Town Hall Seattle Civics Series

Have you ever thought what #FakeNews might have looked like 200 years ago?  While we may be experiencing a new era of disinformation, the tactics aren’t necessarily original. Drawing from their latest book, Stories Are Weapons, journalist and science fiction author Annalee Newitz traces back in history how disinformation, propaganda, and violent threats — all elements of psychological warfare — have evolved into tools of today’s domestic culture wars. Newitz argues that America has a deep-rooted history with psychological operations. Beginning with Benjamin Franklin’s Revolutionary War–era fake newspaper, then the nineteenth-century wars on Indigenous nations, Newitz follows disinformation to its peak of today’s online influence campaigns. Newitz zeroes in on conflicts over race and intelligence, school board fights over LGBTQ students, and campaigns against feminist viewpoints to show how damaging our cultural storytelling can be. Newitz argues that, in each case, specific groups of Americans are singled out