Kara Swisher is Sarah Connor

Director/producer Andrew Rossi's "After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News" touches on the resurgence of propaganda and its cost to democracy — with its design to enrage, suppress, and divide — and exposes some of the consequences for the victims of the resulting conspiracy theories. 

The 90-minute documentary also gives too much airtime the attention-craving sociopaths who perpetrate damaging lies, like Alex Jones and his promotion of Pizzagate and his calling Parkland High School shooting survivor David Hogg a "crisis actor." Also shared is charlatan Jacob Wohl's impotent attempt to smear Special Counsel Robert Mueller in a sort of journalism cosplay. 

A group of journalists and researchers point to the rise of actual "fake news" in 2015, when a military training exercise in Texas was mischaracterized as a coup and quickly jumped from conspiracy blogs to the governor's office. Sites like Reddit and 4Chan were like a "dirty rest stop bathroom wall," and tens of thousands of followers ratcheted up lies that DC's Comet Ping Pong pizza shop was, inexplicably, a front for a child porn ring. The frenzy culminated in a deranged armed man driving up from NC to threaten the owners and staff, who continued to receive death threats for months. 

As they grieved, the family of murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich was also endlessly harassed by online and FOX News propagandists. The term "fake news" is now weaponized, so it has lost its real meaning, the film posits, and a leading weaponizer - "birther" creator Jerome Corsi - also scores unearned airtime.

The most incisive interview is with preeminent Silicon Valley journalist and "Recode Decode" podcast host Kara Swisher, who pulls no punches when talking about the virulent impact of unregulated tech companies like Facebook, which feed the disinformation beast.

She succinctly calls out Mark Zuckerberg's sketchy use of data, and his creation's intent to be "a free-for-all, except that Facebook gets all the money." 

Reporters worry that now nothing about democracy is real, since consumers spend about a fourth of their time on artificial platforms and in a constant state of disorientation. 

In 2019, the FBI designated conspiracy theories like Pizzagate as a new domestic terrorism threat. They also confirmed that disinformation campaigns are targeting the 2020 election, yet the Senate has failed to pass election security legislation. 

Facebook is "a city without a police force," says Swisher. They hide behind the First Amendment, but they're not the government, nor a public square. "It's more profitable to do nothing," she adds. 

Zuckerberg is running the world's biggest communications system, but he holds no accountability and cannot be fired. Swisher says, "Young white men run Silicon Valley. And if you've never felt unsafe in your life, you don't understand safety."

She reports that he thinks it's a benign platform, but it's the "most powerful tool in the history of the planet."

"One you have a gun, you want to shoot it. You just do," she says. 

"After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News" debuts on Thursday, March 19: https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/after-truth

https://www.edgemedianetwork.com/entertainment/television//289513/after_truth:_disinformation_and_the_cost_of_fake_news