The Fear-Industrial Complex

Yes. Social media, since around 2006 when Fakebook and Twatter were rising. They are cesspools of divisiveness based on hatred and fear. They rely on people obsessing over minutia, commenting on it, arguing with other people's comments, then branching off into raging sub-threads of escalating hatred and anger. All this creates "views" or "clicks" or "likes" or whatever volume metric is used for a particular platform. Ad revenue is dependent on these activity volumes. So the platforms want as much interaction as possible, even if it is destroying society in the process.

Can it be dismantled? Yes. All it would take is for people to say enough is enough, and start focusing their existence on the real world again. Will this happen? Probably not. Too many young people never learned how to function in the world that existed before social media. Too many old people have destroyed their own ability to live "the old way" (before social media).

Now, I will say this: some of these platforms may self destruct. For example, Twatter is in the process of being CANCELLED as we speak. This is where social media can be useful. Someone or some company fucks up and they can be dealt with very swiftly.

The secular media is trampling on our faith based right to peddle fear. It's a sign of the end times.

Yes. The WEF, UN, World Bank, etc.

Social media is nefarious in that it allows people to distorts facts and reality (which the general public is too stupid to interpret with any critical analysis), but the same is true of most mainstream news media as well.

American news and media, period.

Yes, it's called the GOP.

A few points ( from a social scientist):

-social psychology research suggests that negative news gets more clicks. We are more interested in news that triggers negative emotions because of survival instincts (learn faster from pin/negativity than positive emotions or neutral, which boosts survival potential). A big shift toward negative news has happened in the past 30-40 years, peaking with the social media fear storm as of late.

-Fear is a quick way to persuade. Persuasion research suggests that hitting emotions is more effective than using facts to persuade if you use the right buzzwords that strike fear i people’s hearts. Politicians have used this research finding for years to sway voters. Interestingly, Obama is a great example of a politician who used facts and that pathway to persuade, which requires more critical thinking.

-but that said, fear has been harnessed by almost every civilization and religion to maintain power because it works and gives you access to more resources (and this greater survival chances).

Social media is creating a level of paranoia that is insane. I read a thread on Nextdoor recently where a woman saw on her ring camera that someone dropped a package outside her front door, and about 2 minutes later someone she didn't recognize came and picked the package up. She said she was "in fear for her life" with all these intrusions onto her porch. The comments in the thread were outrageous. One poster claimed this must have been a drug cartel transaction, where a dealer left a package on her porch and the buyer was instructed to pick it up there. As the thread progressed, she became convinced she was becoming involuntarily involved with the cartel and her life was in extreme danger. BITCH PLEASE. A fucking food delivery guy dropped someone's lunch at the wrong address. The customer got the alert with a pic of where it got delivered so he came and picked it up. And on the video, you could see that he walked back to his own house which was RIGHT NEXT DOOR. It was her own fucking neighbor but she couldn't even see this in her own video. How did people become so stupid and paranoid?

Today there was a thread where some bitch wanted help identifying someone on her ring camera. Dude walked up to her door, leaned over to read the address on a package that was out there, and walked away WITHOUT stealing the package. She claimed he was looking for things to steal. BITCH PLEASE. He's your neighbor and his item got misdelivered and he was just trying to find it. He didn't take the package! He didn't look in your window or jiggle your door handle. But like flies on shit commenters started swarming to the thread agreeing with her paranoia and insisting she file a police report. One CUNT said he wasn't stealing, he was obviously a sexual predator and you could tell by his body language and if she lived alone she was in danger and needed to alert the police immediately. HUH? What is wrong with people???

Bernays had a lot to do with our current situation. there are some good documentaries on youtube about him.

The rethuglicans are notorious for provoking fear in others.

The Century of the Self is very interesting.

Why is everyone looking at us?

Interesting, R9. I had never heard of him before. I'll read up some more.

it’s also been called disaster capitalism, OP, you might like some of naomi klein’s work.

Sales and advertising also makes use of it.