Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media

[babylonsister]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage

Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media

With links to Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and Nigel Farage, the rightwing US computer scientist is at the heart of a multimillion-dollar propaganda network

Carole Cadwalladr
@carolecadwalla

Sunday 26 February 2017 04.00 EST
Last modified on Sunday 26 February 2017 04.03 EST


Just over a week ago, Donald Trump gathered members of the world’s press before him and told them they were liars. “The press, honestly, is out of control,” he said. “The public doesn’t believe you any more.” CNN was described as “very fake news… story after story is bad”. The BBC was “another beauty”.

That night I did two things. First, I typed “Trump” in the search box of Twitter. My feed was reporting that he was crazy, a lunatic, a raving madman. But that wasn’t how it was playing out elsewhere. The results produced a stream of “Go Donald!!!!”, and “You show ’em!!!” There were star-spangled banner emojis and thumbs-up emojis and clips of Trump laying into the “FAKE news MSM liars!”

Trump had spoken, and his audience had heard him. Then I did what I’ve been doing for two and a half months now. I Googled “mainstream media is…” And there it was. Google’s autocomplete suggestions: “mainstream media is… dead, dying, fake news, fake, finished”. Is it dead, I wonder? Has FAKE news won? Are we now the FAKE news? Is the mainstream media – we, us, I – dying?

I click Google’s first suggested link. It leads to a website called CNSnews.com and an article: “The Mainstream media are dead.” They’re dead, I learn, because they – we, I – “cannot be trusted”. How had it, an obscure site I’d never heard of, dominated Google’s search algorithm on the topic? In the “About us” tab, I learn CNSnews is owned by the Media Research Center, which a click later I learn is “America’s media watchdog”, an organisation that claims an “unwavering commitment to neutralising leftwing bias in the news, media and popular culture”.

Another couple of clicks and I discover that it receives a large bulk of its funding – more than $10m in the past decade – from a single source, the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer. If you follow US politics you may recognise the name. Robert Mercer is the money behind Donald Trump. But then, I will come to learn, Robert Mercer is the money behind an awful lot of things. He was Trump’s single biggest donor. Mercer started backing Ted Cruz, but when he fell out of the presidential race he threw his money – $13.5m of it – behind the Trump campaign.

It’s money he’s made as a result of his career as a brilliant but reclusive computer scientist. He started his career at IBM, where he made what the Association for Computational Linguistics called “revolutionary” breakthroughs in language processing – a science that went on to be key in developing today’s AI – and later became joint CEO of Renaissance Technologies, a hedge fund that makes its money by using algorithms to model and trade on the financial markets.

One of its funds, Medallion, which manages only its employees’ money, is the most successful in the world – generating $55bn so far. And since 2010, Mercer has donated $45m to different political campaigns – all Republican – and another $50m to non-profits – all rightwing, ultra-conservative. This is a billionaire who is, as billionaires are wont, trying to reshape the world according to his personal beliefs.

snip//

We’re not quite in the alternative reality where the actual news has become “FAKE news!!!” But we’re almost there. Out on Twitter, the new transnational battleground for the future, someone I follow tweets a quote by Marshall McLuhan, the great information theorist of the 60s. “World War III will be a guerrilla information war,” it says. “With no divisions between military and civilian participation.”

By that definition we’re already there.

[Tactical Peek]

1. Fascinating.

Kick

[triron]

2. Went to same high school senior year

as Mercer. Also we were both undergraduates in physics and math at UNM.
Never knew him personally but know he was an exceptional student in both fields.
Interesting that he went so far scientifically but in a bad direction politically.

[babylonsister]

4. Wow! He got turned somehow. Money maybe?

One day I hope we know.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

3. K&R

[BSdetect]

5. This link was in another thread but needs to be out there again

Exposed how exactly social media is being used to influence elections [View all]

Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media,

This is how they influence elections and even financial markets which has proven very successful



https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage

[babylonsister]

6. Ha! It's in the OP; same link. But yes...

the more we know.

[BSdetect]

7. How do we get people to read the entire article

Must keep up he Kicks

[VOX]

8. Kicking this. Another right wing super-villain...

They just keep coming.

[Hortensis]

9. Smart man, McLuhan. But we're not "almost there."

The nation is divided between a largest majority group who aren't fooled, or only partly,
a large destructive segment on the right who are determined to deny reality as long as they can,
a smaller rabid group who never will,
and a significantly large group who don't know what to think and don't want to think about it.

Itm, readership is shooting up for honest investigative journalism. Viewership is increasing for those few shows worth watching for information.

And, extremely importantly, everyone is talking about "fake news." No matter where they claim it originates from, all now know our nation is awash in it. That's a huge change from just a half year ago.