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They found out how gullable religion has made Americans. They will literally believe anything and fall in line like sheep.
“A Republican would eat a steaming bowl of shit if it meant a liberal had to smell their breath after”
Or just cuz Bonespurs said to. “Thank you, Daddy, may I have some more?!”
Now I desparately want to see an Onion video of someone’s review of the “Liberal Breath” attraction
Yeah, how is that going in the Arab Springs countries though? Was that actually a glorious people’s uprising, or just another despot using an angry mob to do his bidding?
It’s almost like They realized something…
amazing how at the drop of a hat the mainstream media will shill for de-anonymizing trolls when someone makes fun of a corrupt politician
We let the normies into our spaces.
The ruling class, against whom the internet was a critical tool in the name of democracy, decided they were not going to let us have that tool anymore.
How has it been weaponized against democracy?
It’s still the best way to get info not filtered by MSM. There’s a reason politicians in both parties are calling for increased social media censorship.
Its much more complicated than that, and yes contemporart information sources (i.e., the internet) have absolutely been weaponized by both state (Russia should come to mind) and non-state (say, ISIL, energy companies, etc) actors, as has been detailed in tens of thousands of pages of research and independent analysis focused on digital forensics. And its not just about the content (i.e., the ideological, cognitive apsects). It’s also about control of the infrastructure - think media capture by oligarchs such as Musk or the reverse enginering of social media algorithms by countries like Russia to reach as many people as possible.
I would argue it’s disingenuous to equate the activities of the two American parties in this field. If you were to take a comprehensive look at what they’ve been doing, there is a clear difference in their approach and intent. Where the Democratic Party wants to curtail the influence of foreign authoritarian states and local oligarchs by limiting their ability to spread disinformation, Republicans have been actively undermining these efforts, including by going after US agencies (such as the GEC) and independent researchers at NGOs. Why? Because these agencies and NGOs are exposing their lies and labeling their messages as misleading and dangerous. They are also exposing how aligned the Republics are with foreign authoritarian states.
Granted, I’m a bit biased. I’m one of those researchers. And dealing with SLAPPs and other measures by Republicans and their proxies has been undermining information integrity significantly in the last two years, within and without the US.
You’re absolutely biased, and spreading disinformation of your own. People in the US are much more likely to be subjected to disinformation and propaganda from their own government online than any foreign actor. It’s not even close- we’re being flooded with state propaganda from the US astroturfing farms, compared to a trickle from outside sources.
And it’s false to claim the Democrats are attempting to censor for our well-being. Whenever their activities are revealed in leaks or fulfilled FOIA requests, the vast majority is revealed to be censorship of criticism or dissent, or censoring anyone countering the state narrative. Truth and public good are not on the Dem priority list anymore than it’s on the Republicans’.
And worth noting, these censorship efforts are illegal. This is a crime spree.
It seems I am “absolutely biased” whereas you are clearly absolutely objective. My mistake!
It seems some wave throw the ninja from the surfboard, causing him to smash the head against a rock.
He’s a known russian troll.
They’re not even good at what they’re doing, must be a low level troll :-)
Yeah, just saw all of his “Ukrainians are Nazis” and “Russia great” comments. Talk about irony and self-contradiction - blames the US for censorship, but glorifies the Kremlin which maintains strict control over the internet and legacy outlets in Russia.
Haven’t you heard? Unregulated communication is our biggest threat. It tricked people into voting for the wrong candidate, which proves my point.
People put way too much weight on the “power of human ideas.” They think if thee is a “free marketplace of ideas” then naturally the best ideas spread and take over. But that’s not how the real world works at all. The ideas that are propagated are those that reflect what is “going around on the ground” to speak, not whether or not the ideas are actually good or bad.
Arab Autumn
Oh so you like the Internet eh?
It’s just a fad, it’ll go away.
I remember when people used to tell me that.
Well, Kraut of all people should know how one can change their mind in the span of a decade.
Context?
Kraut (then Kraut & Te i think) was deep into Gamer Gate and Europe’s far right, a large chunk of his video’s were political commentary. I believe I first learnt of him through the “XY Einzelfall” video by Shaun. One day I read a comment saying Kraut response was pathetic, leading me to a Destiny stream where he defended the map, not believing that all the cases on the map just “magically vanish” under scrutiny. There apparently was a video he made in response too.
E: I just remembered, I actually watched the video itself. I can confidently say it included Kraut saying “Um actually, your definition of Arson only mostly correct” with the difference not mattering, and that the smoke in one of the cooking fires was not just a bit of smoke, but severe. Pathetic response indeed.
You can no longer find the stream or video, the only hint being this reddit post, with one comment mentioning Kraut was on the stream. Kraut rebranded himself and deleted his past videos in the process. This is just hearsay, but I heard he was attacked really hard by the far right after attacking their own for pedophillia. He left political commentary and made history videos instead, though there are still hints of Islamophobia and Racism in his videos, or common jokes just earn more criticism because of his past. I can’t say, I don’t watch them. However he definitely isn’t nearly as much right as he used to be.
I recall watching Kraut’s YouTube channel many many years ago, and I stopped following Kraut when he said “there is no such thing as a war crime.” Justifying a certain action during a war as a necessity is one thing, sometimes there are necessary evils. It wasn’t the particular thing he was justifying that even bothered me so much, but how he justified it. His argument wasn’t even that it was a necessary evil, rather, he straight-up said you should be allowed to do anything you want in war period, there can be no “evil” in war. That just rubbed me the wrong way, assumed he might be a bit off his rocker and stopped following him.
Oh wow, I had no idea about the XY incident map. It certainly seems compelling on first glance.
I guess he got swept up in some shared hysteria at the time, went along with it, and then realised which group he was getting swepped up with, and backtracked, cutting ties.
deleted by creator
Well the reality is that democracy is a shitty form of government to. So the internet helps fight shitty forms of government. The problem is that the internet doesn’t seem to help provide good alternatives. It is essentially indiscriminate on what replaces the currenty shitty form of government, even if the replacement then restricts the internets ability to fight the new shitty form…
Elon Musk happened. Twitter’s staff banned Trump after 2020 elections, but (luke warm take) Musk bought Twitter to reinstate Trump
Musk bought twitter to attack progressives in general. He then used it to empower whoever he wanted, and he saw Trump as a means to an end.
…it has?
I thought countries like China, Iran, India, and Pakistan ban access to social media and the greater internet because of the threat it still poses to information being shared and utilized by common citizens.
I’m fairly certain the flow information still has a net positive despite attempts to crackdown and control online interaction both from corporations and governments.
Pakistan’s PTI is still alive despite being stabbed by the military because they can effectively reach their voterbase via the internet. I don’t think anyone has actually taken a picture or video of Imran Khan ever since he was thrown in jail, yet he is as popular as ever.
