Source: rwmalonemd.substack.com
Fearporn definition
Fear porn refers to mainstream media content that deliberately and enticingly plays on people’s fears about disaster, disease, and death. It is often used to describe sensationalized and exaggerated reports or stories that aim to provoke strong emotional reactions, such as fear, anxiety, or outrage. This type of content can be found in various forms of media, including news, social media, and online articles.
Some definitions of fear porn also include the idea that it is used to manipulate people’s emotions and attention, often for the purpose of increasing viewership, engagement, or clicks. Fear porn can be seen as a form of psychological manipulation, as it preys on people’s natural fear responses to create a sense of drama or excitement.
In some cases, fear porn can also be used to describe conspiracy theories or misinformation that is spread online, often with the intention of generating fear, anxiety, or outrage. This type of content can be particularly harmful, as it can spread misinformation and perpetuate harmful stereotypes or biases.
Overall, fear porn is a term used to describe a type of media content that uses fear and sensationalism to engage audiences and manipulate their emotions.
AI-generated answer to Brave search query “Fearporn Definition”
The above definition is close, but misses the role of various stakeholders in the Fearporn ecosystem. In the case of the weaponization of fear of infectious disease to advance hidden agendas relating to “public health”, and to manipulate citizen and voter consensus, these stakeholders include a wide range of Governmental (State), Non-governmental organizations, corporations and transnational actors.
Organizations within the US Federal government which routinely weaponize infectious disease fear and anxiety to manipulate public opinion include the White House (in particular the The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)), the US “Intelligence Community” (18 agencies and organizations, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Security Agency (NSA), and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)), Department of Homeland Security, and of course offices within the Department of Health and Human Services including CDC, FDA, and ASPR/BARDA.
Examples of Non-governmental organizations that routinely practice this include the Gates Foundation, United Nations, World Economic Foundation, and of course the World Health Organization.
In the case of the European Union, national governments, the European CDC, and various institutes associated with the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) routinely resort to deploying both nudge and outright fearporn to generate support for infectious disease public policy agendas.
And having lived through the COVID crisis, one does not need to look hard to find multiple examples of influential corporate members of the pharmaceutical industry combining promotion of fearporn via a wide variety of sponsored and influenced content, typically in combination with the use of PsyWar methods previously restricted to Governmental intelligence and military communities. This is becoming a routine component of Pharmaceutical industry “marketing” efforts. One of many examples of this new wrinkle involves the use of sponsored cutout organizations (eg: “Shots Heard Round the World” for example) and pseudo “Medical News” services to engage in crowdstalking and more traditional bot farm/Trollery. Keep in mind that the massive media sponsorship programs of major Pharma corporations are not always aimed at directly promoting a drug or biological, but also function to discourage any negative coverage of products or the industry by the sponsored media outlet. The former is overt, the latter is much more covert.
These types of dynamics extend all the way down to small alternative media and podcasters who accept sponsorship agreements with companies peddling alternative nutraceutical products. Just like big media, there is just no way that struggling small players are going to bite the hand that feeds them meager scraps when they would otherwise starve.
Please join me in condemning this practice. It has been normalized in thousands of peer reviewed scientific publications as necessary to overcome “vaccine hesitancy” and to advance various public health agendas in the name of advancing the public good. This practice is a violation of the fundamentals of bioethics, is a violation of public trust, and those practicing these methods must be broadly shamed as the true purveyors of mis- dis- and mal-information. Weaponizing and promoting fear of infectious disease is quite literally and transparently a form of psychological bioterrorism….