White House’s TikTok ‘disinformation’ claim insults Americans, fuels price concerns
Government Disinformation and Inflation Fears
Somehow we’re at the point in American history when the government calling something “disinformation” is a leading indicator it’s true.
This week government-boosted propaganda outlets are amplifying the Biden administration’s fatuous claim that inflation fears are being artificially increased by “disinformation” on social media. Katerina Eva Matsa, the “director of news and information research at the Pew Research Center,” told The New York Times, “’Is the news — the way it has evolved — making people view things negatively?’ she asked. It’s hard to tell, she explained, but ‘how you’re being bombarded, entangled in all of this information might have contributed.’”
The Impact of Social Media on Economic Perceptions
The article goes on to blame the American people’s very negative economic perceptions on viral social media posts foregrounding the issue in their minds. The Washington Post and The New Republic fisked a viral TikTok post about a guy paying $16 for lunch at McDonald’s. Not one of them refuted the cost of the Idaho guy’s burger, fries, and drink, but instead hand-waved about how the incident doesn’t represent the whole picture.
The White House Office of Digital Strategy “tracked the meme as one of many exaggerated examples of the nation’s economic woes,” an anonymous White House official told the Post. The Post went on to air federal officials’ frustration that “one anomalous price from one store in Idaho 11 months ago was ripping through people’s social media feeds as if it explained the entire economy.”
This is one of the stupidest media cycles I’ve seen in the 10 years I’ve been monitoring them at The Federalist. It’s not social media making inflation top of Americans’ minds, it’s every trip to every store. It’s every online purchase, every visit to the gas pump, every month of paying home energy bills that only increase in baseline prices.
I have some kind of economic interaction just about every day, and every one is shocking and a little bit terrifying even though, unlike the majority of Americans, we’re doing fine paying our bills. Every time we empty a peanut butter jar or flour bin I wonder how much it will cost this time to replace it. Every time our water bill goes up I start thinking maybe I shouldn’t take those wonderfully relaxing baths that ease my aches at certain times of the month.
It’s scary even though we’re making ends meet, partially because the people supposedly in charge of this have no clue how to fix it because doing so contradicts their ideology. Instead, they’re just cracking down on people who notice the problem. That kind of response is a recipe for making everything worse.
I’m not an idiot, I’ve been grocery shopping weekly for 20 years, and I have the regular and sale prices of all my staples memorized. It’s not TikTok, it’s the freaking prices.
Here are some examples of those staples from my area, one of the lowest cost-of-living localities in the country. You will notice the price jumps are way higher than the officially claimed numbers for overall inflation over this time period of something like 10-15 percent. All of the prices listed are for the exact same brands.
Sour cream, 16 oz. We eat at least four of these a week.
2020: $0.99
2023: $1.69, sometimes $1.99
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