It is not a profound revelation that special interests in America will leverage the media to promote some advantage. But the challenge of identifying and rooting out disinformation – claims that are profoundly distorted or untrue – is increasingly a struggle for media consumers on both the right and left side of the political spectrum. So much information is now cast into the wilderness of social media and diverse on-line and print publications – with obscured sponsors and ownership – that finding a pathway to the truth can be arduous.
Typically, disinformation is a label applied to falsehoods spread for political advantage. But what if the disinformation or the propaganda or the bias (or whatever you label it) isn’t about politics or division but rather about furthering a corporation’s economic advantage? What if a media outlet winds up being weaponized by its corporate owner to handicap its competitors? A massive digital news outlet owned by a multinational corporation surreptitiously organized to take down its commercial rivals can be a concealed threat to the economy and consumers.
Read Full Article »