Anonymous users are dominating right-wing discussions online. They also spread false information
The reposts and expressions of shock from public figures followed quickly after a user on the social platform X who uses a pseudonym claimed that a government website had revealed “skyrocketing” rates of voters registering without a photo ID in three states this year — two of them crucial to the presidential contest.
“Extremely concerning,” X owner Elon Musk replied twice to the post this past week.
“Are migrants registering to vote using SSN?” Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, an ally of former President Donald Trump, asked on Instagram, using the acronym for Social Security number.
Trump himself posted to his own social platform within hours to ask, “Who are all those voters registering without a Photo ID in Texas, Pennsylvania, and Arizona??? What is going on???”
…
Yet by the time they tried to correct the record, the false claim had spread widely. In three days, the pseudonymous user’s claim amassed more than 63 million views on X, according to the platform’s metrics. A thorough explanation from Richer attracted a fraction of that, reaching 2.4 million users.
The incident sheds light on how social media accounts that shield the identities of the people or groups behind them through clever slogans and cartoon avatars have come to dominate right-wing political discussion online even as they spread false information.
Asimov: *nails it*
The bad guys since high school and in countless tales and yet still in governments and corner suites and at pulpits: *weaponizes it*
You know who you are: *treats it all like team sports* *thinks is player* *is ball*
I think this is a great comment and I extend the same thinking to the bullshit/ magical thinking people engage in around science/ medicine denial-ism, new age mysticism, and conspiratorial thinking/ I'd rather believe a good story modes of thinking.
100% its a part of our political system, but as Asimov states, its in our cultural life as well, and I have no patience for it. I call it out when I see it and if that makes me the ass hole, so be it. Its a burden I'll bear to have conversations grounded in reality or not at all.
Some of these are clearly wedge-driving divisive trolls posing as leftists. Especially those touting voting 3rd party or not voting.
This is absolutely rampant on .ml and it drives me nuts that their predilections for stupid campism causes them to not just allow, but actively protect right wing trolls.
You know electoral system is truely garbage when voting for 3rd party is considered “bad”. Not a lot of freedum going on in the US.
Additionally have you also considered some people dont agree with your political view, so not everything has to be a conspiracy
Yep I do agree it's bullshit. The FPTP combined with Electoral College has utterly fucked our country. I really wish we could vote for independents or 3rd party and not totally fuck everything. Unfortunately that won't happen until changes most probably comes through Democrats as it has historically worth most other issues.
To your second point, don't know, it just seems extremely self-defeating to the point that one has to wonder...
Some of these are clearly wedge-driving divisive (sic) trolls posing as moderates. Especially those hectoring voters that vote with their conscience now that attitudes toward a current genocide is making it impossible to vote for either of the frontrunners.
Let me crystal clear. I do not think that your position or attitude are moderate either. Haranguing people to vote against their conscience is a bad look. Big genocide, small genocide, both are genocide. If that overloads some people's 'election calculus' it's a reasonable and engaged reaction. If anything talking down to them is more likely to turn them off voting at all.
Normally I'd agree to each their own but I truly cannot grasp how anyone can come to the conclusion that when the two options are inevitable, they would choose more genocide over less genocide. It quite literally means less people dying. It's the only logical and ethical choice.
Voting for big genocide or voting for small genocide is irreconcilably voting for genocide for some people. It's a morally cognizant choice for some to not want to put the endorsement of their vote on either.
I'll never not believe that is logically and ethically-flawed thinking, sorry. A vote doesn't mean "I Endorse Genocide," it just means, "I am doing the thing between two inevitable choices whether I vote or not that will help Palestinians, Ukrainians, and women's rights more than the other option."
If merely one less child dies, then it is clearly worth it to vote — right?
It is 'rational' attitudes such as this that MLK bemoaned in his Birmingham jail letters. Order above justice. An order in which the boot is not on your neck. So you minimize its dehumanizing brutality in relation to the maintenance of the day-to-day comforts you enjoy.
Hypothetically: if Biden was sending weapons and financial support to Russia in support of their war efforts but mildly denouncing Putin when pressed; and Trump was pledging full throated support of Putin and offering to nuke Kyiv; would you still feel so enthusiastic about voting for Biden or for your moral calculus? Might you lament the electoral system that has put this decision before you. Might you protest this mockery of democratic choice. Even if you internally still cede to moral calculus, might you continue to make your displeasure known and apply whatever pressure was within your purview as a voter to make. Might you be offended by people demanding you not only vote for Biden regardless your rightful concerns about Putin and the sovereignity of Ukrainians but also try to insinuate that you are part of some foreign operation to undermine the election for voicing your concerns?
Much respect to your comment because it remains neutral-toned and raises fair points. I hope I can reflect that in my response.
To me, I feel MLK was wrong, no? 1 year later, those "white moderate" liberals he lambasted in the Birmingham letter voted for the Civil Rights Act merely 1 year later — the most unprecedented step-up for securing equal rights for blacks. Would that change have come if support in the north, the offspring of abolitionists, were abandoned at the polls and every anti-segregationist just stayed at home to protest change that didn't come soon enough? Do you think Southern offspring of Confederates would have helped blacks more and passed the Civil Rights Act if they had a stranglehold on Congress? Of course not. Liberals were able to be moved; conservatives by comparison could not.
Besides, the two notions — protesting and voting — can exist in tandem: One can demonstrate and protest as MLK and Malcolm X did; but one can also recognize who the bigger threat is and what the rational choice is when it comes time to vote. If, hypothetically, it was a choice between more lynches or less lynches; less rights over more rights — would MLK have chosen the former over the latter? Of course not.
To your hypothetical regarding Russia — No, I wouldn't feel enthusiastic about voting for Biden, but I'm not asking anyone to feel enthused; I'm asking them to hold their nose as they choose the lesser-evil when one of the two options are guaranteed outcomes. As much as I'd dislike it, I would vote for Biden, but that doesn't mean I pledge my support for all they do. If I'm told with a gun to my head to choose between my child or my wife, I'd choose the child because that's what my wife would want and the child has more years to live. I wouldn't be enthused about choosing.
So I must ask again: if merely one less child dies, then it is clearly worth it to vote, yes?
Change never comes soon enough, but it's a fact that change did come through one of the two major parties; and in the modern day such change will NEVER come through Republicans. We will only take more steps back; women and trans will only lose more rights; MORE Gazans will suffer; MORE Ukrainians will suffer. And I'd be willing to bet that if one polled any sample of Ukrainians or Gazans, they would be crossing their fingers that Biden stays in office, for that is the only hope for their respective futures.
Recognizing all this, please understand the frustrations of people like me who feel they see the writing on the wall; that one may be able to pat themselves on the back for not voting for anyone — and yet the ultimate outcome is more people suffer. Respectfully, if I have to choose between fighting for Gazans and Ukrainians or women's rights, I'm going to choose to fight for them over hurting the feelings of anonymous users grandstanding from the comforts of their safe homes. At the same time, look at the subject-line of this very submission. We know right-wingers are doing this; so it's very hard to be patient with people when they quack like the right-wing duck and you recognize that literally the only people to benefit from this divisive wedge-driving is none other than fascist right-wing Republicans. So in the end, whether it's intentional astroturfing or it's naivety, the outcome remains the same and so that's why people like me tend to identify these two groups as one. For the record, again, I'm not really a liberal; while I'm not full-blown socialist/commie I'm closer to a Social Democrat Bernie Sanders type who endorses something akin to the Nordic Model of a well-regulated market system backed by strong social safety nets and select-nationalized industries with strong labor unions.
And I appreciate your civil attempts at clarifying your stance too. To the degree that I think we're both talking past each other.
On my part, even as an outsider to US politics, I have been getting more and more frustrated with a lot of the bullying rhetoric I see on this platform directed towards potential voters that are very concerned about the US's current complicity in the ongoing genocide. I see them getting talked down to with utter contempt. Being berated by people who insouciantly weigh a potential loss of comforts at home against the real and current killing of tens of thousands of innocent civilians and the forced famine of hundreds of thousands.
Now is the only time that they can apply pressure on Biden. Now that he actually needs something from them. But (like MLK's white moderates) people here are telling them that "now is not the time" and a whole spectrum of worse accusations too. But if the civil rights movement hadn't agitated and pressed for change decades would have passed before the moderates would have opened their eyes and acted beyond the pale.
Personally, I agree ostensibly with your calculus (though not with your particular framing of it but it is still a very, very tight call) but if I was a US voter I would be vocally holding my vote hostage until the last moment to make sure that my discontent was given the greatest chance of not being ignored.
More importantly (and central to this whole discussion) i still believe that people have a right to respectful discourse if they can't morally make it over the sizable hurdles.
Which brings me round back to you. You've been very patient and civil throughout this discourse even though we have different perspectives. So my 'beef' ain't wit you my friend. Though I do wonder what is your line in the ground that if both of the two main candidates were guilty of something that you'd drop the lesser of two evils calculus and vote for a third party. For me both are terrible choices but the potential for long term democratic, human rights, and environmental protection regression under Trump cannot be underestimated
Thanks for the cordial response. At the end of the day, this is why my number one issue in America is pushing for Campaign Finance / Election Reform, so that anyone can vote for whom they like without necessarily compromising the "back-up plan" while getting ensnared in the Spoiler Effect of our terrible system. The electoral college system sucks; the FPTP system sucks. So much is on the line that stress is high. We are faced between pressuring the Democratic president too much and risking forfeiting the election to the guy with zero moral decency and who wants to level Gaza and will be stuck there for 4 years without. In a properly-running system, these things can occur in tandem without necessarily risking a loss to the greater of two evils, but alas...
In the meantime, my suggestion for everyone is to focus not so much criticizing Biden directly, but I think it would be more fruitful to hold discussions with Pro-Israeli crowds and those who in polling show undecided on Israel's actions. E.g.,:
Because at the end of the day, the President during an election year is going to mirror the polls and not risk trying to influence or get ahead of them — especially when he's already at best matching Trump's polling. The more the polls shift, the more Biden will shift. It's win-win because it doesn't target Biden himself and cause resentment to the individual, risking people to not vote for him — but it also targets those who actually hold the views that are slowing Biden's departure from Israeli ass-kissing. Otherwise it puts Biden in a bind because both polarized groups are effectively threatening to cease support to Biden; thus the bigger group will win that risk-assessment.
I anticipate Biden to continue distancing himself from Israel; and hopefully that comes with a ceasefire and conditional aid to Israel, which should hopefully satisfy many.
Not if my conscious isn't ok with voting for a genocide-doer at all
Then you risk letting the person who will commit genocide even more.
How is more genocide better than less genocide for your conscience?
Wrong, as I don't live in a swing state. You know, like the majority of Americans?
I can safely not vote for either knowing that my state isn't going to go to Trump. I even personally know 2 people who voted Trump last election who are going third party this time around, so I'm DOUBLE-covrred.
I just love seeing people online automatically assume people are in swing states (or that the EC doesn't exist) and try to guilt trip people. It's hilarious
Wait, was it your conscience or is it because you don't live in a swing-state...? Because you dodged the question:
If you live in a firmly blue state that will vote for Biden, then sure your entire point is moot. But just like how red states have turned blue or at least purple (Arizona), blue or swing-states can turn red (e.g., Ohio). So it might be worth voting just to ensure that trend continues.
Because Republicans love this messaging you're now promoting; for it only weakens blue state strongholds as you expect other voters to do the work for you.
Can't read, or unfamiliar with how US elections work?
Because I don't live in a swing state my lack of voting for Biden does not support Trump
So my vote is for no genocide but my state will force it to become some genocide through the EC
If you want to pretend like a Californian not voting Biden is somehow giving the election to Trump: that's a you problem and I find it hilarious
And? Maybe the Dems shouldn't put forth garbage options then. don't blame voters for the DNCs inability to do basic shit to win elections.
i live in a swing state, and my lack of voting for biden also does not support trump. only a vote for trump supports trump.
Maybe you should've run for office yourself? Perhaps you should've primaried harder? Don't be upset that the nation chose Joe Biden; welcome to Democracy, or "are you unfamiliar with how US elections work?" How silly.
I say again: your not voting still runs the risk — even in a blue state — that could possibly turn red in lieu of your own laziness and end up promoting the candidate who commits MORE genocide. How is that better for your conscience, again...? You still have yet to directly answer conveniently.
Facts:
Ah, yes, I'll just run for an office that requires I be at least 7 years older than I currently am. Then, surely, I'd have better choices. Do you really not get how shit of a point that is?
As if the DNC was going to not nom Biden, lol
Nope. If you actually think CA will turn red then you're MORE delusional than the MAGAts.
Approaching MAGA levels of reality denial to try and push the fault onto voters here buddy.
I have, you just want to live in a black and white reality.
I assume you live somewhere you actually have to vote for Biden and are just incredibly upset that there are people out there who dont have to hold their nose and vote for him. Sucks for you
If your vote doesn't matter, why did you start out bitching about choosing not to vote for genocide, only to backpedal when I cornered you in the fact that one candidate would certainly commit MORE genocide? Your argument is senseless and a blatant attempt at moving the goalpost.
Regardless I've made my case and believe any reasonable bystander to this conversation can see it plainly.
If it doesn't concern you, and you're not voting anyway, then perhaps just stay in your lane. Meanwhile learn how US elections work. The bIG baD dNc doesn't just unilaterally appoint Biden lmao.
Because people like you insist we need to vote no matter what?
Never backpedaled, your reading comprehension is trash.
You mean when you brought up an irrelevant point? Trump doing more genocide is irrelevant to me as California ain't gonna give our 55 to him. You're really struggling with this basic concept.
If it makes you feel better to think that, go ahead.
The US is my lane, dipshit. Just because you don't like my choice doesn't mean it's not a valid choice. Fuck authoritarian cunts like you.
Repeating my insult to you is weak form. Just because I shorthanded something to "DNC chooses" doesn't mean they unilaterally do everything. You know that, but want to paint me as a moron so you can feel better about yourself
I say again: fuck you and every authoritiarian who wants to try to force a vote on other people.
Found one
Y'all reuse the same tactics too: when accused of something, copy/paste it but change a couple of words around. EPIC WIN!!
It's boring, do something different.
Exact same arguments are made to minimise right wing extremists, "has to be a left wing false flag".
Both are possible. The enemy is extremism, regardless of leaning.
You can't really divide right wingers. They fall in line, because they are close minded. The left's tent is much bigger and thus much easier to divide.
@madcaesar @pendulum_
And the left doesn't hate itself.
The right is so desperate to be upset that they will believe anything except reality.
Unfortunately it's not only the right. A lot of people from all walks of life are jumping on misleading articles because they aling with their views and don't bother fact checking them. You see it plenty on Lemmy.
This is a perfect example of truthful mainstream propaganda.
I have no doubt all of the facts in this piece are correct, but they're also aligned in such a way to suggest to the reader that the real root of the problem is that commoners are allowed to have anonymous social media accounts not tied to a real name or some government ID program.
It also doesn't distinguish between anonymous and pseudonemous, which is important.
This.
The real way to deal with this issue is immedate fact checking of information.
The article, however, suggests that the way to deal with the issue is forcing people to use their real identities on line, which will only serve to silence speech. How many of these right wing psychopaths will happily threaten to murder you if you argue they’re wrong?
The answer to bad speech is more speech, not suppression.
Fact checking the firehose of falsehoods? That's never going to work.
We should teach how to be critical of information.
I keep running into people who say moderation is impossible at scale.
It does not make surface level sense to me. But it’s true. Ban evasion is too easy. With no repercussions behavior is not socially enforced.
If you think through it, and do want moderation and bans to work, it always comes back to having to have an authoritative index of all users. And that gets dystopian almost instantly. It always needs some organization or government to tell the platform that a user is who they say they are.
What about networks of trust instead of a single index?
That sounds interesting. I’d be curious to learn if:
You and I both! Unfortunately I am familiar with the concept but unfamiliar with any specific details.
Moderation at scale, like democracy, only works with an educated user base. When your user base is too dumb to help self-police, shit gets very difficult.
So people don't deserve, or can't be trusted enough, to be allowed the right to have anonymous online accounts? Everything needs be tied to a centralized/government ID system because the average person is too stupid?
Not what I said. But you are proving my point.
The fact that you can't see the irony in your own response, is more evidence for your point than anything else.
Regardless, I don't think that should deprive you of the right to anonymity.
Cool story bro. Still not what I said.
There is not some conspiracy here where media companies are colluding with God knows who to covertly and subtly spread the idea that anonymity online is bad.
It's more likely that you don't want that to be true, but recognize that at least on some level it is true, and this is how you're grappling with that cognitive dissonance.
You're wrong and I hope you take the time to learn why. Start here.
This doesn't show there is some conspiracy, it shows that there could be one. Maybe I should not be so forceful in my dissent, and I should say there is a potential the conspiracy is happening, but neither you nor the other poster has actually offered up any evidence of such a conspiracy. A conspiracy is always just a good way to dismiss things we don't want to admit are true or might be true.
You keep saying conspiracy because it's easy to discount that label, a label that I never used.
I wasn't describing a plot by some old men in a smoke filled room, I was pointing out an example of propaganda used to manufacture consent.
Unfortunately, the culprit is the system, working as designed. That's an exponentially more dangerous villain then any cabal could ever be.
Because even without outright saying, it's clearly implied. And, besides, you've still provided zero evidence to support the assertion. You are doing what you are accusing me of doing: using a label to assert (or in my case, dismiss) something without evidence.
This. This right here, people, is why the community rules exist and why I'm happy to see them consistently enforced.
AnonymousForeignFTFY
Chinese, North Korean, and Russian shills.
Specified for you.
Oh, cool, a well researched article on right-wing disinformation campaigns. Can't wait to watch the Lemmy liberals accuse leftists of being a part of this without any evidence.
Can't wait for the liberals in power to try and expand the surveillance state using this as a pretext.
Yeah, I did notice this article had a weirdly anti-anonymity undertone, as though corporate algorithms designed push conflict and sensationalism weren't the driving force of disinformation.
Um, aktuly, social credit score is from China, sweetie. Liberals are for liberty, it's right there in the name
I'm really happy with all the fucking porn bans and want more, yes please daddy, go through everything I"m doing and punish me for everytime I didn't kiss the America Flag
Can't wait for these supposed "leftists" who-are-totally-not-righties-hiding-behind-anonymity to take for granted literally all the historical and modern day progress that came through none other than — you guessed it — the liberal legislature and liberal Justices.
From child labor laws to the civil rights act to same sex marriage — thank a liberal.
(Disclaimer: I'm further left than liberal on the political spectrum)
Lmao, yeah, thank the well known liberals and liberals only, like MLK and Malcolm X, for civil rights they were forced to acknowledge or face race riots.
Definitely wasn't the liberal establishment that assassinated them either. And liberal is the opposite of conservative btw 🤣
Don't bother, I just wasted a full day arguing with this guy on exactly this topic, and he just kept doubling down. I even quoted the portion of Letter from a Birmingham Jail about white moderates and his response was, "But then white moderates passed the Civil Rights Act a year later! How curious!" There is no amount of information that will convince him that moderate Liberals weren't responsible for the victories of the Civil Right movement.
Edit: See what I mean? Guys desperate for my attention 2 days later.
Always makes me wonder who these chuckleheads think were doing it before.
Exactly. Every time Liberals yield to pressure from leftists, these chuds want to credit the Liberals.
This confidently-incorrect fellow, who:
Increasingly deflected,
resorted to more personal attacks and,
ultimately ran away from the discussion after I started citing primary sourced quotes like:
and:
and:
From https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/civil_rights/cloture_finalpassage.htm and https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2004/summer/civil-rights-act
For which he could not even respond to let alone refute — Truly believed the 1963 Birmingham letter was some smoking-gun when — checks notes — those same white moderates MLK Jr. was talking about wound up passingthe Civil Rights Act 1 year later.
Yes, you read those quotes correctly: Liberals were pushing to strengthen the Civil Rights Act while conservatives were trying to water it down.
Smh.
Don't tell him which ideology such surviving activists from John Lewis of the Edmund Pettus Bridge march or Jim Clyburn, both of the civil Rights era joined under.
Edit: See what I mean, guys? Still has nothing substantive to respond with. Truth can hurt sometimes. I'm still floored he tried to claim that conservatives supported the Civil Rights Act more than Liberals lol.
Isn't it funny that civil rights activists of the time from John Lewis to Clyburn joined the liberal Democrats?
But yes two things can happen simultaneously: there can be activists, and then there can be liberals who actually passed the Civil Rights Act. You know, liberals.
Sure wasn't confederate conservatives now was it?
Can't tell if you're saying Liberals are good or if Same Sex Marriage and Civil Rights are bad.. not comfortable either way
I have it on very good authority from several Lemmy libs that I'm a Russian troll.
Well, the types of misinformation will vary but anywhere people gather and have discussions is bound to have some bullshit floating around that gets spread around. It's a fault of humanity, not of any particular persuasion. But there is a far cry from rumors about how to find the Triforce in Ocarina of Time to shit like "vaccines cause autism" and such.
Yeah, but there's a tendency online in liberal circles to think that any criticism from the left is right-wing or foreign interference. I've seen a lot of people in the political groups here claim that the leftists they're arguing with are part of hostile disinformation campaigns, which is just silly; online propagandists make Facebook Groups and Pages to create memes and articles, and hundreds of sock-puppet accounts to disseminate them. They don't waste hours writing dozens of replies to a single account on a small, niche website.
Exactly. I'm not spreading propaganda. I'm just an idiot.
In the brave new world of LLMs, it no longer takes hours to write comments and replies all day in favour of some political or commercial view. The whole process can be automated! Cool, right?
Well, I've never used an LLM to argue with strangers online, but I would imagine that it would take a lot of effort to keep getting coherent responses to every comment. But even if it is fast and easy, are you really suggesting that right-wing or foreign trolls are concentrating on individual arguments on niche communities? I've heard of fake news outlets, astroturfed hashtags, propaganda memes, reply spam, and other broad influence campaigns, but I've never heard of troll farms being used for individual arguments, especially on small websites. It seems like, even did take minimal effort, it would also have minimal influence. Do you have any evidence this is happening?
Well, I've seen clear examples of AIs responding to comments on hot-button topics on reddit. But I guess that isn't a small website. In any case, the only point I was really trying to make is that widespread social manipulation is becoming easier. If someone decides they want to influence a discussion somewhere, they can do that without a great deal of effort. The comments don't have to be detailed or coherent. Simply being on-topic and persistent is enough, raising vaguely relevant talking-points whenever a response is expected.
Part of the problem is there's lots of gullible people who repeat whatever nonsense makes them feel righteous. It's usually not clear if you're talking to a dumbass who fell for right-wing or Russian imperialist talking points, or an actual neonazi pretending to be a misguided leftist for trolling purposes, or an actual Russian imperialist pretending to be a misguided leftist for trolling purposes. I think you're right though that Lemmy is not a likely target for any kind of organized propaganda campaign because it's relatively tiny and would be a waste of time for those sorts of groups.
Has anyone considered that these "anonymous" or "foreign" operators are just sophisticated bots?
Many of them probably are, but they are bots designed to spread that information...
And they're doing it because they think it is funny
I truly am curious on why you think someone is spreading this amount of misinformation as a joke. Usually I see explanations such as:
I know trolls exist but could they really be this influential? I would hope not.
It's been a staple rhetorical strategy for fascists to both be entirely serious and "totally joking" with the same exact statements. It allows them to consistently push the boundaries of acceptable prejudice while always having a fall-back. "You took that seriously!?!?".
Like the recent Rudy Guiliani's joke about New York (a place he ran) being a communist state. That seems to add up.
https://lemmy.world/post/14008856
“Users”
2001 called and asked for its headline back.
It makes sense. What's the first thing you're going to do when you arrive in a foreign country, when you have no money, don't speak the language, don't know what you're going to do tomorrow, have been through hell after literally walking thousands of kilometres?
Register for voting in the local presidential election of course! You still have your napkin that your communist contact gave you with a quick scribble: "Beeden, good; Troomp, no good".
I'm pretty sure that automated reply was just 💩, since that's what he does with all of his other companies.
"People acting like people in spaces where people gather. More on this breaking story at 11."
But illegally, though
See: the people still pushing DNC conspiracy theories almost a decade later.
I mean, okay. But that's not specific to right-wing stuff.
I'm pseudonymous -- "tal" isn't my given name or surname. I like participating in forums under a pseudonym. I'm not really enthusiastic about forums -- like Google Groups -- that tried forcing users to use their real names.
Like, if the issue is with use of pseudonyms in general, I don't think that that's gonna work, because I would bet that people generally like using forums under pseudonyms.
Pseudonyms reduce use of reputation compared to systems where a real-life identity is involved, because someone can always get a new one.
There are ways to still leverage reputation in pseudonymous environments. So, okay. I'm a pretty prolific commenter. I bet that there are people on here who have learned to recognize "tal". You can build a reputation associated with a pseudonym, and then people can trust pseudonyms based on the reputation they build.
One thing you can do is to have the software make reputation statistics more-visible. Like, Reddit Enhancement Suite tracked your upvotes and downvotes, and would tell you, next to usernames how many times you'd upvoted or downvoted someone in the past, so that each person had the computer helping you track what you generally thought of their comments in the past.
You could maybe do something like get "expensive" identities that aren't linked to a real identity. Like, say I need to pay $100 to buy a pseudonym from someone ("12954881241221@100-dollar-id.verisign.com"). I generate a public/private keypair. I send Verisign the public key and money, and and they cryptographically sign it. At that point, I can be "tal", but have bans and reputation linked to that underlying ID, and if I get banned or something, it'd cost me 100 bucks to get a new identity. Could have multiple identities, different costs. The problem is that the cost there may not be sufficient to deter someone running a dedicated disinfo campaign. I mean, okay, so say an identity is $100. I buy a thousand, that's $100,000. If you want to run a disinfo campaign, that's probably not a lot of money.
Note that with enough money, you can also attack the above "reputation" route, either by paying people to build up an identity -- as was probably done to build reputation associated with the "Jia Tan" group's attack on xz that was in the news recently -- or by simply buying accounts from legitimate users who are willing to sell their account.
It is not about being anonymous. We all are that way here, and we value that.
It is about them weaponizing this totally normal thing, abusing it to cause problems irl. i.e. one person making multiple accounts to act as if something is more popular than it really is.
The biggest issue as I see it is “trusted” known people, like Musk or Greene amplifying and rebroadcasting disinformation as fact. In a world that made more sense people who engender some level of public trust wouldn’t speculatively rebroadcast suppositions or outright lies/fabrications. Imagine if I posted something on an anonymous Twitter account about extraterrestrials having a base inside the moon, then NASA making a post on their social media that said “Who are these extraterrestrials operating their clandestine Moon base, and what is their intent????”. Nobody would give two fucks about me posting the initial content, but NASA would lose literally all credibility within the entire scientific community. The issue as I see it is “credible” known persons treating these anonymous accounts as vetted, verified sources, which over time has led to a sad amount of people losing their ability to self-assess sources of information they read, now to them every anonymous account is potentially speaking truth regardless of what they’re saying.
I guess this would generally fall under the weaponization you mentioned, but it’s far more insidious than that. I totally believe Musk knows what he’s doing when he makes comments like that mentioned in the article. Does Trump? I think he does, I think it’s been sufficiently proven at this point that Trump is aware of his bullshit and putting on an act to rally his supporters, to sell the character he portrays himself as. Does Greene? I don’t know, she seems kind of fucking unintelligent, I could believe she was one of those people that lost that ability to self-assess and just believes bat-shit, unhinged theories. This is why it’s insidious, it creeps up then bootstraps itself into this self-sustaining engine once you get the initial believers into the power structure. Once that happens how do you separate attacks on disinformation from attacks on the political party itself?
Jon Stewart spent most of his entire career railing against the Fox News, as he called it, "bullshit mountain", and there is very much evidence that its founder came from Russia with the express intention of making it that way. Or if not, then like Tucker Carlson, at least did not turn away free money when it was offered to him to act in a certain particular manner.
Though what I will point you to instead, b/c you seem like you will REALLY enjoy it, is the video series from Innuendo Studios called "The Alt-Right Playbook", which contains essentially the material from a college-level course in this exact subject matter, yet expressed in extremely accessible language by anyone willing to put in the effort to think it through. You should LOVE it!:-P It's entirely free too, though hopefully people donate to help him make more of such fantastic material.
Anyway, imagine if you will: a bird does not "know" how to build a nest, they just do it. If asked, a bird cannot explain the matters of structural integrity, materials resiliency, and so on, even if it somehow could speak (or like if you could read its thoughts). Even so, it manages to accomplish the task b/c of the instincts built into it - i.e., as Daniel Dennett explains (famous atheist apologetics philosopher, here I refer to his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea, though the following is my paraphrase not direct quote), "Nobody is arguing that design work was not done, the question lies rather in who did that design work - a God or the blind natural forces of millions of years of evolution."
In short: conservatives can be quite effective, even without having the slightest clue of what precisely they are doing or why, as in they (or imagine another hypothetical example of a con-man or -woman) may not know the details of the underlying processes by which it works, yet they still recognize what works vs. does not, and act to exploit what they see. Those January 6th protesters, despite being traitors who tried to perform literally treasonous and fully murderous acts within Congress and the White House, at the same time also thought of themselves as "patriots" who were there to "defend the Constitution" - despite most never having read the actual primary document, or how incongruous those two thoughts would seem to anyone who gives the matter even 10 seconds of rational thought, yet despite that they literally believe both at the same time, and others who were not there choose to believe that it was "peaceful". The Alt-Right Playbook series explains how this can be accomplished, but even from what I have said so far, you can see that it works.
Another quick peek into it is that few people believe all the crazy stuff, nor is the goal (of those putting it out in the first place, e.g. many of the material has been directly traced to Russian interference e.g. anti-vax memes) even to get someone to truly believe even a single one of them. Rather, the goal is to foment distrust in the overall systems. Which let us be frank: the government truly is corrupt - the conservatives do not have to lie about that much at least - and so then that creates an opening with which they can further widen the divide, maybe even getting them to do something more drastic like secretly tamper with COVID vaccine stocks even in the midst of the pandemic. And then in the meantime, they vote Republican, which has the effect of halting aid to Ukraine, which furthers the Russian agenda - so despite the fact that whatever happens to us here in the USA may even be mostly irrelevant, still we (the general populace) have been used to further an agenda that is not our own. Yet, as time marches on, it might become so, and we may one day form an alliance together with Russia, rather than act to repel it, if Trump gets elected again. Russia is using a quite brilliant strategic maneuver there - what boggles my mind is that it is working. But, we (Americans) are weak as we have faced no true aggressors in most of our lifetimes - even Boomers grew up after WWII, and Korea and Vietnam were somewhat far-off affairs, as too was the Gulf War. We could not imagine a nation (Russia) wanting to literally eat us alive. So we seem to have not truly feared its influence over us anywhere close to the degree that we should have.
And that video series explains in large part why: b/c of the onion-layer effect whereby people get sucked in by the more inoffensive material, even while being groomed to be brought deeper in to the more insidious stuff later on, but only when they are ready do they finally start to realize that all their "joking" previously (like: "it's the fault of the Jews!:-P", which they did not truly believe... at the time) has, at first, a grain of truth inside of it, and then later, that it was never a joke to begin with at all. However, if they were to have been presented with the full Nazi/fascist agenda all at once, they would have turned it away, yet like a frog in a cooked pot (a false analogy btw - frogs are smart enough to jump out, it is people who are that dumb as to not!!) they continue to be changed by marinating in the shallower stuff, until as they get deeper and deeper over time, one day they finally are ready to accept the whole reality. Or not, but even so, them remaining in the shallower regions still helps further the agenda overall - e.g. in voting, and in being able to use those people like a magic story's mage or a necromancer uses a "meat shield": to deflect attention away from those who truly do believe.
Getting back to what you said: does Musk, or Trump, truly believe in what they are saying and doing? I would rather rephrase the question to be instead: does the authenticity of their belief systems even matter, when they are acting effectively in the services of the facists either way? At what point do they need to cross over to become a "true believer", when all along their actions were operationally indistinguishable from one anyway? Then, as you say there are people such as Greene, who regardless of their "true beliefs", are nonetheless useful to the cause.
I applaud your asking these questions - so few people do it seems. True answers are difficult to come by, requiring many hours (and days/weeks/months, maybe years?) of thought, though fortunately there are resources that can help speed that along, and yet how does one even find such things in this era of enshittification where you cannot trust
half90% of what you see & hear - but even so, I maintain that some things like that video series have the "ring of truth" about them, and that once you see the logic behind it, you can never go back to not knowing ever again. Enjoy it!:-)Very well put, thank you for taking the time to lay this all out.
Thank you - I do try to make shorter replies but when there is much to be said, I don't want to shirk from it either! And those videos are PACKED with info, so hopefully a peek at the content first helps tantalize learning the full depth of what they offer:-).
cough HACKthePrisons, FederatingIsTooHard, Ensign_Crab, TokenBoomer cough
It may come as a shock, but IRL, I'm not an admiral. lol
I think the takeaway here is to be more critical of what's presented as fact rather than whether it comes from someone (pseudo)anonymous.
But I asked you if you were really an admiral and you said it was a stupid question! How could you ever be so deceptive?
LOL. I never said I was, and it was a stupid question. You just saw my outfit and made certain assumptions. xD
(This probably sounds hostile to someone scrolling by who doesn't know the character lol)
Next you'll say you don't have epic British mutton chops
Day ruined :(
I think the cult of ignorance is just as prevalent across all political ideologies the left is not better than the right is no better than etc etc. Its all just idiots arguing with idiots about things they don't know or are purposefully ignorant of.
Nope. The both sides argument is horse shit. GOP voters are less educated by a wide margin. Try again buddy.
Not true in 2014, but maybe things have changed in the last 10 years.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289614001081
Individuals who identify as Republican have greater probability knowledge
Individuals who identify as Republican have higher verbal reasoning ability
Individuals who identify as Republican have better question comprehension
Cognitive ability’s effect on party identity works through socio-economic position
Sure
Another way of saying: right wing communities are under heavy attack
Unpopular opinion: if you want to save the internet, no more anonymity. One person, one identity online
You will get LGBTQ people killed by forcing them to use their real identities online.
This take isn’t unpopular, it’s terrible
I get what you're saying, and why, but it's a really bad idea. Force people to use their real identities online and you'll end up with people no longer talking or they'll be killed.
Also, this single identity is impossible to implement on the technical level. It's too easy to cheat with that,.
I feel like this risk is drastically overblown. Every LGBTQ person isn't going to be hunted down by some deranged lunatic just for speaking their mind.
If you're in Afghanistan dealing with the Taliban, fine I'll buy that you need anonymity. However, for those of us average folks in a western country that still has reasonable laws on the books... I don't see it happening.
Most people are already trivially doxable. If you really wanted to, I'm sure you could figure out how to come to my residence and harm me if you were sufficiently motivated (please don't, that would be a major downer).
I've had plenty of arguments on the Internet, thus far that hasn't happened. Most people just want to live their life...
This also goes the other way too, the nastiest people/the ones making repeated threats could be more quickly identified/stopped from making those threats, creating swarms of harassment accounts, cheaters could be stopped in games because a ban would be a "no you are really truly banned for X number of years" (and those of us that enjoy multiplayer video games could stop having to install ever more invasive software on our computers).
I think there's a time and place for anonymity; anonymity has certainly allowed history to be changed for the better in the past, but I don't think it should be the default (it never has been until very recent history)... and I'm very concerned that anonymity could end up changing history for worse (and already has).
Trump may never have been elected if the broader public wasn't flooded with anonymous "supporters" in 2016 and those of us arguing for Clinton ended up wasting time arguing with bots.
No idea what you mean by this. It's pretty easy to have a single identity and/or government verifiable identity system.
Telling people they are over reacting to death threats is a take...
It is "easy" to have a single Identity system, but that doesn't address the criticism of it being difficult to secure. But either way, it seems Florida has volunteered for this experiment with the age restriction for social media.
That's a gross oversimplification of my comment, by a brand new account too, very cool.
It's a charitable simplification too. I'm not the one that emphasized that not every LGBTQ person is going to be hunted.
Because it's absurd to say that nobody would be harmed; speaking in absolutes is the antithetical of intelligent discussion for complex issues.
How many LGBTQ people were killed because Trump and all the faux Trump supporting accounts weren't stopped in 2016? How many more will be killed if this problem of bot accounts, nation state actors, and people making threats with 0 accountability isn't solved and disinformation and extremism spreads further?
Never underestimate the need for privacy in this world. In WWII local resistance cells would blow up government registration offices so that the Nazis wouldn't know who is Jew and who is not. If you're read that Republicans 2025 document, you'd be worried too about the government knowing if you are gay had an abortion or whatnot.
Then, a single government verifiable Identity system. Great! So WHICH government is going todo this? The US government? For all citizens world wide? How would that work, exactly?
Will I only be able to talk with people in my country now to be able to force this? And who will make all sites to use this? What if I have a website hosted in a non participating country? Block that site? Are we going to block millions of sites now?
It's not doable on a practical level because it would only work with a single world government, and even then it's easy to cheat with. If I'm the main administrator for the website, I could simply make a post with your name saying that you want to kill the president. Since it's your name, you go to jail now, somehow? So okay, do we then only allow big sites with paid admins that sign NDA's and contracts that they will not cheat? Are we only going to push bigger sites to do this?
This is not a practical solution.
You raise a lot of questions, but a bombardment of questions doesn't mean there aren't good answers to those questions.
You cite the Nazis, but you might be surprised to learn post-war Germany to this day has harsh laws in this area https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/germanys-laws-antisemitic-hate-speech-nazi-propaganda-holocaust-denial/
There's something to be said for protecting people that need protecting, but there's also something to be said for holding propaganda spewing nut jobs accountable and limiting their reach.
Also please do not confuse privacy with anonymity. It stops being about your privacy the second you start speaking publicly. Maybe you need privacy to maintain anonymity while doing so, but attacking unfettered anonymity is not an inherent attack on privacy.
One idea that's rather simple would be to allow users to show a verified status that's backed by their own government but doesn't actually expose their identity (just that yes, this is a person from e.g. the United States and this is their government linked account). Users could then choose to filter out folks that aren't verified or aren't part of their own country.
For a federated system you could federate a token around that can be checked against government services either client side or server side, periodically.
Someone stealing someone else's identity is already a serious crime. In the US at least, you're guaranteed a trial and even then this would surely be exceptionally fringe. You could also further protect against this by requiring post to be cryptographically signed, but this is getting to an extreme level of conspiracy.
The fact of the matter is, right now a single person from a foreign country can represent an unlimited number of accounts that are indistinguishable from the account of a person across town. You have no way of knowing whether you're even talking to someone that has residency let alone the right to vote in your country.
That is not healthy political discourse.
The Internet was just fine before all the normies got here. I suggest that we make the Internet difficult to use again to trim some fat.