> I think it also reinforces the basic fake news premise that experts are propagandists.
Sure: plenty of intellectuals, including great writers and scientists, indeed have been propagandists. People like Merton even worked in war propaganda. There are plenty of experts in marketing too. And then there are people like Dugin, Zakharova, etc.
But please do not take this comment as a statement that all experts or intellectuals would always be propagandists. What I am trying to say is that we should really try to move away from these simple categories (true vs. false, disinformation vs. information, etc.) in order to understand the current information chaos. The dichotomous categories also promote the false hope that technical (AI/ML) solutions could be used to tackle the issue.
Sure: plenty of intellectuals, including great writers and scientists, indeed have been propagandists. People like Merton even worked in war propaganda. There are plenty of experts in marketing too. And then there are people like Dugin, Zakharova, etc.
But please do not take this comment as a statement that all experts or intellectuals would always be propagandists. What I am trying to say is that we should really try to move away from these simple categories (true vs. false, disinformation vs. information, etc.) in order to understand the current information chaos. The dichotomous categories also promote the false hope that technical (AI/ML) solutions could be used to tackle the issue.