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Since bullshit is so cheap, why wouldn't everybody run a campaign to undermine everybody else they don't like at the same time? State actors sure have money to
by thriftwy 3y ago
Since bullshit is so cheap, why wouldn't everybody run a campaign to undermine everybody else they don't like at the same time? State actors sure have money to do this.
- Waterluvian 3y agoYeah they’re called political campaigns. Attack ads have always been a thing with the same goal: exploit the overactive fear response of simple minds.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoViewers are made aware that it's a political attack ad though.
- Waterluvian 3y agoYeah. The difference being the existence of laws. So why don’t others do it the Russian way? Campaign laws.
- XghTk 3y agoIt’s politically risky to blatantly lie and cheat in a democracy, at least theoretically
- voakbasda 3y agoOnly if you get caught. And often times, not even then.
- gumby 3y agoThey are, and have been doing to some degree or other for thousands of years. It really picked up in the late 19th century (e.g. Franco-Prussian war actually started due to shrewd deployment by Prussia of information warfare)
- Nextgrid 3y agoIt's not just cheap, it's profitable. Social media companies profit off "engagement", no matter what the content is.
- ben_w 3y agoWhen I was a teen I read that there used to be an anti-witchcraft campaign group in the UK. Apparently, if witchcraft was ever shown non-negatively on the BBC, they would call to complain, multiple times each in order to make it seem like their outrage was representative of a much wider audience. Mary Whitehouse was famous for intensive campaigning against social liberalism in general and sex in particular. I've seen enough examples that a long time I just assumed there were in fact no actually harmful groups out there, just people voicing their own phobias.