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Social media is the most important counter measure to propaganda. Before social media, we had a one way stream of information from the media outlets without muc

Social media is the most important counter measure to propaganda. Before social media, we had a one way stream of information from the media outlets without much opportunity to question, discuss, and debunk. The fediverse resolves the problem of centrally controlled algorithms and censorship that manipulate people's speech depending on the moderation rules of individual instances.

logicprog 3y ago
This is a good point actually, despite my reservations about social media, if you want to get a big message out quickly there really is nothing better than something like twitter.
speff 3y ago
Your first sentence is the exact reason why propaganda thrives in social media. There's an understanding that fellow people are somehow more trustworthy than Big Media. The part that's not considered is that people on a whole are not able to understand every intricacy of problems out in the world - but they sure do love sharing opinions about every problem as if they do understand. Given this, easy-to-digest messages are easily amplified through social media and every complex detail is withered to nothing. This is why I stopped using Lemmy. The larger communities (read: the only ones that get any posts) ended up being a worse echo-chamber than every other platform due to people repeating the same simple concepts ad nauseam.
- andoando 3y ago
  100% agree. I think Reddit is a huge propaganda machine in itself. The most ironic thread I’ve seen was a headline about how Republicans were more susceptible to propaganda, with every comment of course being 3-10 words amounting to “oh yeah so true, they’re terrible”. Anyone that actually read past the headline though could see the article was total nonsense. I suppose it may be harder to control since a central authority can’t publish anything they want.
  - hellojesus 3y ago
    At one point I heard someone talking about how people have transitioned from reading articles to only reading the headlines. Your comment reminds me that many people do this for most of their news. And I'm guilty too. I usually read comments on HN before the article, if even I read the article. Very interesting shift in media consumption, and it may help explain the sensational/disconnected headlines.
- kornhole 3y ago
  All information can be considered propaganda as defined by Edward Bernays in his book Propaganda. Yes groups game social media to propagate information. Yes centralized algorithmically controlled platforms are easier to manipulate conversation. Yes you must weed through the chaf of useless opinions. Yes echo chambers are often reinforced. If topics are openly discussed, untrue narratives generally dissolve. What better tool do we have?
iteratethis 3y ago
Not really. First, nobody cares what anybody on the Fediverse says. It's tiny. It's pinnacle "app", Mastodon, is losing lots of MAU every single day and is now below 1M MAU. Besides being tiny, it's scattered and discovery and search do not work. How can this mess possibly counter propaganda? Second, whilst the Fediverse may not have sophisticated algorithms, it very much has censorship and typically way more than traditional social networks. It's basically a collection of far-left misfits that engage in constant defederation wars. You can't even post a photo of a meal because somebody will be "triggered".
- bee_rider 3y ago
  Has anybody written this up? I think it could be interesting to see how things are going.
- kornhole 3y ago
  A good discussion between two people can enhance their understandings. Size/MAU is irrelevant in this context. People in my network smash propaganda every day. I can understand how you had this experience with the fediverse, but it has gotten better for me over the years. Many big instances are wokist with all kinds of rules such as banning hate speech, but you have many such as noauthority.social that are explicitly free speech. I have been running my own instance for years. People can block me, but nobody can kick me off.
Minor49er 3y ago
On the contrary, social media is a huge target for propaganda Special interest groups have been around forever (see Cryptome's article "The Gentleperson's Guide to Forum Spies" which outlines some useful tactics). These groups still exist (eg: the JIDF, or ShareBlue in whatever name it's calling itself these days, to name a couple) Platforms themselves also engage in tactics such as shadowbanning its users (Reddit and Twitter were both in the news for this at least a few times), or using a curation algorithm to show you what it thinks is relevant (Facebook's wall, or YouTube comments/chat being shuffled rather than showing activity chronologically to discourage discussion and to more easily hide censored comments). The idea that social media platforms are not one-way is an illusion In short, the people who you're talking to are not always real people. Some of the discussions you're trying to have might be getting silenced without you knowing. And the facts you read from a given source could have been invented. The Fediverse isn't exempt from these problems

logicprog 3y ago

This is a good point actually, despite my reservations about social media, if you want to get a big message out quickly there really is nothing better than something like twitter.

speff 3y ago

Your first sentence is the exact reason why propaganda thrives in social media. There's an understanding that fellow people are somehow more trustworthy than Big Media. The part that's not considered is that people on a whole are not able to understand every intricacy of problems out in the world - but they sure do love sharing opinions about every problem as if they do understand. Given this, easy-to-digest messages are easily amplified through social media and every complex detail is withered to nothing. This is why I stopped using Lemmy. The larger communities (read: the only ones that get any posts) ended up being a worse echo-chamber than every other platform due to people repeating the same simple concepts ad nauseam.

andoando 3y ago
100% agree. I think Reddit is a huge propaganda machine in itself. The most ironic thread I’ve seen was a headline about how Republicans were more susceptible to propaganda, with every comment of course being 3-10 words amounting to “oh yeah so true, they’re terrible”. Anyone that actually read past the headline though could see the article was total nonsense. I suppose it may be harder to control since a central authority can’t publish anything they want.
- hellojesus 3y ago
  At one point I heard someone talking about how people have transitioned from reading articles to only reading the headlines. Your comment reminds me that many people do this for most of their news. And I'm guilty too. I usually read comments on HN before the article, if even I read the article. Very interesting shift in media consumption, and it may help explain the sensational/disconnected headlines.
kornhole 3y ago
All information can be considered propaganda as defined by Edward Bernays in his book Propaganda. Yes groups game social media to propagate information. Yes centralized algorithmically controlled platforms are easier to manipulate conversation. Yes you must weed through the chaf of useless opinions. Yes echo chambers are often reinforced. If topics are openly discussed, untrue narratives generally dissolve. What better tool do we have?

iteratethis 3y ago

Not really. First, nobody cares what anybody on the Fediverse says. It's tiny. It's pinnacle "app", Mastodon, is losing lots of MAU every single day and is now below 1M MAU. Besides being tiny, it's scattered and discovery and search do not work. How can this mess possibly counter propaganda? Second, whilst the Fediverse may not have sophisticated algorithms, it very much has censorship and typically way more than traditional social networks. It's basically a collection of far-left misfits that engage in constant defederation wars. You can't even post a photo of a meal because somebody will be "triggered".

bee_rider 3y ago
Has anybody written this up? I think it could be interesting to see how things are going.
kornhole 3y ago
A good discussion between two people can enhance their understandings. Size/MAU is irrelevant in this context. People in my network smash propaganda every day. I can understand how you had this experience with the fediverse, but it has gotten better for me over the years. Many big instances are wokist with all kinds of rules such as banning hate speech, but you have many such as noauthority.social that are explicitly free speech. I have been running my own instance for years. People can block me, but nobody can kick me off.

Minor49er 3y ago

On the contrary, social media is a huge target for propaganda Special interest groups have been around forever (see Cryptome's article "The Gentleperson's Guide to Forum Spies" which outlines some useful tactics). These groups still exist (eg: the JIDF, or ShareBlue in whatever name it's calling itself these days, to name a couple) Platforms themselves also engage in tactics such as shadowbanning its users (Reddit and Twitter were both in the news for this at least a few times), or using a curation algorithm to show you what it thinks is relevant (Facebook's wall, or YouTube comments/chat being shuffled rather than showing activity chronologically to discourage discussion and to more easily hide censored comments). The idea that social media platforms are not one-way is an illusion In short, the people who you're talking to are not always real people. Some of the discussions you're trying to have might be getting silenced without you knowing. And the facts you read from a given source could have been invented. The Fediverse isn't exempt from these problems