Opinion Shaping Shifts into High Gear
January 25, 2022
Two interesting opinion shaping initiatives caught my attention. Both are based on digital constructions but will make use of fuddy duddy print and television as warranted. Let’s look at each quickly and then step back and figure out what’s the context of the two activities.
The first is explained in two write ups. The first is “The UK Government Is Reportedly Preparing a PR Blitz against End-to-End Encryption.” The idea is that making it more difficult to access a British citizen’s messages is not a good idea. There are nuances, of course. Certain government agencies want ASCII, easy access, and real time content pipes. A related story is “UK Government Readies Anti-Encryption Publicity Campaign to ‘Keep Children Safe’ Online.” One cannot argue with the keep children safe angle. Who doesn’t want that? In order to achieve “safe,” it is necessary to have access to user content; for example, actors messages sent via Threema, the Swiss messaging system.
The second initiative is explained in “Big Tech Foes Launch Campaign Style Initiative to Push for Antitrust Legislation.” The idea here is that some wealthy people are concerned about big tech. Did big tech make these concerned individuals wealthy? Well, that’s another issue. The push is designed to build support for clipping the wings of outfits which are not doing what the big tech foes find acceptable. The idea is to use the Fancy Dan methods of political campaigns, ad agencies, and big tech to get this antitrust breakup thing done.
Here’s my take on these two initiatives:
- Both are very upfront propaganda initiatives. Each is designed to result in changes to technology. Technology has been the lead dog for too long. Now the humans are going to use technology to put the lead dogs in the kennel.
- The pivot for each is the elimination of negative capabilities like social media or encryption. Tech is bad; change is needed.
- The initiatives are likely to further fractionalize discussions of the issues sucked into these quite visible programs. There’s nothing like starting a discussion with one side asking, “Are you in favor of child abuse?”
Net net: These are externalizing activities and make clear that methods once kept under wraps are now on public display. Good or bad? It depends on how one answers those tough questions?
Stephen E Arnold, January 25, 2022
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