Here Are 5 More Fact-Based Influencers To Help You Fight The Information War
The power to fight the fascists is in the palm of your hand.
An Information War is being waged against you and your family every day by billionaires and foreign nations. It’s taking place across our information ecosystem but their preferred battleground is social media.
(Above: Drop Site News reporting on Netanyahu’s statement that the most important battlefields are on social media.)
Quick facts:
Pew Research polling shows 53% of Americans get their news and information about the world “at least sometimes” from
social media accounts. 21% of US adults report they are getting their news from social media “often.”
Over 60% of social media influencers don’t fact check anything before sharing to their followers online.
(Above: Comedian and pro-democracy influence Walter Masterson gives his thoughts on the Information War to TikTok account @our.voz)
The wartime strategy of the right wing propagandists (like one-time Trump “Chief Strategist” Steve Bannon) is to “flood the zone with shit” in order to trick the nation into supporting fascism.
Trump-supporting billionaires (both the techno-fascist and Christian nationalist variety) own our social media, seek the end of democracy, and employ operatives to strategically push narratives that aim to drive us apart.
The billionaires wage war against us every time we pick up our phones. With easy access to our brains they’ve successfully created millions of turncoats. The Americans cheering on the destruction of free speech and civil rights are victims of the Information War. And so are we. Estranged from friends and family and suffering under an unstable, lawless regime.
So what’s the counter-strategy for every freedom and democracy loving American?
Overwhelm and dilute the fascist propaganda by spreading its opposite–factual, pro-democracy information reported by journalists reporting in the public interest–every time you use social media.
The billionaires have money and power, but there are only a few of them.
The phones in our hands are the weapons we need to fight the Information War. And there are millions of us.
Be a fact-warrior, an avowed enemy of the people driving your family apart and destroying your nation.
Add These Fact-Based, Pro-Democracy Influencers to Your Media Diet
So here are 5 more pro-democracy influencers to help you fight the Information War. Become a node for the spread of fact-based information that helps make sense of the world for your friends, colleagues, and neighbors.
Of course, by following these influencers you are at the whim of their editorial decisions on what to post and what’s important. If something is important to you and you want to find healthy, fact-based news sources for that topic reach out to me and I’ll try to help.
And of course, this strategy applies to all fact-based, pro-democracy newsrooms with a social media presence. Use my Bluesky list “The News” to identify these newsrooms (think Pro Publica, The Guardian, Wired, Americans for Tax Fairness, The Marshall Project) and follow them across your social media accounts. Then repost everything they produce (well, maybe not product reviews or recipes).
The MAHA movement is dangerous and leading to uneccessary deaths of Americans.
Dr. Zachary Rubin is a pediatric allergist and clinical immunologist who devotes much of his content to debunking MAHA disinformation:
Follow him on Instagram and TikTok and repost his valuable debunks every time you are online.
Sawyer Hackett is a political strategist and extremely effective pro-democracy communicator. He has a knack for identifying the most important things for the public to know about regarding the fascist actions of the Trump administration. Here he is explaining the terrifying memorandum that accompanied Trump’s attempt at designating Antifa a domestic terrorist group.
Follow him on TikTok and Instagram.
Jess Britvich does videos on internet culture and politics, usually while applying make-up. She often covers topics that I have a mind to cover myself. Then I decide I no longer need to make a video on the topic because she nails it. Below is one such video about the public’s misunderstanding that there is somehow radicalization happening on the left of American politics equivalent to the far-right’s radicalizing dominance of the Republican party.
Follow her on TikTok and Instagram
AI is having a deep impact on our ability to know what is real. These two accounts cover AI and can help you gain some AI literacy.
Drew Harwell is a tech writer for the Washington Post. Follow him on TikTok.
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ShowToolsAI is the account of a Jeremy Carrasco, a streaming technical producer with a background in producing and directing large scale streaming events. He helps people identify fake videos. Here he is issuing a retraction, which helps us understand that getting it right is important to him. I think it’s worth watching. Follow him on TikTok and Instagram.
Paid subscribers may have noticed that I recently converted their pledges into actual payments. I am deeply grateful for your support.
Those following me across my accounts may have noticed that I have devoted much more of my time to making videos for TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. I post those videos to the Notes section of Substack as well. It’s been a great success and I now have 100,000 followers across all of my accounts.
But you, my Substack subscribers, have been on my mind. I want to provide value as I do information activism on your behalf. Your paid subscription, in addition to helping me continue my work, also gets you access to my brand new Patreon and Discord. The Discord is a community where together we will build an army to fight the Information War, grow our media literacy skills, and find and share healthy information. Stay tuned for a post this week all about how to access the Discord with your paid Substack subscription.