Corporate Disinformation Playbook

Just finished an excellent article in the Union of Concerned Scientists’ magazine, Catalyst. It discusses the corporate disinformation tactics that come from a playbook that is intended to discredit science as a basis for policy decisions by government. Very appropriate right now as 45 continues to decimate science advisory committees and appoint decidedly anti-science cabinet members and department heads. And you have to love the football analogies.

The gist of the article is that there are 5 different tactics: “The Fix”, “The Fake”, “The Diversion”, “The Blitz” and “The Screen”.

In the Fix, the corporations simply use their money and connections to influence decisions. Given Runaway Inequality, corporations and their wealthy benefactors have accumulated massive amounts of money to contribute to politicians (thanks “Citizens United”) to ensure that their views will trump (pun intended) science.

The Fake is just what it sounds like – funding fake studies to call into question real science. For example, taking a page directly out of the tobacco companies playbook, Georgia-Pacific funded no less than 13 studies to call into question whether exposure to asbestos was dangerous. Duh!

The Diversion is somewhat similar to the Fake. It involves getting (or in many cases creating) fake groups to create uncertainty about the science or raise other objections, like potential job loss. Coal, oil and gas companies have become experts at this in opposing clean energy policies and climate change science.

The Blitz involves attacking scientists and their organizations. A recent example of this occurred in my home town of Wilmington, NC when a state legislator accused local university scientists, who were analyzing the health threats from a chemical plant, of having a “political agenda”.

Finally, the Screen is a tactic used by very wealthy corporate donors to fund programs or whole schools at major universities, with the real political agenda of influencing the direction their research takes. The Koch Brothers set the table on this one with their funding of the Mercatus Center, a think tank on campus of George Mason University that studies markets and regulation and produces “scholarly” support for their reactionary agenda.

Perhaps this is not news to some, but it’s put together very clearly by the folks at UCS, who are on the front lines in defense of science. They only ask that we spread the word.

More information can be found at www.ucsusa.org/playbook