Those bots have been so successful the past few years that if they shut them all down tomorrow, it wouldn't matter because they managed to radicalize enough idiots to keep it going.
They've actually studied this and found it not to be true. I'll look for the study later, but it said that if you cut off access to Fox News and Facebook, people get less racist and wanting to do harm.
Do they really? Or are they just less emboldened to verbalize their bigotry?
I suspect a surprising percentage of people just follow the crowd. No effort required to formulate any bigotry or predudice or whatever, just copy others and you're part of the gang. If there's nothing to copy they just shrink out of view.
If you stop exciting them they return to a low energy state
If one stops drinking alcohol, one stops being drunk.
I think people in groups acclimatize to the vibe of their surroundings and verbalize things in a nudged way to land well within the group. So if the group is toxic, the nudge will be toxic.
well actually, it actually stops thier momentum. case in point on reddit, when they were actually clean sweeping all the propaganda bot, the site remained extremely quiet for a few days of any astroturfing or "both sides" bs. yea it doesnt stop the violence, they just lose steam really quickly. the Right constantly need something to poke them into action.
Paid for by various organizations in America.
Cambridge Analytica provided proof of concept, the bastards.
Trump is a pedo
RELEASE THE FILES
Don't blame American lunatics on Russians and Chinese. It wasn't the Russians or the Chinese that voted for Trump or shot Charlie Kirk.
I mean Laura loomer is clearly a lizard in the least convincing skin suit I've ever seen
Love being called a Russian bot for a brand new reason every 3 months.
Maybe stop saying the exact things the Russian bots are saying?
I don't at all think that every single person (or even most of them) that thinks shooting right-wing politicians is a good idea, is a Russian bot. But definitely I think you should rethink what you believe and closely and calmly read up on what the people who disagree with you think about it, if you're so similar to the literal Russian bots that people are prone to confusing you for one.
The people I "disagree with" already want to send people like me to camps? They are already sending some citizens to countries they have literally never been to. We are past the point where simple words will do.
?
I meant listen to people like this. I definitely didn't mean listen to the MAGA people, no.
Ohhh. Yeah I still disagree with Sanders but I wish I belived the world he thinks could exist could. Unfortunately it seems like political violence has been the only way things have changed throughout history and it seems like it will continue to be that way.
Unfortunately it seems like political violence has been the only way things have changed throughout history
The fuck?
I literally cannot think of a single one of those (or any other issue) where the resolution would have come sooner or better, if the side supporting it had been shooting random leaders on the other side. Sometimes violence is involved, sure, but literally every time I can think of assassination coming into the picture, it was being done by the bad guys, and it made things worse.
Edit: Actually, I thought of two: In reconstruction in the US, and in postwar Germany, I think in hindsight it would have been better if they'd killed more of the political leaders. The difference there is that it was settled on a mass scale first, and then, we're just implementing the will of the majority faction in an already deadly-mass-violence situation. If you're in the minority faction (unable to get your will enacted through the democratic process because 40% of the country supports fascism for example), and you start randomly killing leaders to try to make it your way even so, you're gonna have a bad time. Win or lose, you're not going to get to a destination I want to go to.
None of those happen at all. They never happen without the "threat of force"
Whether implied or actually used. All power flows forth from the threat of force. If the threat of force doesn't exist then there is no reason for bad actors to negotiate at all. They can just roll over anyone they want.
The absence of the Threat of Force is why protest in this country doesn't work. Because those in power know that its toothless. Look to Europe and Asia. To South America. When people protest there the politicians perk up because they know that the protest isn't the end. It's the prelude to God only knows what. Riots. Fires. Farmers dumping tens of thousands of pounds of manure on parliament. Etcetera. Their protest isn't toothless. They have not been taught since birth that "violence is always wrong". They will burn shit. They won't start with burning shit. But that is invariably a potential outcome if protest is ignored.
Completely agree with more or less all of that. In particular:
Riots. Fires. Farmers dumping tens of thousands of pounds of manure on parliament. Etcetera.
Yes, we should definitely be doing more of that. And, I think it is particularly interesting that most of the suspicious accounts I observed on Lemmy during the beginning of the "No Kings" protests were super against the idea of getting organized and going out in the streets as a prelude and preparation for things like that. They were saying things like that particular protests were a "false flag," extensively nail biting about the unsafe nature of getting out to protest, that they were going to sit this one out, stuff of that nature.
I wonder why they were so against organized vigorous disobedience, and now they're so in favor of random sudden violence against leaders. Almost as if one leads to much different outcomes than the other, and they're trying to mold things specifically towards one of the outcomes and not the other.
I mean... the abolition of slavery may be a bad choice on your part. Here in America there was a ton of violence on that aspect, and I argue we'd have had a lot less heartache if the confederate officers were treated like the traitors they were.
Show me a Russian bot on Lemmy. I, and I'm sure plenty of instance admins would love to know what they look like.
Exactly what a Russian bot would say
So of course, I had to check your comment history and, though it's evident you are not trying to be a social saboteur, your manner can be quite abrasive or even arrogant at times and thus seem like a provocateur.
So if that's part of your schtick, I guess you might as well just get used to the accusations now and then.
Hey, guess who invented Fox News. You think they stopped there as the internet became the new battleground? Why don't we hear about what the GOP bots are doing? China and Russia, though guilty themselves, are generally red herrings in these contexts because the GOP doesn't want the fingers pointed where they belong.
Russian bots are gop bots.
I don't think the GOP isn't trying, but I think Russia in particular is just way ahead of the game where this stuff is concerned. Democrats in no way have a monopoly on just being coked-up boomers bouncing around Washington having no real coherent idea of what successful political strategy looks like and not really having to care. I think most of the successful non-mainstream-media manipulation and funding comes from outside the country, it just happens that what they want to happen lines up with promoting the GOP by coincidence.
Wrong. The GOP has been planning their coup since the 1970s. Fox came out in 1996. They wrote the playbook on dismantling America and have been working on it since before the internet brought Russian bots. Before trump got enriched by Moscow money.
When last night's phone call from the folks turned to Kirk and violence, I made a point to mention that, yes, there were lots of posts for violent 'retribution', but we have no idea how many are just bots trying to stir the pot rather than actual people -- but consoled? them that it was still proper to worry because surely those posts would convince some suggestible people that the bot-post ideas are a widely held and acceptable reaction.
The number of AI generated images reinforcing the apoplectic right’s unchecked hatred of the left is astonishing, along with a flood of pic/text images along the same lines. Just blind hatred all demanding something be done to the left.
I am so glad I abandoned Instagram and friends. I have no idea about this and I would be unhappy to see it in action.
I have been more active, but I don't know about a "tremendous amount"
It might be true that there are bad actors - some even from china or russia - that are intentionally stoking tensions in the us, but dismissing that tension as manufactured would be a mistake.
Democracy is supposed to be a pressure valve for political dissent, and when those institutions start failing to address the demands of citizens, they start looking for more and more extreme ways to make their dissatisfaction known. American democracy stopped addressing the grievances of the people long before 2016 came along. Trump himself embodies an antiestablishment resentment that could be seen making itself known all the way back in 2008 and 2012, most vividly (in my mind, at least) during the townhall with Romney in 2011 when the conservative members in the crowd yelled at him that Obama was a terrorist. Both parties have been trying to suppress the populist sentiment in their respective bases for a long time, and 2016 was merely a watershed moment for what was set in motion a long time ago.
Which is why I find myself with mixed feelings in the wake of Kirk's death; catharsis, for seeing a stochastic agitative propagandist being on the receiving end of the violent environment he actively created and advocated for, and fear and frustration, for knowing that his death will do nothing to quell the surge in fascism and likely only embolden many more to do the same.
Well it shouldn't be so easy tbh
True that, our society is soft and complacent and that is the cause of most of our problems.
Daily beast article spreading dubious info pointing fingers at Russians and Chinese bots, based on what Cox said.
What does "vs disinfo" mean? "Fediverse vapidly slinging disinfo"?
Even though this influence campaigns exist there is way too big of an attempt to paint all internal American born violence and hate movements as "foreign" that is wildly inaccurate. America doesn't need outside influence given its birth and long history of "native" hatred, oppression and violence,
Pointing out, debunking, and spreading awareness about state- and company-sponsored astroturfing on Lemmy and elsewhere. This includes social media manipulation, propaganda, and disinformation campaigns, among others.
Propaganda and disinformation are a big problem on the internet, and the Fediverse is no exception.
What's the difference between misinformation and disinformation? The inadvertent spread of false information is misinformation. Disinformation is the intentional spread of falsehoods.
By equipping yourself with knowledge of current disinformation campaigns by state actors, corporations and their cheerleaders, you will be better able to identify, report and (hopefully) remove content matching known disinformation campaigns.
Same as instance rules, plus: