Terrific piece, and an important contribution to understanding the architecture of disinformation. At the same time, I think the analysis risks stopping short of a deeper problem. By focusing primarily on information systems, cognitive processes, and institutional arrangements, it underestimates the central role of culture as a formative pedagogical force.
The machinery of what might be called pedagogical terrorism does not simply operate by polluting streams of information or circulating networks of lies. It works more profoundly through the cultural circuits of everyday life, across media, digital platforms, popular culture, education, and religious and political institutions. These are not neutral channels. They are pedagogical sites where identities are shaped, desires are mobilized, and modes of agency are produced.
In this sense, disinformation is not only about what people believe, but about who they become. It is part of a broader cultural apparatus that normalizes cruelty, erodes empathy, legitimizes repression, and produces what can only be called fascist subjects. The success of what you rightly call “institutionalized lying” depends not just on repetition or cognitive vulnerability, but on its embedding within a wider cultural and pedagogical infrastructure that organizes common sense and lived experience.
As I argue in “Culture as a Pedagogical Battlefield in the Fight Against Authoritarianism,” culture functions as a formative terrain where power is made ordinary, where violence is aestheticized, and where authoritarian values are internalized as commonsense truths. Without addressing this broader pedagogical project, efforts to counter disinformation, however sophisticated, risk treating the symptoms rather than the conditions that make such lies both persuasive and sustainable. See: https://socialistproject.ca/2025/06/culture-as-pedagogical-battlefield-against-authoritarianism/
I see the cognitive and other brain processes as the "how" it effects the brain, which is compatible with the process on how it's spread. In other words, one explains how the propaganda is spread, and the other explains what happens in the brain when it is received.
I believe you are identifying something crucial that the mechanism-focused analysis misses — that this is about identity formation, not just information manipulation.
I'd push one level deeper. If culture is the pedagogical battlefield, what determined which soldiers were already standing on it, waiting to be mobilized?
The cultural apparatus didn't create the hunger — it found one that already existed. I believe a decades-long erosion of significance among groups accustomed to presumed cultural, economic, and social primacy created a receptivity that no amount of media literacy or counter-messaging infrastructure adequately addresses.
We have seen a lot of this in the many years of tRump propaganda rallies. Followers' identity was fused with tRump's in a cult-like manner, allowing his post-truth nonsense and postmodernism to flourish.
“US National Debt Hits $39 Trillion (4/21/26) ~No1
Reinstatement of Debt Limit: On January 2, 2025, the statutory debt limit was reinstated at $36.1 trillion, matching the amount of total debt outstanding on that day. ~GoogleGeminiA.I
Thank you so much, Ruth, for following up on the topic! 🙏🏻
For those interested: my film HOW TO BUILD A TRUTH ENGINE is now available worldwide for screenings (educational, conferences, theatrical, watch@home parties) through www.truthengine.net
On my own substack @friedrichmoserfilm I am providing context into how I got to make this film, and that starts with another feature doc that I did about 10 years ago which looked into a case of corruption at the NSA with world changing consequences.
Thank you so much, Mr. Moser, for pursuing this important subject. Brilliant, brilliant, wonderful, timely, necessary. I look forward to seeing the film and wonder if you feature any discussion of the predictable irrationality of human beings. Wishing you all the best.
Thank you so much for this post. It is heartening to know that folks all over the world are working on the problem of disinformation. Maybe there is hope.
Substacker Eric Engheim has some cogent thoughts on how our worship of the first amendment has been our undoing. Free speech should never be a cover to propagate provable lies. Debatable views, yes. But when the motive is clearly corrupt and subversive, why do we always flinch and retreat when the liar shouts “First Amendment!”?
The research on disinformation mechanisms is is critical. But I keep snagging on a prior question.
The film asks what happens when the information stream becomes polluted...I'd ask what made so many people eager to drink from a polluted stream in the first place?
Cognitive processes, pattern recognition, platform regulation — all necessary. But machinery needs fuel. Counter-measures need to address not just how propaganda lands — but what made so many people already primed to receive it. That's the question I've been exploring at length on my own substack.
Good point! I did my MA thesis in Contemporary History, on the subject of populism, analyzing a historic case here in Vienna, Austria. Much of it has got to do with status. When your status starts to slide, your believe system does, too. That's the moment your entire worldview is up for grabs. It's more complex, of course, but propaganda needs a certain socio-economic context to get rooted in people's minds.
This is precisely the thread I keep pulling on. The status/significance slide as the precondition — not the propaganda itself — is where I think the analysis needs to go deeper. The American version has particular cultural complexity because the groups experiencing that slide had it so thoroughly baked into their identity as a birthright, which I believe makes the threat feel existential rather than merely economic.
Fascinating that your Vienna thesis found the same root. The machinery differs across eras and cultures but the kindling appears remarkably consistent.
Wow. Super, super important info. Congrats, Herr Moser! Aside: the Vienna Phil is my personal Truth Engine...;)
I'm so psyched to hear about your work because it touches on Foucault's definition of Truth. Namely, "a set of ordered procedures for the production, distribution, regulation, circulation, and operation of statements. Through this system of truth, power structures are created and enforced." Truth in Foucault's definition is not Knowledge; it is ANY social fabric that creates or sustains power and has been wielded differently in every previous age, across every civilization.
Why does "Truth" create and enforce power? Because it motivates the masses (usually via fear as Ruth points out) to support and act on behalf of good/bad leaders. The Founding Fathers quoted our famous "self-evident Truths" as a way to incite the population to rebellion; others have less noble goals which leads me to ...
...your awesome StoryMiner QAnon data analysis pic above as the PERFECT illustration of the definition of this particular "Truth" in action. Why? Because it shows how narrative info goes to X where it's reinforced and send to Y and Z--who each in their turn ornament/justify/filter and send to A, B, and C and so on.. So it all seems organic and cross-referenced when in fact is it a "set of ordered procedures meant to create and enforce power."
I love Shelby Foote's (the novelist/historian featured on Ken Burns' Civil War series) viewpoint: that most historians are 'so concerned with finding out what happened that they make the enormous mistake of equating facts with truth...you can't get the truth from facts. The truth is the way you feel about it.' People feel QAnon is true because it's part of the larger Truth promulgated by the massively-funded and reciprocated Trump Death Star Truth Engine.
Terrific piece, and an important contribution to understanding the architecture of disinformation. At the same time, I think the analysis risks stopping short of a deeper problem. By focusing primarily on information systems, cognitive processes, and institutional arrangements, it underestimates the central role of culture as a formative pedagogical force.
The machinery of what might be called pedagogical terrorism does not simply operate by polluting streams of information or circulating networks of lies. It works more profoundly through the cultural circuits of everyday life, across media, digital platforms, popular culture, education, and religious and political institutions. These are not neutral channels. They are pedagogical sites where identities are shaped, desires are mobilized, and modes of agency are produced.
In this sense, disinformation is not only about what people believe, but about who they become. It is part of a broader cultural apparatus that normalizes cruelty, erodes empathy, legitimizes repression, and produces what can only be called fascist subjects. The success of what you rightly call “institutionalized lying” depends not just on repetition or cognitive vulnerability, but on its embedding within a wider cultural and pedagogical infrastructure that organizes common sense and lived experience.
As I argue in “Culture as a Pedagogical Battlefield in the Fight Against Authoritarianism,” culture functions as a formative terrain where power is made ordinary, where violence is aestheticized, and where authoritarian values are internalized as commonsense truths. Without addressing this broader pedagogical project, efforts to counter disinformation, however sophisticated, risk treating the symptoms rather than the conditions that make such lies both persuasive and sustainable. See: https://socialistproject.ca/2025/06/culture-as-pedagogical-battlefield-against-authoritarianism/
I see the cognitive and other brain processes as the "how" it effects the brain, which is compatible with the process on how it's spread. In other words, one explains how the propaganda is spread, and the other explains what happens in the brain when it is received.
I believe you are identifying something crucial that the mechanism-focused analysis misses — that this is about identity formation, not just information manipulation.
I'd push one level deeper. If culture is the pedagogical battlefield, what determined which soldiers were already standing on it, waiting to be mobilized?
The cultural apparatus didn't create the hunger — it found one that already existed. I believe a decades-long erosion of significance among groups accustomed to presumed cultural, economic, and social primacy created a receptivity that no amount of media literacy or counter-messaging infrastructure adequately addresses.
"..... identity formation..."
We have seen a lot of this in the many years of tRump propaganda rallies. Followers' identity was fused with tRump's in a cult-like manner, allowing his post-truth nonsense and postmodernism to flourish.
They don't pay attention to what's ACTUALLY HAPPENING AROUND THEM so they buy into whatever whatever appears on their screen.
Truth, or Consequences? How are solid decisions made without truthful facts?
No1’s Daily Digest
2026-04-22 | Substack | Get Up to Speed
https://no1sdailydigest.substack.com/p/daily-digest-2026-04-22?r=kxzps&utm_medium=ios
“US National Debt Hits $39 Trillion (4/21/26) ~No1
Reinstatement of Debt Limit: On January 2, 2025, the statutory debt limit was reinstated at $36.1 trillion, matching the amount of total debt outstanding on that day. ~GoogleGeminiA.I
Thank you so much, Ruth, for following up on the topic! 🙏🏻
For those interested: my film HOW TO BUILD A TRUTH ENGINE is now available worldwide for screenings (educational, conferences, theatrical, watch@home parties) through www.truthengine.net
On my own substack @friedrichmoserfilm I am providing context into how I got to make this film, and that starts with another feature doc that I did about 10 years ago which looked into a case of corruption at the NSA with world changing consequences.
Thank you so much, Mr. Moser, for pursuing this important subject. Brilliant, brilliant, wonderful, timely, necessary. I look forward to seeing the film and wonder if you feature any discussion of the predictable irrationality of human beings. Wishing you all the best.
I wish there were recordings of your important posts, I don't have time for all the reading I need to do!!
Thank you so much for this post. It is heartening to know that folks all over the world are working on the problem of disinformation. Maybe there is hope.
Substacker Eric Engheim has some cogent thoughts on how our worship of the first amendment has been our undoing. Free speech should never be a cover to propagate provable lies. Debatable views, yes. But when the motive is clearly corrupt and subversive, why do we always flinch and retreat when the liar shouts “First Amendment!”?
The research on disinformation mechanisms is is critical. But I keep snagging on a prior question.
The film asks what happens when the information stream becomes polluted...I'd ask what made so many people eager to drink from a polluted stream in the first place?
Cognitive processes, pattern recognition, platform regulation — all necessary. But machinery needs fuel. Counter-measures need to address not just how propaganda lands — but what made so many people already primed to receive it. That's the question I've been exploring at length on my own substack.
Good point! I did my MA thesis in Contemporary History, on the subject of populism, analyzing a historic case here in Vienna, Austria. Much of it has got to do with status. When your status starts to slide, your believe system does, too. That's the moment your entire worldview is up for grabs. It's more complex, of course, but propaganda needs a certain socio-economic context to get rooted in people's minds.
This is precisely the thread I keep pulling on. The status/significance slide as the precondition — not the propaganda itself — is where I think the analysis needs to go deeper. The American version has particular cultural complexity because the groups experiencing that slide had it so thoroughly baked into their identity as a birthright, which I believe makes the threat feel existential rather than merely economic.
Fascinating that your Vienna thesis found the same root. The machinery differs across eras and cultures but the kindling appears remarkably consistent.
totally! I was so surprised about the similarities!
Ruth Ben ghiat standing up for democracy thanks
Wow. Super, super important info. Congrats, Herr Moser! Aside: the Vienna Phil is my personal Truth Engine...;)
I'm so psyched to hear about your work because it touches on Foucault's definition of Truth. Namely, "a set of ordered procedures for the production, distribution, regulation, circulation, and operation of statements. Through this system of truth, power structures are created and enforced." Truth in Foucault's definition is not Knowledge; it is ANY social fabric that creates or sustains power and has been wielded differently in every previous age, across every civilization.
Why does "Truth" create and enforce power? Because it motivates the masses (usually via fear as Ruth points out) to support and act on behalf of good/bad leaders. The Founding Fathers quoted our famous "self-evident Truths" as a way to incite the population to rebellion; others have less noble goals which leads me to ...
...your awesome StoryMiner QAnon data analysis pic above as the PERFECT illustration of the definition of this particular "Truth" in action. Why? Because it shows how narrative info goes to X where it's reinforced and send to Y and Z--who each in their turn ornament/justify/filter and send to A, B, and C and so on.. So it all seems organic and cross-referenced when in fact is it a "set of ordered procedures meant to create and enforce power."
I love Shelby Foote's (the novelist/historian featured on Ken Burns' Civil War series) viewpoint: that most historians are 'so concerned with finding out what happened that they make the enormous mistake of equating facts with truth...you can't get the truth from facts. The truth is the way you feel about it.' People feel QAnon is true because it's part of the larger Truth promulgated by the massively-funded and reciprocated Trump Death Star Truth Engine.
Please let me know when I can preorder your new book Ruth
This is really good ! Thanks ☺