EMF Disinformation Is More Conspiratorial and Intentionally Insidious than We Think

Every day I see an online EMF article, or blog post, or social media broadcast, or video, or documentary, and -- almost without fail -- EMF product descriptions, espousing some piece of EMF information that is clearly and patently false. It concerns me deeply that as an Electrical Engineer I can see at a glance what is not always obvious to others, and the concerned public, who are sincerely attempting to attain EMF education through online media, are frankly simply being preyed upon. Websites are blatantly selling misleading EMF protection products in an entirely unregulated arena. Social media is repleat with conspiracy theories seeded online deliberately to make EMF fear mongering sound ridiculous so as to undermine genuine EMF concerns. Pseudo experts are cashing in on their names or credentials in order to sway public opinion on the desirability of the latest EMF technology, or on the other hand the latest EMF protective device. Industry officials are publishing well positioned content to take advantage of the public's trust in "official" safety standards. And everywhere online every manner of false information is influencing us, running the gamut from well meaning but misstatements of fact, to salaciously repeated misinformation, to outright war-gaming disinformation. What we need to realize is that each one is dangerous - the issues at stake are just too important for us to get it wrong. So, what do we do? Although I always advise students to check the credibility of the source, the problem has gone beyond that now. Now even sources we once presumed credible, or at least educated, must be called into question. Innuendo, conspiracy and falsehood leaps from the fringes of the Internet where it has been deliberately planted, to kitchen table and water cooler conversations, and soon to the mainstream media. The Importance of Accurate EMF Training False EMF information is so rampant online that I have dedicated part of our EMF Experts Consultant Certification training to identifying fact from fiction. Do not expect to become well educated in EMF issues by reading self-professed online authorities no matter how well meaning they sound.EMF is a topic that electrical engineers are barely beginning to grasp after four years of intense university training. Add to that, his/her internship is the same length of time as a Medical Doctor (MD), AND (just like a medical doctor) an electrical engineer's education is lifelong through state ordered continuing education in order to remain relevant and maintain professional license to practice. So, do not expect yourself to be able to know everything you need to know about EMF detection and protection, without high caliber training from a professional. Visit EMF-Experts.com for more information. The Importance of Authentic EMF Awareness The key is Understand the disinformation/ misinformation landscape so you can recognize it and not be influenced unawares. Disinformation is false or misleading information that is spread deliberately to deceive. This is different than misinformation, which is simply incorrect information. The English word disinformation is a loan translation of the Russian "dezinformatsiya", derived from the title of a KGB black propaganda department.Wikipedia However, the issue goes far beyond developing a good "Baloney Detector", as Carl Sagan would say, it also goes to our need to guard against its motives because of their serious consequences to us personally. Online disinformation, says Data Scientist Sara-Jayne Terp in an October 2020 Wired Magazine article - "Beliefs Can be Hacked", has become a tool to invade our brains and "infect" our thoughts just like hackers can infect the operation of our computers. Her team refers this phenomenon as AMITT, which stands for Adversarial Misinformation and Influence Tactics. and she is on a mission to quash false information online by treating it like malware, and deploy the tools of cybersecurity to trace it back to its source. Disinformation (deliberate deceptive information) and Misinformation (incorrect information), as a concept, isn't new. It was with us long before the term "fake news" became a buzzword. War has always been about that, and that's how the Allies mislead the Germans during the Dunkirk Evacuation. But the social media platforms for engaging with it are constantly changing in the "war" to increase their influence. Those platforms have no financial obligation to tell the truth — their business models depend on user engagement. The 2020 Sundance Official Docudrama Selection, The Social Dilemma, a Netflix original, makes it clear... we have a dilemma. The Importance of Recognizing the Dilemma Added to the false content we are exposed to online at the motives of others, never before have a handful of tech designers had such control over as influential media as the internet with the power to manipulate the way billions of us think, act, react, and live our lives. The technology that connects us, also controls us, also manipulates us, also polarizes us, also distracts us, also monetizes us, also divides us.www.thesocialdilemma.com The Mental Health Dilemma A 5,000 person study found that higher social media use correlated with self-reported declines in mental and physical health and life satisfaction. — American Journal of Epidemiology, 2017 The Democracy Dilemma The # of countries with political disinformation campaigns on social media doubled in the past 2 years. — New York Times, 2019 The Extremist Dilemma 64% of the people who joined extremist groups on Facebook did so because the algorithms steered them there. -- — Internal Facebook report, 2018 The Social Dilemma documentary, a Netflix original, has an accompanying website full of solutions how you can join the Movement for Humane Technology and learn how to being today, creating the conditions for radically reimagined pro-people technology, including the internet and social media. In a time when technology has become our lifeline, it is more important than ever that we examine the role it plays in our lives and realign it with the interests of people, not profits. The Importance of Redefining our Concept of Disinformation A former TIME Person of the Year and former CNN bureau chief, Journalist and CEO of Rappler, Marie Ressam explains how the goal of disinformation isn't just to spread lies but to blur our sense of true and false. Now the editor of an investigative news website in the Philippines, Marie says we talk about disinformation all wrong. The typical framing suggests that the people behind disinformation want us to believe something that isn’t true. That’s not quite right, she says. Their larger aim is to shake our whole sense of what’s true and what’s not. That takes away the power to use good information to fight back. Many of us—and most crucially Facebook, home to much disinformation—have failed to grasp that distinction, she says. Today, those wishing to sow discord don’t need bots to post and spread their falsehoods and distortions. They have plenty of unwitting people to do that, their beliefs and actions warped by a “behavioral modification system,” as she calls social media. That mistrust has destabilized democracy around the world. “You can’t have facts. You can’t have truth. You can’t have trust,” she says. Marie Ressam, who is the subject of the PBS Frontline documentary A Thousand Cuts, and imprisoned for "Cyber Libel", speaks from experience about the threat to press freedoms in the Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte. Press freedom in the Philippines has deteriorated rapidly under Duterte, and the country now ranks 136th out of 180 countries on the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) press freedom index. Her Lawyer, Human Rights Advocate Amal Clooney, said in a statement that the verdict was "an affront to the rule of law, a stark warning to the press, and a blow to democracy in the Philippines." She said Ms Ressa would appeal. The Importance of Not Taking What We Read Online or in the Press at Face Value Other recent reads that are helpful in redefining our concept of the little understood power of disinformation are: Mindf*ck details a whistleblower's look at the organized disinformation campaigns that methodically set out to sway the Brexit vote leading to Britain's exit from the European Union, the 2016 election of President Trump, and many other national events, asking the same worried question as it pertains to politics: “How can you have a democracy if you do not have integrity of facts?” Live Free or Die Whatever your political persuasion, Shawn Hannity's newest 2020 election-run-up book is a primer in understanding the workings of disinformation in the media. Shawn devotes an entire chapter of a ten chapter book to disinformation in the media, titled Enemy of the People: The Media Mob, detailing the loss of freedom of the press and free speech that reminds us Ronald Reagan once said, “Freedom is but one generation away from extinction,” It is becoming vitally important to understand how your Beliefs are being shaped by media and how they are manipulating your life; knowing this you'll be able to achieve much clearer headed thinking the next time you see an EMF conspiracy theory, an EMF product, any false EMF statement, or, yes, a political ad.

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