Wake Up

The Weaponizing of Social Media: How Anger Divides Us

• Douglas James Cottrell PhD • Season 1 • Episode 67

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Dr. Douglas James Cottrell and Les Schubert tackle an urgent question in our anniversary of 9/11: Why does modern society seem increasingly drawn to violence? Starting with entertainment, they examine how aggressive children's cartoons and combat-focused video games might be laying psychological foundations for real-world behaviors, particularly in young minds where virtual violence becomes normalized.

The conversation shifts to social media's darker influence—how platforms originally designed for connection have become weaponized tools for division. Dr. Cottrell shares a shocking revelation about organized disinformation campaigns where facilities employ thousands of operatives posting hundreds of inflammatory comments daily across platforms, deliberately stoking hatred among Americans while posing as concerned citizens. These digital puppeteers understand that angry, fearful people are easier to manipulate both politically and financially.

Most concerning is how these influences create a cycle of addiction and radicalization. We habitually check our devices, returning to sources that confirm our biases while algorithms feed us increasingly extreme content designed to trigger emotional responses. This manufactured division has real consequences—from teenage suicides due to cyberbullying to political violence and mass shootings, where perpetrators often seek validation from the very digital ecosystem that radicalized them.

Dr. Cottrell concludes with a powerful reminder of America's foundational strength: the freedom to express diverse opinions while respecting others' right to do the same. The First Amendment protects speech but comes with responsibility. Prejudice isn't innate but learned, meaning it can be unlearned through conscious effort and reasoned discourse. The path forward requires media literacy, critical thinking, and recommitment to civil dialogue—recognizing that our neighbors aren't the enemy, regardless of their political views.

Want to develop your intuition and live more consciously in this chaotic world? Visit douglasjamescottrell.com for self-help exercises and resources to strengthen your mental resilience against manipulation and foster greater peace in your daily life.

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Announcer:

Welcome to Wake Up with Dr Douglas James Cottrell, your source for helpful information, advice and tips to live your life in a mindful way in this increasingly chaotic world. For over four decades, dr Douglas has been teaching people how to develop their intuition and live their lives in a conscious way. His news and views of the world tomorrow, today, are always informative and revealing. To learn more about Dr Douglas, be sure to visit his website, douglasjamescottrellcom, where you can download self-help exercises you can do right in the comfort of your own home. And now here's your host, dr Douglas James Cottrell.

Douglas James Cottrell:

I'm Douglas James Cottrell and I'm joined with my good friend Les Schubert. What's on the menu tonight, my friend?

Les Hubert:

Hi, doug. Well, you know, since we're in the anniversary of 9-11, the question is why, in these days, do we seem to have a preponderance for violence? You know, we look into our leisure activities, we look even at, you know, children's cartoons these days, and there seems to be. You know, compared to the cartoons I grew up with, these modern cartoons are violent. Most video games, fantasy world, pressing buttons and your enemy disappears.

Douglas James Cottrell:

And you know you up the ante with go from a pistol to a club, to a bomb, to a rocket in some of these video games.

Douglas James Cottrell:

That could be laying the foundation for the young people who have been watching these games and competing with each other, hunting each other, with the kids in the community who are playing this community game. They're actually insurgents and they're looking for each other and then they can change weapons and they can do all kinds of wild things to each other and win points. I'm not going to say that's what the cause is. I'm just going to say the sign of the times when we get into the rest of the bombardment of media, the Internet is that focus point that brings out the worst in people and the best in people. Unfortunately, the internet gives a platform to people who are, let's say, less than friendly. They have their own issues, their own inadequacies, and they now have a platform where they can get out there and be us everybody, they can complain, they can act and react. Uh, in that animal kingdom mentality, you bite me, I'm going to bite you back and I'm going to bite you back twice. So we have. We have the games that the kids have been playing on the computers, and that's been going on for a long time now. We also have the bombardment of social media, when people who are middle-aged or older 40, 50, or 60,. We did not have the interaction on the Internet, which is quick, concise, there's no manners, is no adequate, there's no consideration of another person's point of view. They're simple manners and and being polite advantage, like, okay, I'm going now. Bye, oh, you're full of baloney. Bye, you know, and I don't like you blah and the name calling and the persecution and the belittling and, quite frankly, the bullying that goes on in the media has spilled over into real life. Now, people have always been obnoxious to one another, mean to one another, they have been greedy and they have taken advantage of each other. But as we look at what's going on now in the world of conspiracies, the world of con artists and the world of hurting or harming everyone else in an accelerated way, that we're here on the internet again. We're here on the internet Again for those small amount of people, those bullies, those people who have mental issues, emotional issues. This gives them a weapon and of course, this weapon is used by governments who have their own military experts feeding into the social media.

Douglas James Cottrell:

I saw recently in a report that a lady had fled Russia and moved to Poland or an adjacent country because she found out that what she was being told about the people in Ukraine being Nazis and baby killers, and things weren't exactly true and her job when she worked for the Russian government was to go into a large building and work there all week long with a thousand other people in the building, as she claimed, they were there with her and their mission was to post internet comments on all the social media. They were expected to post between 200 and 250 comments per day. Wow, so how many is that? 250 times a thousand, that's 250,000 comments being posted, propaganda, divisionary, hateful, military-style, attacking the other side. The other side, of course, is America or the free world. Unfortunately, they would be able to camouflage themselves, because this is something that social media does. You don't know who you're talking to on the other side of the question, other side of the post. You have no idea. You might think it's your best friend, you might think it's your neighbor or somebody in your country that really is looking out for you, but in reality that's somebody that has an office in Russia and they're 25 to 30 years old and they're getting paid money to make up stuff, to inflame the situation, to provoke hatred and division. Okay, so this is on the media side, and the social media, with weaponized internet or social media being weaponized, as I just said, not to repeat myself, however, this is not just one are the enemies of the consumers. They propagate cons, hatred, anxiety, frustration, bullying, to the point that we on this side are worn down. As we know, teenagers have committed suicide because of the bombardment of social media bullying, and you know that's monstrous. That's wrong in my opinion. In any good-hearted person's opinion, that would be monstrous. And so why are we having hatred? Is it confined to the media that we find handy and can't live without?

Douglas James Cottrell:

You're addicted to the internet. You wake up in the morning, you look at your cell phone, see if you have any texts, you see what the weather's going to be. You've got to check your emails and you check your various apps and you think and react to whatever you perceive on your cell phone or your laptop or your iPad or whatever you have, what's being given to you? Now, if you didn't do that, can you do that? If you just do it, can you not look? No, it's kind of like the other shoe's going to drop, like what's in the package? What's behind that? Well, I guess have to get on on twitter, and I've got to get on, uh, tiktok, and I have to. You know it's an addiction, because we want to know.

Douglas James Cottrell:

When you become addicted to anything last, as you know, you are now outside of your own free will. You are being controlled from something else, something that is emotionally stimulating. It appeals to one of your physical appetites, it appeals to your state of mind, uh, or that sense of curiosity, that need to know, and it's much easier to listen to other people's stories, read other people's opinions and be provoked from them, than kind of making them up on your own you know just kind of like oh, today is a you know, not a bad day, I think I'll feel good.

Douglas James Cottrell:

And then you read something about so-and-so from this party said so-and-so with that party. And if you look at the name calling and the belittling and the dehumanizing rhetoric that's out there, both on the internet and now in cable media, some of the opinion-based cable shows I'm not going to say who they are, we all know who they are they are opinionated, meaning that they're under the guise of loosely being called a news service, they are gossips and they are promoting their own opinions and you can tell them in the fine line. Just before they close off, they say and if what I just said is true, that would be terrible. Or this is my opinion, you know meaning, you don't have to believe. It's my opinion there's always that little one-liner disclaimer and they're hidden within their gossip, their name calling, their belittling, and they also say something else, the other side, whoever they're referring to, and they're going to come and get you and your children. That's a line that's fed out there and I, I, people are afraid. And when people are afraid, what are they afraid of? When they read this malarkey baloney, this character assassination, what are they afraid of that. Somebody's going to come and get them, the boogeyman is going to come and get their children. So people then are provoked, they're afraid and they're on the lookout For what? For something they don't know, what they think they know because everybody's saying it. Well, not necessarily everybody, but five or six webcasts or websites that they go and visit or social media places that they go. They go to the same places all the time because they want to hear what they agree with.

Douglas James Cottrell:

When I look at the news this is me being a newspaper man I look at the bbc, msnbc, fox news, cnn, abc, uh, ctv, and I go around and I see what are they playing and if I hear the same words coming out of them then I know it's a common script that somebody has been sending out to them. But as the queen has just passed, I've been flicking around the different channels. I know I stay two or three minutes, maybe less, and I see what they're saying and I can get a flavor. I can get an opinion that's widely based upon the population because of what I see the newscasts and I said newscasts are putting out there. These are people who make a living in the news business. It's a career. They can be sued if they lie or if their news release is inaccurate or indeed just complain wrong.

Douglas James Cottrell:

So the difference between listening to the news people and seeing what the population is getting and forming an opinion based on what the news people are saying legitimate people and then listening to the other propaganda people, which is basically the websites, the cable television shows that we see, you can see that one is reporting the facts of the day and the other is provoking people. They're going to get you So-and-so ha-ha-ha who do they think they are, and they're making fun or fools of the other side. And so we have basically Americans afraid of Americans and some sort of boogeyman that is on the other side, the other party, the other part of this issue. When reality settles in here, the boogeyman is in Moscow or is in North Korea or is in Central China, and they are feeding dissent and division to the consumers in the West. And division to the consumers in the West, because everybody knows when you get people angry, they donate money to somebody that they think is looking out for them, they buy things, they support organizations. They don't know anything about them, but they agree with what they're being told. Of course they agree with them, because they keep going back for their daily dose of bravo, sierra, and they love it. They get more and more, and and then, of course, the human nature of addiction slips in. So people wake up in the morning. I wonder what so-and-so said. I'm not going to mention any political leaders names. I wonder what so-and-so said. I'm not going to mention any political leaders' names. I wonder what happened. I've got to get to the television, I've got to get to the Internet. I have to turn on my cell phone and find out what's going on.

Douglas James Cottrell:

And of course, you go back to these places that are, in all likelihood, your country's enemy's enemy, enemies, enemy, and their vehicles that they're using against the country and they are dividing you to fear the FBI, to fear the political parties, to fear that you have freedom and that somebody's going to take it away from you. Unless you go beat them over the head with a club, unless you arm yourself with a gigantic gun, somebody's going to get you. The boogeyman's going to get you. And of course, as you drop down in age, you get down to those teenagers, 18 plus. They don't have the maturity or the life's experience to realize that they're being manipulated? Yeah, and it goes back to the video games, the Xbox.

Douglas James Cottrell:

They start to think that by pleasing the people who are out there on social media because humans, as we know, humans like to people-please. It's a big fault, by the way, but we like to do it, we want to conform, we want people to like us, so we want to do what the people out there expect of us. Pay attention to some of these people that have committed monstrous serial crimes, school shootings, etc. Mall shootings. You'll find that they're on the internet. They want to post what they've done, they want approval, they want to tell somebody I did this and it's I did this for us.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Well, the person they're attempting to prove themselves to is in North Korea and the man's a monster or the woman's a monster. They've got you to go up, buy a farm and go blow up little kids or shoot people in the street, or to cause mayhem and attack the capital. Where's the anger coming from? From our enemies, amplified by the people who have learned that you can make a fortune by getting people angry, getting people to take sides one against the other, and people will pay and pay and pay, and these monsters use the First Amendment as their escape clause. We have the right to the freedom of speech. Well, you do not have the right to lie to people and slander other people.

Douglas James Cottrell:

That's not in the First Amendment, but under the disguise of. This is First Amendment, free speech. People are bullying. They're selling propaganda. They're getting people to donate money. Can we prove that less? Just look at one political party or one person or some situation. They come out and they cry they're the victim. The FBI is coming after them. The state police have arrested them. They've been found out that they were lying to the people that were donating them, that they were going to put the money into some project that they never did. They pocketed it and now, oh poor me, you know they're going to take me to jail and the donations, their fundraising, goes through the roof for a day or two or three.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Right, so that proves the point that we ought to confirm what we're being told. Look at all the other newscasts, even if you don't like them, to see what they're really saying. Use common sense, otherwise you're a basket case. No time flat, otherwise you're going to go out and do something that you will regret for the rest of your life fighting the Capitol police barging into the Capitol, some committing teeny, tiny misdemeanors and others committing criminal offenses. For the rest of their life I'm going to regret that they were part of an insurgence that they, the people of America, tried to throw their government and instill a dictatorship or some other form of government. That almost happened. It's called a coup, a bloodless coup though it might be, and that's coming out with these committees that are investigating the circumstances, interviewing people and finding out what they did. What were they thinking, what were they, what were they led to believe. And it's coming out that people were under the opinion they were told by the people they thought were in leadership this is what they should do Again. They were manipulated, their common sense went out the window and they betrayed their country. They betrayed themselves, they betrayed their own common sense, based on anger, based on the boogeyman's going to get you and that your enemy is your next door neighbor, who might not look the same as you, who might not have the same political philosophy as you, but somehow the propagandists have convinced you that you need to be afraid of somebody who's going to come and get you and your children. And so the anger mounts. And then what do people do? Well, at the low end of society, that fringe group that's always been there, they are easily led, they rise to violence and they terrify and terrorize the rest of us who naturally arm ourselves, because if we go to the grocery store, we might be shot. That's a fact. If we go to church, we might be shot, that's a fact. If we take our kids to school, they might be shot, that's a fact. So where does it start? So where does it start? Well, it starts by compromising and encapsulating and punishing those forces that propagate this hate.

Douglas James Cottrell:

The first amendment says you can say what you want to say. You have the right, because in previous times and other governments, just a few hundred years ago, you could not say what you thought, what you felt. You could not express your opinion of dissent, otherwise off went your head, Otherwise you were shot or hung or drawn in quarter. It's just a few hundred years ago. So you have a privilege and a responsibility that the First Amendment right should be respected and that there should be penalties if you lie about somebody, if you slander their name or their reputation, if you commit any kind of act of being untruthful.

Douglas James Cottrell:

I'm not talking about making a slip-up or a mistake. I'm talking about a willful, concerted and continuous effort to lie about somebody, to slander their political points of view and to inflame your neighbors to action, because there is a fringe fringe group. This is where political assassinations are on the rise. This is why people are. One man ran into the fbi building with a nil gun and a high powered rifle or machine gun and he was killed. What kind of mentality, in a normal course of humanity or everyday life, would you think that you're going to run into an armed building where everybody in the house has guns? They're highly trained, they are a police force and you all, by yourself, are going to take a nail gun, a rifle and exact some justice? Give me a break so to answer the question why is everybody angry?

Douglas James Cottrell:

Well, this has been going on for years. This has started with racism and with white supremacy, with prejudice on all sides because there are different colors of people and each color has their own prejudice against the other or against the other groups perhaps. But this starts. It's a learned thing You're not prejudiced. There's not a baby in the world that comes into the world. Who's prejudiced? Did you know that? It's a learned thing, right thing, and so it can be stopped, watered down, unlearned, through reason and willful participation, to say like I don't believe a thing that person says.

Douglas James Cottrell:

I disagree with their philosophy, I disagree totally with their political opinion, but I will defend that person's right to say whatever they want, expecting that person to defend me, because I'm an American and that's what America is. To make America great again is to remember America always was great. It was the greatest movement in the history of the world when those people left Europe and came to America and they got together and they formed the 13 colonies, then they formed a committee, then they formed the Constitution, then they formed a country and a nation. Never before, never before in the history of the world, has that ever been done.

Douglas James Cottrell:

And yet today there are people who are attempting to take advantage of the liberties and the freedoms that our forefathers had fought and died for, to get away from tyranny and injustice and all those things where they couldn't talk back, they couldn't talk to power or they would be punished and jailed, enslaved or, worse, killed. So why are we in such a state? Part of us wants to be. Part of it is our enemies are highly trained at devising and criticizing and belittling and sort of like a time set of getting into our psyche and finding our weaknesses and our fears and turning them against us. And part of it is we don't know any better. We don't know that the people who are on the other side of that tweet, that post, that website is an enemy and they are getting paid to get us upset at each other. What, what better warfare? Can there be? Less Right To have people fighting amongst themselves, blaming each other, while the enemies are on the outside laughing their head off?

Les Hubert:

Right, you know, makes sense.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Well, let's hope that we can send some love out in the world to us.

Douglas James Cottrell:

And you know, the bottom line on that is that what I've just said is I've sort of given you my personal opinion now under the First Amendment, and I could be right, I could be wrong. But if you feel that you're out there, my friends, and you want to help, just be nice and let somebody else say their opinion. You don't have to argue with them, you don't have to convince them. It's not your responsibility to try to tell them that they're wrong and you're them. It's not your responsibility to try to tell them that they're wrong and you're right. It's your privilege to say God bless you, brother or sister, I don't believe a thing you just said, but God bless you for being able to say it and I hope you have a good day. And that is how America will survive, because it's a country of immigrants, it's a country of people with different opinions. It's a country that is so diverse that somehow the glue that keeps it together can be summarized in one word freedom.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Take care of it, my friends. It's fragile.

Les Hubert:

All right, doug Well. Thank you for another great podcast.

Douglas James Cottrell:

I'm Douglas James Cottrell and my good friend Les Huber is here. We hope you enjoy the podcast. Let us know info at Douglas James Cottrell. My website is douglasjamescottrellcom. Thank you, my friends. God bless you. For now, this is Douglas and Les wishing you health, wealth and peace of mind.

Announcer:

For more about Dr Douglas' self-development classes, books and other related products, please visit his website douglasjamescartrellcom. Until next time, we wish you all of God's blessings health, wealth and peace of mind.