Fediverse vs Disinformation

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Pointing out, debunking, and spreading awareness about state- and company-sponsored astroturfing on Lemmy and elsewhere. This includes social media manipulation, propaganda, and disinformation campaigns, among others.

Propaganda and disinformation are a big problem on the internet, and the Fediverse is no exception.

What's the difference between misinformation and disinformation? The inadvertent spread of false information is misinformation. Disinformation is the intentional spread of falsehoods.

By equipping yourself with knowledge of current disinformation campaigns by state actors, corporations and their cheerleaders, you will be better able to identify, report and (hopefully) remove content matching known disinformation campaigns.

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Posts must be relevant to the topic of astroturfing, propaganda and/or disinformation

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How to Sniff Out ‘Copaganda’: When the Police and the Media Manipulate Our News (www.teenvogue.com)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I wrote the book Copaganda based on my years of being a civil rights lawyer and public defender representing the most vulnerable people in our society. I watched as the police and the news media distorted how we think about our collective safety. Copaganda makes us afraid of the most powerless people, helps us ignore far greater harms committed by people with money and power, and always pushes on us the idea that our fears can be solved by more money for police, prosecution, and prisons. Based on the evidence, this idea of more investment in the punishment bureaucracy making us safer is like climate science denial.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago (2 children)

How to Tell a Lie with the Truth

The selective curation of anecdote is an essential mechanism of copaganda. … By cherry-picking anecdotes—indeed, even by using isolated individual pieces of data as misleading anecdotes—news reports can distort our interpretation of the world.

I feel like this is a truly vital thing to understand about propaganda in general. Very often, everything that’s being said is true. The art is in what to focus on, how much emphasis to give to small pieces of the picture, and how to give them emotional weight so that the artificially inflated singular piece you’re presenting will become a lasting and resonant part of people’s image of the picture as a whole.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

It doesn't even have to be true or false. 'Uncle Sam' was propaganda to get young men to enlist out of national pride.

There were no facts in the 'I want you' campaign, it was pure emotional appeal

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Headline: "Teen Stabs Woman After Playing Violent Video Game"

Alternative equally true headline about the same story they'd never use: "Teen Stabs Woman After Eating Cheeseburger"