I've been volunteering on Project 451 as there has been little librarian interest in coverage of digital censorship. Matt Taibbi's RACKET LIBRARY should be known to librarians who are constrained by databases and won't edit Wikipedia.
I recommend anyone placing lots of faith in Taibbi, Shellenberger, or Greenwald to read Dan Williams' article on the "Censorship Industrial Complex." An excellent discussion of "influencing" in this debate about censorship and anti-establishment attitudes of the three individuals I've just mentioned.
Williams writes: “Against this narrative, research consistently shows that clear-cut online misinformation like fake news is relatively rare and mostly consumed by a minority of extremists and conspiracy theorists who seek it out because it aligns with their pre-existing beliefs.”
Utterly wrong. Between Jan 2020 and Mar 2023 almost every outlet was saying that the lab leak was misinformation, when in fact it is true. Same with Hunter’s laptop and the Dossier. The conspiracy may not have been actively agreed, but it was there. Are you blind?
I am not blind and don't appreciate the suggestion that I am for citing a well-regarded scholar like Dan Williams. His Conspicuous Cognition substack is read by people all over the world, and was just commended very recently by Philip Tetlock, one of the leading social scientists in the United States for the past five decades. I think many librarians could benefit from reading and reflecting on Dan Williams' articles frequently, and whether they agree with him always or not. He writes about censorship, misinformation, and disinformation in careful and nuanced ways that are widely appreciated to advance our collective understanding of them.
In this article, he is citing well-established research on the prevalence and impact of fake news, conspiracy theories, and misinformation. He cites Hugo Mercier, Sasha Altay and Michael Bang Petersen quite often. They all agree that small groups of "influencers" are the ones spreading lies and falsehoods and that much of it has little effect. It's a community of researchers who are at the forefront of studying misinformation and people's epistemic behavior. Librarians would benefit from learning more about all of them and the still emerging scholarship they are engaged in.
As for the by-now perennial and ever-litigated Hunter Biden laptop story, as well as the Lableak story, these are old news that some want to keep afloat for their own motivations. Right now, I think we have more serious problems in this country, and internationally. Among them--measles outbreaks in nine states, with two deaths; a volatile and uncertain economy; and yes, "disappearing information", courtesy of an administration that's making agency information go way, causing many librarians to make efforts to rescue it and archive it.
I've added some of these substack writers in the Recommendations column at the side here--but those are ones reflecting my preferences. Others may have different ideas. I have suggested these because they fill in some gaps that librarians may not be thinking about. I'm also publishing an article here tomorrow that identifies some others that I think fall generally within the broad ambit of "heterodoxy", or at least offer perspectives that are both evidence-based and offer novel perspectives and arguments not found elsewhere.
A really interesting substack writer I've discovered recently is economist Noah Smith. He writes generally from a liberal or center-left vantage point, but the article I found most compelling among his recent ones dicusses the problem with mainstream or "legacy media" and how its dichotomy between "fact" and opinion" is not helpful much any more. He makes the case that a third category of *analysis* is needed. While that may not seem revelatory, he divides "analysis" into: forecasts, assessments and theories. I find this especially helpful in thinking about what the mainstream press is or is not doing, and relatedly, what the best substack writers do--they give curious readers this third category in a better way--especially assessments and theories.
Craig is good about recommending Substacks but I think generally it might be challenging to find ones we all could agree on. I like The Disinformation Chronicle as Thacker seems to supply a lot of supporting evidence for his pieces.
Craig, all you have done here in your massive wall of text is make numerous appeals to authority by naming names, and citing popularity.
On the core facts, lab leak, laptop, etc - you just say they're 'old news', and that we have bigger problems to deal with now. So they're true, but you'd rather we talk about measles?
I hadn't heard that the Trump administration was attempting to disappear information, but then there has been a lot to keep up with lately. Do you have some specific examples of that?
From what I can tell from the first three links, it sounds like what is being removed is information related to projects the new administration no longer supports (gender ideology, environmental justice, etc.). I don't know if this is something that a new administration typically does (unfortunately the hysteria that surrounds Trump can often make it difficult to assess if an infraction is occurring). For instance, if a development project was underway in a city and a new city council no longer supported the project, would the corresponding webpages be deleted since the project was suspended? I imagine so, but of course am unable to spend hours researching what exactly is being removed. Regardless, for historical research purposes, that information could be valuable, so maybe Taibbi's team will tackle it if not librarians.
Whenever I see the phrase "citizen journalism," I hit the pause button. There are no doubt better forms of it, but there are others in the "influencer" mode that's not so positive.
I have been very interested recently what the Nieman Journalism Lab Predictions say (they issue them every year) about the future of mainstream journalism and how it needs to change. Part of those predictions this year point to the need of including citizen journalists to revive journalism at the *local* level since so many regional and local newspapers have folded. Here's an example of a positive collaboration:
There is definitely a challenge in evaluating it; some of that comes in the form of competing takes. That was true in the era where we were limited to mainstream journalism but there is certainly more noise to sort through now.
For local news in many places citizen journalists are all we have. I contributed a few years ago to an internship program to bring in journalism students for local news but it seems not to have flourished as an idea. I go back so far I carried press releases from our community association to the local news office of a small town paper. Now press releases from community groups have to be submitted to a national platform that charges the group to announce its events. The only alternative seems to be facebook. SO, I guess you could call me a citizen journalist for posting news about my community group events there.
I had to find this site to show you: https://evvnt.com/ . It is "A ticketing platform with all the features you expect (and deserve) combined with marketing services to deliver an end to end solution."--UGH.
When I go to my local paper with a press release they send me now to "Evvnt" which charges. The local paper redirects.
So one of the most simple community-engaged activities--a press release about a program at a radio club, for example, becomes monetized and small groups are left out. This is a long way from Susan's initial post but to me demonstrates the void between news orgs and readers. Sorry for wandering off topic.
For anyone interested in another perspective on Matt Taibbi, I recommend Renee DiResta's recent book, Invisible Rulers. She is an internet researcher and is now on the faculty at Georgetown University. The book covers the wider topic of social media culture, the design of algorithms, the practices of "influencers",, and the role of "audience capture" and its dynamic in creating tribal allegiances and even more polarization. She does address her interactions with Taibbi during the much-hyped #Twitter Files controversy, and not in a particularly positive way. His career in journalism has been a varied one, with some excellent reporting and commentary in the past. I'm deeply skeptical at this point about his journalistic practices. DiResta's book, in one chapter, describes her interactions with him.
An interview with DiResta is here about improving social media in general--what might work, and what likely won't:
As for the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, I can only find some reasonable perspective on it from a traditional conservative like Mona Charen, who wrote about it almost three years ago, and the motivations of those in one political movement to distract from the behavior of their leader:
Thanks. This is why I like to start these discussions, especially since I have been retired for over two years now so am less in touch with what is going on with the profession.
Sounds like the University of Winnipeg is a recent endeavor. I would suggest sending it to Matt Taibbi as he might be interested in promoting it or linking to it.
Nice piece from Denver Public Library. Somehow I missed it in 2021. Seems exactly like the kind of thing we should have promoted more.
Yes it is me. I was quite upset about the fact that there was so little realization about what tech companies were doing. Also that Aspen TableTalk exercise was quite chilling.
It seems like the kinds of things Taibbi is working on are right in line with our original mission.
Matt Taibbi also held a live stream on X yesterday explaining his reason for Project 451 :
https://x.com/mtaibbi/status/1898116505201787233
I've been volunteering on Project 451 as there has been little librarian interest in coverage of digital censorship. Matt Taibbi's RACKET LIBRARY should be known to librarians who are constrained by databases and won't edit Wikipedia.
Thank you, well worth a listen!
Nice. Excellent points.
I recommend anyone placing lots of faith in Taibbi, Shellenberger, or Greenwald to read Dan Williams' article on the "Censorship Industrial Complex." An excellent discussion of "influencing" in this debate about censorship and anti-establishment attitudes of the three individuals I've just mentioned.
https://www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/there-is-no-censorship-industrial?utm_source=publication-search
Good to see efforts made to not "disappear" information (seems to be a major project of the new administration right now).
If I'm reading his argument correctly, it is that censorship is happening (which Williams opposes), but it is not particularly coordinated.
There is also the issue of link rot, which may or may not be intentional depending on the link, but creates issues as far as information disappearing.
So, what do you think of the communications between government agencies and Twitter, Facebook, etc. That was intentional.
Williams writes: “Against this narrative, research consistently shows that clear-cut online misinformation like fake news is relatively rare and mostly consumed by a minority of extremists and conspiracy theorists who seek it out because it aligns with their pre-existing beliefs.”
Utterly wrong. Between Jan 2020 and Mar 2023 almost every outlet was saying that the lab leak was misinformation, when in fact it is true. Same with Hunter’s laptop and the Dossier. The conspiracy may not have been actively agreed, but it was there. Are you blind?
The lab leak is a good example, perhaps it is worth posting a comment on the Williams piece.
I am not blind and don't appreciate the suggestion that I am for citing a well-regarded scholar like Dan Williams. His Conspicuous Cognition substack is read by people all over the world, and was just commended very recently by Philip Tetlock, one of the leading social scientists in the United States for the past five decades. I think many librarians could benefit from reading and reflecting on Dan Williams' articles frequently, and whether they agree with him always or not. He writes about censorship, misinformation, and disinformation in careful and nuanced ways that are widely appreciated to advance our collective understanding of them.
In this article, he is citing well-established research on the prevalence and impact of fake news, conspiracy theories, and misinformation. He cites Hugo Mercier, Sasha Altay and Michael Bang Petersen quite often. They all agree that small groups of "influencers" are the ones spreading lies and falsehoods and that much of it has little effect. It's a community of researchers who are at the forefront of studying misinformation and people's epistemic behavior. Librarians would benefit from learning more about all of them and the still emerging scholarship they are engaged in.
As for the by-now perennial and ever-litigated Hunter Biden laptop story, as well as the Lableak story, these are old news that some want to keep afloat for their own motivations. Right now, I think we have more serious problems in this country, and internationally. Among them--measles outbreaks in nine states, with two deaths; a volatile and uncertain economy; and yes, "disappearing information", courtesy of an administration that's making agency information go way, causing many librarians to make efforts to rescue it and archive it.
I would like to see some identification of Substack writers that librarians feel are reliable--like this one that you have taken time to assess.
This would be valuable to many.
I've added some of these substack writers in the Recommendations column at the side here--but those are ones reflecting my preferences. Others may have different ideas. I have suggested these because they fill in some gaps that librarians may not be thinking about. I'm also publishing an article here tomorrow that identifies some others that I think fall generally within the broad ambit of "heterodoxy", or at least offer perspectives that are both evidence-based and offer novel perspectives and arguments not found elsewhere.
A really interesting substack writer I've discovered recently is economist Noah Smith. He writes generally from a liberal or center-left vantage point, but the article I found most compelling among his recent ones dicusses the problem with mainstream or "legacy media" and how its dichotomy between "fact" and opinion" is not helpful much any more. He makes the case that a third category of *analysis* is needed. While that may not seem revelatory, he divides "analysis" into: forecasts, assessments and theories. I find this especially helpful in thinking about what the mainstream press is or is not doing, and relatedly, what the best substack writers do--they give curious readers this third category in a better way--especially assessments and theories.
His article is at:
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/one-big-thing-the-legacy-media-gets
Craig is good about recommending Substacks but I think generally it might be challenging to find ones we all could agree on. I like The Disinformation Chronicle as Thacker seems to supply a lot of supporting evidence for his pieces.
Craig, all you have done here in your massive wall of text is make numerous appeals to authority by naming names, and citing popularity.
On the core facts, lab leak, laptop, etc - you just say they're 'old news', and that we have bigger problems to deal with now. So they're true, but you'd rather we talk about measles?
Reminder that all comments are expected to abide by the HxA Way.
I hadn't heard that the Trump administration was attempting to disappear information, but then there has been a lot to keep up with lately. Do you have some specific examples of that?
https://apnews.com/article/cdc-census-federal-data-trump-6a9ba7c01a42b72e2c0a119325ba3753
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/research/2025/01/29/data-goes-line-under-trump-researchers-upload-backups
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00374-y
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/climate-change-transparency-project-foia/2025-02-06/disappearing-data-trump
https://libguides.tulane.edu/gov_data_2025
https://ground.news/article/harvard-law-school-library-innovation-lab-announces-launch-of-datagov-archive
https://envirodatagov.org/how-to-find-climate-data-and-science-the-trump-administration-doesnt-want-you-to-see/
https://libguides.chapman.edu/data_resources/archives
From what I can tell from the first three links, it sounds like what is being removed is information related to projects the new administration no longer supports (gender ideology, environmental justice, etc.). I don't know if this is something that a new administration typically does (unfortunately the hysteria that surrounds Trump can often make it difficult to assess if an infraction is occurring). For instance, if a development project was underway in a city and a new city council no longer supported the project, would the corresponding webpages be deleted since the project was suspended? I imagine so, but of course am unable to spend hours researching what exactly is being removed. Regardless, for historical research purposes, that information could be valuable, so maybe Taibbi's team will tackle it if not librarians.
Whenever I see the phrase "citizen journalism," I hit the pause button. There are no doubt better forms of it, but there are others in the "influencer" mode that's not so positive.
I have been very interested recently what the Nieman Journalism Lab Predictions say (they issue them every year) about the future of mainstream journalism and how it needs to change. Part of those predictions this year point to the need of including citizen journalists to revive journalism at the *local* level since so many regional and local newspapers have folded. Here's an example of a positive collaboration:
https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/12/embracing-influencers-as-allies/
There is definitely a challenge in evaluating it; some of that comes in the form of competing takes. That was true in the era where we were limited to mainstream journalism but there is certainly more noise to sort through now.
For local news in many places citizen journalists are all we have. I contributed a few years ago to an internship program to bring in journalism students for local news but it seems not to have flourished as an idea. I go back so far I carried press releases from our community association to the local news office of a small town paper. Now press releases from community groups have to be submitted to a national platform that charges the group to announce its events. The only alternative seems to be facebook. SO, I guess you could call me a citizen journalist for posting news about my community group events there.
There's a wide range of possibilities that might be called "citizen journalism," so I appreciate your example.
I had to find this site to show you: https://evvnt.com/ . It is "A ticketing platform with all the features you expect (and deserve) combined with marketing services to deliver an end to end solution."--UGH.
When I go to my local paper with a press release they send me now to "Evvnt" which charges. The local paper redirects.
So one of the most simple community-engaged activities--a press release about a program at a radio club, for example, becomes monetized and small groups are left out. This is a long way from Susan's initial post but to me demonstrates the void between news orgs and readers. Sorry for wandering off topic.
Thanks, Kathleen, I appreciate the example.
For anyone interested in another perspective on Matt Taibbi, I recommend Renee DiResta's recent book, Invisible Rulers. She is an internet researcher and is now on the faculty at Georgetown University. The book covers the wider topic of social media culture, the design of algorithms, the practices of "influencers",, and the role of "audience capture" and its dynamic in creating tribal allegiances and even more polarization. She does address her interactions with Taibbi during the much-hyped #Twitter Files controversy, and not in a particularly positive way. His career in journalism has been a varied one, with some excellent reporting and commentary in the past. I'm deeply skeptical at this point about his journalistic practices. DiResta's book, in one chapter, describes her interactions with him.
An interview with DiResta is here about improving social media in general--what might work, and what likely won't:
https://www.persuasion.community/p/diresta
As for the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, I can only find some reasonable perspective on it from a traditional conservative like Mona Charen, who wrote about it almost three years ago, and the motivations of those in one political movement to distract from the behavior of their leader:
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/why-the-right-needs-hunter-biden
Some librarians are in fact leading such a charge to prevent date being lost down the "memory hole", as is the case at my own University of Winnipe, with our US Data Rescue 2025 LibGuide (https://libguides.uwinnipeg.ca/c.php?g=743662&p=5376522). Also, the rhetoric around "do your own research" has been tackled from the perspective of librarianship (e.g. https://www.denverlibrary.org/blog/research/ross/do-your-own-research-reference-librarians-recommendations) and would warrant further discussion.
Thanks. This is why I like to start these discussions, especially since I have been retired for over two years now so am less in touch with what is going on with the profession.
Sounds like the University of Winnipeg is a recent endeavor. I would suggest sending it to Matt Taibbi as he might be interested in promoting it or linking to it.
Nice piece from Denver Public Library. Somehow I missed it in 2021. Seems exactly like the kind of thing we should have promoted more.
Kathleen McCook has been working with Taibbi and would likely be interested in US Data Rescue 2025 as well.
I wondered if that was "our" Kathleen McCook!
Yes it is me. I was quite upset about the fact that there was so little realization about what tech companies were doing. Also that Aspen TableTalk exercise was quite chilling.