The Fall of Gaslighting?

Mass, Rapid, and Uncoordinated Online Response From the Audience is Making Gaslighting Less Effective

A quick corporate espionage story. In the fall of 2011, someone paid off one of our systems administrators at Apple Daily to get the emails of our executive office. In doing so they gained information about Apple Daily Chairman Jimmy Lai’s financial support of pro-democracy political parties. 

Using that information, the pro-Beijing media, which is nearly all media in Hong Kong, launched a coordinated attack on a Monday morning, hoping to run with the story the entire week.  By Wednesday they had relegated their gaslighting campaign to the back pages. 

What happened?  Facebook happened.

The pro-Beijing media splashed all over Hong Kong that Jimmy Lai supported pro democracy parties.  Hong Kong responded on Facebook with, “No Shit”.

You had to live under a rock in Hong Kong not to know that press freedom advocate Jimmy Lai supported pro-democracy parties as pro-democracy parties protected press freedom.  Across Hong Kong tens of thousands took to Facebook and chat rooms to push back on a very coordinated effort from Pro-Beijing mass media and pundits. 

In 2024 we are seeing a version of Hong Kong 2011 in the US Presidential campaign. While Facebook was fast in 2011, today; X, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, are lighting quick and further reaching.  Pick the political gaslighting effort, either side of the political spectrum, and there has been a response that is neither coordinated or planned, but every bit as effective as any organized campaign response could ever hope to be.

Donald Trump can’t finish a speech before online is pointing out any falsehoods.  Axios News was savaged within hours of rebuking their own past reporting to claim Kamala Harris wasn’t the Border Czar. 

Telling a lie and hoping the news cycle accepts it and moves on is how gaslighting is meant to work.  China’s Great Firewall offers the ultimate model of gaslighting.  The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) puts online what they wish, and no one challenges it.

For a long time, legacy media operated their own fire wall. Corrections came internally or from a competitor.  It was a club, and clubs have rules.  Sure, opinion columnists can fight, but journalists protecting their own made cops envious.

There are no rules in the news market of 2024.  We have X.  We have TikTok, Instagram, You-Tube, and tens of thousands of influencers. A story for the New York Times or Wall Street Journal is poured over by thousands; all hoping to find a mistake, seeking social media fame.  Maybe not fun if you are a reporter at a large legacy news group, but works for the market.

Whether JD Vance walking away from his “Cat Ladies” comment or Kamala Harris trying to make us forget she led the campaign for bail for BLM rioters, the media or pundits carrying partisan water for any politician are having their buckets shot full of holes by hundreds of thousands of social media users, who, whether biased or calling it like they see it, are a major part of the news media landscape now.

Does this mean the end of gaslighting? An end to lying and propaganda? Of course not.  But thanks to social media, X in particular, editors and reporters know that what they put out will be examined, and not just in their own in-house comments section.

Does this drive us down rabbit holes of self-reenforcing content pools?  I would argue it brings us out of those closed circles.  Anyone who wants to expand their audience is going to need to engage with more than their immediate circle. That engagement, or argument, is far more interesting than the Amen choir that exists on many news sites today. 

In the news business, you only grow if you fight. Expect more fighting.  Expect those fights to happen on social media.  Expect gaslighting to be the subject of many of those fights.