Talk:propaganda laundering

Some of my notes on the term. I may edit them as needed:

As well as making literal sense, the current definition roughly jibes with wikipedia:Information laundering, which should be synonymous. There seems to be a lot of doublespeak and vagueness about the term, e.g. as in the lede of that wikipedia article: "Information laundering is the surfacing of news, false or otherwise, from unverified sources into the mainstream." I suspect this is because the term somewhat undermines mass-media taglines like "reliable source" altogether, which is probably why most definitions are somewhat evasive in one way or another. What's an "unverified source"? By whom must a source be verified? Using mass media's typical diction, one might render the definition somewhat absurdly as "the act of a trustworthy source legitimizing disinformation from an untrustworthy source." A source is no longer trustworthy if it launders information from biased sources, though perhaps "The act of a trusted source representing information from a less credible or biased source" might be a good, concise definition.

There are also narrower definitions, e.g. as in the unattributed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_manipulation#Propaganda_laundering, "using a less trusted or less popular platform to publish a story of dubious origin or veracity for the purposes of reporting on that report, rather than the story itself". It excludes cases where the media is laundering information on behalf of someone else, which is probably a much more common and salient occurrence. In other words, that definition only includes instances where the media use a less trusted source as a proxy to shield their own credibility. This seems needlessly specific. Many of these definitions seem to conflate 'popularity' with credibility or lack of ulterior motive. As in the other definition, the writer seems reluctant to state who must be laundering the information. It would not be laundering if the information's not being represented by some individual or organization ostensibly more credible than the previous source in the first place. The definition must specifically describe that laundering occurs when a "trusted" source delivers information on behalf of a less trusted source, thereby abusing that trust. This is stated later in the second section of wikipedia:Information laundering where the article paraphrases someone else (and it's common sense to begin with), so the current entry is not a prescriptive definition, lest anyone think. It's actually a bit funny that the editors writing these wikipedia articles seem loathe to impress upon the reader the idea that a "trusted source" may not always be so trustworthy. Have you ever seen such a bogus lede as "Information laundering is the surfacing of news, false or otherwise, from unverified sources into the mainstream"? Imagine if someone wrote "money laundering is the surfacing of currency, illegally obtained or otherwise, into circulation from unverified sources". Absurd. AP295 (talk) 23:40, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

My note: While the phenomenon itself has become blatant since 2022, the term has taken off in 2020 or 2021, after being relatively obscure. Earlier quotes are only namefags and the very earliest around 2nd of October 2016 from a commenter on three places (1, 2, 3), who is either a schizoposter, a hobby conspirationalist, or a glowie. Obviously the conceptualization is an intelligence plant and they don’t want us to define to the very end. A very legitimate and neutral one, to say, this is how foreign policy or information control in politics works nowadays, and agencies on any side need to shorthand this way. In 10th December 2022 already we read the Kremlpost “the Western media claims about ‘Russian aggression’ are propaganda laundering about the real causes of and responsibilities for the war”, ramblings about NATO and Ukronazis supported by billions from Washington following. Fay Freak (talk) 06:18, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

@Fay Freak I'm pleased you seem to agree that many definitions are evasive or excessively narrow in scope. Indeed, I can only imagine it's an intentional distortion. The term is somewhat unwieldy and I probably wouldn't use it myself, but certain descriptions of it are so debased and useless that I felt the need to add the entry here. Really there's no such thing as "propaganda laundering" if you don't trust mass media in the first place. I don't, so I never really feel the need to use the term. This is mostly for the benefit of those who still labor under the illusion that mass media is trustworthy and not simply a giant propaganda machine. How much they're helped by it I don't know (hopefully they are, in some small way), but thank god you added some quotes before someone looked at the Wikipedia article and decided to challenge or nuke the entry on alleged grounds that it's prescriptive. I was nearly certain that would happen without some quotations. AP295 (talk) 06:44, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't remember if the book uses the term itself, but Herman and Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent describes a similar model of how mass media gets its 'news'. That is, essentially by passing along information on behalf of the government and the various moneyed interests it has come to represent, rather than doing much critical or investigative reporting. Even Manufacturing Consent is tainted with partisan idiom though, using labels like "extreme right-wing" and so forth. Arguably true, yet subversive-by-partisanship nonetheless, as nearly all political media is and has been for the last several decades. The two-party fraud is what actually needs to be addressed. It's impossible for me to do that here, but I've written a mediocre draft for an essay about it (and a few supporting essays) on wikiversity, which hopefully I'll finish at some point. AP295 (talk) 06:57, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Theknightwho seems to be harassing me. He changed the definition in a way I explicitly cautioned against just above, after I spent hours of working on this entry and talk page. Reverted my revert, twice. @Fay Freak if you have any rapport with him I'd appreciate it if you'd coax him off the warpath. AP295 (talk) 14:00, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

And now he's locked the article. What an ass. AP295 (talk) 14:01, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Your definition is more accurate, his is more readable. Both are synonymous, basically both are about worse information being portrayed better. I don’t understand your fetish for “objectivity”. Have your parents harassed you? Do you know about interpersonal defenses replacing intrapsychic defenses in people struggling with their own identity diffusion and misexperiencing object constancy, constituting personality disorders? Lots of terms to create after you read psychology papers for the next two weeks you are banned. I am sorry to pathologize, but the twelve-month prevalence of psychic disorders, though they be to some degree defined by the general society, in all the population is about one quarter, and on Wikis it must be higher, because it is insane to work out these things while obviously not being paid for producing all this quality that cannot be measured in dollars. And we also agree that people barely learn to balance their judgment in schools, otherwise they would question things! Hence there may be a long way to go if you endeavour to dissect epistemology. Unfortunately we will never be able to find a diagnosis for you due to lack of data. You could have it and then see the flaw later. Fay Freak (talk) 15:13, 12 December 2023 (UTC)