Grifts and Propaganda: Anybody Can Be Conned
Scams and propaganda can be harder to spot than you think
How many times a day do you encounter false or misleading information?
It’s impossible to know for sure, but the vast majority of us are exposed to misinformation, lies, and misrepresented data every time we take a look at our phones.
The modern world is a hotbed of easily accessible knowledge, with untold numbers of bloggers out there who present themselves as journalists but hold themselves to no ethical standards.
I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve read a headline, only to discover on further investigation that the title completely contradicts the actual story below it. Sometimes an article totally removes context to alter how facts will be perceived by readers.
Opinion is often presented as fact, and with our busy schedules, double-checking our trusted news sources is nowhere near the top of mind.
Their integrity is not always scrutinized the way it ought to be.
I am not a journalist. I am a blogger. There’s a reason I refer to my articles as ‘opinion pieces’, though I’m sure there are people who don’t know what the difference is. While I do try to cite my sources and provide as much reading material as possible, I am not infallible.
There is a very important distinction to be made between writers like me, and the people who publish purely objective statistics. I stand by what I believe and what I say, but I am very aware that I am only human, and my biases are going to show up in everything I publish.
And in all honesty, that’s true of everybody. We’re all working from our own narrow view of the world, and our perspective is always going to be skewed for that reason.
The people who claim otherwise are the ones you need to watch out for.
Fact-checking is important.
You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve completely reworked an article from the ground up because, on closer inspection, I’ve found out that my initial assumption was completely wrong.
Revision and editing of your statements to reflect new information is not a bad thing. It doesn’t make your work any less solid—if anything, it vastly improves your credibility.
The only time it becomes a handicap is when you don’t care about your statements being correct, but only about creating the appearance of being correct.
Most of us think we can recognize a grift at a glance. We’re pretty sure we know how to tell the difference between a scam and a genuine opportunity, a true bit of news, or a story with an agenda.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but you’re wrong. If it was easy to spot a confidence trick, then scam artists wouldn’t bother trying. There is a reason it’s such a lucrative business.
People fail to detect scams all the time, and there are dozens of reasons why they might skate under your radar.
Sometimes they present themselves as being an offer from a reputable business, sometimes they come at you using the face of a trusted source—I’m sure you’ve seen people using fake profiles on social media to trick people into sending them money.
The whole point of a con job is to use misdirection and deception to trick you into placing your trust in the wrong person.
There are several reasons why someone might be trying to run a con on you.
In your personal life, you might be facing gaslighting from friends, family, or a romantic partner. You might be caught up in a scheme by the local shady car dealer who wants to make a quick buck off of a rundown old heap of scrap.
Maybe you just got hooked by a phishing bot or a text that looked legitimate at first glance. Hindsight is 20/20. We’ve all done it, myself included.
But your personal life is not the only place where bad actors will try to manipulate you. Sometimes they aim for a high-stakes game. Sometimes these sneaky buggers go national, if not international.
I’m talking, of course, about political propaganda.
Propaganda is a very scary word with a nasty reputation, and it has definitely earned its infamy. When we think of propaganda we tend to think about historical figures like Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda in Nazi Germany.
And yet, we don’t tend to think about J. Howard Miller, the artist who created Rosie the Riveter.
Propaganda is a neutral tool; it can be used for evil, and it can also be used for good. In effect, it’s just a form of advertising. It uses the same tricks and techniques; it’s just selling you a different kind of product.
It’s selling you inspiration, and patriotism at a discount—limited time only!
And just like other forms of advertising, it can be highly effective. Instead of providing you with statistics, studies, and abstracts, it uses buzzwords and other psychological tricks to pander you into a strong belief.
It’s also way, way easier than actually researching and presenting accurate data.
Why bother refuting your opponents with facts and figures when you can just mock them, get your audience laughing, and leave people with the impression that they’re not worth listening to in the first place?
You might think that tactic wouldn’t work on you, but I’m willing to bet it already has. That’s just the way the human brain works.
Human beings are eminently logical creatures who base all of our decisions on objective facts and well-reasoned, carefully thought-out arguments.
…I’m just kidding—we’re hyper-emotional, incredibly impulsive monkeys who make choices based on how we feel in the moment.
The parts of the human brain that process emotion play a huge role in decision-making. This includes the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus, which are also partly responsible for short and long-term memory retention.
The prefrontal cortex is typically considered the ‘rational’ part of the brain, which deals with making judgments based on anticipating future consequences. It’s the part that handles the regulation of emotion, and it’s where our personalities are ‘stored’, for lack of a better word.
Note: The prefrontal cortex is the last part of the brain to reach maturity. This is why children and teenagers are famously great at making good decisions.
Because the brain uses emotional response as a driver of decision-making, the savvy advertiser will try to deliver a gut punch of strong emotion to compel you to choose their product.
Think about ads for new car models on the television. Do they frontload you with numbers and hard data? Or do they present you with emotional imagery, like a family camping trip or a good-looking guy driving fast on a mysteriously empty highway at sunset?
What’s particularly scary is that we may not even realize we’re being manipulated this way. Take this study, for example, which examined the responses of people trying to quit smoking when they viewed advertisements for an anti-smoking hotline.
Interestingly, the respondents chose the last ad as the least effective, which the scientists found to be fairly shocking—their brain activity had shown that the ad they disliked lit up their prefrontal cortexes like Christmas trees!
When the ads were eventually run on public television, however, neuroscience won out. The ad that triggered their brains was the one that was statistically most likely to drive callers, and it was not a close race.
What this means is that we are far more susceptible to being duped than we like to believe. And trust me—grifters know it.
Think about where you get your information from. How does your favourite source present the news to you?
Do they give you facts? Do they cite studies? Do they explain how they’ve come to their conclusions? Are they giving you anything to back up their claims, or are they just throwing emotional words at you rapid-fire?
You can see this tactic in action from political pundits like Tucker Carlson, a man who formerly hosted one of the most popular television shows.
To say that Mr. Carlson is an influential figure is an understatement. Even to this day, he remains a trusted voice on the American right wing, and people have been tuning in to listen to his opinions for years.
People in my own family were taken in by him, even quoting his statements as evidence for why they believe the things they believe.
This is incredible, especially when you read this judgment from a federal judge in the Southern District of New York:
“The “‘general tenor’ of the show should then inform a viewer that [Carlson] is not ‘stating actual facts’ about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in ‘exaggeration’ and ‘non-literal commentary.’” — Excerpt from NPR’s article on the court case, quoting Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil.
Isn’t that interesting?
In this defamation case against Mr. Carlson, Fox News’ lawyers made the argument that you can’t hold him accountable for defamation because no reasonable person would believe what he was saying was true.
And yet, people did, and they still do. He popularized numerous conspiracy theories, pushing everything from anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry to anti-immigrant sentiment and white nationalism, including the ‘white replacement theory’.
People didn’t tune in to listen to him because he had facts to back up his words. There are no facts to support his wilder and most outlandish claims, according to his own lawyers.
He is an effective and intelligent speaker who knows how to work with an audience; they tuned in because he knew how to make them feel something.
He made them feel fear. And that is a powerful motivator.
Nobody is immune to propaganda, nor any other kind of grift or scam.
There is no vaccine to inoculate yourself against it, there is no shield you can hold up to block it out. All you can do is stop, think it through, and check the facts for yourself.
And it’s important to remember, it’s not just the ‘other side’ that uses it—hell, some of my opinion pieces could be considered propaganda works if I weren’t upfront about it being my personal beliefs.
Like I said in the opening paragraphs, I am not infallible. I’m only human, and I have my biases and opinions.
By all means, when you read my work, read the links and fact-check them. I will not be upset — I’ll be thrilled! They’re there for a reason.
It’s everywhere, coming from all sides. Just like the phishing emails you get, just like that Nigerian Prince that our great-great aunt expects to pay up any day now.
You’re not immune to it, but you can avoid the worst of it if you pay attention and develop a habit of thinking for yourself.
The world will be a much better place if we all do the same thing.
Solidarity wins.