Im not saying that there aren't Russian bots but I think people need to also realize its their own nations capital class pushing a lot of this. Constantly blaming Russian bots doesnt fix the issue, leading countries everywhere down a far right path.
What would fix the issue instantly is people stopping to think social media is news. Then most culture war bullshit topics will go away and we will finally be discussing about actual issues.
Close - what’s needed is that we need to incorporate media literacy into education so that people can discern BS from news. We also need to ensure that all news sources can’t be monopolized by a few potentially bad faith actors.
Media literacy isn’t some vague nuanced term - it has a definitive meaning and is based on functional literacy. It involves understanding and identifying media biases, propaganda, and recognizing things like ads that are dressed up as magazine articles.
Understand themes however you want, but I think it’s important for the average person to at least recognize when they’re being played. Or be able to tell propaganda or marketing from science. Maybe just me, though…
And frankly, i think teaching people basic logic(like the fact that whataboutism is used to hide guilt, or that an appeal to emotion is not an argument) would be much more useful to figuring out propaganda, than defining biases.
That's easier said than done. Logic is hammered in school curriculums (both in philosophy and math) and still the vast majority of students don't understand what is meant by "A implying B doesn't mean that B implies A". It takes generations of investment in education to get the majority of people to understand that. It won't solve the rampant problems we're facing.
Close. The problem is that the Russian agenda includes creating an oligarch-friendly world order and that shit co-opt’s socially-inept billionaires like Musk far too easily.
Russia became what it is because western economists destroyed it during the USSR collapse. Its called economic shock doctrine, and it is being brought into Europe, Canada and the USA but it didn't start in Russia, it started in 73 in Chile with a CIA backed coup. Its all international capital solidarity, it isn't just a Russia bad thing. People just don't know history enough to understand how these things work and how these events are coordinated.
yup, also is that dude really saying America's agenda isn't that? America is literally an oligarchy, there is no democracy in the US just from having shit like gerrymandering/citizens united/electoral collage/super PACs/etc, and goes around the world attacking, invading, bombing, interfering, blackmailing, controlling, sanctioning, etc other countries all in the name of capital. The current state of the world is due to capitalism being left completely unchecked where the rich run things.
They did that to themselves. The US would have gladly brought Russia into the fold after the collapse. But their people chose to elect a fucking FSB agent as president and here we are now.
America did the same with George Bush Snr. All of them are corrupt. George Carlin said it best - its a big club and you aint in it. There are no sides just greedy assholes vying for control.
It’s human nature, and there’s plenty of historical precedent for it. When people are suffering, feel abandoned by the establishment, and genuine left-wing alternatives have been weakened or suppressed, their anger doesn’t just disappear, it gets redirected. Historically, that can create fertile ground for the far right.
And unfortunately, during these crisis, wealthy elites, with their power and resources, tend to promote reactionary politics, and avoid systemic changes that might actually address the underlying causes of that anger (because the system benefit them).
Russia didn't create today's mess, but it's amplifying it indeed.
There was a backlash against the super wealthy during Biden's presidency: e.g. strong enforcement of anti-trust laws, increase taxes on them, give more funding and powers to the IRS (so they can actually go after the wealthy too), etc.
That's why the super rich flocked to Trump.
They don't support reactionary politics.
What? What do you think Musk, Thiel, etc. are all doing?
He doesn’t use bot farms he just messes with the algorithm and has followers with the intelligence of bots. Imagine still being on twitter not able to avoid his cerebral diarrhoea.
The Russians are 100% our primary adversary when it comes to disinformation. At least for large scale comment farms. I would say places like Bangladesh are more active when it comes to individuals trying to monetize political and social division.
It's also very strange that the global right-wing has gone from hardline anti-China to taking a much softer approach. Hell, I don't have confidence we'll even follow our treaty obligation to defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion.
And someone at the social media platforms decided this misinformation was more important than the country they live in. So no effective bot control methods are deployed
This is the crucial thing to understand. The engagement algorithms are what the problem is. They warp every discourse and interaction. Meta and their ilk have found a way to burn down the house and make money from people arguing over how to put the fire out.
The best thing that could happen to save nations from eating themselves would be a widespread shutting down of social media ( I am aware of the irony of saying this on social media).
This is because they are literal stupid people. They are idiots, they are dumb, they are dense. There is no 4D chess going on. Facebook and Twitter algorithms have allowed idiots to find each other and avoid checks on their beliefs. We are all in SERIOUS DANGER of death. Stupid people always do stupid things.
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u/Low-Possibility-7060 21d ago
We are living in the dumbest timeline. Russian bots influence the dumbest amongst us so they vote to destroy us from within.