also the fact that the ceo of twitter is responsible for spreading a lot of the misinformation, antivaxx, and conspiracy theory content on twitter.
mozz@mbin.grits.dev 1 month ago
I think a large part of this is that X is the only major social media which has no dedicated team for detecting and banning the propaganda bots / troll farms.
I have no idea how much of the Q / antivax / conspiracy material on social media is deliberate campaigns to destabilize American politics in general (as opposed to perfectly organic homegrown nuttiness which the US has always had plenty of anyway), but I know it's not 0.
cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
jarfil@beehaw.org 1 month ago
It’s not just to destabilize “American” politics, it’s a series of worldwide campaigns to destabilize all information flow, to sow doubt and confusion among everyone, then out of the blue present an aligned front to push a certain narrative.
If people are kept in a “flux state of distrust”, they’re easier to convince when suddenly a bunch of their sources agree on some point, “it must be true if conflicting sources suddenly say the same”.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
This is a good point. I see this alot with ukraine. There are many famous shills (eg. max blumenthal) who have been promoting the fascist invasion of ukraine. Now these same shills are supporting Palestine. This would be good except they are just using the issue to lure people in. Then once they’re hooked on all these accounts, they start talking about how ukrainians are nazis, how stalin was awesome, etc. It’s so transparent but so dangerous.
jarfil@beehaw.org 1 month ago
The biggest problem with Ukraine… is that they aren’t fully detached from Nazis:
All of that has nothing to do with the Russian invasion… but it does give Russia’s propaganda machine an awesome excuse. It’s just too easy to get people hooked up with some actual facts, then get them to do a leap of faith and fall straight into full propaganda… and Russia knows it.
Israel and Palestine is a particularly juicy case, where there are really shitty groups coming from both sides, ending up like an “all you can eat” buffet for every propaganda machine out there. No matter what narrative one wants to spin, chances are they’ll find a latch point in the Israel vs. Palestine conflict, even contradictory ones for different audiences.