Down the Rabbit Hole

It's the same old, same old. Not very enlightening or welcoming

Dec 22, 2023

white cat on brown soil — Photo by Jess McMahon on Unsplash

During the 2022 elections, I signed up with an organization that tried to track misinformation and disinformation on the Internet. Misinformation is when someone makes a mistake. Disinformation is when they lie intentionally. I was supposed to report what I found to the organization. They thought they had enough influence to have the misinformation removed from the web. Mostly, they didn’t. Now I don’t think they have any influence. When I realized that I began to comment on some sites, just to let people know there were other realities.

This year I began to get posts from a strange site called Epoch Times. Wikipedia describes Epoch Times this way:

The Epoch Times is a far-right[1] international multi-language newspaper and media company affiliated with the Falun Gong new religious movement.[29] The newspaper, based in New York City, is part of the Epoch Media Group, which also operates New Tang Dynasty (NTD) Television.[30] The Epoch Times has websites in 35 countries but is blocked in mainland China.[31]

The Epoch Times opposes the Chinese Communist Party,[32][33][22] platforms far-right politicians in Europe,[8][10][22] and has supported former President Donald Trump in the U.S.;[34][35] a 2019 report by NBC News showed it to be the second-largest funder of pro-Trump Facebook advertising after the Trump campaign itself.[3

I was amazed at some of the posts they were sending so I went on the site. Then they sent me a deal that allowed me to read and post comments for $.25 a week, $1 a month. So I paid. I lasted two months.

Until the end, I tried hard to engage some of the commenters. I was very polite. I was curious. You know I can be charming. I wanted to see if anyone would respond to my pointing out that owning a gun does not make a family safer, it raises the probability of someone in the family getting shot. I asked if anyone had any evidence besides the My Pillow guy or the Mules video, that Trump was robbed of the election. I wondered if the site had informed its readers how all of Trump’s former lawyers have admitted that they lied about the election, about the $148 M that poor Rudi has to pay for defaming the election workers, or if they actually read any of the indictments that were brought against Trump. Stuff like that. I got many responses. Most of them just called me deluded or rude names.

I tried to wish people happy holidays and express my concern about how badly divided the country is and how that is not good for America. No one responded to that. They kept blaming CNN.

During the last two weeks, I began to get almost as many “likes” as I did demeaning comments. I guess some other people also wanted to read what kind of information is being spread. But then, the ET published a video about “The Truth Behind January 6.” Again this was a “special knowledge video,” with information that the MSM was keeping hidden from the world. It basically blamed the riots on the Capitol Police and lots of people who were not Republicans. They mentioned nothing about Trump.

That was it for me. I couldn’t even give them my $1 a month. So I posted this as my farewell letter. It’s really not that polite.

After about two months on this site, I can no longer support what is posted here any longer. Even the $1 a month that I pay to comment is too much. I have come to believe that this site is designed to keep America divided and to distort the information to the extent that it puts many of its readers in danger.

Examples of that are the total support of gun ownership and denial of the huge amount of gun deaths that occur in families with guns. I have seen how they plant doubts about effective medicines, about science, and about the findings of rigorous investigations.

The latest example is the video about the January 6th. I felt as if I was watching a science-fiction video about what aliens were doing on another planet. Things like this are not just garbage and lies, they are dangerous. This is the level of the ridiculous Q-Anon hoaxes.

I have come to believe that the creators of this site really want to destroy this country. Whether they are from a foreign government or they are just doing it for profit I cannot tell. I have reached a point at which I don’t know if the commenters are just total Trump diehards, or bots. No one has offered me any reasonable, factual, explanation of why they believe what is posted here. So, I’m taking my $.25 a week and going home. I am sure I won’t be missed.

Below are the first four comments I received in response. They are typical of the responses I got from my other, more friendly posts.

HOW ABOUT ALL THE OTHER NON INFLUENCED, TOTALLY HONEST MEDIA SOURCES, YOU MAGGOTT!

Don’t let the door of truth hit you on the way out. You apparently deserve CNN and MSNBC.

You should really walk the walk and go transgender yourself.

Someone needs to attend a Group Think for BOOB TUBE Indoctrination . Epoch is TRUTH..MSM is Paid offPropaganda

Notice how most of them just defend the site and attack other media. I had often posted that I don’t always trust MSM, and I get most of my information about Trump from watching Trump and listening to what he says.

It is a priority of these sites to make sure that people don’t leave the bubble. They have the real truth that is revealed only to those who know where to find it. They don’t seem to care that many of the things they push — anti-climate change, pro-gun, anti-vaccine, and even anti-cancer treatment, will kill people.

I also don’t know if the answers were from bots that blame anyone who asks a question as a victim of the MSM.

I found it more frightening than frustrating. These people feel they have to be better than people they don’t know. They need to blame someone for their frustrations. I don’t think they would have realized how frustrated they were until these sites explained to them why their lives were terrible. If they turned off the “news “ for the holidays, they might realize that life is good and that most people are good and kind. But that would mean that they are not special.

Having access to this special knowledge makes you special. But you can’t question that Biden is a communist, that all the charges against Trump only prove how honest he is, and that the best way to feel safe in America is to carry a loaded gun with you at all times. All those statistics about the high suicide rates of people with guns are MSM lies.

These people love Trump. He protects their fragile whiteness, even if they are not white. The world is very complex. It can be overwhelming. Special knowledge is only for special people. It is impervious to any and all challenges. Don’t ask.

Except, people can change. I just read a piece about George Wallace, the most ardent segregationist in the South, and how he suffered, how it opened his eyes, and how he changed his views. It’s easy to call someone a moron over the Internet. It’s easy to scream that people are vermin at a Trump rally. But when a Black doctor is saving your mother’s life, or an immigrant comes to your house in the middle of the night to fix the broken sewer, it can be the beginning of something.

Hate and resentment take a lot of time and energy. Even when all your friends agree with you it still gets exhausting. The MAGA folks are against everything and have no other plans or policies. Trump is getting more enraged and more frightening.

We can win this.

Stay positive. Stay involved. Enjoy the holidays.

Kiss your crazy uncle on the head and tell him he should just chill. The DOJ is not coming after him. It IS out to get Trump, but that’s because Trump is a criminal., bigly.

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