"Why is it that a 30 second radio ad needs to have "Paid for by the Candidate X campaign", but millions of dollars worth of paid online trolls needn't disclose a thing?"
I don't know, however it probably wouldn't make a difference (1).
It's all about psychology, especially in politics, where the debate has been carefully transformed into fanboyism for the simple reason that people who embrace an idea can still be convinced of the same idea being wrong, while fanboys of that idea will defend it no matter how much evidence one throws at them.
We want to hear what resonates with our opinions, education, etc, and when someone manages to turn us into fans of those ideas, then we're screwed.
When the ancient Romans conquered a foreign population, they practiced sowing discord among people, so that opposite factions would emerge then fight each other rather than unite against the oppressor. The term "divide et impera" (divide and conquer) means exactly that practice, which is alive and well in the modern world either outside the national borders (by igniting wars between smaller nations in developing countries, as an example, so that they keep being easier to control) and sowing discord among people within national borders through fear of each other, the external enemy of the day and the usual tricks, for the same purpose: making the mass easier to herd.
How do we fight this today? We don't, just no way. There's some hope for future generations though. I think we should act while they're not yet morphed into disinformation zombies, that is, in schools. What, for example, if kids were taught Carl Sagans' Baloney Detection Kit applied to the proliferation of fake news on the Internet, with examples? Just my .2 nibbles.
I don't know, however it probably wouldn't make a difference (1). It's all about psychology, especially in politics, where the debate has been carefully transformed into fanboyism for the simple reason that people who embrace an idea can still be convinced of the same idea being wrong, while fanboys of that idea will defend it no matter how much evidence one throws at them. We want to hear what resonates with our opinions, education, etc, and when someone manages to turn us into fans of those ideas, then we're screwed. When the ancient Romans conquered a foreign population, they practiced sowing discord among people, so that opposite factions would emerge then fight each other rather than unite against the oppressor. The term "divide et impera" (divide and conquer) means exactly that practice, which is alive and well in the modern world either outside the national borders (by igniting wars between smaller nations in developing countries, as an example, so that they keep being easier to control) and sowing discord among people within national borders through fear of each other, the external enemy of the day and the usual tricks, for the same purpose: making the mass easier to herd.
How do we fight this today? We don't, just no way. There's some hope for future generations though. I think we should act while they're not yet morphed into disinformation zombies, that is, in schools. What, for example, if kids were taught Carl Sagans' Baloney Detection Kit applied to the proliferation of fake news on the Internet, with examples? Just my .2 nibbles.
1: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2115421-fake-news-shape...