The End of Truth
Free societies around the world are in grave danger. Dictators and autocrats have long replaced facts with propaganda. But today the leaders of several important democracies, bending social media to their ends, have singled out the press as an enemy of the state and poisoned civic discourse with falsehoods. Elections are swayed, governments felled, conflict and even genocide is fueled by campaigns of misinformation. Information warfare has become as powerful as the gun. In our own country, millions of Americans can no longer distinguish facts from fiction.
It wasn’t always so. As recently as the 1990s, Democrats and Republicans, young and old, believed largely the same set of facts–then argued and debated with their neighbors to create a better American future. Certainly the arguments were heated and passionate, but they were largely based on a shared reality believed by politicians and voters alike.
Several factors converged over two decades to destroy many Americans’ belief in professional journalists reporting the facts: in 1987 the FCC revoked the Fairness Doctrine, sparking the birth of conservative talk radio; 1991 saw the birth of the World Wide Web, a bottomless source of unfiltered, free information ready to be passed on to others; in 1996, the nakedly partisan Fox News, and its rival, MSNBC, were launched; conspiracist Alex Jones radio show was syndicated nationally in 2001; 2004 witnessed the birth of Facebook and the explosion of an unregulated social media that would become the primary source of information for many. Almost simultaneously, thousands of newspapers began to close across the country.
Here at home today, The Washington Post reports that our president, who popularized “fake news” accusations now in vogue amongst autocrats and strongmen–and declared journalists “enemies of the people”–has made more than 20,000 false or misleading statements while in office. He has repeatedly denounced credible news outlets staffed by professional journalists, editors and fact checkers, while pledging support for notorious conspiracy websites such as Infowars. President Trump’s Twitter feed, reaching 87 million, is a sea of misinformation and outright lies. Still, it is important to remember that our leader is a product of our disinformation landscape, and not the cause.
Social media, while a blessing in many ways, has become a digital firehose of misinformation. A recent MIT study reveals that lies travel six times faster than facts on the internet. Clicks equal profits for nearly everything on the web. Every minute we stay online, a corporation makes money. Sophisticated algorithms funnel to us a steady stream of the intriguing, the disturbing, the sexual and the violent. (The profit model has created an unintentional byproduct: internet addiction, depression and even suicide are skyrocketing amongst our youth.)
Millions of Americans today believe conspiracy theories of the most outrageous sort–of large numbers of Washington politicians said to be Satanic blood-drinking pedophiles, operating from the basement of a pizza parlor. (It turns out the pizza parlor in question has no basement.) The gullible then forward on this propaganda to hundreds, or thousands, with just a keystroke. Contrast this with the 1990s, when one would clip an article from Newsweek, or the local newspaper, then travel to the post office to mail it to a friend.
While misinformation spreads across the internet, traditional media outlets, including more than 2,000 newspapers—staffed by trained professionals held accountable to a code of ethics—are dying at an extraordinary rate. Who is left to be the watchdog over the nation’s statehouses, city commissions and school boards? Corruption thrives best where no one is paying attention. Conspiracies rise as media literacy falls.
Cable news channels–each of them immensely profitable–spend virtually nothing on news gathering and yet have millions to pay celebrity hosts who stake out inflexible ideological positions, preaching them as the new civic gospel. Their profits are tied to ratings, and their ratings are too often tied to stoking fear and outrage.
Sophisticated, well-funded and often invisible influences are distorting public discourse, and the very future of American democracy. Understanding these forces is a first step toward returning our citizens to fact-based conversations and safeguarding our future. We hope this exhibition contributes to that cause.
Text written by Michael Kamber, Bronx Documentary Center.
Timeline
False Conspiracy Theories
OPERATION DENVER / OPERATION INFEKTION
False Conspiracy Theory: The US government created HIV/AIDS as a biological weapons research project.
Facts: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which can cause Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), is a virus spread through bodily fluids, most often transmitted sexually or through injection via sharing needles for drug use. Untreated, HIV can lead to AIDS; neither the virus or disease are curable. HIV-1 and HIV-2 originated in the 20th century and are the result of multiple cross-species transmissions of simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs), which naturally infects African primates, created through a process of species-jumping from human to non-human animals. A transmission event of the Simian immunodeficiency virus of chimpanzees (SIVcpz) in southern Cameroon is believed to have given rise to HIV-1.
In the 1980s, the Russian KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti) created “Operation Denver” also known as “Operation Infektion” as a disinformation campaign The KGB was the Soviet Union’s secret security agency from 1954 up until 1991 when the Soviet Union dissolved. Current Russian president Vladimir Putin was a KGB officer. The KGB split into the Federal Security Service and Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation and has since worked under many other aliases.
The first document found to prove that the false HIV/AIDS theory was created by the KGB was discovered by historian Christopher Nehring (some may argue he found it with Douglas Selvage). The document was a telegram dated September 7th, 1985, from the KGB in Moscow to Bulgarian state security asking their foreign intelligence agency to help spread lies about the HIV virus.
Spread + Effect: It is speculated that the KGB spread this false claim to cause
chaos and disruption between the American people and their government and military, to foster anti-Americanism, and possibly to distract from the Soviet Union’s own warfare programs.
In July of 1983 in New Delhi, India, a small paper, Patriot Magazine, named HIV/AIDS as a U.S.-created-biological-weapon used to target African Americans and “homosexuals.” By 1985 the story had spread across several countries in Africa and, the following year, was reported on by scientists in East Germany claiming they could prove the theory true.
On March 30, 1987, CBS News anchor Dan Rather reported live on the matter for the first time in the U.S., a few years after the initial article in New Delhi. The spread of the disinformation campaign pre-dates the internet. As a result, it took several years to move around the world, rather than the minutes or hours that conspiracies take to reach millions today. Still, the effects of those lies have been just as powerful and long lasting; to this day, many Americans still believe that the U.S. government invented HIV/AIDS despite decades of research and scientific evidence to the contrary.
Related links: Wilson Center Digital Archive | Wilson Center: “Operation Denver” | The New York Times| HIV.gov | Science Mag | The National Center for Biotechnology Information
BIRTHER MOVEMENT
False Conspiracy Theory: President Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen–his place of birth is Kenya, not Hawaii–and he is therefore not eligible to be the U.S. President. A related theory, frequently voiced simultaneously, alleges that Obama is hiding his true religion, which conspiracists contend is Islam.
Facts: President Obama provided his Hawaiian birth certificate to the White House prior to the 2008 election. In 2011, when allegations continued, he provided his long-form birth certificate from the Hawaiian Department of Health.
Spread + Effect: In 2008, Donald J. Trump became a prominent promoter of the birther conspiracy. On talk and radio shows he consistently questioned President Barack Obama citizenship.. Trump continued to bring up the theory as he began his presidential campaign in 2015, causing millions of Americans to question the former president.
In 2016, the now President Trump retracted his false statement alleging Obama’s foreign birthplace, admitting that the Hawaiian Department of Health birth certificate was real. . He gave himself credit for ending the controversy but then falsely claimed Hilary Clinton to be the origin of the conspiracy. An NBC News poll showed that even after Trump admitted Obama’s birthplace was the United States–and long after Obama’s birth certificate has been produced and authenticated–more than 70% of Republican voters continue to believe Obama was born outside the United States.
Related links: NBC News | The New York Times | Obama White House Archives: Certificate of Live Birth | Obama White House Archives: Certificate of Live Birth – Long Form | Obama White House Archives: Correspondence with the Hawaii State Department of Health
PIZZAGATE
False Conspiracy Theory:
November, 2016:
John Podesta, chairman of Hilary Clinton’s campaign and other members of the Democratic Party are engaged in human-trafficking and a child sex ring operating from various restaurants across the United States. One of these was allegedly Comet Ping Pong, a pizzeria in Washington, D.C., which held a child sex ring in its basement.
Facts: Comet Ping Pong does not have a basement or underground tunnels, nor did it run a child sex ring. The Metropolitan Police Department of D.C. debunked the rumors and conspiracies around the pizzeria in November, 2016.
John Podesta’s email account was hacked and his emails released by WikiLeaks days before the 2016 presidential election. This led to a Reddit user posting them to his account and launching the pizzagate conspiracy theory.
Spread + Effect: Rumors spread internationally from 4Chan (an anonymous online message board), by a figure later known as Q*, into the mainstream internet through websites like Reddit, Twitter and Facebook groups. The Pizzagate theory was then repeated by InfoWars and conspiratorial blogs, and promoted by alt-right activists on social media.
In a video viewed more than 400,000 times, InfoWars’ host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones said, “When I think about all the children Hillary Clinton has personally murdered and chopped up and raped, I have zero fear standing up against her…Yeah, you heard me right. Hillary Clinton has personally murdered children. I just can’t hold back the truth anymore.”
The owner and employees of Comet Ping Pong were harassed with daily phone calls and death threats. The accusations continued even after the conspiracy was debunked by Washington police.
On December 4, 2016, Edgar Madison Welch drove from his home in North Carolina, to Washington D.C. to personally investigate the conspiracy about the pizzeria, bringing along with him a semi-automatic rifle, a Colt .38 caliber handgun, a shotgun, and a folding knife. Welch fired three rounds at a locked door inside the pizzeria in search of its basement. Once he realized there was no basement or proof of pedophilia, he surrendered to the Washington D.C. police. No one was injured. He was later charged and sentenced to four years in prison.
Four years later, in June, 2020, the pizzagate hashtag (#Pizzagate) regained popularity on the TikTok app, reaching over 80 million views. Tik Tok banned the hashtag and later banned accounts related to pizzagate and QAnon, although users are still able to find loopholes.
Reddit banned its pizzagate subreddit in 2018 and YouTube and Twitter banned pizzagate-related posts and accounts in 2019. In August of 2020, QAnon-related posts that called for acts of violence were banned on Facebook, however, all other pizzagate and QAnon-related posts and profiles were not completely banned until October of 2020.
*Q or QAnon (for “anonymous”) is a conspiracy theory followed by tens of millions around the world. This theory alleges that “Deep State” government employees and Washington elites are engaged in a massive kidnapping and pedophilia ring. Details include participants drinking the blood of children. The theory has its origins in anti-semitic theories from the early 20th century alleging that Jews drink the blood of Christian children. Many adherents to QAnon believe that President Donald J. Trump will be the savior and “all-truth revealer.”
QAnon originated on the 4Chan message board website, moving to 8Chan and 8kun, before spreading widely on social media platforms like Facebook. Q doesn’t post information or link documents; they are not a whistleblower in the traditional sense of as there are no sources. They deliver what are called “Q Drops,” which include short cryptic messages like: “Clinton,” “Deep State,” “More to come,” and “They have the answer.” These words are attached to seemingly unrelated events, asking the reader to invent their own answer. Q allegedly has individuals post to the internet on their behalf, and then appoints others to explain what their code means through another network, whether Twitter, Reddit, or another social media platform, so that followers can decipher the code.
Experts believe that Q’s posts are first sent from a server in the Philippines, but the original source and location of the creator are unknown. Facebook had restricted more that 2 million pages and over 10,000 accounts related to QAnon, according to The New York Times report in August 2020, before Facebook finally banned QAnon in October, 2020. In the fall of 2020, the FBI classified QAnon as a domestic-terror threat.
THE MURDER OF SETH RICH
False Conspiracy Theory: The murder of Seth Rich was directed by Hilary Clinton as retribution for leaking her emails to WikiLeaks—meaning Russian electoral interference was not the source of the leak.
Facts: On July 10, 2016, at 4:19am, 27-year-old Seth Conrad Rich was shot. The police concluded his killing was a robbery gone wrong. Rich was one block away from his home and had just hung up the phone after speaking to his girlfriend for two hours. He died later at the hospital. According to Rolling Stone, “He was the 67th homicide victim of the year in Washington, D.C.”
Rich worked for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) registering new voters and had recently been offered a spot in Brooklyn, NY on Hilary Clinton’s presidential campaign. He had not yet taken the offer.
Spread + Effect: Months after the murder of Seth Rich, Foxnews.com published a story falsley claiming that the FBI had a report connecting Rich’s murder to the DNC emails released by WikiLeaks during the 2016 elections. Rich was killed, the theory went, because he had information confirming that the leak of Hillary Clinton’s emails was an inside job–and not a hack by Russian agents.
Later that day, 2.4 million viewers tuned into Hannity on Fox News and watched as host Sean Hannity claimed to have breaking news about what could be “one of the biggest scandals in American history.” He referenced the false Foxnews.com story and also speculated that Rich was upset “that the DNC was conspiring to hurt Bernie Sanders and help Hillary Clinton win the nomination.”
The story that Foxnews.com published was repeated on Fox & Friends and two other shows on Fox. Joel Rich, Seth’s father, asked for the story to be taken down. A week later Fox.com and Foxnews.com retracted their statement and apologized for publishing unsubstantiated reports. However, the host Sean Hannity refused to apologize or retract his statement. He and many others continued to report and tweet on the matter, helping the false claim stay “viral.”
The Washington, D.C. police told The Washington Post that there was “nothing that we can find that any of this is accurate,” and a former law-enforcement official told NBC News the computer “never contained any emails related to WikiLeaks, and the FBI never had it.”
In March of 2018, the parents of Seth Rich sued Fox News and other people associated with the claims for exploiting their son’s murder with lies and misrepresentations and inflicting emotional distress.
Related links: Rolling Stone | NBC News | The New York Times | NPR
Media Comparisons
Walter Cronkite, of the CBS Evening News, was known as the most trusted man in America through the 1960s and 70s, and tens of millions of Americans tuned in at 6pm every evening to learn the day’s events from Cronkite.This was many years before the invention of household computers, cellphones and social media. He believed facts were all that made up the news and took great pride in reporting them as accurately as possible, without his opinion.
Today, Sean Hannity is one of the most watched men on TV, averaging 4.7 million viewers in August 2020. Fox News, which broadcasts Hannity’s show, started in 1996, when Rupert Murdoch, an arch conservative business mogul, hired Republican operative Roger Ailes to create the channel. Ailes created a TV format based on opinionated and controversial pundits, which was a break from traditional news values and anchors like Cronkite, but garnered immense ratings.
In 1966, after Charles Whitman opened fire from the top of the University of Texas tower, Neal Spelce went on air for KTBC to report on the day’s tragic events. In a measured, professional tone, Spelce reported on the 16 dead, the weapons used by Whitman, and the police action that took the shooter’s life, ending the attack. Almost fifty years later, when a gunman killed 26 people—including 20 young children—at the Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, conspiracy theorist and internet personality Alex Jones went online to deny the attack ever happened. His claims of a “false flag” attack staged by “globalists” led to a campaign of harassment against families of victims, and ultimately, a $100,000 defamation settlement against Jones.
In 1960, Presidential candidates Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy participated in the fourth general election debate, which was broadcast on television and radio. The two outlined policy positions and defended against criticism, making their case to American voters. In 2020, the televised debate between President Trump and Joe Biden was reduced to an ugly TV spectacle that broke from any norms of substantive political debate. The President incessantly interrupted his opponent and made numerous false claims, while Biden spent more time defending himself from Trump’s attacks than outlining a plan for America’s future.
The voyage had begun, and had begun happily with a soft blue sky, and a calm sea.
This exhibition was curated by Michael Kamber and Cynthia Rivera.
The Trump Revolution exhibition series is made possible by the Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, and, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.