Russia is relying on unwitting Americans to spread election disinformation, US officials say - eviltoast
  • BlackLaZoR@kbin.run
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    4 months ago

    Not surprising considering US has a neverending supply of communists, tankies, LGBT activists, weird religious cults and so on. All these people get exploited via their biases one way or another

    • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Don’t confuse online populations with irl populations.

      Also, LGBT activists are working for their liberty and pursuit of happiness. Activism will become unnecessary when their liberties to be as they wish with themselves are no longer under attack. In the meantime, they are not generally pro-Russian or pro-CCP.

      • BlackLaZoR@kbin.run
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        4 months ago

        Don’t confuse online populations with irl populations.

        Online popultions do have some equivalent IRL. Outside of English speaking part of the internet, structure of these populations is completely different - neither socialism, tankies or LGBT have as much online presence as in US

        • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Yeah, real tankies are actually very rare in the US, unless you’re getting all your facts from Tucker or something.

      • HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Also, LGBT activists are working for their liberty and pursuit of happiness.

        So are the tankies.

        In a very real sense, a person who works two minimum wage jobs and spends almost all their income on rent and transport is not free. They are a virtual slave to the wealthy.

        • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Eh, I kinda doubt that, I think it’s important to draw a line between a socialist and a tankie. But sure, if you want think that.

          • HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            A socialist wants to improve the lives of the poor.

            A Communist (or “tankie”) wants there to be no more poor.

            • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Eh, they also tend to support using tanks to accomplish that, which creates massive poverty and suffering with a very poor track record of success.

                • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  Sure. But you can’t say you’re against poverty and then advocate for things that create poverty, that’s a strong sign you’re dealing with a propagandist or some sort of twisted-up mentality.

                  Being a neo-lib leaning capitalist society, (here in the US at least) we’re clearly not against poverty, are we? We are not claiming we are trying to solve poverty and then sending tanks that create more poverty. It’s consistent and straight-forward.

    • Riskable@programming.dev
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      4 months ago

      US has a neverending supply of communists, tankies, LGBT activists, weird religious cults and so on.

      That’s called Freedom of Speech. Every country has these things it’s just that in some countries they face (legal or just plain authoritarian oppression style) retaliation for speaking out.

      I’m an atheist and certainly not a Tankie but I respect the right of religious nuts and Tankies to proudly proclaim their foolishness. I do not respect the right of bots to do this though. Automations have no rights and should not be allowed to impersonate people in order to spread propaganda.

      We need an international treaty where every country agrees to make it illegal for bots to operate online without declaring themselves as such (bots). Then at least we could still have useful bots and have an excuse to ban the fakes and punish those that utilize them to push propaganda (as hard as that may be).

      • BlackLaZoR@kbin.run
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        4 months ago

        That’s called Freedom of Speech

        I don’t mind them speaking openly and I don’t want to limit anybodies freedom of speech

        The problem is that they’re very often fundamentally wrong, and fanatically attached to their beliefs. They react with aggression towards any opinion that challenges their dogma.

        This is some sort of social phenomena - maybe a result of poor education? Maybe depression and anxiety. Who knows.

        For example in russia you have a strong presence of so called turbo-patriots - nationalists who believe russian propaganda and support the war against the Ukraine.

        But the reasons why they think this way are pretty clear - they’re product of propaganda, lies, and twisting the history in schools. The cult of the russia and it’s leader is strong in these people