"Studying Disinformation"

The professional practice of convincing people of.... literally anything.

Meet Dr. Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D.

Honestly, every picture of her has that smug look

According to her LinkedIn page, she has a PhD in “social and behavioral sciences” from Virginia Commonwealth University (which is mysteriously and strangely listed as a doctorate in *philosophy*… which is to me a bit odd).

She also has an MS in counseling psychology from Loyola University (but… I suspect after hearing a bit more about her you’ll probably figure it’s at least small consolation she didn’t decide to end up practicing mental health counseling).

According to her Twitter bio, Caroline says she studies “disinformation, cognitive security, mediated communication, crises.” How very wordy.

Similarly, according to her bio page on ARLIS (Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security), Caroline studies “misinformation, disinformation and malinformation related to COVID and vaccinations”

Again, lots of big words, but she’s basically in that new, pseudo-academic professional specialty popularly called “disinformation specialist” which, prior to a few years ago wasn’t even something people talked about. (I have written about these words and how they have roared into the lexicon over the last few years, here, and here, if you want my thoughts).

What she really is, of course, is a person who studies the art and science of propaganda.

Backing up - let’s get to why she caught my attention. A day or so ago, I ran into this Tweet of hers, which immediately made my mouth drop open from sheer disbelief:

Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D @RVAwonk

Elon Musk is now explicitly encouraging his 120 million followers to start following QAnon. Put differently, Elon Musk is encouraging his 120 million followers to join a domestic terrorism movement.

My first reaction was complete astonishment, quickly replaced with fury. First and foremost - Caroline’s tweet begins with an open-faced lie, claiming that “Follow 🐰” is “explicit… encouragement” for Mr. Elon Musk’s Twitter followers to, yes, “join QAnon.”

Obviously, it’s not an ‘explicit encouragement’ to follow, well, anything.

Might it be an implicit invitation to join a, say, fringe terrorist group? Sure. Might it be a reference to any number of things? Sure as well.

But c’mon. It’s not an “explicit” call to do, well, anything - and moreover, she offers zero foundation to make the case that' it’s even an implicit call to do what she’s saying.

So - it’s a lie, and I don’t like liars.

Second - I got infuriated because I am a longtime lover of both literature and popular culture. In one fell swoop - in her pursuit of a “prebunk,” or smear, of the man who dares to liberate the most influential social media platform from the tyrannical control of left-wing political censors, and from it’s role as a biomedical statist propaganda machine - this lady decided to evilly sully both a beloved Lewis Carrol children’s classic, and one of my favorite sci-fi films.

How dare she!

Here’s the deal though.

My thesis is that Dr. Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D., disinformation specialist - doesn’t actually care what the facts are. Whether it’s truly was simply a reference to Alice in Wonderland, the Matrix, QAnon, or something else - doesn’t matter.

I don’t mean this is a criticism.

You just need to understand that she doesn’t see it as her job. She’s not in the business of truth or facts.

Facts are not actually important to her.

When it comes to people who do what she does, it’s immaterial as to whether she has any real grasp on what the facts of any given situation is.

She’s not here to offer actual evidence that Elon Musk is a QAnon believer, or whatever. Remember, she doesn’t actually care about (or even necessarily understand) what’s true or not. This isn’t what “disinformation specialists” are about. For people in Caroline’s chosen profession - truth is simply a casualty of war. She’s simply here, in this case, and by any means necessary - to “prebunk” Elon Musk.

More on that later.

Follow the White Rabbit (to COVID Land).

What does “Follow 🐰” mean? To me - it was obvious, its a reference to Lewis Carrol’s 1871 classic children’s book, “Through the Looking Glass” in the Alice in Wonderland series. It’s a reference, ultimately, that leads to the famous White Rabbit, who led Alice down the rabbit hole.

I’m late! I’m late!

Why would Elon reference this?

Well, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple of months, you may be aware that Twitter management has changed, Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX, & StarLink CEO) is now the boss of a the newly-private company, and the Democrat party, mainstream / regime media, and basically the entire establishment left wing has been completely losing it’s collective mind.

Most importantly - for the last couple of weeks, Elon has been releasing the so-called “Twitter Files" exclusively on Twitter, detailing the nature and extend of the politically-motivated speech censorship that’s occurred under previous management - including most recently the circumstances of the internal decisions where they banned former president Donald Trump from the platform:

Bari Weiss @bariweiss

THREAD: THE TWITTER FILES PART FIVE. THE REMOVAL OF TRUMP FROM TWITTER.

However - one of the most-anticipated, upcoming dumps of the Twitter Files is the upcoming COVID-related Twitter files:

So - when Elon said what obviously meant “follow the white rabbit” - I thought this was obvious - it’s simply a tease for further juicy releases. He’s telling us “I have really juicy info that will lead you all way down the proverbial rabbit hole” (which, I think he does!).

In fact, even before the Matrix movie, the meaning of “follow the white rabbit” is practically universally understood in the American cultural lexicon. From the website, “Learning English”:

“Following the white rabbit means following an unlikely clue and finding yourself in the middle of an extraordinary situation. This situation often challenges your beliefs and changes your life.

The White Rabbit is so curious, so strange, that Alice cannot help but to follow him. As she chases after him, she falls down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.'

Imagine my surprise, then, seeing Dr. Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D., disinformation specialist, tell us that no - this is not Elon implicitly, slyly teasing us about the next installment of the Twitter files.

Caroline instead tells us that Elon is in fact “explicitly” telling people to join… QAnon.

So - you probably already know this, but what is QAnon?

Remember this guy?

Jacob Chansley, former “QAnon Shaman.”

QAnon is a bizarre online social movement that, best as I can tell, thinks that the world’s governments are run by an international pedophile ring who ran their operations from a well-known DC pizza parlor called Comet Ping Pong (yes, they believe / believed this). Maybe because of all of the crystal meth these guys probably tend to consume, one of it’s believers / adherents terroristically shot up the place in 2016.

Since then, QAnon has continued to be popular, with it’s members tending to absolutely love Donald Trump (which he probably unwisely encouraged). As it stands, they are widely regarded as some of the fringiest, dangerous kooks on the extreme right-wing you could possibly associate yourself with.

So - of course Caroline wants to associate Elon Musk with them!

”Prebunking Elon Musk”

So, back to this “prebunking” thing - what is it?

“Prebunking” is the idea of ‘inoculating’ people from the risk of falling prey to “disinformation” in those who have not been exposed to it, by offering them a ‘little bit of the poison beforehand in order to give them immunity to a full dose.’

(“Prebunking,” obviously, is distinguished from “debunking” - which is the idea of countering an idea you want to disagree with or dispel after the idea has been advanced).

This article gives a pretty decent overview of the idea of “prebunking,” or this “promising way to inoculate against misinformation”.

In the article, there are three ways to “prebunk” someone - using facts, logic, or attacking the source. Obviously, associating (smearing) Elon with QAnon is a way of attacking the source:

I’d say #3 is potentially the nastiest of the three methods.

So that’s what Caroline’s tweet about Elon and QAnon is - it’s “prebunking” - or, what old fogey’s like me used to call “smearing.” Or “character assassination.” Or “slander.” Or, “libel.” But yeah - it has an academic name now, “source-based prebunking.”

Caroline clearly has it in for Elon:

JFC she’s basically appealing for her future employers to take Elon out!

This lady clearly mixes, at least socially, in circles with people who know people that can make other people disappear. Obviously, she wants a career with them.

Like I said - on a certain level I’m glad Caroline didn’t pursue a career in mental health counseling.

(Click here to see the original Tweet thread of mind which inspired this article).