this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2025
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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.


Community rules

Same as instance rules, plus:

  1. No disinformation
  2. Posts must be relevant to the topic of astroturfing, propaganda and/or disinformation

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[–] grue@lemmy.world 32 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Could be that Trump is responsible, in the same way that Reagan was in '80.

In other words, it wouldn't be the first time fascists deliberately delayed hostage negotiations to fuck over non-fascist US politicians, if that is indeed what happened.

[–] Ajen@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

Are you saying Biden wanted to end the war, but couldn't? Because I remember him circumventing congress to send military aid to Isreal, more than once. No one was forcing his hand, they were actually doing the opposite.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

Hmm, good point.

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[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 5 points 1 week ago

The difference being, we at least got the hostages back after Reagan was done treason'ing to win the election. Netanyahu is still going to kill Palestine, and Trump isn't smart enough or tough enough to stop him, and wouldn't care even if he was.

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Because this time around America is fully onboard with mask off fascism. So all the media will start lining up so he doesnt mushroom stamp them.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The Guardian isn't American, though.

I've noticed they have a noticeable trickle of articles that are flaming propaganda like this, though. Absolute lunacy of a type that serves some kind of pro-Trump / pro-Russia viewpoint, and then the other 99% of the time, it's just normal reporting. It's very bizarre.

[–] whostosay@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

I could be wrong, but don't they have offices in the UK and US?

[–] Vaggumon@lemm.ee 9 points 1 week ago

They are stroking the shaft before getting ready for the gravy

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 6 points 1 week ago (3 children)

They're reporting what they got from Israeli media, including The Times of Israel. If you don't like that you can go find a source that disproves those claims.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I read the article. I'm saying that in my opinion, the lede is a bunch of horseshit, and expanded a little about why. The rest of it is pretty factual. My source proving that I think the lede is horseshit is that I'm the one that said it.

I've noticed that "you have to have PROOF in order to say anything, including judgements of opinion, speculation, criticism, and everything else. I have no particular criticism aside from you have to have PROOF." has become a common refrain from a whole series of different people, all of a sudden as of I think a couple of weeks ago. I can't remember hearing it before it started popping up from a few different people. Must be a coincidence.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 4 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I mean you've always needed evidence to claim that reporting from a respectable source is misinformation.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Update: More proof has happened. Netanyahu has said that he won't let the cabinet vote on the ceasefire yet.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/16/benjamin-netanyahu-no-vote-on-gaza-ceasefire-deal-until-hamas-accepts-all-terms

Anyone who has been paying attention to Netanyahu knows that he was planning to kill the cease-fire, and anyone who has been paying attention to Trump knows that the idea that he would finally be the one to reign in Netanyahu, and that's what's happening here, is a bunch of raving gibberish. I won't say there won't be a short performative cease-fire eventually. But, big picture, the killing will continue and accelerate under Trump, as it was incredibly obvious that it would.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 2 points 1 week ago

Okay that's fair enough you got me there.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

No you don't. You just need to explain your reasons, and then people can make their judgement about what you said.

Okay, let's talk. Why did multiple people all of a sudden start saying "you need proof for that," all of a sudden, a couple of weeks ago? It's exactly the type of low-effort, can be used to disagree with anything, statement that I think would be well-suited to being used by propaganda trolls. This is the perfect community to talk about that, I think.

Like how many times in the history of your account have you said this "You need proof of that" as a super-low-effort way to disagree with what someone said, sort of deflecting away from when they spent a bunch of multiple paragraphs explaining exactly what they meant and some of the factually verifiable reasons why they came to the conclusions that they did? Have you always said that kind of thing? Or have you said it to other people in the last few weeks? Or is this, talking to me, the first time it's occurred to you to challenge what someone was saying in that exact manner?

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Or have you said it to other people in the last few weeks? Or is this, talking to me, the first time it's occurred to you to challenge what someone was saying in that exact manner?

It's always been my go to when someone uses conjecture to make a claim that, if true, should have observable effects (and hence, a source). BTW I saw your update, and while that's bad it's (unfortunately??? fortunately???) not an indicator that the ceasefire has collapsed. The IDF likes to get in a few extra war crimes before they have to pack up and leave.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What would some of the observable effects be? If what I said were true?

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well that depends: Is the deal real but the reason it succeeded isn't Trump involvement? Or is it another house of cards that will inevitably collapse? If it's the latter we wouldn't see the Palestinian side expressing optimism, and we wouldn't hear about the whole thing happening within the spans of a few days (a lie would be extended to buy time and give Israel an excuse when they sabotage the deal again). The fact that the deal was finalized this fast and is going to be voted on today discounts this possibility, or at least makes it unlikely, so the observable effects would include Israel delaying the vote and making up excused for why they can't accept the deal. If Israel votes to accept the deal I think we can

In the former case we'd need a non-Trump explanation for Netanyahu's sudden change of heart. The observable effects here would be some other change in the situation that would make continuing the war too costly for Israel or for Netanyahu personally, or some recent accomplishment that could be considered a "mission accomplished" for the IDF.

So yeah that's it. We have an effect (the ceasefire deal) and are looking for causes, and the Trump thing simply makes the most sense to me as a cause.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 2 points 1 week ago

We have an effect (the ceasefire deal) and are looking for causes, and the Trump thing simply makes the most sense to me as a cause.

Yes, but do you have any proof?

Honestly, my thought process here is very similar to what you just described. I looked at the situation, decided what made the most sense to me, and explained why. See how silly it is for me to ignore everything you said and just demand proof of something that, to both of us, is fundamentally unprovable in a definite logical way?

I am done with the exchange, I was just making a point and was curious how you would respond.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Update: My proof has happened.

Israel intensifies attacks on Gaza after ceasefire announced Israel intensified strikes on Gaza hours after a ceasefire and hostage release deal was announced, residents and authorities in the Palestinian enclave have said, with dozens of people killed.

Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif, in northern Gaza, said it had been a “terrifying night”. In a post on X he wrote,

The pace of bombing has increased dramatically in recent hours, and with it the number of martyrs and wounded has increased to an unprecedented level.

He filmed himself at a makeshift morgue with bodies in the background, including those of several small children. “An hour ago, I was documenting the joy of the people of Gaza at the news of the ceasefire, but the Israeli occupation, as usual, continues to commit massacres,” he said.

Another Al Jazeera reporter Hossam Shabat, also reporting from northern Gaza, reported “intensive raids”, adding, “It’s as if we are living the first days of the Israeli aggression”.

Medics cited by Reuters said 32 people were killed late on Wednesday. Strikes continued into Thursday destroying houses in Rafah in southern Gaza, Nuseirat in central Gaza and in northern Gaza, residents said.

Israel’s military made no immediate comment and there were no reports of Hamas attacks on Israel after the ceasefire announcement.

In the occupied West Bank, where Israel has also intensified its attacks since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack, six Palestinians were killed and another two critically injured on Wednesday evening by an Israeli airstrike on the Jenin refugee camp, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/jan/16/israel-gaza-war-live-blog-updates-strikes-hamas-ceasefire-talks

Sure is a good thing Trump stepped in to do the super-easy thing Biden was always just refusing to do, right?

[–] ericjmorey 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ceasefire being announced vs ceasefire being agreed to seem to be separate events here. If there are more attacks after the agreement is officially made, you'll have been proven correct.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 1 points 1 week ago

I'll keep you posted.

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[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (12 children)

It's possible, just possible, that Trump decided he wants credit as a peacemaker. We've said for a year that all Biden needs to do is cut Israel off from weapons. If that's what Trump went with then it's entirely possible.

Because it certainly isn't Biden's doing. He's done nothing but write sternly worded letters and repeat debunked IDF propaganda.

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[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (11 children)

There's no real diplomatic skill involved. It's simply threatening to cut off the zios from their tools of genocide. It's super easy and straightforward but genocide joe somehow couldn't figure it out, most likely because he's a brainwashed loser.

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[–] jonne@infosec.pub 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

In what some Israeli media described as a “tense meeting”, Witkoff delivered his message. The president-elect was emphatic that he wanted a ceasefire-for-hostages deal. Trump wanted the war in Gaza finished. He had other fish to fry.

Seems pretty clear to me, Trump's guy did what we've been demanding Biden and Blinken to do on day one: use the US' leverage to force the Israeli government to take a deal. It was never Hamas that stood in the way of a hostage deal, it was Netanyahu (he was even threatening the families of the hostages to shut up about their family members). The Biden strategy didn't work and possibly even lost the Democrats their election. This is the same deal Biden couldn't push through back in March, rejected by Netanyahu, because the missing ingredient was the US telling Israel to take the deal or no more weapons.

There could be other things going on, obviously, I wouldn't put it past Trump to offer something else in exchange that Biden wouldn't ever offer, or that Netanyahu was deliberately scuttling deals in order to sabotage Biden politically, but in either case, it's another example of Democrats shooting themselves in the foot because they didn't want to listen to the left.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Trump’s guy did what we’ve been demanding Biden and Blinken to do on day one: use the US’ leverage to force the Israeli government to take a deal.

That's what the article says. I do not believe it. I think based on what I know of Trump and Netanyahu, that there may be a small cessation in the fighting or there may not (anywhere from a few days to a few months), and then Israel's slaughter of "Hamas" meaning all the Palestinians in Gaza, will continue unabated and the dying will greatly accelerate as famine and lack of medicine finish the gruesome job that they already have well-underway.

I think your giving credit to Trump as a tough negotiator, and also as someone who cares at all about Israel stopping their current genocidal operation, sounds like it's based more on the idea of telling a narrative about Biden, than on anything resembling reality.

The Biden strategy didn’t work

True. He might as well have finally drawn a line in the sand and tried to overturn decades of US support for Israel's ongoing holocaust, because what he did was a crime against humanity. Why he did it, I don't know, but in any sane world it would be as monstrous a stain on his legacy in the general public's mind just as much as it is in Lemmy's mind.

and possibly even lost the Democrats their election.

You've got to be joking. The price of eggs being high, and the American media landscape being a grand wasteland of propaganda and trash, lost the Democrats their election. If he had come out swinging "in favor of Hamas," as that same American media would have portrayed it, that same American media would have eviscerated him. He might have gotten impeached for it.

You are vastly overestimating the extent to which the American public knows and cares about the killing that's going on in the Gaza strip.

There could be other things going on, obviously, I wouldn’t put it past Trump to offer something else in exchange that Biden wouldn’t ever offer

Yeah, maybe. Like the promise that sometime next year, after some wholly predictable "terrorism" by Hamas, he can start doing the same thing in the West Bank, and the US won't say a word even in these bullshit "stop or I'll say stop again" Biden phone calls, and instead will give him full-throated support and a historic flow of new weapons and diplomatic cover, so that by the end of Trump's presidency Palestine will be no more. I definitely think that's possible. I think it's actually more unlikely than even odds that the Gaza strip will no longer exist, as a place for Palestinians, at the end of Trump's upcoming term. It's happened to plenty of places in what used to be Palestine.

Not that any of that excuses Biden running cover for him for the last year, of course. You're not wrong about Biden's complicity, just about its electoral consequences, I think.

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 4 points 1 week ago

I don't doubt that Israel will just continue bombing whatever they please in Gaza, that was always going to happen. Israel had already killed more than 2000 Gazans before Oct 7 happened in the same year, and similarly they haven't retreated from Lebanon despite the cease fire agreement demanding that as well. That was basically always going to happen no matter who was in charge.

I guess we'll see how it all shakes out, I guess.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 2 points 1 week ago (3 children)

That's what the article says. I do not believe it.

You're gonna need some real evidence if you're claiming The Guardian is publishing straight up lies.

I think your giving credit to Trump as a tough negotiator,

It's not about Trump being a tough negotiator; Trump simply doesn't intend to be Netanyahu's bitch like Biden was. He also doesn't give two shits about the Zionist lebensraum project so to him Israel's war is nothing but a headache. Trump proved what we all know: That when the POTUS makes a real demand from Israel that demand is realized. There's nothing to even negotiate.

You've got to be joking.

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/kamala-harris-gaza-israel-biden-election-poll

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 3 points 1 week ago

You’re gonna need some real evidence if you’re claiming The Guardian is publishing straight up lies.

Lies are a little different from horseshit. Or, if you want the technical term, bullshit.

I have no doubt that the Times of Israel actually published the things The Guardian said they published. I also see no reason to doubt that Trump's negotiator met with Netanyahu's people. The part that I think is horseshit is the whole narrative:

"They came to realise that Trump speaks at dictation pace, and they will never be able to outflank him from the right." Trump is incredibly easy to outflank from the right. Putin does it, for example. I don't actually know what "speaks at dictation pace" means, but if it means Trump is sharp on his feet and says things more quickly or succinctly or meaningfully than other people, then yes, that is false. My proof is any of his speeches or interviews. I'm sure it is technically true that someone said that and is now being quoted in The Guardian. What I'm questioning is why this untrue statement is being published all in the service of fellating Trump in general about his deal-making ability and his forceful treatment of the Netanyahu government.

Netanyahu, as he always does when successful cease-fire deals are announced by the US and Qatar, went out of his way to say that he hasn't agreed to anything and still wants to work out the details. For all I know, he is planning on some amount of performative agreement to this one, followed by a resumption of the killing after a pretty short time.

Honestly, my proof is to be seen in the future. This cease-fire may, unlike the others, succeed for a short time and then collapse and the killing resume. Or Israel may simply throw it in the garbage as they did the others. The idea that Trump has fixed it now because he's tougher than the previous State Department, the cunning artifice which The Guardian has assembled out of a series of technically-true statements, will absolutely be shown to be false, probably before too much time has passed.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 2 points 1 week ago

Update: My proof has happened. Israel just killed a bunch more people with a new round of bombing, including several little kids.

Good thing Trump fixed it. I'll update you with more proof in the future as more of it happens.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 1 points 1 week ago

Update: More proof has happened. Netanyahu has said that he won't let the cabinet vote on the ceasefire yet.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/16/benjamin-netanyahu-no-vote-on-gaza-ceasefire-deal-until-hamas-accepts-all-terms

Anyone who has been paying attention to Netanyahu knows that he was planning to kill the cease-fire, and anyone who has been paying attention to Trump knows that the idea that he would finally be the one to reign in Netanyahu, and that's what's happening here, is a bunch of raving gibberish. I won't say there won't be a short performative cease-fire eventually, although to me it seems a little unlikely. But, big picture, the killing will continue and accelerate under Trump, as it was incredibly obvious that it would.

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Because the views of Trump apologists are just as valuable to media as the views of sane folk.

[–] baggins@beehaw.org 1 points 1 week ago

I clocked that in my newsfeed this morning and thought exactly the same.

I expected better from them but lately they have been going downhill.

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