**Gabriel** @gabriel@mk.gabe.rocks · May 30, 2024, 19:13

**Gabriel** @gabriel@mk.gabe.rocks · May 30, 2024, 19:13

Gabriel @gabriel@mk.gabe.rocks

May 30, 2024, 19:13

Techcrunch online censorship rant

This article has a pretty blatant admission that "russian bots spreading misinfo" was always a lie. But it was an effective lie to normalize the escalation of online censorship.

In the second study published Thursday, a multi-university group reached the rather shocking conclusion that 2,107 registered U.S. voters accounted for spreading 80% of the “fake news” (which term they adopt) during the 2020 election.

Yet these were no state-sponsored plants or bot farms. “Supersharers’ massive volume did not seem automated but was rather generated through manual and persistent retweeting,” the researchers wrote. (Co-author Nir Grinberg clarified to me that “we cannot be 100% sure that supersharers are not sock puppets, but from using state-of-the-art bot detection tools, analyzing temporal patterns and app use they do not seem automated.”)

The way it argues that free speech shouldn't exist at all is staggering, but it gets even better.

They compared the supersharers to two other sets of users: a random sampling and the heaviest sharers of non-fake political news. They found that these fake newsmongers tend to fit a particular demographic: older, women, white and overwhelmingly Republican.

Supersharers were only 60% female compared with the panel’s even split, and significantly but not wildly more likely to be white compared with the already largely white group at large. But they skewed way older (58 on average versus 41 all-inclusive), and some 65% Republican, compared with about 28% in the Twitter population then.
...
As Baribi-Bartov et al. darkly conclude, “These findings highlight a vulnerability of social media for democracy, where a small group of people distort the political reality for many.

So they're basically admitting that the full weight of state and corporate propaganda can't compete with middle aged women exercising their free speech. The author is clearly not opposed to a small group of people having influence, he's just mad it's not his paymasters.

**Sick Sun** @sun@shitposter.world · May 30, 2024, 19:18

**Sick Sun** @sun@shitposter.world · May 30, 2024, 19:18

May 30, 2024, 19:18

Sick Sun @sun@shitposter.world

re: Techcrunch online censorship rant

**m0xEE** @m0xee@librem.one · 2024-05-30T19:29:48Z

m0xEE @m0xee@librem.one

@sun @gabriel
Russian investigative journos have always been claiming those were real people, not automated tools — in fact, here in Russia, no one uses terms such as "kremlin bots" for genuine robots.
But they were also claiming these people still weren't acting out of their own volition — might've been getting paid or something like that, but that information is of course unverifiable 🤷

May 30, 2024, 19:29 · bloat · · ·

**Sick Sun** @sun@shitposter.world · May 30, 2024, 19:33

**Sick Sun** @sun@shitposter.world · May 30, 2024, 19:33

May 30, 2024, 19:33

Sick Sun @sun@shitposter.world

@m0xee @gabriel I agree that Russia creates its own alternative news frame for current events and people in America that are sick of our propaganda sometimes fall hard for the foreign propaganda. on the other hand a big component of Russian propaganda is simply airing our dirty laundry and you can't really call that misinformation.

**m0xEE** @m0xee@librem.one · May 30, 2024, 19:50

**m0xEE** @m0xee@librem.one · May 30, 2024, 19:50

May 30, 2024, 19:50

m0xEE @m0xee@librem.one

@sun @gabriel
Yes, it's not misinformation per se, but airing said dirty laundry selectively might've allowed to achieve for some interesting effects.
I think that Russia might have contributed greatly in getting you society this polarized, but at present the real scale of this contribution seems to be impossible to assess.

**Sick Sun** @sun@shitposter.world · May 30, 2024, 19:53

**Sick Sun** @sun@shitposter.world · May 30, 2024, 19:53

May 30, 2024, 19:53

Sick Sun @sun@shitposter.world

@m0xee @gabriel I am of the opinion that Russian airing of dirty laundry or pressing pain points is a drop in the bucket compared to domestic agents doing the same thing with their own motivations, like getting ad clicks or making their academic career out of critique and deconstruction.

**m0xEE** @m0xee@librem.one · May 30, 2024, 19:59

**m0xEE** @m0xee@librem.one · May 30, 2024, 19:59

May 30, 2024, 19:59

m0xEE @m0xee@librem.one

@sun @gabriel
Yes, could very well be the case. I'm not the one has a habit of overstating the factor of foreign influence — don't get me wrong, the malicious intent is there and it's tremendous, but the level of incompetence at which said influence is usually getting projected is also astounding 😂

**Pete Zaitcev** @zaitcev@shitposter.world · May 30, 2024, 19:57

**Pete Zaitcev** @zaitcev@shitposter.world · May 30, 2024, 19:57

May 30, 2024, 19:57

Pete Zaitcev @zaitcev@shitposter.world

@m0xee @sun @gabriel I don't think that it's Russia that made our schools trans our children in secret, or sent us 16 million illegals.

**m0xEE ppc-musl** @m0xEE@breloma.m0xee.net · May 30, 2024, 21:30

**m0xEE ppc-musl** @m0xEE@breloma.m0xee.net · May 30, 2024, 21:30

May 30, 2024, 21:30

m0xEE ppc-musl @m0xEE@breloma.m0xee.net

@zaitcev
I don't really know what's happening in the US: according to some it's Nazis marching with torches everywhere, according to others — it's universal HRT for everyone, starting from kindergarten. I suppose it's in fact neither, but as I don't live in the US, I lack the perspective only locals can have.
And I can't really trust anyone — people on Fedi have vastly different, but also rather fringe opinions, I don't have a guy, who is guaranteed to be like me, seeing things the way I see them, but living in the US. Sometimes I ask:
— Did you personally see children being made trans at schools?
— I didn't — I live in a very good conservative neighbourhood, but I've seen on Twitter…
And I'm like: come one, I've seen it on Twitter too! If I was drawing impression of what Russia is like from US Twitter, I'd be expecting bearded men having no less than seven children — but I know for sure that reality is very different, I can see it out of my window every day: it's people living in commie blocks, the divorces are skyrocketing and male suicide rate is one of the highest in Europe, natural population is declining — but not abortions are to blame, most people are simply too poor, they lack the confidence in the future and don't want to have children — have few at best, native population gets replaced with migrants and they are the only real source of growth, even trans-friends — although they are being quite officially persecuted, are here, the churches are indeed here too, but most of it was brought back from oblivion just a couple of decades ago — not the traditional society in the slightest, and it's hard to have one when the tradition gets rewritten every century or even more often.
I look at all this and I don't have a slightest idea what US is really like — I can't trust the sociology as that might be skewered, I can't trust the social media as people might be overblowing some problems and ignoring others entirely — in accordance with their political alignment. With that Russia *might* have something to do.
@gabriel @sun @m0xee