Present events feel like one example of this.
I think a similar thing happened with COVID; early on the media and government went hard on filtering information, in order to suppress anti-asian discrimination (as a sibling commenter mentions) or to prevent shortages of masks, but it ended up like squeezing a water balloon. Trying to control public opinion this way might have had short-term success but caused all sorts of radical conspiracy outbursts and a loss of trust in institutions.
So as a long term strategy, it might just not work that well.
I think some people here doubt such a thing is possible. Read up on Jim Jones. He manipulated his male followers into believing that they were homosexuals, that he was the only heterosexual, and therefore they should have sex with him. Completely insane, it makes no sense that such manipulation could be possible but it demonstrably is.
There is reason to believe this sort of manipulation was occurring in the zizian cult, as at least some of the supposedly transexual cult members only "discovered this about themselves" after falling in with the cult and being subjected to the cult's manipulation.
Because they do - albeit selectively. Since the original source of this story (https://apnews.com/article/zizians-killings-border-patrol-bf...) is the Associated Press, here are the results of "killed by white site:apnews.com" from duckduckgo.com:
- Black Florida mother killed by white neighbor remembered for faith, devotion to 4 kids - https://apnews.com/article/neighbor-shooting-florida-manslau...
- White Florida woman sentenced to 25 years in prison for shooting Black neighbor in lengthy dispute - https://apnews.com/article/neighbor-killing-florida-prison-s...
- Vigil honors 2 Black residents killed by white man - https://apnews.com/article/ri-state-wire-ma-state-wire-shoot...
- Body camera video shows fatal shooting of Black airman by Florida deputy in apartment doorway - https://apnews.com/article/florida-deputies-black-airman-kil...
- White Nebraska man shoots and wounds 7 Guatemalan immigrant neighbors - https://apnews.com/article/man-shoots-immigrant-neighbors-7e...
- Attorneys for family of absolved Black man killed by deputy seeking $16M from Georgia sheriff - https://apnews.com/article/georgia-deputy-kills-exonerated-m...
- Mississippi judge declares mistrial for 2 white men charged in attack on Black FedEx driver - https://apnews.com/article/mississippi-fedex-driver-shooting...
- St. Louis chief: Black male shot, killed by white officer - https://apnews.com/general-news-9e94f2803d4f486da57c94707304...
I've filtered it down to only where race is mentioned in the title itself. Plenty of results for the intended query. Notably, there were zero results (in this search, and judging by the title only, in the first ~5 pages) for white victims - it correctly parsed "killed by white" to include only white perpetrators. Results for "killed by black site:apnews.com":
- Killing of an airman by Florida deputy is among cases of Black people being shot in their homes - https://apnews.com/article/police-shootings-home-roger-forts...
- Family of exonerated Black man killed by a Georgia deputy is suing him in federal court - https://apnews.com/article/deputy-kills-exonerated-man-lawsu...
- Guilty verdict means “some justice” for Black mother killed by white neighbor in Florida - https://apnews.com/video/ajike-owens-florida-crime-juries-ho...
- Bodycam video reveals chaotic scene of deputy fatally shooting Black woman who called 911 for help - https://apnews.com/video/illinois-shootings-law-enforcement-...
- Arrest made in beating death of pioneering Black Bronx rocker - https://apnews.com/article/peter-forrest-247-spyz-rock-band-...
- Homeowner pleads guilty to shooting Black teen Ralph Yarl who rang the wrong doorbell - https://apnews.com/article/ralph-yarl-shooting-andrew-lester...
- Investigators name the trooper who fatally shot a Black Minnesota man during a traffic stop - https://apnews.com/article/minnesota-black-man-shot-traffic-...
Again filtered for only cases reporting on killings, where race is mentioned in the title. In the first ~5 pages, there were zero results (judging by title alone) about black perpetrators - all the stories were about black victims, even though it had no trouble parsing the query correctly when asking about white perpetrators.
This is despite the fact that in 2019 (the most recent year for which the FBI published this data [1]), there were 566 black-on-white killings, and 246 white-on-black killings (where the FBI includes latinos in "white"). So it's not that the AP's reporting simply reflects reality. Their journalists are simply following the official AP style on race - only identify it when it is "pertinent" [2]. It just so happens that when a white kills a black, race is pertinent, and when a black kills a white, it is a "random act of violence".
[1] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
[2] Consider carefully when deciding whether to identify people by race. Often, it is an irrelevant factor and drawing unnecessary attention to someone’s race or ethnicity can be interpreted as bigotry. There are, however, occasions when race is pertinent - https://web.archive.org/web/20220715000414/https://www.apsty...
I doubt the perpetrator being white was a necessary part of the headline in all those stories. Though I definitely don’t think including race in the story more often would make things better.
This idea was explained by Chomsky in Manufacturing Consent.
noun (plural conspiracies)
a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful: she served five years in prison for taking part in a conspiracy to sell stolen art works.
The key is that it's a secret plan. People have to have gotten together to meet, in secret, and agree on a plan. This is why true grand conspiracies are so rare: it's hard to get a lot of people together in one room, get them all to agree on a plan, and get them all to keep it a secret. The more people involved, the more likely there will be a leaker.
Criminal conspiracies are quite common though. Of course, those can involve as few as 2 people making a plan to commit a crime together.
I think it's natural for people who are going through many changes with their body and their self-perception as well as their relationship to society to be vulnerable to certain kinds of cognitive biases and perhaps susceptible to millenarian philosophies presented by charismatic leaders. If you feel like you don't fit in your body, don't fit into society's categories and expectations for you, it may be easier for you to be persuaded to join a movement which rejects the current social construct.
As far as media reporting or ignoring certain details, that's normal these days when it comes to politically sensitive topics or groups. I have seen many news stories about more mundane murder cases where the prime suspect was a minority and the media did not report it. Here in Canada, it's particularly common for the media to ignore the fact that a crime suspect is Indigenous, presumably to avoid feeding the stereotype that Indigenous people are more likely to commit crimes (Indigenous people are massively overrepresented in the incarceration statistics here).