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Is it just me, or is there a distinct lack of subtlety in right wing propaganda campaigns recently?
(hexbear.net)
this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2025
642 points (98.9% liked)
Fediverse vs Disinformation
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Pointing out, debunking, and spreading awareness about state- and company-sponsored astroturfing on Lemmy and elsewhere. This includes social media manipulation, propaganda, and disinformation campaigns, among others.
Propaganda and disinformation are a big problem on the internet, and the Fediverse is no exception.
What's the difference between misinformation and disinformation? The inadvertent spread of false information is misinformation. Disinformation is the intentional spread of falsehoods.
By equipping yourself with knowledge of current disinformation campaigns by state actors, corporations and their cheerleaders, you will be better able to identify, report and (hopefully) remove content matching known disinformation campaigns.
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“Talking Points Memo” isn’t just a website. The term comes from a Republican strategy to send out a memo to the party explaining what the message is that party leadership wants hammered on public media this week. It includes a list of “talking points” with premade example quotes.
Way back when the Daily Show used to cut together clips of GOP talking heads pivoting to their talking points in interviews, regardless of the question being asked. It was surreal. And the Left never found a way to counter it, which is why they still do it today.
I remember that as far back as early aughts. Why isn't there a counter? Granted, we've known about Fox News being propaganda but nobody seems to do anything about that, either.
because the counter is an actually competent news media free from the control of private interests who would actually push back against the bullshit when it's being peddled, but Americans didn't want to support that. They want news to be feckless entertainment, and so it is.
I'm always baffled why 'journalists' don't just repeat "Answer the fucking question" at politicians when they do that. Seems like a pretty simple way to counter it.
Like, obviously they all get their marching orders from one place.
But damn. How have they kept a seal on it?
Its obviously refried bullshit, but their ability to stay in lockstep smacks of a state level actor.
but their ability to stay in lockstep smacks of a state level actor.
I guarantee you its a national group like the Heritage Foundation or TPUSA issuing these talking points. Just because the opposition is organized doesn't mean their foreign backed. That's just conspiratorial thinking.
I guarantee you its a national group like the Heritage Foundation or TPUSA issuing these talking points.
Thats the right answer. I just don't get how they've kept it from leaking.
That’s just conspiratorial thinking.
It can be both conspiratorial and true.
I think rightwing movements have become victims to a kind of "ideological spear fishing" coming out of Russia for decades.
Rightwing astroturfed podcasters: Russian funded.
European rightwing movements: Russian funded.
Its obvious that right wing movements were coopted decades ago to weaken and collapse western Democracies. So when it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and smears shit all over the walls like a duck, maybe its a fucking duck*?
*[ apologies to any ducks whom I might have besmirched comparing them to rw'ers ]
So in the world where spooky Russians didn't interfere with our politicians, the parties representing the capitalist class would... not do that? This isn't new. We've seen how capitalism led to the rise of fascism as a direct consequence of the needs of the system wayyyyy before Russia got involved in anything.
If you have a good analysis of how systems work, you don't need to imagine or uncover conspiracy theories to explain that which can already be explained simply through incentives. Whether or not Russia has been meddling is missing the point.
EDIT: Just to explain my frustration a bit better: When people focus on this over the core class issue, at best it's running cover for capitalists, but at worst it's playing into the kind of fearmongering that the government uses to manufacture consent for the military industrial complex. The more they can convince us that there are scary enemies out there who want to destroy us, the easier it is for them to justify giving even more money to defense contractors and expanding the scope and authority of the military, intelligence agencies, etc. It's giving more and more power to the people actually responsible for oppressing us.
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It's jarringly obvious that they are just told what to say.
Reminds me of propaganda workers in Serbia that sometimes copy their messages along with additional instructions, so you'd see something like "LONG LIVE THE PRESIDENT but change it a bit so that it's not all the same" in the comments of news platforms.
They are all paid by the same people, Its not that hard to see which side they are on.
It's just you. There's been a distinct lack of subtlety in right wing propaganda for a long time, going back at least to "this is extremely dangerous to our democracy."
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It seems to work. People, all of us, are kind of stupid and when we hear things repeated we remember them. None of us are immune to propaganda.
Repeating something simple, and false, that appeals to emotions is going to have a bigger impact than something longer and complicated.
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Counter point. Those countries are sending us hot chicks. 
so immigrants are only welcome when they're hot?
Leave the straw man on the farm bro
The nice thing about being a Russian asset? Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V all day.
lol America may as well be a “third world country”
Why would anyone from a developed country come to the rapidly deteriorating US?
Idiocracy.
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ban illegal immigration
It is banned, that’s why it’s illegal
Subtlety is for the 2010s. We in the propaganda finger paint by numbers era now (and none of the numbers will be brown!).
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I mean, they don't need to convince their base when it is comprised of loyal cultists.
They are loyal cultists because of the repetition. The GOP are really damn good at getting their message across in a unified manner.
its because they are getting thier talking points from putin, who is paying all of thier income.
All those problems are the result of corporate greed.
Post this message at least nine times or you will have bad luck!
Like the white South Africans right? Right?!
It's just so lazy.
Turns out chatbots are just "intelligent" enough to copy/paste shit and change it a little so it doesn't get automatically removed.
Also the DOJ told us these people take money from the Kremlin.
Most con shit is stupid by design, like those scam emails that are deliberately written in broken English so that only stupid people will fall for them. Why would they bother writing something complex when they need an army of morons to lap up the talking points?
When a group pf people all share the same one brain cell, they tend to repeat each other.
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