In mid-December of 2021, a video about Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada, did its rounds on the conspiracy Internet, and hundreds of thousands of tinfoil hat-wearing folks shared it without requiring additional information.
The video, a deceptively edited twenty-five-second snippet of a more extended interview, showed Justin Trudeau allegedly saying that his government was willing to use a loophole in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to contravene citizens’ fundamental rights.
Note: it is good to see that Twitter has marked the edited video as “manipulated media.”
The problem with this disinformation campaign isn’t the usual nastiness from political opponents who, as far as you know, sent this manipulated media out for stupid people to consume.
No, the problem is that the video was clearly missing critical context and most of its content. And people accepted it as evidence of claims that resonated with their worldview.
This blind attachment to an idea ensured a lie spread fast and wide.
Here is the original snippet as shared on social media.
And it wasn’t only conspiracy nuts who shared it as valid proof of their nonsense – at least one academic the Devil once trusted to speak on behalf of truth, and intellectual honesty jumped into the stupid bandwagon. I wrote about my disenchantment here: The Death of Intellectualism: Gad Saad Edition.
I should also give credit to Dr Jordan Peterson for showing intellectual virtue and standing up against this farce, as I wrote here: Hope for Intellectualism: Jordan Peterson Edition.
And I wrote pages about that bandwagon and the moral dishonesty shown by followers of right-wing propaganda, who refused to accept the truth despite evidence contradicting the claim.
Take this one, for example.
It’s not that the video was manipulated to create confusion, but evidence of a more extraordinary conspiracy mechanism.
Or this nonsense.
There are hundreds more comments like these that make me wish I were the Devil and hell was real.
But as much as I want to punish the human willingness to self-deceive, I want you to imagine the intentions of the people who edited the video, of whom, most of the people sharing the propaganda are victims.
As I said, I wrote pages about this issue and realised that most words of logic are lost on people willing to share anything without verifying its sources.
So, instead of throwing pearls before swine, I give you the full, unedited video.
Thank you for reading.
— The Devil Unbound.
