For years, people would ask me how I do my research. Online and in radio interviews I always gave basic, vague answers because I was trying to protect my small market share. I didn't want to create my own competition because I was being selfish. It was a mistake. [Today's thread]

Market share is not the right term, really. I never received a dime for my years of conspiracy debunking and putting out truth to combat the world of lies people encounter online. Perhaps it is better to call it my niche.

I did it for free, in my spare time, while working two jobs and writing novels when the urge struck me. I did it because I was extraordinarily concerned with people being manipulating by the BS the find online.

So people often asked how I figured it out. How did you dig that up? Why wasn't that in the article I read? I've never seen that before! WHY haven't I seen that before?

I would give answers like..

You didn't look in the right places.
Or,
You need to double-check your sources.

Those sorts of answers.

"It's just a thing I do. I probably couldn't even show you how to do it."

I did write a humorous little book titled, Just Stop. In it, I tried to help people understand how conspiracy theorists design their scam, how to spot it, and how to avoid being a victim of it, but I didn't really show them how to "do their own research" to do it themselves.

Me and others doing that - protecting our "thing"- was a bad idea, I think. We should have been teaching people how to navigate the labyrinthine chaos of the worldwide web. We should have shown them how to check their confirmation bias at the keyboard and find actual answers.

I even went so far as occasionally portraying myself as knowing far less about technology than I did.

"I'm a gray-haired old man on the innerwebs. I'm just an old gumshoe."

It wasn't true.

Even some friends would be shocked when they recommend I try a new system or program and I'd tell them I did that and also added this other thing &.... "Wow, I thought this would be harder for you!"

"Bitch, I was running PCs from command prompt before your parents met!"

But...I didnt tell people that. Now, I'm no tech genius and tech advances faster than I can keep up but I can hold my own for what I need to do.

I type over 90 wpm, which scares people sometimes when they see a balding grumpy guy tapping away on the keys.

Still, I was always downplaying everything and shrugging and being coy.

How many people could I have saved from the conspiracy theory rabbit hole if I had taught people how to do it? Instead, I let them rely on going to my website for MY stuff.

I wrote a novel titled, Patriot Deception. In it, I described various vague things about online activity and various programs. When IT people told me I did a good job of describing things clearly, I would literally deflect and say I had to do a lot of research about it.

No, I didn't! It was stuff I was doing every damn day. LoL I sort of really got into my online persona of a relatively technology challenged old investigator, struggling to uncover the great mystery.

In most cases, the job took me about 15 minutes.

I still never taught anyone how to do it.

I saw basically no other examples of researchers teaching people HOW to properly research the "news" the absorbed constantly.

So I didn't either.

Would Qanon even have become a thing if people online knew how to accurately conduct research and confirm facts?

Maybe. Could it at least have been a much smaller movement? I believe so.

Not that I'm the ultimate authority on such things but I can't help but wonder.

You may recall the conspiracy about the Dominion and Scytl data being sent to a server farm in Germany owned by the CIA. And how US Special forces raided that server farm, had a shootout with the CIA, and captured that data that would prove the election was stolen from Trump.

You, personally, may not remember that but it WAS A THING. Lin Wood, Patrick Byrne, and Tom McInerney talked about it online for weeks. So did some reps in Congress. (Yeah, I know, holy shit)

No one, Literally no one, traced the origin of that conspiracy theory. When I say literally, I mean literally. Nobody.

So I did.

@JackMurphyRGR put my info in an article about it and even when talking to my friend, Jack, I still didn't explain exactly how I did it lol

I had the feeling Jack was a bit frustrated for some of our chat because I could hear him thinking, "I can't just say it is this way because you say it is." As any good journalist should!

He had to be able to confirm it before committing it to an article. 99% of people don't.

In many ways, at times, I was doing the same thing conspiracy theorists do:

Trust me. I'm a reliable source. Just...you know...take my word for it.

Granted, I WAS always trying to bring the truth to people but that's what conspiracy theorists say too.

Perhaps it is time for us to do what we should have done for every teenager who was ever handed a mobile phone or laptop? Perhaps classes and tutorials on "How to not become an idiot while the entire world's library of information is literally in the palm of your hand."

That's a long title for a course but it is catchy, if you ask me.

"Do your own research" was a mental death sentence for the average person. The conspiracy theorists knew that. It was part of the scam.

After 20 years of telling their readers to not trust the mainstream media, and ridiculing them if they mentioned Googling something, the CT (Consp Theorists) pushed the vulnerable into a box filled only with confirmation bias and bullshit.

CT told people only this source or these websites or these bloggers and 4chan accounts were reliable and accurate. You can still read those comments and posts.

"This is one of the FEW sources I trust."

Usually about a guy who runs a website with "Patriot" in the title.

And the same "Patriot" website guy is probably an op-ed writer for the Moscow Times and InfoWars. Totally unbiased and certainly NOT making his living creating divisions among the American voters.

NO ONE WOULD DARE DO THAT!

We need to make the average news consumer more resourceful and more capable. We need to give them tools so they can protect themselves from these things. But it has to be tools they use themselves, not US telling them which sites they're allowed to visit.

We have to give them the knowledge to actually figure it out for themselves, without relying upon conspiracies, confirmation bias, or ME. Or anyone else.

This is the challenge as we are thrust violently and blindly into the year 2021.

I want to try to be a part of that solution. I hope other people do as well. I hope other experts read this and agree and offer to help.

I wish tech giants like Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Amazon, and their incredibly wealthy owners would get on board and offer grants.

My biggest wish is that people realize they are doing it wrong and that they need to protect themselves through education. That education has to be ready and waiting for them when they arrive.

We have to figure this out. Our country's very soul is at stake.

[/Today's Thread]