[ilaksh]

Very interesting. But still the most concerning thing about propaganda is more basic than that. It is that people don't know or are in denial about it's use against them and more generally in all wars.

Wars are strategic actions by nations. But humans generally will not engage in mass killing for strategic reasons. They need moral reasons. So propaganda is necessary for warfare in order to frame war in a moral manner. The enemy or enemy leaders are depicted as evil or inhuman. Or their most despicable acts are emphasized to create a sense of 'morally-justified' hatred or the idea that they must be stopped or punished at all costs. Such as killing millions of people if necessary or destroying a country.

Actually, if it serves their interests and especially if all of their neighbors are not protesting, humans will go along with pretty much anything. But you do need to at least give them a cover story.

Technology should theoretically be able to help reduce the influence of propaganda through things like new types of decentralized news distribution.

[helen___keller]

> Technology should theoretically be able to help reduce the influence of propaganda through things like new types of decentralized news distribution.

Why and how? Maybe I don’t know what “decentralized news distribution” means, but whether or not it’s decentralized seems irrelevant to me. People pick sources to follow and share news with others; if those sources are producing propaganda, then people are amplifying propaganda.

[LawTalkingGuy]

If only a few people at an event publish photos and video there's a lot of dead space/time to insert stories, but if nearly everyone publishes their video feed the majority of the event will be locked down.

And not just multiple angles of something, but distributed images through the entire crowd while it's happening. Let's say they show a fight, does the rest of the crowd move appropriately to make room for it? If they show a politicians speaking does the crowd surrounding the closer videos cheer in time with the distant crowd, or are they perhaps spliced together?

Forensics will get harder and only more data will give us a chance. Ultimately, analyzing the data is easier than faking it consistently and scale is our advantage.