CBS’ flagship news show 60 Minutes has long been considered a staple of the left-wing narrative.
Radical leftists and Democrats alike have loved the show’s recent sensationalist segments.
But 60 Minutes shocked its viewers with one segment that went viral.
As the Internet makes advances, so does surveillance technology
Recent advances in big tech have completely changed the way most people use the internet.
AI, virtual reality, and quantum computing have completely changed the user experience, allowing people to do much more work in much less time.
But internet users were stunned after this censorship demonstration by 60 Minutes went viral.
The capabilities of personal computers and the internet have advanced rapidly in the last several years.
Even non-tech savvy consumers now have access to powerful tech programs, which can compute massive amounts of data in nanoseconds.
But along with these advances have come advances in surveillance software, which many governments and Big Tech companies have invested heavily in developing.
Such surveillance software allows these entities to monitor the activity of millions of users all at the same time, opening the door for widespread censorship.
And on a recent edition of CBS News’ 60 Minutes, Sander van der Linden, a professor of social psychology and director of the Social Decision-Making Laboratory at Cambridge University, demonstrated some of these surveillance state advances.
Sander van der Linden focused on how recent advances in computing technology are helping various entities to “pre-bunk” so-called “misinformation,” essentially allowing entities to censor content preemptively.
“Misinformation prevention” tactics pose serious threats to billions of internet users
Per CBS News, “Van der Linden’s research centers on how people interact with misleading or false information on social media, and why some end up believing things that are either half-true or completely false.”
CBS added, “Van der Linden told Stahl that misinformation, content that is entirely false, exists on social media, but misleading information, like half-truths and biased narratives, is much more prevalent.”
Van der Linden then demonstrated how to potentially “pre-bunk” information, citing an article published in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel titled “A ‘healthy’ doctor died two weeks after getting a COVID-19 vaccine; CDC is investigating why.”
He claims, “It’s highly misleading because it’s suggesting that the doctor died because of the COVID vaccine. But of course . . . still to this day there’s been no evidence that the vaccine actually was the cause of death for this doctor.”
Then, Van der Linden showed CBS News how to “pre-bunk” the article, saying, “By deconstructing it and refuting it in advance, people can actually build up psychological or mental antibodies, so they become more resistant to misinformation in the future.”
The “misinformation prevention” tactics demonstrated on 60 Minutes show exactly how many large companies and government entities are identifying and censoring individual Americans and publications online.
And there are plenty of examples of factually true opinion pieces and news articles facing the wrath of internet censors.
Many internet users fear that the advances in this sort of technology could circumvent their right to free speech.
The ongoing Murthy v Missouri Supreme Court case will help to define the government’s role in using such tactics.
Especially as it pertains to the government working with technology companies to censor Americans online.
Political Animal News will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.