Disinformation, Misinformation, Propaganda, Distraction

In 2022, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I started watching Perun's weekly in-depth analysis videos (on Sundays) because the information he presents is frequently intrinsically interesting and broadly applicable to understanding geopolitics from a macroeconomics perspective.  In Perun's 16-Apr-2023 video, Perun cites this paper and a few others that indicate at least 30 million American citizens (about 20% of the population of the USA who vote in elections) reposted the false information created and circulated by the Russian Internet Research Agency troll farm.  The problem with social media appears more complex than my (admittedly naive) understanding. The issue is not only with the troll farms and bots.  The issues are with the delivery, timing, and (Aristotelian) rhetorical quality of the information delivered, as well as the capability of social media consumers to think about the information itself.  We are not adequately educated or trained  in persuasion techniques, skepticism, critical thinking, the history of ideas, or enlightened approaches to understanding our world.  

I have therefore further tempered my (strong opinion) that we should always empower and trust people to make self-interested decisions based on access to all information and should never control access (freedom of the press).  Now I am convinced we need more responsibility for fact checking and journalistic integrity assigned to media and social media entities until we can repair some fundamental issues in our public education and society.  However, I don't think governments or regulation should be involved because all governments and the majority of regulations always make situations worse.  I don't know how to return journalism to its roots of chasing truth, sifting evidence, lack of evidence, and following evidence wherever it leads. And I have no idea how citizens can re-discover our civic duties in a republic.  Mandatory civics lessons in schools probably won't work.

Another problem I perceive is selective secrecy used to dis-inform and misinform. Whistleblowers like Snowden, and other revelations of secret information have changed the objective truth of  a few recent historical events.  There is also an alarming decrease in the release of data (e.g. Pfizer).