#information manipulation

"Today, the man you killed would have visited the butchers at this time of day. To simulate that missing moment, you will be butchered here, so that the information is retained."

and unless the guy can explain another way of interpretation, that does in no way prevent that statement from being true, they will become butchered.

Nobody needs to cause the event to happen, because it has already been written.

Energy is only needed to prevent it happening.

In the episode, the murderer gets a job as a butcher, so by definition they are 'butchered'.

however, their escape plan wasn't airtight.

they said "butchered here" and by that they meant the exact butcher's shop the victim visits.

after telling the murderer this, they start searching town, looking for the butcher's shop that the victim visits at this time of day.

in the end he's unable to find it.

the guy from before appears saying. "isn't it terrible when we lose a vital piece of information? maybe you shouldn't have destroyed the one place that information was kept."

"such a terrible tragedy"

I think I'm going to start from current events, what I've been seeing on tumblr, and why I would categorize most of what I see here not as propaganda but rather as propaganda-related phenomena, namely the largely organic amplification of propaganda messages, ideologically motivated framings, and heaps upon heaps of misinformation. Ultimately, I actually find what we see here much worse - if all we saw on here was propaganda in the stricter sense, I would find that comforting and reassuring because it would suggest that maybe fewer people than we think actually buy into the views currently being spread (because more of the work would be done by specific groups with organizational structures and a budget for propaganda). Now, I personally still think that much of what we see on here is the outcome of various long-term, organized propaganda campaigns that have been driven by multiple groups with different if sometimes overlapping goals. And a lot of these groups are probably still actively contributing to the current wave of propaganda/information manipulation, but there's a huge organic component as well. Hopefully by the time I'm done with this post, it'll become clear what I mean by this. All lessons for media literacy still apply.

If we look at the definitions of propaganda, it's pretty clear why many of the posts on here don't qualify. There are a large number of definitions for propaganda, each with slight variations, and I should probably point out that many people working in this area reject the term per se because it has been thrown around too much and used by people simply to refer to content they disagree with. I personally still use 'propaganda' to refer to systematic and coordinated information manipulation in service of broad or narrow political goals, and so do some other people. Basically what most definitions of propaganda (or the alternative terms used by those who don't like the term propaganda but, at least in my view, still analyze the same phenomena) have in common is a set of ingredients/boxes to be checked for something to qualify as "propaganda." The one I'll use here is the ABC model, which looks at Actor, Behavior, and Content. I'll tackle these in reverse.

Content: This is the content of a message that is being spread. In many ways, this is the weakest and least meaningful checkbox of the three, though it can and should be used in combination with the other two to assess whether something is propaganda/coordinated information manipulation. When you look at content, one of the things to look for is whether something is true or whether it is disinformation/misinformation. (Generally speaking, the term disinformation is used to refer to false or misleading information spread intentionally, while misinformation is used to refer to false or misleading information spread either intentionally or unintentionally/unwittingly. Just like a lot of people don't like using the term propaganda because it has been thrown around too much, some people have started shunning the term disinformation because they argue it has been abused to much. I have no strong opinions here one way or the other. False or misleading information, whether spread on purpose or not, can range from anything that is outright falsehoods, conspiracy theories, etc. to more subtle forms of manipulated information, such as an incomplete and one-sided picture, selective presentation of facts, the promotion of specific narratives, and framing/selective presentation of reality, either quite literally by literally showing only part of the picture, but also, for example, by presenting facts through a particular ideological lens).

Behavior: On its own, content only tells us so much. False information could be an honest mistake or spread unwittingly. Framing is also something most humans do automatically to make sense of reality. All of this occurs organically pretty often and therefore on its own does not qualify as propaganda/systematic information manipulation by pretty much any standard. This is where analyzing behavior comes into play. This includes stuff like whether there is coordinated behavior, such as multiple accounts spreading the same message either because they are part of the same network or because they have agreed in advance to do so. (An example of coordinated behavior might be the use of a WhatsApp group to push out messages to hundreds of ideologically aligned tumblr users to alert them that another user has posted something "problematic" and asking the members of the group to harass the "problematic user.") A further step is coordinated inauthentic behavior, such as bot or troll networks that are used to promote certain content or pile on/harass others in a coordinated fashion. There are certain ways how analysts can detect inauthentic behavior, especially in more obvious cases when large numbers of accounts created within time frames of each other all start pushing out the same messages, use repetitive language, jump from one topic to the next in unison, etc. but if it's smartly done and involves a strong human component rather than pure automation, it is often harder to detect. (I've done a lot of research on bot/troll networks in their various forms. Political bot/troll networks exist on tumblr, but they have negligible impact as far as I can tell.) Transparency is often used as another criterion when analyzing behavior: is someone transparent about their identity and their goals? Behavior can also include the use of certain (rhetorical and other) techniques used with the intention to manipulate. Intention matters a lot to determine if something qualifies as propaganda. People can spread propaganda unintentionally, but that does not turn them into a propagandist (rather, they would be a potential resource that a propagandist/an actor engaging in organized propaganda could try to use). The point is: somebody somewhere has to be doing something on purpose. This is where the actor comes in.

Actor: When looking simply at information manipulation, an individual can qualify as a relevant actor, but most definitions of propaganda would look at collective actors, such as state actors and non-state actors (religious groups, lobby groups, etc.) pursuing specific broader or narrower political goals. Yes, a single tumblr user can engage in intentional information manipulation for a number of reasons ranging from trolling to acting in service of a larger ideological conviction, but most definitions of propaganda would not count the relatively unsystematic actions of an individual as a propaganda campaign (unless maybe they're Elon Musk and wield massive resources en par with that of a government or a political party to promote their messages and further their goals.) Some definitions of propaganda might include individuals, but in my opinion, that's unhelpful because it potentially turns everything into propaganda and makes the concept useless both analytically and in terms of practical responses. So it is better to look for a collective actor with a goal. The goal is usually to change the behavior of people in a way that is favorable to the actor, for example by starting to support a goal pursued by the actor, by opposing something the actor opposes, or often simply by deciding to refrain from doing something that the actor doesn't want people to do. (The goal can also be simply to confuse people and to create the perception that everything and nothing is true.) In practice, when looking at individual pieces of manipulated information, the actor is not always clearly identifiable, but for something to be propaganda/coordinated information manipulation in pursuit of a political goal, there absolutely has to be an actor acting with intention. A criterion that I personally use to determine whether something is propaganda in the stricter sense is whether the actor has an institutional structure (usually with a budget, however large or small) in place that is dedicated to propaganda, for example a government's propaganda department, a military's press liaison bureau, a company's press or publicity department, a political party's press office, a religious group's communications office, etc. Now just because a state or an organization has a structure in place dedicated to communicating with the public does not necessarily mean it is engaging in propaganda: this is where you have to look at the kind of behavior it engages in together with the content it promotes. This is why A, B, and C are looked at together to make a judgment call on whether something should be treated as propaganda/systematic information manipulation.

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google.