort to get to sort of smear crowd strike specifically, why if russia can disable crowd strike, if they can take away their Customer Base or make people say you dont believe what crowd strike is doing or saying or providing evidence for, theyre taking away one of their opponents and using the American Target audience to do that this is amazing the world that we have to live in now and have to figure out when we come back, the art of spreading disinformation in putins russia, and it echoes right here in the good old usa sometimes, the pressures of todays world can make it tough to take care of yourself. But natures bounty has innovative ways to help you maintain balance and help keep you active and wellrested. Because hey, tomorrows coming up fast. Natures bounty. 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So people from midtown manhattan to downtown denver can experience what our 5g can deliver. woman and if verizon 5g can deliver performance like this in these places. Its pretty crazy. Just imagine what it can do for you. Weve seen how a russia propaganda technique can be used to get an untruth into the media bloodstream. Its one of many models from putins russia that has found its way into our system. We have the author of the future is history and former u. S. Ambassador to russia, hes the author of from cold war to hot peace, currently a professor at stanford university. I began by asking them about one particular russian technique let me put up something here that the Rand Corporation wrote about the russia propaganda model and i want you to explain how this is implemented. This is how they describe it they disseminate an interpretation of events that show their themes or objectives. The propagandist will discard it and move onto a new explanation. The multichannel and continuous messaging makes russian themes more likely to be familiar to their audiences, its almost like done in realtime. Give us an example of how you experienced it i think that the biggest thing to understand about it, its less about what you would expect which is pushing some sort of one interpretation, one line its more about creating sound. Youre supposed to come out feeling like theres no such truth. Were starting to experience it firsthand here. And thats trump has a very good instinctual feel for it sometimes he says things that are the opposite of the facts in front of us and sometimes he kind of goes, yeah, whatever and sometimes he says, maybe that or maybe this and then in the end we feel like, all of these versions of i hesitate to call it realty, are equal, equal distance from the truth, and theres no theres nothing to latch onto everything is mush mike, i know that i want to bring up two examples of just within russia and i think it was when you were there both of these, when soldiers without insignia on their uniforms at the time, Vladimir Putin repeatedly denied they were russian and a year later he started to boast that they were there, and then of course there the Airlines Flight 17 that was shot down over ukraine and all the various explanations in country that the russian government did explain how effective it was internally internally, i think theyve done very well in terms of mastering disinformation and i agree completely with masha said, the goal is not necessarily to present one argument versus the other all the time, its to say there are no truths, there are no facts, its all relative. Ive heard Vladimir Putin say that directly when he met with barack obama one time. Secondly, however, when there are facts, its too put out arguments that say those are the wrong facts and so the two examples that you just used are an illustration of that second tactic and i would call that related to that another tactic what aboutism, to change the channel, to say, well, you did that there, what about this over here and that is another tactic that they use to confuse the terrain and to make people to be confused about the facts that there are no facts and that there are no truths in the world. I want to add something to the story because i think its a really great example when he said after a year when he started boasting that there were russians on the ground, he wasnt admitting something that everybody knew he was saying i assert my right to say whatever i want whenever i want to. Sometimes it will be true, sometimes it wont be. But im king of realty, right, and what are you going to do about it its a power move when he lies and its a power move when he tells the truth. Only he chooses when he does what as for the media, yes, he russia had a not an incredibly healthy media, but had some independent media when he became president and the first thing he did was he moved to take control of broadcast television and then he moved on National Broadcast television, and then local television and newspapers and now 20 years later we have no independent media. And, mike, you know this a lot about putin. Heres a quote that was attributed to him that he thinks he said the following, when he was asked about how he thinks the press works, putin said, heres an owner, they have their own politics and for them its an instrument the government also is an owner and the media that belonged to the government must carry out our instructions and media that belonged to a private businessman, they followed their orders. Thats his view, thats his view, and thats why one of the first things he did in the year 2000 was to seize control of two of the National Television networks so they were completely controlled by the government he understands the power of media. He has begun to export his ideas through multiple channels, both Digital Media and television theres a phrase that i was reading in this research that struck me and its called toxic cynicism that that is what is in russia right now and that is what he hopes to export to the west. And i think we have a lot of it here native born. We have it in the white house. We didnt need help now he added an accelerant thats it i think he and trump share a basic sense of the world and their sense of the world is that nothing matters, nothing is true nothing is on the level nothing is on the level. Yes everything is for sale and money equals power and power equals money and its unitary. There can be no checks and balances there can be no systems. Any kind of formal relationship was always a lie. Mike, what you were involved, youve met with a lot of dissidents that are trying to deal with putin in russia, what breaks him if he breaks . Well, i think an effective thing is just to keep revealing facts, especially about corruption people want to know about the facts and i would say the same thing about our country too. I think sometimes there is a kind of on the one hand, on the other hand that we present with various political debates in the United States and here now i want to purpose on my professor hat, all estimates are not equal. If you have one set of high p hypotheses that has no evidence, reporting on those two hi hypotheses is a distortion of the fact russians keep going back to the facts as their best weapon and we as a society need to go that itself you dont get your own facts you have your own arguments, opinions, but two plus two needs to equal four for democrats and republicans every day, not just mondays, wednesday and fridays you can see my entire conversation on our website on meetthepress. Com choosing the news you use depending on your political beliefs. Yes im stuck in the middle with you, no one likes to feel stuck, boxed in, or held back. Especially by Something Like your cloud. Its a problem. But the ibm cloud is different. Its open and flexible enough to manage all your apps and data securely, anywhere, across all your clouds. So it can help take on anything from rebooking flights on the fly, to restocking shelves on demand, without getting in your way. To take care of yourself. 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I guess those cows must actually be big dogs. Sit i said sit as the country has become more divided, its become more divided in its sources of news 63 of democrats and democraticleaning voters say they believe journalists have high ethical standards while 36 of republicans say the opposite. Voters are choosing news from sources that reflect their own political views. In 2004, 48 of democrats identified themselves as cnn viewers. By 2018, that number had gone up to 56 meanwhile fewer republicans watch cnn and viewership has dropped in that time span by 6 points 46 of democrats call themselves ms nbc viewers republican msnbc viewership has dropped 14 points. Less than a quarter of democrats identify themselves as fox news viewers last year. But viewership for the network went up 14 points among the republicans to 58 this siloing of news sources helps explain why democrats and republicans have become so divided. All politics is no longer local, its not only been nationalized, its been bulkized were going to try to die guegel of what weve heard this morning. Joint pain, swelling, tenderness. Much better. My psoriasis, clearer. Cosentyx works on all of this. Four years and counting. So watch out. I got this watch me. Real people with active Psoriatic Arthritis are feeling real relief with cosentyx. Cosentyx is a different kind of targeted biologic. It treats the multiple symptoms of Psoriatic Arthritis to help you look and feel better. It even helps stop further joint damage. Dont use if youre allergic to cosentyx. Before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. An increased risk of infections and lowered ability. To fight them may occur. Tell your doctor about an infection or symptoms, if your inflammatory bowel disease symptoms develop or worsen. Or if youve had a vaccine, or plan to. Serious allergic reactions may occur. I just look and feel better. I got real relief with cosentyx. Watch me feel real relief. Ask your rheumatologist about cosentyx. Johnsbut were also a cancer fighting, hiv controlling, joint replacing, and depression relieving company. From the day youre born we never stop taking care of you. But allstate helps you. With drivewise. Feedback that helps you drive safer. And that can lower your cost now that you know the truth. Are you in good hands . Im part of a community of problem solvers. We make ideas grow. From an everyday solution. To one that can take on a bigger challenge. From packaging tape. To tape that can bond materials to buildings. And planes. One idea can unlock a breadth of solutions. At 3m, we are solving problems that improve lives. Welcome back our panel is here, former host now of 1a on npr, cofounder and editor at large of tech news and analysis website, author of a popular column in the New York Times, a staff writer at the new yorker and, resident fellow at the American Enterprise institute. Good to have you all i want to start in your world of tech one thing we havent touched on as much is social media. We talked about it on the sides, but sort of the role social media is playing in this misinformation campaign. Mark zuckerberg and jack dorsey are having a debate. While i worry about an erosion of truth, i dont think most people dont want to live in a world that Tech Companies judge to be 100 truth. Jack dorsey disagreed with him, its about paying to increase the reach of political speech has ramifications that todays infrastructure may not be prepared to handle. Yes thats the two sides of it and google sits in the middle and its trying to figure out a way between them you know, marks idea, hes conflating free speech with paid speech and its confusing to people anybody can say anything on their platforms on twitter, for example, donald trump continues to tweet but he his campaign doesnt get to do paid advertising and thats a very different thing. Whats really interesting is that its been around forever, you look at george washington, all those days, this was partisan crowds. When you get into the social media space, it becomes weaponized, it becomes amplified and anonymous. And then you can repeat lies and they take a virality and create an engagement that leads to enragement do it again. This to me is look, this is not knew. Linden johnson is created with saying i dont know if its true or not just say it and make them deny it social media just makes it where the space between whats first reported and the fake part almost just got reversed. Its faster its amplified it repeats and repeats itself and its not controllable in a different way. I think that social media, what you described about engagement and enragement, which is very true, it exposes part of the problem and maybe part of the solution for those of us who consider ourselves journalists i think one of the issues that i have with the way were fighting back against this is were trying to fight back with information, but journalists are not in the information business. We are in the trust Business Trust is an emotion. You compete head to head, you connect heart to heart and it speaks to the fact that people are seeing information that provokes an emotional Response Trust is emotional too its like love, you dont remember when you fell in love, but that emotion is broken and i think part of what we have to do is acknowledge that there is a heart piece of this, people are trusting these lies and misinformation and a lot of them are just damn lies but they work. They give you comfort. They make you feel like the world hasnt changed in ways you dont understand and it doesnt mean we affirm the lie, it doesnt mean we dont speak the truth. If were ignoring the human part of this, none of what were doing is going to work its the cultural connection that the right has decided it doesnt have with Mainstream Media. It doesnt matter what we report you dont understand my life, so why should i care . And that disconnect is decades old. Sure. What gives us this perfect storm of alt truth is a few things, you have technological change, confidence in these big institutions has then you have President Trump, right who kind of plugs benefits from both of those changes and use is it to amplify his message. What you end up with is this place where no one can really agree on the very basic material governing our democracy. I think the important thing is to recognize, this isnt organically happen this comes in the context of a war on the institution of independent journalism, a war on the notion of truth that has served the political interest of you know, institutions in the country. I think fox news has wage add purposeful campaign over decades to convince people that other peoples news wasnt the correct news in fact that they were the only in fairness this goes back to alexander hamilton, though. We have the president of the United States who says that the media is the enemy of the people im not familiar with any president who has ever spoken in this way, who has waged as marty pointed out in your first interview, i think importantly so, this was a political strategy there is a calculated Campaign Going on that theres the result of which is here now. There are new tools and a whole human nature to this were seeing russian propaganda make its way into american politics because russia had paid money and made it a focus of its effort. They lost the cold war. They won this one youre in past tense. Because they continue to do it its not a battle. Were not fighting against them in the proper ways by the ukraine thing. Its very clear, this is a lie crowd strike is in california. Trust me, there are americans who are running it. Now you have the president of the United States amplifying this. Its algorithmic. Youre being targeted. It is exactly they can whisper 1,000 different lies in a million different ears it isnt hard. They amplify and get it so that you cant find the truth. I want you to address what i think is an ecosystem problem on the right. I want to put up something that my colleague put here, its a bit of an ecosystem here, youll get something starts on 4chan, theres the reddit of trump, and then it starts inching into the mainstream, then it gets to drudge, might have a provocative headline link, rush might say it in his fun little way, then it makes its way into fox news and your facebook feed how do you create more accountability in the conservative ecosystem for basically dealing with propaganda well, its hard work. I think it begins by trying to instruct Young Conservatives in the cannons of journalism. The distrust of institutions is long standing among conservatives has led many of them to no longer believe in the idea that you need kind of evidence in order to forward a fact or they dont believe in certain verified sources, credentialed sources of information. One other change that i think makes all this more difficult is it used to be you could go to the supermarket and see the tabloids and you see the weekly world news and the alien has predicted whos going to be the president this year and you move past it. Maybe some people get a chuckle. Maybe some people believe it its a minority of the population today you cant ignore it because its everywhere. And the second you go on one of these platforms, social media in particular, youre confronted by it. I think, though i hear you in terms of the distrust among of conservatives, youre right about that i know a lot of conservatives who are godfearing people and remember that the bible says its better to tie a mill stone around your neck than to lead a little one astray. They read the book of proverbs i think theres a part of conservativism that speaks to the value of truth and personal responsibility i think it is crazy that there are people who say, oh, its too hard, theres so much going on out there, theres so much information. We want a world war against the nazis where we invented a new bomb and you wont dsubscribe to your local paper, really it goes to what is the responsibility of the citizen here dont be gullible. Its impossible to fight it its addictive, its repetitive, its propaganda, and it is in ways they dont have to i feel like im watching the head and the heart debate here the algorithm is strong. Its strong it is doing things in ways that has never been possible through a newspaper. Nobody is reading newspapers and shouldnt be this is great to be able to get this information on your phone and with conservatives, theres a great book called antisocial that showed this chain you dont need the chain anymore. Its Rudy Giuliani saying they actually lie kennedy on your thing, its just a theres no penalty, thats the issue. Theres no penalty beyond no penalty, theres an incentive. This ecosystem is so well embedded now in how one party is communicating with its core of people that its a chain that works and i agree with kara. I think not only can you not break it, but their goal is to get people to say i dont care their goal is not necessarily to persuade the unpersuadable that ukraine intervened in the 2016 election theyre goal is to get people to say, i dont know. When you think about the 2020 election and were talking at the very end of 2019, this is going to be the major driver really when you think about persuading people who tilted this last election in 2016 a handful of people who might have voted for barack obama and somehow also for donald trump. People who arent necessarily living in the information world that we are. And i fear that group of voters is a group of voters who are saying, i cant possibly think of objective truth. This is also a political tactic, matthew. We are aware that there are some politicians who want to come on this show because theyre hoping fundraisingal moment to use for and im like the minute i got wind of that, we wont put folks on its like, yeah, its fun to get chastised by the Mainstream Media. This has a lot to do in the change of the nature of your institutions you used to join an institution to be molded by it, to be part of this history that preceded you and will go after you. Now, institutions are platforms for the individuals. And this is what makes this is the reason why the platforms are the locusts of so much attention whether its media attention, cultural attention or government attention they are the guardrails. Social media knocked down the other guardrails the platforms themselves are the guardrails and theyre going to be the heart of our politics for the next decade. And theyre unregulated a libertarian society, were seeing the perils of it. There are a few things that give me hope, young people young people are savvy to the very things youre talking about. Theyve decided that there are certain social media that they can trust more than others and the other is the fact that i got to say in three years, the one thing that has never failed is telling our audience if you let this conversation devolve into stupidity, theres nothing i can bring you back. That is all we have for todays special broadcast. Thank you for watching all year. All of us here at meet the press wish you a happy and safe new year were going to be back next week which is also next year, 2020. If its sunday, its meet the press. Breaking overnight, another person has died in the texas church shooting. 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