I can’t believe I have to tell journalists this, but disappearing people for constitutionally protected free speech is not an “arrest.” SMDH

  • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    53·
    4 days ago

    Also, watch for opposites. I’ve seen this the most lately. The current administration does something super duper nazi and/or fascist, then it’s always the democrats fault. It seems to be working somehow?

    “Once we isolate key people, we look for people we know are in their upstream – people that they read posts from, but who themselves are less influential. We then either start flame wars with bots to derail the conversations that are influencing influential people, or else send off specific tasks for sockpuppets (changing this wording of an idea here; cause an ideological split there; etc).”

    The goal is to keep opinions we don’t want fragmented and from coalescing in to a single voice for long enough that the memes we do want can,…

    https://archive.is/PoUMo

    • FoolishAchilles@lemm.eeEnglish
      22·
      4 days ago

      Took the time to read the whole thread you referenced and it was worth the time imo. Also took me too long to realize it’s from 10 fuckin years ago… we’re undoubtedly reaping our “reward” from the apathy and ignorance at that time about how these tools could be used to influence the general populace through just social media and consumer data. Womp womp :(

      • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        11·
        4 days ago

        We had a lot of really intelligent people with no empathy or morals working on it since at least 10 years ago. It’s really depressing how good they are at it. Thankfully, when it happens here on Lemmy, it’s way more obvious. I try to call it out, but I end up sounding like a broken record. Most of our media is playing along too. Again, help your community and watch what they do, not what they say (not telling you specifically, but in general).

        • FoolishAchilles@lemm.eeEnglish
          9·
          4 days ago

          It’s hard to encourage others to put on their “critical thinking cap” when some of them (okay probably the vast majority) have been unknowingly influenced by this kind of media manipulation for so long. I have a hard time knowing how to bring it to people’s attention without sounding like a broken record myself. I think critical thinking has simply become unattractive to a lot of people cause it takes more time and effort than they’re accustomed to. It’s easier to blindly trust and if it hasn’t killed me so far, how could it possibly be bad?

          They probably don’t even teach kids in school to read multiple news sources or how to check for reporting bias anymore.

          In any case, your suggestions to help community and watch actions over words are important ones that I try to encourage in those around me as well. Enough to reiterate in caps:

          LISTEN TO AND SUPPORT YOUR NEIGHBORS! They will be the first ones you hear from when your community is being threatened. Either we can all be allies against the regime together or we can let it infest our communities through distrust and let it ruin us. Fascism ain’t no joke.

    • zarkanian@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      3 days ago

      I find it disturbing how often discussions about the current administration bring out people talking about taking up arms. I have to wonder how much of that is organic, because, aside from the ethical issues, there’s no surer way to delegitimize your movement in the eyes of the public and give the FBI free rein to move on you like a bitch. There’s an old saw in activist circles about avoiding people who talk about going violent, because those people are often informants.

      • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        3 days ago

        I was wondering about that too. It gets pretty heavy handed here sometimes talking about that stuff. It makes things hard to mod as well. I can’t tell if they’re being serious or not.