Mom manipulated by fake news story

            My mother who is 88 years old likes to send and or forward emails that she finds interesting, relevant, or funny. Many of them are animal and nature photos or jokes that someone sent her. She also sends a lot of links to MoveOn.org petitions because she is very liberal and politically involved with the Democratic Party. I also want to mention (because of where I am going with this story) that she is Jewish but not religious, and has visited Israel a couple of times.

            All that being said, let’s get on with the content of the email she sent me (and 42 other people) with the subject line of Fwd: Brilliant and in which she just wrote FYI.

During the recent cease-fire, the leader of the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas, Khaled Mashal, sent a gift to the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, in an elaborate box with a note. After having the box checked for safety reasons, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened the box and saw that the content was human feces. He opened the note, handwritten in Arabic by Mr. Mashal, which said, "For you and the proud people of the Zionist Entity."Mr. Netanyahu, literate in Arabic, pondered the note and decided how best to reciprocate. He quickly did so by sending the Hamas leader a very pretty package with a personal note. Mr. Mashal and the other leaders of Hamas were very surprised to receive the parcel and opened it very carefully suspecting that it might contain a bomb. But to their surprise they saw that it contained a tiny computer chip. The chip was rechargeable with solar energy, had a 1.8 terabyte memory and could output a 3D hologram display capable of functioning in any type of cellular phone, tablet or laptop. It was one of the world's most advanced technologies, with a tiny label, "Invented and produced in Israel." Mr. Netanyahu's note, personally handwritten in Arabic, Hebrew, French, and English, stated very courteously... "Every leader gives the best his people can produce."

            My initial reaction was a slight chuckle, then I got upset because it’s very Racist (and that’s not like my mother) and finally I started wondering if my mother actually thought this was a true story considering she put FYI at the beginning of the forward. My feeling was that this was a joke story but I thought I should do a little fact checking before I blasted my mother for sending it to her email group.

            After about a 5 minute Google search I found that the story had originally been published in 2014 by a website called To The Point News, who tout themselves as “The Oasis for Rational Conservatives”. The only other references I could find were posts on Facebook and chat rooms so my conclusion was that this is “Fake News”.

            So now the question is, why did my mother, who’s intelligent, well read, and keeps up with the news think this was something worth sharing? First, the original email came from a guy in her Sierra Club group (in hindsight she did say she should have paid more attention since he is a Republican). Second, the story makes Israel look good. And last but not least, it sounds plausible, like it could be true.

            This email my mother forwarded is a better example of an insensitive joke than fake news but it still gives us the opportunity to discuss the fake news hype.  Fake news is nothing new, I’m sure it’s been around since early man started telling stories around the fire and was probably used to try and make his adversaries look bad. It’s basically gossip with the intent to manipulate social or political thought. Back before the internet we called it “spin” and there were people known as Spin Doctors, now they are “Communications Specialists” who give us “alternative facts”.

            At its core, a lot of fake news is propaganda. That’s kind of what my mother’s email was in that it tried to elevate Israelis while denigrating Palestinians. The fake news/propaganda tries to elicit an emotional rather than a rational response from the recipient because they are much easier to manipulate that way. And Psychological Manipulation is what all this current fake news crap is all about.

            The powers that be, whether politicians, big business, religious leaders, or the super rich are all trying to influence us into their way of thinking. Social media has made it so much faster and easier to get the message and or disinformation out to the masses that most of us can’t even keep up with the sheer volume let alone figure out what’s fact or fiction.

             Let me wrap up this little rant by saying that I think that an eternal skeptic like myself has an advantage in the info-wars in that I don’t believe much of anything I hear whether it comes from the left, right, or down the middle.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 5 of the following link. Winters Express 4/19/18