Tired of ads? Want to support our progressive journalism? Click to learn more.
JOIN FOR $1
Enjoy good journalism?
… then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has slashed advertising rates, and we need your help. Like you, we here at Raw Story believe in the power of progressive journalism. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. We’ve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and legal efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. And unlike other news outlets, we’ve decided to make our original content free. But we need your support to do what we do.
Raw Story is independent. Unhinged from corporate overlords, we fight to ensure no one is forgotten.
We need your support in this difficult time. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click to donate by check.
Value Raw Story?
… then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has slashed advertising rates, and we need your help. Like you, we believe in the power of progressive journalism — and we’re investing in investigative reporting as other publications give it the ax. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. We’ve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. We need your support to do what we do.
Raw Story is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us in the future. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you.
Report typos and corrections to: corrections@rawstory.com.
The Biden administration announced on Tuesday that it will be slapping Russia with a fresh round of economic sanctions over its poisoning and imprisoning of dissident leader Alexei Navalny.
According to the Washington Post, "the sanctions block access to financial or other assets in the United States for top figures around Russian President Vladimir Putin."
<p>The Biden administration has signaled that it will be taking a tougher stance against Russia after multiple previous administrations, including the Obama administration and the Trump administration, tried to build a friendlier relationship with the Kremlin.</p>
CONTINUE READING
Show less
Can QAnon survive another 'Great Disappointment' on March 4? History suggests it might
March 02, 2021
Thursday could be a big day. On March 4, Donald Trump will be triumphantly returned to power to help save the world from a shadowy syndicate of Satan-worshipping pedophiles – or at least that is what a small fraction of American citizens believe.
But before you circle the date and dust off the MAGA hats, a note of caution: We have been here before. Adherents of the same conspiracy theory, QAnon, had previously marked Jan. 20, the day of Joe Biden's inauguration, as the big day. As Biden ascended the steps of the Capitol to take the presidential oath of office, tens of thousands of adherents of QAnon were eagerly awaiting the imminent arrest and execution of Democratic politicians in a “storm" that would upend the social and political order. It didn't happen.
<p>In the aftermath of this disappointment, some <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/some-qanon-followers-struggle-inauguration-day-n1255002">disillusioned QAnon followers left the fold</a>. But as evidenced by the <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/why-qanon-pinning-last-desperate-110800228.html">new date of March 4</a> – chosen because it was the day for presidential inaugurations until the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/march-04/">20th Amendment was adopted in 1933</a> – some hardliners claimed they had simply gotten the date wrong. When – or if – that date too passes without incident, a new date may emerge.</p><p>It might be thought that enough failed predictions would eventually discredit a prophet. But <a href="https://isearch.asu.edu/profile/3496841">as a philosopher of religion</a>, I know history suggests a more complicated set of possibilities. Apocalyptic movements rarely simply dissolve when prophecies are seen to fail. Indeed, such crises have in the past presented believers with fertile opportunities to reinterpret prophecies. They have even strengthened movements, giving rise to new theories that attempt to explain the shortcomings of earlier ones. </p><h2>The Millerites</h2><p>This dynamic played out nearly 180 years ago with <a href="https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Millerites">the Millerites</a>, members of a 19th-century evangelical Christian movement who were part of an earlier “<a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/explanation/amprophesy.html">Great Awakening</a>" in U.S. religious history.</p><p>A Baptist preacher, William Miller drew on biblical texts and numerology to <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/explanation/amprophesy.html">predict the imminent second coming of Christ</a>. Although Miller did not initially claim to know the exact date, he and his followers offered various predictions. As each passed without incident, the Millerites redid the Biblical math to propose new dates, until finally the movement settled on Oct. 22, 1844.</p><p>As the expected second advent drew near, many Millerites gave away their possessions in anticipation of Christ's return.</p><p>When Oct. 22 came and went without incident, the Millerites were left to reconstruct a worldview that acknowledged what came to be called the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300222142-035">Great Disappointment</a>." </p><p>Miller's followers concluded not that the Scriptures and numerology on which they had based their predictions were false, but simply that they had misunderstood their meaning. In one view, what the predictions foretold were not earthly events, but heavenly ones. </p><p>Millerism did not collapse; rather, elements of it were central to the establishment of <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/3165422">Seventh Day Adventism</a>, a rapidly growing Protestant denomination that <a href="https://www.adventist.org/beliefs/fundamental-beliefs/">continues to look forward to Christ's return</a>. </p><h2>Crisis point</h2><p>Looking at how the Millerites dealt with their Great Disappointment gives an insight into how believers navigate <a href="https://academic.oup.com/monist/article-abstract/60/4/453/990730?redirectedFrom=fulltext">what the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre calls “epistemological crises</a>." These are moments when the way someone understands the world is thrown into question by events that don't fit expectations.</p><p>Epistemological crises are not unique to religion. Anyone who has experienced heartbreak in a relationship, or felt the rug pulled out from under them when unexpectedly fired by an employer, knows that they are a fact of life. </p><p>Such a crisis undercuts a person's ability to tell the kind of story about themselves that gives order and meaning to life. Left unresolved, it threatens one's understanding of oneself and others.</p><p>Yet, such crises don't always prove insurmountable. MacIntyre writes, “When an epistemological crisis is resolved, it is by the <a href="https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/corfield/2006/04/more-about-macintyre.html">construction of a new narrative</a>, which enables the agent to understand both how he or she could intelligibly have held his or her original beliefs and how he or she could have been so drastically misled by them."</p><p>Sometimes the new understanding repudiates the old. Often, however, the new narrative is not a radical departure from the old one, but an improvised and more sophisticated version of it – one that incorporates what had earlier seemed like outlying data points. The Millerites, for example, survived their Great Disappointment by reaffirming their belief that God is at work in ways that humans cannot always fully anticipate.</p><p>Writing in the mid-20th century, the philosopher Antony Flew suggested that over time, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/004057365601300217">religious beliefs “die the death of a thousand qualifications</a>." That is, they are modified beyond recognition, to the point of meaninglessness.</p><p>But scholars of religion have documented a pattern in which, rather than dying, fringe beliefs evolve, becoming more socially acceptable. As they are gradually disentangled from politics, <a href="https://doi.org/10.18792/jbasr.v21i0.37">they come to be thought of as more truly “religious</a>."</p><h2>Making sense of disappointment</h2><p>Whether or not movements like Millerism can move past great disappointments depends in part on the interpretive tools available within the group and the ingenuity of adherents in explaining away their own unfulfilled expectations. </p><p>It is anyone's guess whether QAnon will survive its current epistemological crisis. And if it does, there is no guarantee that it will emerge chastened.</p><p>Some <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22252171/qanon-donald-trump-conspiracy-theories">commentators have predicted</a> that it will return even more dangerous than before, evolving into increasingly virulent strains. It may well be subsumed within a larger conspiracy theory that seeks to explain the current disappointment in the context of an even more elaborate narrative.</p><p>Perhaps one day <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-church-of-qanon-will-conspiracy-theories-form-the-basis-of-a-new-religious-movement-137859">QAnon will take its place within the domesticated pantheon of American civil religion</a> as another benign and depoliticized “faith." Then again, it may simply sputter out, dying the death of a thousand qualifications. </p><p>But if history is any guide, whether QAnon survives its Great Disappointment will depend on its adherents' ability to successfully explain to themselves how they could have been so drastically misled.</p><p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation's newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]<img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155192/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" width="1"/></p><p><br/></p><p><em>By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/richard-amesbury-1208278">Richard Amesbury</a>, Professor of Religious Studies and of Philosophy and Director of the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/arizona-state-university-730">Arizona State University</a></em></p><p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-qanon-survive-another-great-disappointment-on-march-4-history-suggests-it-might-155192">original article</a>.</em></p>
CONTINUE READING
Show less
When Facebook disabled Australians' access to news articles on its platform, and blocked sharing of articles from Australian news organizations, the company moved a step closer to killing the World Wide Web – the hyperlink-based system of freely connecting online sites created in 1989 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
Though the social media giant has said it will return to the negotiating table and restore news for now, the company has shown its hand – and how it is continuing to reshape the web.
<p>As a <a href="https://newhouse.syr.edu/faculty-staff/jennifer-grygiel">social media scholar</a>, I see clearly that the internet in 2021 is <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/23/tech/splinternet-tech-regulation-facebook/index.html">not the same open public sphere</a> that Berners-Lee envisioned. Rather, it is a constellation of powerful <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/twitter-s-jack-dorsey-created-walled-internet-garden-then-he-ncna1102421">corporate platforms</a> that have come to dominate how people use the internet, what information they get and who is able to profit from it.</p><h2>Paying for news</h2><p>The Australian government's legislative efforts aim to support the news industry by helping to broker a deal whereby <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/bd/bd2021a/21bd048">Facebook would pay Australian news organizations for content</a> posted on its platform by users. Right now, Facebook isn't required to pay for news in any way, and the company objected to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/technology/facebook-australia-news.html">this new potential cost of business</a>.</p><p>Berners-Lee warned the Australian government the proposed law could undermine free linking, which he called a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jan/20/australias-proposed-media-code-could-break-the-world-wide-web-says-the-man-who-invented-it">fundamental principle of the web</a>." <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2021/02/the-real-story-of-what-happened-with-news-on-facebook-in-australia/">Facebook's own statement of self-defense</a> focused on Berners-Lee's argument, saying Facebook provides value to news organizations by linking to them. But their statements show that neither has acknowledged that Facebook has, for many people, <a href="https://qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-idea-theyre-using-the-internet/">effectively become the web</a>.</p><p>Back in the 1980s, Berners-Lee envisioned the web as a network of community-minded academic researchers <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jan/20/australias-proposed-media-code-could-break-the-world-wide-web-says-the-man-who-invented-it">sharing their knowledge quickly and conveniently</a> across the world. The main mechanism for this was the hyperlink – text that, when clicked on, led readers to something they were interested in, or to supporting material on the actual source's website. This meant information was freely exchanged, with attribution. The priority was helping users find the material they wanted, wherever it was online.</p><p>Berners-Lee's design serves the reader, but not everyone was as public-spirited: Companies like Facebook have been moving away from this principle since the web's founding. These corporate platforms are <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/16522354.2018.1527521?journalCode=romb20">designed to capture and dominate users' attention</a> – and turn it into money.</p><h2>Keeping users on the site</h2><p>When a user posts a link on Facebook, it's not just a hyperlink as Berners-Lee envisioned. It's much more advanced, <a href="https://medium.com/slack-developer-blog/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-unfurling-but-were-afraid-to-ask-or-how-to-make-your-e64b4bb9254">displaying information from the linked page</a>, including, for news stories, a <a href="https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/">headline, a main image</a> and sometimes a summary of the news users might see if they clicked the link. In this way, users can get a lot of the information without ever leaving Facebook, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/16522354.2018.1527521">hurting news organizations' revenues</a>.</p><p>On Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, users' options are even more restricted. People can post photos and text, but cannot directly share links to other websites. The only active links in a post are internal, for tagging others on Instagram and hashtags.</p><p>In my view, both cases show that Facebook doesn't really want an interconnected web: It wants to keep its users on its own platforms. Facebook displays valuable information, but if people don't click through, or there is nothing to effectively click on, then those who actually created the content will continue to have a <a href="https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/facebook-to-lift-news-ban-for-australian-users-and-publishers/news-story/e3567b796fbe642418d8b220b101988d">hard time making money off their work</a>.</p><h2>Possible ways forward</h2><p>The situation in Australia is a significant opportunity to examine how much power Facebook has over the ways people can seek information online.</p><p>News media may decide to bid farewell to Facebook, which provides <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-19/facebook-referral-traffic-down-news-ban-morrison-frydenberg/13171568">about one-fifth of traffic to media sites</a> in Australia, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/16522354.2018.1527521">not necessarily much revenue</a> in other parts of the world. They might <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/19/22291406/abc-news-app-top-charts-facebook-ban-australia">seek other options for digital distribution of their content</a>. But in the near term they may need financial help from somewhere if they have become too dependent on Facebook.</p><p>Or news organizations could negotiate with Facebook directly in deals and avoid restrictive laws, as the proposed legislation is not even final yet. </p><p>News publishers could also ask regulators to help them gain more control over how news content is presented on platforms to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/16522354.2018.1527521">increase link referral traffic</a>, which is key to generating revenue. A return to simpler hyperlinks – and adding them to Instagram – could help more users click through on news stories while preserving the principles of the web. Just because advanced technology exists <a href="https://theconversation.com/livestreamed-massacre-means-its-time-to-shut-down-facebook-live-113830">doesn't mean it's helpful in all situations or good</a>. But then again, a basic old-timey solution may not work for those trapped in the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/16522354.2018.1527521">attention economy</a>.</p><p><em>Editor's note: The Conversation U.S. is an independent media nonprofit, one of eight news organizations around the world that share a common mission, brand and publishing platform. The Conversation Australia has publicly lobbied in support of the Australian government's proposal.</em><img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155832/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" width="1"/></p><p><br/></p><p><em>By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jennifer-grygiel-584723">Jennifer Grygiel</a>, Assistant Professor of Communications (Social Media) & Magazine, News and Digital Journalism, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/syracuse-university-1994">Syracuse University</a></em></p><p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/facebooks-news-blockade-in-australia-shows-how-tech-giants-are-swallowing-the-web-155832">original article</a>.</em></p>
CONTINUE READING
Show less
Trending
Latest
Videos
Copyright © 2021 Raw Story Media, Inc. PO Box 21050, Washington, D.C. 20009 | Masthead | Privacy Policy | For corrections or concerns, please email corrections@rawstory.com.
Thanks for your support!
Did you enjoy Raw Story this year? Join us! We're offering RawStory ad-free for 15% off - just $2 per week. From now until March 15th.