- cross-posted to:
- politics@kbin.social
- cross-posted to:
- politics@kbin.social
Facebook said Tuesday it has identified a sprawling online propaganda effort: a pro-China campaign that had a presence on more than 50 websites.
The campaign “appears to be the largest known cross-platform covert influence operation in the world,” Meta said in a report. The researchers said the broadly coordinated postings of pro-China images, videos, comments and audio files were part of a yearslong operation that researchers had previously dubbed “Spamouflage.”
The findings underscore the potential for internet propaganda campaigns to attempt to exploit internet platforms to influence the U.S. election in 2024. Since 2016, Russia, Iran and to a lesser extent China have all launched covert online efforts to influence U.S. voters.
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Not here though. Much like glorious leader Xi Jinping, Lemmy is free from corruption and beautiful like cherry blossom in the wind.
Propaganda pushers are the absolute fucking bottomfeeders of the lowest lows.
If your job is purposely, wittingly mislead people, you’re a fucking waste of blood and organs.
If your job is purposely, wittingly mislead people, you’re a fucking waste of blood and organs.
Not to in any way minimize the evils of propagandists, as they’re pushing much more damaging messages, but that describes most of the advertising industry. It’s just that those liars and manipulators are doing it for a brand so people waste money rather than a political cause.
It’s kind of crazy that we just tolerate an entire massive industry that adds nothing to the world and is based around misleading people. And it’s a business run out of fancy glass buildings out in the open rather than hidden away.
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It’s one thing to be paid to extol the virtues of X Y or Z product and entirely another to illegally influence public opinion in another country for political purposes using lies, deceptions, and half truths.
It’s really not. Both are “lies, deceptions, and half truths” and neither is “illegal”, just unethical. Propaganda is worse because of the goals, not because it’s clearly separate endeavor.
If you lie in an advertisement, your company is exposed to consumer protection liability
What counts as a “lie” in advertising is incredibly narrow and if that’s your bar almost none of the highlighted Chinese propaganda meets it.
Advertising is an inherently deceptive business. Products aren’t really “#1”, the podcaster or celebrity spokesperson almost certainly doesn’t mean the words they’re speaking, and those claims about “limited lifetime warranties” are intended to imply good lifetime support when the limits are commonly everything that might go wrong after it leaves the assembly line. These lies and deceptions are so routine we think they’re harmless because we’re conditioned to think lying is just a regular part of business and anyone who actually believes an advertisement is a fool.
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Let this be a lesson everyone. By getting paid for focus groups you are helping sales people manipulate us even more.
What if I give them bullshit answers?
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Naw.
yar, matey.
Honestly, I feel like propaganda at least aims a bit higher than typical marketing. You’re trying for grand aims of state and party, not trying to convince people to stew their livers in Bud instead of Coors.
Idk. One of the examples is basically a post encouraging people to come and see the Great Wall of China.
What a pathetic attempt at misdirection, not the least because the Great Wall doesn’t appear in either this article or the Facebook report.
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Why is Lemmy not on this list?
Because lemmy shills are super obvious, nobody has to “discover” them
They aren’t even good at it. Their entire schtick is literally “you are obviously biased because you haven’t read enough Lenin”, like it’s this big gotcha.
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As far as I can tell I’ve read way more Lenin than your average lemmy tankie
Reading the article it seems like the whole operation was super obvious and a bit amateurish. Par for the course.
Yeah, motherfuckers over at lemmygrad are astroturfing HARD. It’s like the Russia/China circlejerk over there. The “greatest socialist experiment of all time”. Smfh.
I see you haven’t met hexbear yet
The “greatest socialist experiment of all time”. Smfh.
Ten years later:
China wasn’t actually socialist, it was capitalist!
Don’t tell them that. They’ll call you an evil colonialist Democrat.
And then tell you that Democrats are fascists
*Lib
China #4
USSR maybe, Russia today is a capitalist hegemon. China is a mixed economy, and I find on the communist subs people often don’t realize it went through all kinds of neoliberal reforms. There’s both pro and anti China propaganda. Shen Yun for instance is pretty absurd anti China propaganda run by the Falun Gong.
Tankies still shill for Russia and China despite neither being communist.
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No shit.
i have recently seen quite a few articles such as these, denouncing pro-china propaganda, but I feel like it is foolish to think that china is any worse in that regard than our own countries (western perspective).
I feel articles like this one, only foment anti-chinese sentiment, in favour of just another world power.
It’s like something happened in 1989, not sure what, can’t put my finger on it…
No fucking shit literally every world power plays this game
Fuck the people whose work is to push government propaganda. Being a prostitute is more honest than that. You are doing humanity a disservice.
Weird jab at sex workers…
The prostitution comparison is completely out of left field. You’re implying that sex workers are dishonest, which I don’t see at all. The proposition of a sex worker is very upfront.
Lawyer, salesman, CEO, politician, or advertising exec would all be way better examples of dishonest professions.
You are all right. My comparison was quite unfortunate. I wanted to compare with something that some ppl tipically think its less honest. But i agree, i think prostitution/sex work is an honest field of work, much more honest than being a banker, politician nowadays.
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President Xi is so smart and able to think many steps ahead.
Our leaders in corrupt so called democracies should take note.
Overall, it’s a breath of fresh air to hear the truth.
He is truly a once in a lifetime leader.
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Your post doesn’t spell anything funny at all :)
These headlines… These articles…
Of course it’s happening. Who didn’t think it was happening.
This is going to get easier and easier for states to do as AI becomes more common.
WOW, I’m really surprised by this revelation. 🙃
Ah that sad. Guess, who didn’t see any of these propaganda? Yeap, its me because I dont use facebook.
Youve got to be a complete idiot to think you’ve never encountered propaganda just because you dont use facebook.
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Looks like I hurt someone’s feeling just like those propaganda machines on Facebook lol. Do you hate your life ? You always feel like you’re the victim ? The society and people are against you ? Then its the CCP trying to infiltrate democracy by infiltrating Facebook because facebook is democracy.
Why do you have to be an asshole? Your snide response was uncalled for.
I hate that the X sewer refuse has leaked over here.
I see this shit even on relatively small platforms. China and Russia have always been politically fraught. You think people would know that by now. I’ve seen more than my fair share of tankies waving pro china/Russia symbols around with LGBT and black power content, and I ask them if they actually know what they’ve done to groups like that in their own countries, lol.
