Russian disinformation operations in 2016 targeted the political right and left, including Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, Black Lives Matters activists, and secessionist movements in Texas and California. Bottom line: Russia’s goal was to exacerbate the divisions that already exist in the country to destabilize its democracy.
Propaganda campaigns often work by simply targeting and amplifying existing beliefs, so if you think all white people are transphobic, for example, they feed you more examples of transphobic white people to further entrench you in that belief, eroding your empathy and trust for fellow Americans.
To me, reading about PR campaigns against celebrities was a good way of realizing I have also fallen for propaganda many times in the past, particularly when the “internet” suddenly decides a celebrity is universally loved or hated. Now, you can simply call me stupid for falling for it and move on in your moral superiority, or you could take a second to wonder about all the little, seemingly meaningless, things you’ve read on the internet that confirmed your beliefs, or fed you negative emotions like outrage and dejection, and you didn’t bother to dig into them more deeply to understand why is this being shown to me now? Who benefits from my gut reaction to this and who suffers from it?
It’s concerning that you refuse to take a moment to entertain what kind of propaganda would actively target you. We already know about the well documented disinformation campaign efforts by the Russians to interfere in foreign elections and destabilize the US:
Propaganda campaigns often work by simply targeting and amplifying existing beliefs, so if you think all white people are transphobic, for example, they feed you more examples of transphobic white people to further entrench you in that belief, eroding your empathy and trust for fellow Americans.
To me, reading about PR campaigns against celebrities was a good way of realizing I have also fallen for propaganda many times in the past, particularly when the “internet” suddenly decides a celebrity is universally loved or hated. Now, you can simply call me stupid for falling for it and move on in your moral superiority, or you could take a second to wonder about all the little, seemingly meaningless, things you’ve read on the internet that confirmed your beliefs, or fed you negative emotions like outrage and dejection, and you didn’t bother to dig into them more deeply to understand why is this being shown to me now? Who benefits from my gut reaction to this and who suffers from it?
I appreciate the effort you put into this post, but I don’t think you read what I wrote.
At no point did I refuse that.
There are an insane amount of assumptions here. I have dug into it. It’s rich people owning propaganda machines to make us tear each other a part.
Same side. Don’t let them win.