Comment on dear republicans, what's the point of alienating every single ally of the US?

• zenitsu@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  If Russia has the ability to brainwash half the country using a handful of bot farms, then I can only imagine what our own, much more powerful and well funded intelligence agencies are capable of.

  The implication being doing to the same to their country, obviously.

  source

  • Objection@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Why would that be the implication? There’s nothing in that statement that suggests it would be the case, calling it “obvious” doesn’t make it so.

    source

    • zenitsu@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      The equivalent action of Russia interfering with the West’s population is obviously the West’s population interfering with the Russian population. If you want to say you were implying US interference in the US population, sure, then you could’ve made that clearer. Nothing changes though because we still don’t control information or punish opposing views internally as they do, obviously.

      But feel free to send as much evidence of western bot farms as I can easily send of Russian ones.

      source

      • Objection@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        But the group of people we were talking about about being influenced was Americans, so it would be fairly natural to assume that I was talking about them influencing our own population, or that I was leaving it ambiguous. If you wanted to jump to the conclusion otherwise, you should’ve clarified.

        I have no idea why were’re limiting “propaganda” to “bot farms” which aren’t a particularly effective form of it. Every US media outlet has a vested interest in falling in line behind what the president wants because otherwise they could be refused access to things like press briefings, something Trump is especially blatant about. The US media was fully supportive of the Iraq war and published countless lies promoting it, the NYT made up a story about “mass rapes” claimed to be conducted by Palestinians to justify the government’s support for the war, going back further, into periods where we have access to declassified stuff, the US government literally had a mind control program called MK Ultra specifically about trying to brainwash people.

        Of course, it has also conducted misinformation campaigns in other countries. Recently, the US government was spreading COVID/vaccine disinformation in the Philippines. During the Iranian coup that ousted democratic leader Mohammad Mossadegh in favor of a right-wing dictator, the CIA admitted that it had taken control of virtually every newspaper and media outlet in the country, used to manufacture discontent. If they can stuff like overseas, then they can do it at home too.

        Furthermore, these intelligence agencies have interests that are more directly contrary to the American people than the Russian government does. They represent the interests of the rich, and the US rich are the most direct and primary enemy of the US poor. And yet, I never hear any libs express even the slightest ounce of concern that the most well funded intelligence network in the world, with an atrocious historical record showing that they have both the means and motive to suppress democracy, might be something to be concerned about. We should only worry about a less well-funded, less connected intelligence community with less directly opposed interests.

        source

        • -> View More Comments