Somehow Russian government propaganda can hack Americans’ minds, but never American government and legacy media propaganda. From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:
The Washington Post has published another article warning its readers that the Russians are “hacking our minds”, this one authored by CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.
“Russia hasn’t just hacked our computer systems. It’s hacked our minds.” blares the ridiculous, propagandistic headline for an article about “the Russian model” of propaganda which “rests on the principle that people get convinced when they hear the same message many times from a variety of sources, no matter how biased.”
Which is funny, since this is not the first time WaPo itself has repeated this cartoonish narrative about Russian mind-hackers.
The problem is not just that Russia has hacked America’s computer systems. It seems to have hacked our minds.
My latest column: https://t.co/iVFK7u2F4o
— Fareed Zakaria (@FareedZakaria) December 18, 2020
“Russia and other adversaries may not need to hack the election if they can hack something else: our minds.”
From The Washington Post. Democracy Dies in Darkness. pic.twitter.com/RkURiogRUc
— Caitlin Johnstone
(@caitoz) October 4, 2020
Just two months ago the Washington Post editorial board published an article titled “The U.S. may be safe from foreign interference in this election. But what about perception hacking?“, which opens with the line “Russia and other adversaries may not need to hack the election if they can hack something else: our minds.”
The paranoid screed unironically argued that Russia is using its super powerful propaganda engine to make people paranoid and doubtful of US electoral systems, which could actually have an adverse effect on the US election. As though telling people their mental and perceptual faculties are being hacked by a hostile foreign enemy with the goal of influencing the election would not make them paranoid and doubtful of US electoral systems.
