Posted by wumeow 10/26/2024
There’s only so much you can do unless you want to make the internet not the internet any more (a… great wall, if you will).
True.
> We are not fighting a war against Russia.
We are fighting (and assisting others fighting) a multifront, miltitheater war against an axis consisting, most notably, of Russia, Iran, and North Korea and various of their proxies.
https://www.fema.gov/disaster/recover/rumor/hurricane-rumor-...
Not sure how to get people to read that before sharing misinformation, unfortunately.
> Rumor: FEMA will only provide $750 to disaster survivors to support their recovery.
One would think as you start to hear conflicting rumors that something was up.
Although I guess one would also think after so many hurricanes, Floridians would actually know what FEMA does...
If FEMA is violating their own policies, that's one thing, and very much should get investigated, but rumors are being spread that are just made up.
In the early stages of dealing with a disaster, rumor is an important source of information. When communication is cut off and travel is restricted, what exactly do you expect? Especially when government misconduct is suspected. Again, if you give government the power to suppress criticism, it often will.
Regardless of whether the rumors are substantiated or not, this is America and people have the right to say what is on their mind even if it hurts the feelings of FEMA. To listen to FEMA, the rumors about them are more devastating than the actual disaster. From the start they took a position of "this criticism is interfering with our work" which is a gross exaggeration at best, and a pernicious lie in the minds of anyone with common sense.
FEMA has long been a subject of controversy, as they seize supplies donated for disasters and redistrubute them or even sell them: https://www.facingsouth.org/2008/06/gulf-coast-nonprofits-le...
You should look into this as well, a controversy involving FEMA's role in hypothetically putting Americans in concentration camps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_84 The government has absolutely no problem with trampling on your rights under the pretense of a disaster. They'll screw you over.
As far as I remember in any disaster before a couple of years ago, including Hurricane Katrina, FEMA has not stopped to demanding that people refrain from criticism. This is a modern phenomenon. The government is always scare-mongering about "misinformation" because they want the power of censorship. Legacy media is on board because they wish to crush any independent competitors that threaten that dying industry.
Book mark it...
Implement a fund dedicated to toppling hostile regimes and creating chaos for them via disinfo in their own countries.
Then, measure disinfo operations in the US, and allocate the funds to retaliation in-kind as exactly as possible.
From a real world perspective you're being awfully cavalier with the lives of people who are just as much victims of their own government as you perceive yourself to be.
> measure disinfo operations in the US
Yet you take no stock of the same operations the US already runs in other parts of the world. What a petty short term victory you're aiming for.
Not at all. When the incentive becomes not to do it, then it will stop.
> Yet you take no stock of the same operations the US already runs in other parts of the world.
Nowhere did I advocate for doing so, or continuing to do so. In general, the US has followed a reckless know-it-all policy of regime change that has backfired many more times than it has ever worked, and is overall a net negative even for the US.
This is different--it is a strategic public deterrent. It isn't directly goal oriented, only deterrence oriented, and any country will have a simple way to stop it at any time--stop putting disinfo into the US infosphere. And in fact, this works better if the US stops doing these things for any other purpose.
Beyond that, US sites which willingly allow the spread of misinformation should be heavily fined. Reddit, for example, is a complete cesspool of foreign influence campaigns. It's not like it's hard to pick up on. They target populations that are already likely to believe misinformation and conspiracies. The conspiracy subreddit, for example, is rife with obviously foreign accounts that come out of nowhere, post divisive misinformation tens or even hundreds of times per day, and the posts get thousands of upvotes out of nowhere. The idea is that if you seed a small contingent of the population with misinformation, they will do the rest of the work and spread it for you in the rest of the population.
No, Reddit cannot do away with 100% of this, but it is absolutely clear that they aren't even trying to control it. That has to stop. A simple change like requiring phone verification before you can create an account (and not allowing Google voice numbers) would do a lot to quell this. They don't care. They just want the traffic.
Twitter would whitelist psy-op accounts so they wouldn't get banned [1].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files#Nos._8%E2%80%939...
Buried the important part deep in the article. It's not like Russia is conjuring some megaphone out of thin air and broadcasting their disinformation with it. US Social Media companies are handing them the megaphone and doing the amplification for them. But as for consequences? All these companies get are polite questions from the media and light scrutiny. Not even a slap on the wrist.
> Unsuspecting Americans then repost and spread the content. In July, American intelligence officials warned that "unwitting Americans" were helping do Russia's work for it.
We also need to stop giving these so-called unsuspecting and unwitting Americans the benefit of the doubt. At some point they need to educate themselves and stop falling for this crap. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me again and again, and again, and again... at some point I become culpable because of my own stupidity.
I'll take your post in good faith, it's easy to get sucked into this stuff, that's why it's working for the Kremlin.
But, I think the best approach is to try to write online with empathy and not vilification.
Yes, social media networks should be doing a better job of moderating. Yes, the media should report more honestly. But there comes a point where individuals have to be given responsibility for being suckered into, frankly, stupid shit. If you read "Democrats are controlling the weather and generating hurricanes to suppress voter turnout" and your response is "yeah, sounds plausible" then you're just simply not thinking. You're seeing something that appeals to your biases and you're accepting it uncritically. And you deserve blame for doing so.
The people falling for this stuff are not helpless deer in a forest full of predators--they are actively participating in the deception targeted at them.
It's wild what Free Speech has suddenly become under new management. Free Speech used to also be free to consume, observe, look at, understand. But now speech is free & unbelimished from anyone understanding whose actually saying it or what networks they are part of. Free & unaccountable speech.
I don't disagree, my issue is with things like
> We also need to stop giving these so-called unsuspecting and unwitting Americans the benefit of the doubt. At some point they need to educate themselves and stop falling for this crap.
This is divisive and unhelpful, even if the underlying phenomenon ("some people are gullible") is true.
You're literally describing casually throwing away a cornerstone American principle over one of the smallest problems we've faced this year.
> at some point I become culpable because of my own stupidity.
Yet you don't reserve this for the owners of the companies in your first paragraph? The ones who are unusually wealthy from creating this "service?"