03 maio 2021

How misinformation is used to amplify and solidify ideology

How misinformation is used to amplify and solidify ideology

  • Amna Nawaz:

    And one of the places we saw some of those claims being amplified was, of course, on FOX News.

    There's a clip I want to play from you from host Tucker Carlson, because there's this other piece we have seen, in the explosion of misinformation online, is the sort of brandishing of information as cultural warfare. We're talking during a pandemic. Masking has become a political issue.

    Last night, on FOX News, host Tucker Carlson weighed in on mask-wearing in public, and he said this:

  • Tucker Carlson:

    Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart. Call the police immediately. Contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives.

    What you're looking at is abuse. It's child abuse.

  • Amna Nawaz:

    Graham, someone like Tucker Carlson, with an audience of his size, making a statement like that, likening it to child abuse, what's the impact of a statement like that?

  • Graham Brookie:

    Well, Tucker Carlson has a nightly viewership of millions of people.

    And so, first and foremost, that statement is false.

    Second, we're in the middle of a public health crisis, in which the information that we need to make decisions about our own personal health is evolving. And so, today, the CDC guidelines on masks evolved.