Yep, lemmy isn’t even immune to it. There’s only something like 34k MAU on this side of the fediverse yet we’re still under a constant barrage of misinformation. politics@lemmy.world isn’t any better than reddit’s r/politics in that regard. The mods here, if I’m being generous with my interpretation, labor under the same misguided sense of “impartiality” that allows misinformation to thrive there.
We’ve got one user posting anti-Biden nonsense 24/7 while tossing in just enough “actual” news for plausible deniability… And it works. I don’t even have to name any names, if you’ve been on lemmy for the last year and paying attention to political subs, I guarantee you already know who I’m referring to.
So I’ve got a buddy of mine who is really, really interested in doing some sort of media project re: fighting disinfo campaigns - like to the point that he’s scheduling calls with me to help talk him through this, after not talking for years.
I don’t know shit, approach disinfo by ignoring 90% of what I see online, and am trying to help narrow him down into something actionable.
Any advice? Like, literally anything - at this point I’m starting from a “What is disinfo v. misinfo, and what are organizations concerned about disinfo in a broad sense saying about the topic” position.
Edit: Media project - started out as “a podcast maybe”, now he thinks longform mediums aren’t an effective strategy and is talking Tik Tok videos or something. My concern is this is just adding to the noise we all dig through that disinfo benefits from. He still hasn’t given me ideas re: a particular topic, think he’s just frustrated about some close people to him getting deep into COVID/QAnon conspiracies and not responding to anything he tried re: getting well-sourced info in front of them - there was always some bullshit counterpoint.
Apologies for the novel - want to help him out but a little stuck.
When we talked last, I was talking about the social aspects (crudely understood) of it all - have general mistrust of experts, poor life situation, feelings of, or acutal, social isolation -> find people who seem to have a privileged knowledge others don’t that you agree with, make them your tribe -> have a position in a social group, slowly introducing you to more and more outlandish ideas -> repeat points to recruit others to the tribe and signal social value to said.
So agree totally with learning about how this stuff works from psychology and human weakness POV being a vital starting point. Appreciate it!
Yep, lemmy isn’t even immune to it. There’s only something like 34k MAU on this side of the fediverse yet we’re still under a constant barrage of misinformation. politics@lemmy.world isn’t any better than reddit’s r/politics in that regard. The mods here, if I’m being generous with my interpretation, labor under the same misguided sense of “impartiality” that allows misinformation to thrive there.
We’ve got one user posting anti-Biden nonsense 24/7 while tossing in just enough “actual” news for plausible deniability… And it works. I don’t even have to name any names, if you’ve been on lemmy for the last year and paying attention to political subs, I guarantee you already know who I’m referring to.
Lol. Just block Ozma already. I did and I don’t miss it.
Oh I did that months ago. But I’m not gonna shy away from calling out active propagandists spreading misinformation and the mods for allowing it.
Both those guys are banned instance-wide on the instance I run.
Disinfo research was a hobby of mine for a few years so I have zero tolerance for it.
So I’ve got a buddy of mine who is really, really interested in doing some sort of media project re: fighting disinfo campaigns - like to the point that he’s scheduling calls with me to help talk him through this, after not talking for years.
I don’t know shit, approach disinfo by ignoring 90% of what I see online, and am trying to help narrow him down into something actionable.
Any advice? Like, literally anything - at this point I’m starting from a “What is disinfo v. misinfo, and what are organizations concerned about disinfo in a broad sense saying about the topic” position.
Edit: Media project - started out as “a podcast maybe”, now he thinks longform mediums aren’t an effective strategy and is talking Tik Tok videos or something. My concern is this is just adding to the noise we all dig through that disinfo benefits from. He still hasn’t given me ideas re: a particular topic, think he’s just frustrated about some close people to him getting deep into COVID/QAnon conspiracies and not responding to anything he tried re: getting well-sourced info in front of them - there was always some bullshit counterpoint.
Apologies for the novel - want to help him out but a little stuck.
IMO getting a bit into the psychology of why people want to believe this crap is pretty key. Narcissism, cognitive bias…
Check this out https://github.com/rimu/no-qanon. Go into the ‘sources’ folder and start clicking around. A lot of the disinfo sites are in separate files but https://github.com/rimu/no-qanon/blob/master/sources/default.txt contains most of them in a big disorganized pile.
Also take a look at https://www.reddit.com/r/QAnonCasualties/ to understand the human cost at the individual & family level.
Google “Alt-right pipeline” to learn about how they’ve intentionally crafted a radicalization process. Also see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P55t6eryY3g.
Thanks man! This is helpful.
When we talked last, I was talking about the social aspects (crudely understood) of it all - have general mistrust of experts, poor life situation, feelings of, or acutal, social isolation -> find people who seem to have a privileged knowledge others don’t that you agree with, make them your tribe -> have a position in a social group, slowly introducing you to more and more outlandish ideas -> repeat points to recruit others to the tribe and signal social value to said.
So agree totally with learning about how this stuff works from psychology and human weakness POV being a vital starting point. Appreciate it!
Yeah that’s pretty much it. Then that gets amplified by recommendation algorithms and toxic social media ecosystems, of course.