Most musicians in Brazil are still on #Instagram because well they kinda have to because every show (by a non rich & famous artist) ends with “Follow me on Insta @ something ”. I understand it’s not easy for them to leave, even now.
I was just told by one of them a lot of their accounts suddenly started automatically following JD Vance unwillingly. They are all from the opposite political spectrum — and wouldn’t care much about a foreign prime minister anyway. WTF.
@santiago
> started automatically following JD Vance unwillingly
For real?! 😲 A setup like this is just… vile!
@m0xee I wouldn’t have believed it but a friend told me in person today here at home (he has an account, I don’t). And he personally knows these musicians in and has no doubt about their political opinions. No chance in hell they’d follow this guy.
It seems so dumb & counterproductive. I mean it’s not the right target public, not the right country or language either.
Then again didn’t #Musk force his Tweets onto everyone too at some point ?
@santiago
As bad as Facebook is, turns out, there is a much simpler explanation for this: these people have been following the official government accounts and not private accounts of former, in this case vice president. As Trump's team is taking over, the accounts got transfered to them, some even got "automatically subscribed" to Trump himself 🤣
https://apnews.com/article/facebook-instagram-follows-trump-jd-vance-potus-flotus-60e61a65b7d37a9b8b30c3b3b58768a7
@m0xee Oh, that makes a lot of sense indeed. I didn't even think about this — and neither did they because they were quite upset.
Maybe they followed Kamala's account when she was a candidate and she posted from official vice president account. I'll remember to ask said friend next wednesday!
I would have imagined it wasn't legal for her to post candidacy stuff from the official account but they probably got mixed up at some point.
@santiago
The way I discovered this is also quite interesting: Russian state media uses every opportunity to spread chaos and misinformation, they also almost always lie and they have picked up the "automatically followed JD Vance/Trump/Melania" story, this in turn piqued the interest of fact checkers working for the media covering Russia which I trust and… Here it is!
@m0xee The worst part is how viral this is. No need for many to be exposed to many Russian disinformation channels to spread it. Once you heard "hey check your follows to see if you're not following JD Vance unwillingly” and you see it, it's hard not to react and warn everyone else and so on.
Also check the official page of presidency in Brazil vs US version. Both are propaganda, but clearly one looks like a government thing and the other one like a personal page for #Trump.
@santiago
> No need for many to be exposed to many Russian disinformation
I'm the last person on Earth to believe Russian state media, but in this particular case — indeed, I don't think they had anything to do with it, maybe only indirectly, but their attempt to give the story a spin for me is a sure sign that something isn't right here 😁
@santiago
> clearly one looks like a government thing and the other one like a personal page
True — it's does not prove anything, but knowing a thing or two about "charismatic leaders" with autocratic tendencies 😏, I'd say: when it looks personal like that — it's a marker of certain political technologies being involved, better keep the eyes peeled!
At least US isn't Russia, it's a mature democracy with proper system of checks and balances and established democratic institutions.
@santiago
On one hand Americans get outraged easily — before truly repressive stuff comes into force, and they are capable of organising, coordinating their efforts, unlike in well-established non-free regimes, where people trust no one and often hate each other. On the other — the polarisation and atomisation of society we see in the US nowadays indeed looks alarming. But I remain hopeful: if this doesn't kill their democracy, it'll make it stronger. But yeah… time of turbulence.
@m0xee US has indeed a lot of safeguards compared to other countries. Unfortunately in these situations the domino effect is real. People in Europe & US usually think it can’t get so bad because it has all been so stable for long but all it takes for democracy to vanish is a bad economic downturn and several forces pushing at the same time.