In the past week I’ve been absolutely roasted for criticising two different countries. Normally I’d be okay with that, I can handle a mild toasting and after all debate is a good thing.
On both occasions though I was flamed for mentioning human rights issues that are established facts and have been known for many, many years. I was critical of the actions/laws of their governments and not the people, their race, religion, general political ideology or nationality.
On both occasions I was bombarded by long posts that parroted propaganda, and in the case of one country I was told (on multiple occasions) that I was ignorant, racist and even fascist for mentioning the issues I did. I’m not complaining about how I was treated, but as a reminder, I was discussing internationally-recognised human rights concerns that can be verified and based in fact.
I could just be paranoid but I’m fairly convinced the responses weren’t from patriotic citizens. I think they were paid trolls or bots, and I think their purpose was to quiet negative talking points about the countries that were mentioned.
Has anyone else had a similar experience?
Lemmy is big enough to be a psyop target and has been for a while. This place is rife with feds and bots of every persuasion and they will try to influence you from every angle. As Lemmy grows it will only get worse. It’s easy to brush off pushback for criticizing nation states but also be aware that the FBI in particular has a history of trying to push people towards violent radicalism and in person meetups. Do not trust anyone online. Especially if they agree with you politically.
This place is rife with feds and bots
Do you actually have a shred of evidence for this? Or do you just assume it based on faith so that you can dismiss people who disagree with you out of hand?
I don’t do deep packet inspection on Lemmy traffic, nor am I a behavioral analyst. I simply think it stands to reason that if there are organizations who are capable of running influence campaigns that Lemmy would be a natural target. Any online forum is potentially at risk of targeted disinformation campaigns. I don’t apply this logic on an individual basis, because witch hunts are just as counterproductive as being overly credulous. But I have a pretty simple razor that if someone is trying to incite me to violence, meet offline, or divulge personally identifying information I should block them whether or not they’re some kind of operative.
So no, you have no evidence, you just take it on faith - sorry, assert that it “stands to reason” so that you can dismiss anyone who disagrees with you out of hand.
FBI in particular has a history of trying to push people towards violent radicalism
Lemmy isn’t the US and there’s plenty of us here who aren’t American. FBI can do whatever the hell they want they have zero jurisdiction.
Mastodon isn’t American either and they still seized a Koliktiva server. Jurisdiction nothing. They can’t arrest you, that doesn’t mean they don’t have an interest in influencing you. And they’re one group of many who has an interest in running influence operations. Fuck dude, it could be Russia, it could be Mossad, it could be GISS. The barrier to entry is so low these days.
This is exactly right. An asshole doesn’t follow the rules, that’s why they are assholes.
Depends on the treaties in place with your government. Kim Dotcom isn’t American either.
Not sure if this is MAGA or lefitst conspiracy talk. Y’all sound about the same these days.
The difference between me and a conspiracy theorist is that I can point at past evidence. COINTELPRO is a historical fact, and part of that program involved infiltrating dissident groups and acting as agents provocateur. The Church committee found that the FBI engaged in “covert action designed to disrupt and discredit the activities of groups and individuals deemed a threat to the social order.” The committee also found that the tactics employed by the FBI “would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity.”
I am not saying the FBI is definitely here now. What I am saying is it would be naïve to assume that they would not be willing to run an influence operation on public forums where people skeptical of the US government gather, and it would be foolish to assume that nobody else is carrying out similar operations for their own respective interests, state-level or otherwise.
Yeah J Edgar Hoover got up to all kinds of crazy shit. But that was a long time ago and was primarily about being against communists and black civil rights activists.
Most conspiracy theories fall apart when you just ask the question “why would they do this?”
So… why would the FBI be pushing the kind of content we see on lemmy? Why would the FBI be promoting socialism and anti-zionism? Why would the FBI be promoting trans rights? Is there some hidden agenda which would explain why the FBI would be promoting linux and other FOSS on lemmy?
I don’t really see anything on lemmy that would be in the interests of the FBI to be pushing. They might be monitoring things going on here, but which content are you seeing that looks like it’s coming from the FBI?
Foreign countries though? Yeah, they’re interested in trying to push anyone “radicalized” to do anything which would destabilize their adversaries. And if you look at the content on lemmy, much of the geopolitical discussion is very unhinged and often is trying to push people towards violence.
I think there’s a motive. If I were the FBI I wouldn’t be too concerned about actual violent outcomes, so long as they were lone wolf attacks or the product of tiny cells of radicals. It’s like a controlled burn in a forest. You get the fire out of the way before it reaches a critical mass. “Voting doesn’t work, burn down a government building” is a real hard sell to someone with a stable job, but the people it does sell to might one day be the types of people to organize and lead a meaningful opposition. So you flush them out early and fast. Some people might die, but Director Patel told me to catch leftists, not to prevent violence. As an added bonus, each violent act turns liberals more and more against what they perceive as an inherently violent ideology. “These are terrible times, and maybe if it prevents another bombing mass surveillance is acceptable even if I don’t like it,” they might think. You don’t have to go back too far to see that mindset in action. In the aftermath of 9/11 Americans saw an unprecedented erosion of their civil liberties. Terror is good for an autocratic regime.
That being said, I will grant that there’s no evidence of this. But then again there wasn’t evidence of COINTELPRO until the FBI field office in Media PA got broken into by a group of concerned citizens. Not that I’m condoning B&E. I also don’t think it would be productive to point fingers even if there were evidence the FBI was doing COINTELPRO 2. “So and so is a fed” is actually one of the tactics used in COINTELPRO to sow discord in infiltrated groups. Just, maybe we should keep in mind that we’re bound to see some discourse here that is trying to get us to play a useful idiot.
That being said, I will grant that there’s no evidence of this.
The question about whether the feds are on lemmy is falsifiable. There just needs to be enough people in congress willing to make that a primary issue to overrule whatever security laws/apparatus are in place and publish the info. There’s even recent precedent of one guy doing just that. Waiting until there’s complete evidence won’t move the ball forward at all. Even having a bad discussion has a random chance of moving the ball forward (subject to time constraints).
Not Suspicious on the Internet:
- Being Wrong
- Poor spelling or Grammar
- Asking questions, even if they’re dumb
Suspicious on the Internet:
- Calls to extreme violence in a discussion where everyone was generally chill
- Calls to not discuss a topic until there’s evidence to discuss
-
- Drawing parallels between documented historical events and current events don’t count
- Suggesting a course of action that’s either prohibitively expensive or time consuming as the only path forward
If they were .ml, hexbear, or several other instance users… Yea. Their instances are echo chambers for their own dumbass ideologies.
Different instances have different ideologies and cultures they prefer, which cannot happen on twitter or other monolith services.
You’ll just have to learn to ignore the absolute braindead takes rampant from some instances, and don’t feel bad for blocking the cretins that don’t care for human rights.
You’ll just have to learn to ignore the absolute braindead takes
No you don’t :)
You can block them, or whole instances, depending on the client your are using
Yes, I’ve definitely noticed a spike in people lately rushing to glaze the rich and/or the US when they’re rightfully criticized.
or the US
The hilarious thing was because of what I’d said, more than one response accused me of being a maga-supporting american moron. I’ve never even been to US 😅
That’s when they run out of arguments.
I got a lot of “libtard”, I still don’t really know what it’s supposed to be, usa-democrat in a perogative way maybe? I’m a euro btw and have neither been to the usa lol.
I truly cannot think of a single time I’ve seen someone glazing the US on Lemmy lmao
I’m sure it’s happened somewhere sometime but a rush? I don’t think so.
if by ‘glaze over’ they mean ‘don’t condemn unconditionally as a hellscape and source of all evil in the world’, there are plenty of posters like that. myself included.
How to reduce Fediverse propaganda by 80% or more:
Note: Replace “lemmy.world” in the URL with your instance. e.g.
https://your-instance.xyz/settings
that was a cryptoscam not a fediverse server. We always federated as hexbear.net.Hexbear.net is the one with the best emojis.
Ahh, nice one! Thats really helpful, thanks!
it’s very easy to make many accounts here, it really could be just one motivated troll creating many posts/votes attempting to manipulate opinions.
i still think it’s much better than other spaces on the net these days (esp reddit), but you should always keep it in mind.
also, some people from ml/grad do have a certain agenda(?)… lol
it’s very easy to make many accounts here, it really could be just one motivated troll creating many posts/votes attempting to manipulate opinions.
Good point, hadn’t considered that.
ghost of communism has entered the chat
I suspect that your vague, unsubstantiated feelings that someone you had a passing interaction with might have been a bot (it’s possible! who knows!) is not the valuable contribution to this community that you presumably thought it was going to be.
vague, unsubstantiated
I deliberately left it vague because I didnt want this to turn into a similar bunfight. And if in ‘unsubstantiated’ you mean there’s no evidence - I deleted said evidence cos of the responses I was getting.
might have been a bot (it’s possible! who knows!
I didnt say it definitely was bots, I said it might have been. Given what’s happened over on Reddit I think its something we should be vigilent about.
valuable contribution to this community that you presumably thought it was going to be
Well aren’t you a wonderful human being. Your mother must be so proud.
its something we should be vigilent about.
Meaning what, exactly? Do you really think the experience is improved by everyone screaming “bot!” At everyone who disagrees with them?
If you mentioned China or Russia in these comments then yes there are lots of tankies. And yes they parrot propaganda but you may actually be interacting with someone who has internalised said propaganda not an organized campaign like you would see on reddit and Facebook. So view it as an opportunity to interact rather than something to wholely avoid.
I was banned for being involved because I used the word tankie. They didn’t care about my arguments. So fuck this view, they’re as lost as MAGAts.
I think one was a post about China in .ml, and the other may have been a response to something about S.A., didnt bother checking much further.
Also worth mentioning that there is propaganda on both sides: it’s really difficult to know what’s true. People also like to throw around terms without knowing what they mean and make assumptions that may not be grounded in fact (E.G., communism = authoritarianism: there are entire communist schools of thought dedicated to critiquing authoritarianism and how power has been / should be used in communist projects).
Such a shame all countries that have catched communism have descended into dictatorships huh.
Also the “both sides” is such an outdated propaganda lie, used to deflect what is actually discussed (most classic: What About the USA??!).
Such a shame all countries that have catched communism have descended into dictatorships huh.
Almost like the anti-authoritarian schools of thought aren’t adopted by people who are keen to size state power or something, eh? Like those people would adopt different tactics or something? Like, maybe Juche and Anarcho-Syndicalism are different things with different approaches?
Also the “both sides” is such an outdated propaganda lie
So, are you saying that anti-communist propaganda doesn’t exist?
In my original comment, I wasn’t making an argument for or against communism. What I was saying is that people don’t know what they’re talking about and react on a hair trigger (because of years of propaganda). And you’ve just illustrated that beautifully.
Like, I don’t care what you believe, but maybe pick up a book and come to understand an ideology before you criticize it?
Love your paintings by the way. Especially the one with the window on the yellow wall. I’d totally buy a print of that.
Lol continue running around in circles 😂
“U stopid, read this propaganda book”
Sure mr who hasn’t fallen for the propaganda itself lol.
Blocked.
On some level it’s all true, there’s no consolidation of power that’s perfectly clean. Power is amassed from asymmetric exchanges, so there is some victim somewhere whenever it is amassed.
If it’s violence or just the threat of violence, or if the exchange was voluntary or not it’s the same.
Some of the lemmy.ml people are weirdly intolerant of beliefs that they don’t personally hold. It’s not the userbase as a whole. You just gotta expect it from them.
lmao the way they all type, it’s more like the same dude and 200 alt accounts. They all react the same, give the same info, use the same insults. It’s like a Facebook group.
I think they all just use an LLM to make their posts for them.
Most of them aren’t even Chinese by the way their replies come and go. Hot hours mark most of them as Euros.
The biggest supporters of authoritarian communism have always been middle class western kids.
because they all believe the same bullshit verison of marxism leninism and they think it’s the Word of God and will creating the Utopia.
I mean, I’m not an ML. I just happened to wind up on this instance.
it’s the Word of God and will creating the Utopia.
It’s crazy watching you guys build up your mythology about us while making it clear that you’ve never actually read anything we say, because this is literally the opposite of what we say. At a certain point it’s just like “yeah that version of us you have does sound bad, but it also doesn’t resemble us at all, so whatever.”
They tout Marxism then present China as some utopia.
“I love chocolate cake!”
offers you lemon custard
Nobody touts China as a utopia, but China does follow classical Marxist economics. I think you see Marx as predicting a far-future society as being fully collectivized and planned globally as also believing any socialist state must immediately become that far-future society, which is ironically the very Utopianism Marx and Engels spent so much effort debunking in their lifetimes.
And stale bread from the soviet union.
Bizarro MAGA
I love coming back from a 1 line post to a reply with 12 paragraphs with citations like 7 minutes later. It’s like opening a present on llm Christmas. No one calls them out like they’re actually typing all that.
Honestly if they were actually typing all that, it would be genuinely psychotic and scary.
Since I blocked that instance my lemmy experience has been so great
YES LEMMY HAS A MASSIVE PROPAGANDA PROBLEM
the level of utter bullshit parroted on Lemmy is on an astonishing level. anything political, international or even technological is broken beyond belief and descends into hatred almost immediately.
you can have discussions on Lemmy but you’ll have to wade through all the horrible people that got banned from reddit for very obvious reasons
Says the Zionist
I think its more than this. Some of them came to my dms sounding more like (i’m sorry if I sound crazy) china agents. They really seem like they are doing this for a living and to live
Pro Ukraine or liberal, anti Russia or China are all extremely unpopular…there’s definitely an uptick in trolls, tankies and outright propagandists regarding any of this.
At the same time the same folks are totally in support of rightfully criticizing the US and Israel’s war crimes, genocide and imperialism.
Yes I’ve noticed
The world has a propaganda problem. Fediverse is in the world.
I had this feeling too
Depends on where you are IMO, there’s definitely at least a couple tankie instances with a very noticeable problem but there’s probably others.
Lemmy has a echo chamber problem.
People don’t want to challenge their beliefs, their want a space in which all agree on the same stupid thing.
When I joined I was curious about how Lemmy/federation works. When it was explained to me it was said that with this approach there will be no one big Hitler who controls the discourse.
I had a hunch that this means that we will just get a bunch of smaller Hitlers. And… Well…
The problem in itself is that Lemmy means that you host a whole bunch of communities. Thats to much power concentrated in one place.
It should be that everyone hosts one community and all communities can talk to each other.
Then an Ideologie wouldn’t have a one-stop-for-all place to fester.
Everyone of us is an idiot in some way. We need other people with different views to make us aware of our idiocy. Otherwise we stay ignorant and stupid.
So I don’t think you interacted with bots. You interacted with cultists.
The problem in itself is that Lemmy means that you host a whole bunch of communities. Thats to much power concentrated in one place.
It should be that everyone hosts one community and all communities can talk to each other.
It’s a trade-off between accessibility and power. On platforms like Reddit, power is totally concentrated within the corporation that controls the service, but they allow any old dunce without any technical skills to make a subreddit, making it very accessible to the average person.
On the flip side, if every community was its own server, the power hierarchy would be much more flat, but the ability to make a community would be reserved mainly for people with sysadmin skills and money. It also would make discoverability and community more difficult to maintain.
In other words, I think the Threadiverse strikes a nice balance. It’s certainly not perfect, but there’s no right answer.
You my friend, are like a very welcome breath of fresh air.
I had a hunch that this means that we will just get a bunch of smaller Hitlers. And… Well…
Hitlers all the way down
Lemmy is just three Hitlers in a trenchcoat.
USA, China and Russia?
A KGB agent and a CIA agent meet up for drinks off the clock, and after a few drinks they start to talk shop. The CIA agent extols the strength of the Party’s propaganda, “All your citizens believe the propaganda! It’s incredible! So little dissent.” The KGB agent responds, “No my friend no, we are good at what we do, but you are the true masters of the art. No one at all questions your propaganda!” to which the CIA agent says, confused, “What do you mean? We don’t have propaganda?”
I see it as a bit of a problem that the biggest communities are in .ml . As a new user if you look up communities based on your interests you basically end up with half your subscriptions being .ml
yeah i made that mistake when i was new here.
the dogpile and death threats reminded me of reddit!
death threats?!?!
sheesh, they really are unhinged. thank goodness I blocked them almost immediately upon joining since I heard about them, but this is something we need to improve on imo, perhaps a sort of warning?
doubt it will happen though, since Lemmy devs are the instance admins, but maybe on some neutral instance chooser site or the other? (may already exist and I don’t know about it)
sheesh, they really are unhinged
Or maybe they’re lying to you
yes an yes, that is very much the issue. .ml is not going to label themselves ad violent and delusional, they think the rest of us are that, because they project.
sigh very typical…
if this problem gets too out of hand, my mind went to defederation. perhaps too extreme? there has to be a reason the .world admins didn’t do it yet. idk if .social defed from ml, but perhaps reason…?
they don’t because the mods want users to make up their own minds. and that’s fine.
I don’t want admins/mods making my choices for me, I want to make them myself.
I’ve gotten death threats and stalkers too.Some extremist users in the fediverse are very unhinged and have no life.
