People Don’t Know What’s Real Anymore

 

People Don’t Know What’s Real Anymore

The internet didn’t destroy the truth. We built an economy that makes truth harder to find.
By Grant Sheehan, "Just My Thoughts"

Here is a disturbing thought:

You may not know who is talking to you anymore.

• That person you follow on social media who seems outraged about a new law may not simply be an angry citizen.
  
  
• The person explaining why a politician is "destroying America" may not be an independent commentator.
  
  
• The person passionately defending a corporation, attacking a government agency, or telling you which candidate deserves your vote may not be giving you their honest opinion.

They may be getting paid.

And increasingly, we have no idea.

Welcome to the new American influence industry, where money can buy attention, attention can manufacture outrage, and outrage can be converted into political power—all while the person holding the camera appears to be just another ordinary citizen.

That's a problem.

Not because people shouldn't be allowed to speak. They absolutely should.

It's a problem because we have created an environment where people can be paid to influence millions of Americans while concealing the financial relationship behind the message.

And we're calling that free speech.

FREE SPEECH ISN'T THE PROBLEM. HIDDEN SPEECH IS.

Let's be clear about something.

• I don't want the government deciding what Americans can say.
  
  
• I don't want some bureaucrat to determine which opinions are acceptable.
  
  
• I don't want a Ministry of Truth.

The First Amendment matters precisely because government shouldn't get to decide which ideas are permitted.

But there is a gigantic difference between restricting speech and requiring transparency about paid influence.

• If someone pays you $10,000 to tell millions of people that a particular politician is wonderful, or corrupt, or dangerous, shouldn't the people watching have the right to know that?
  
  
• If a corporation pays an influencer to attack a proposed regulation, shouldn't that relationship be disclosed?
  
  
• If an advocacy organization is financing dozens of supposedly independent social-media personalities to push the same political message, shouldn't we know?

Apparently, we've decided that asking those questions is somehow controversial. It shouldn't be.

WE'VE SEEN THIS MOVIE BEFORE.

Imagine a television commercial that said:

"I am just an ordinary American, and I believe Candidate X is the greatest leader of our generation."

Then imagine discovering that the "ordinary American" was paid $25,000 by Candidate X's campaign.

Would you want to know? Of course you would.

We have disclosure rules because we understand that money can influence political speech.

Yet move that same message onto TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook or X, and suddenly the rules become murky.

• The advertisement becomes a "personal opinion."
  
  
• The campaign becomes "content."
  
  
• The paid spokesman becomes an "influencer."
  
  
• And the political consultant becomes a "digital strategist."

Change the vocabulary, and suddenly the old rules seem to disappear.

OUTRAGE HAS BECOME A BUSINESS MODEL

The internet has discovered something television news learned long ago:

Anger gets attention.

• Fear gets clicks.
  
  
• Conflict gets shares.
  
  
• And the algorithm doesn't care whether the information is true. It cares whether you keep watching.

That creates a powerful financial incentive to make everything seem like an emergency.

• Every election becomes "the most important election in history."
  
  
• Every political disagreement becomes an existential threat.
  
  
• Every government decision becomes evidence that civilization is collapsing.
  
  
• Every opposing viewpoint becomes something that must be destroyed rather than debated.

And somewhere behind the screen, somebody may be getting paid for keeping you angry.

• That's not a conspiracy theory.
  
  
• It's an economic model.
  
  
• Attention is money.
  
  
• Influence is money.

And political influence is worth an enormous amount of money.

THE MOST DANGEROUS PART IS THAT IT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE PROPAGANDA.

That's what makes modern influence so effective.

• We know a campaign advertisement is trying to persuade us.
  
  
• We know a car commercial wants us to buy a car.
  
  
• We know a pharmaceutical advertisement is selling something.

But an influencer sitting in their kitchen telling us, "I just wanted to talk about something that's really bothering me," feels personal.

• It feels authentic.
  
  
• It feels like a conversation.

And that's exactly why it works.

The message isn't being delivered by a faceless corporation. It's being delivered by someone we've invited into our lives.

• We watch their videos.
  
  
• We listen to their opinions.
  
  
• We begin to trust them.

And then someone else quietly starts paying them.


The relationship between the influencer and the audience hasn't changed. But the financial relationship behind the influencer may have.

And the audience may never know.

NOW ADD ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

This problem is about to get considerably worse.

We have entered an era in which seeing is no longer believing.

• AI can create a photograph of something that never happened.
  
  
• It can make a person appear to say something they never said.
  
  
• It can reproduce voices.
  
  
• · It can manufacture videos.
  
  
• It can generate articles, comments, and social-media posts by the thousands.

And it can do all of this faster than human beings can verify it. Think about that for a moment.

We are simultaneously creating technology capable of manufacturing convincing reality while building a political and media environment in which people are already unsure what to believe.

That's a dangerous combination.

THE GREATEST THREAT MAY NOT BE MISINFORMATION.

It may be unbelief.

If you convince people of a lie, that's dangerous.

But if you convince people that nothing can be trusted, that's potentially even more dangerous. Because eventually the public reaches a point where it dismisses every source.

• The journalist is biased.
  
  
• The scientist is bought.
  
  
• The politician is lying.
  
  
• The photograph is fake.
  
  
• The video is AI.
  
  
• The expert has an agenda.
  
  
• The influencer has a sponsor.
  
  
• The government is hiding something.
  
  
• The opposing side is manipulating everyone.

And the result?

Nobody believes anybody.

That's how a democracy becomes vulnerable.

A functioning democracy requires disagreement. But it also requires some shared understanding of reality.

We can disagree about what should be done.

But we have to be able to agree on what actually happened.

SO HERE'S A SIMPLE PROPOSAL.

• Don't regulate opinions.
  
  
• Don't regulate political viewpoints.
  
  
• Don't regulate whether someone supports Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, liberals, libertarians, independents—or nobody at all.

Regulate the deception, not the speech.

• If someone is paid to promote a political candidate, policy, or cause, disclose it.
  
  
• If an organization is paying influencers to promote a political message, disclose it.
  
  
• If an influencer has a financial relationship that materially affects the subject they're discussing, disclose it prominently.

And make the disclosure understandable to an ordinary person—not buried in microscopic text, an obscure webpage, or a pile of legal language nobody reads.

• Tell us who is paying.

Then let us decide what we think.

That's not censorship. That's informed consent.

THE PUBLIC DESERVES TO KNOW WHO'S BEHIND THE CURTAIN.

The internet was supposed to democratize information. In many ways, it has.

• A person with a phone can now reach millions of people without owning a newspaper, television station or radio network.

That's extraordinary.

But we've also created something else: a marketplace where influence can be bought, disguised and distributed at extraordinary speed.

And we're still pretending that the old rules are sufficient. They're not.

The question isn't whether influencers should be allowed to speak.

The question is whether the rest of us deserve to know when somebody is paying them to speak. I believe we do.

• Because I don't care whether the message is conservative or liberal.
  
  
• I don't care whether it's pro-government or anti-government.
  
  
• I don't care whether it supports a Democrat or a Republican.

If somebody is paying for the influence, tell me.

I'll make up my own mind. That's what free people do.

• But don't manufacture a grassroots movement and then pretend it grew organically.
  
  
• Don't put a paid political operative in front of a camera and call him an independent citizen.
  
  
• Don't buy thousands of voices and tell us it's public opinion.
  
  
• And don't manipulate people into believing something while hiding the person who paid you to make them believe it.

We have spent years arguing about fake news. Perhaps we're asking the wrong question.

The question isn't simply: "Is this true?"

The question is:

"Who wants me to believe it—and what are they paying to make sure I do?"

Because in this new world, what's the most valuable commodity on the internet may not be information.

It may be your perception of reality.

"Who paid for it—and why don't they want me to know?"

Because in an age when anyone can become an influencer, anything can be manufactured and almost everything can be amplified, transparency may be the last line of defense between free speech and manufactured public opinion.

"Just My Thoughts"