“Tim Cook, the boss of Apple, is calling for governments to launch a public information campaign to fight the scourge of fake news, which is ‘killing people’s minds,'” Allister Heath reports for The Telegraph. “In an impassioned plea, Mr Cook, boss of the world’s largest company, says that the epidemic of false reports ‘is a big problem in a lot of the world’ and necessitates a crackdown by the authorities and technology firms.”
“‘It has to be ingrained in the schools, it has to be ingrained in the public,’ said Mr Cook. ‘There has to be a massive campaign. We have to think through every demographic… We need the modern version of a public-service announcement campaign. It can be done quickly if there is a will,'” Heath reports. “‘We are going through this period of time right here where unfortunately some of the people that are winning are the people that spend their time trying to get the most clicks, not tell the most truth,’ he said. ‘It’s killing people’s minds in a way.'”
“Tech firms, which have been criticised for doing too little, also need to up their game, he said. ‘All of us technology companies need to create some tools that help diminish the volume of fake news. We must try to squeeze this without stepping on freedom of speech and of the press, but we must also help the reader. Too many of us are just in the complain category right now and haven’t figured out what to do,'” Heath reports. “‘The [rise of fake news] is a short-term thing – I don’t believe that people want that at the end of the day,’ [Cook said]. A new approach was required in schools, he said. ‘It’s almost as if a new course is required for the modern kid, for the digital kid.’ But he is optimistic. ‘In some ways kids will be the easiest to educate. At least before a certain age, they are very much in listen and understand [mode], and they then push their parents to act.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If we’re reading this correctly: Holy crap! This is chilling.
Who determines what’s “real” news and what’s “fake?”
Anyone who’s been paying any attention for the last, oh, forever (unlike Cook, who inexplicably thinks this is a “short-term thing”) can cite examples of so-called news that are biased one way or the other. In fact, history is littered with examples where the the facts were altered to suit a specific purpose.
We reread The Telegraph‘s full article six times. Is Cook really saying that the authorities and technology firms need to get the kids indoctrinated while they’re still malleable? If not, what did we miss?
And, are these the same technology firms who donated 60 times more to one party than to the other in the last U.S. Presidential election? If you don’t find that idea chilling, just imagine these “authorities and technology firms” — oh, let’s just call them “Ministry of Truth” (it has a nicer ring to it) — on the side of those espousing ideas that you oppose instead.
In the U.S., for a Democrat, “real” news is MSNBC and “fake” news is Fox News. For a Republican, it’s exactly the opposite. We’re sure it’s similar in every country with a “free press” in the world.
Again, who determines what’s “real” news and what’s “fake?” Cook seems to want “technology companies'” idea of what’s “real” to be “ingrained in the schools” and “ingrained in the public.” Technology companies, again, who donated 99% of their political dollars to one party in the last U.S. Presidential election.
If this is really what Cook desires then… Wow. Just wow.
Oh, good, it’s time for one of those “public service announcements” that Apple CEO Tim Cook mentioned. This one is from the 1940s:
That’s right, at one time, smoking was considered healthy and even said to prevent various illnesses. “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette,” dontcha know?
Telling “the most truth,” no doubt. “Ingrained in the schools, ingrained in the public.” “Killing people’s minds” …via their lungs.
And now for some quotes from George Orwell’s 1984 (you know, the one upon which Apple once based a TV commercial):
• The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.
• Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.
• Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.
• So long as they (the Proles) continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern…Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.
• The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink.
• Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.
• And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed — if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.
We’re going to hope and pray that Cook was misquoted and/or taken wildly out of context in this report.
One more quote: Think Different.
SEE ALSO:
Silicon Valley donated 60 times more to Clinton than to Trump – November 7, 2016
99% of Silicon Valley’s political dollars are going to Hillary Clinton – October 25, 2016
Apple refuses to aid 2016 GOP presidential convention over Trump comments – June 18, 2016
Apple and Silicon Valley employees love Bernie Sanders. Donald Trump? Not so much – May 6, 2016
