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no bull and the aftermath.

But one of them is what researchers call the fire hose of falsehood, and that's where

you put out so many lies and half trees and conspiracy theories.

So fast, through so many channels, that people become confused, disoriented, cynical fact checkers

the media can't begin to keep up with, just trying to refute them, gives them more currency

and meanwhile you've got 10 others out there.

The goal of this isn't necessarily to persuade people of something that's false, though you

like it when that happens.

It's to persuade them that nothing is true, that there's no one they can trust anymore.

They become cynical about the media and about what's true and what's false.

They become in fact unable even to tell what's true in false if this goes on long enough.

So no one ever imagined adapting and using techniques, Russian style disinformation techniques

like the fire hose of falsehood and there are others like conspiracy boots strapping and

trolling and so forth.

No one imagined applying those at mass scale to American politics, much less as a candidate

for the presidency or as president of the United States.

I'm Alan Rosenstein and this is the Law Fair Podcast, June 14, 2021.

Public discourse is in bad shape these days.

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