In the grand scheme, probably, yeah. On a smaller scale, I’m well aware because I’m also doing what I can to fight it.
I encourage others to join me:
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Report blatant misinformation
- Some communities or even instances may not enforce any rules along those lines (in which case you should probably just block them), but if something is clearly posted to deceive or misinform, then you should report it.
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Fact check trolls
- First and Foremost - Caution: Don’t assume someone is troll just because they disagree with you. Differences of opinion happen. Differences of objective facts, OTOH, should be checked.
- It’s easy to downvote and move on, but left unchallenged, their message is left to stand on its own. There are people who see the large number of downvotes as “proof” they are right and the “truth” is being suppressed. Yes, really 🙄.
- If you have the time, debunk their positions and provide citations from credible sources.
- Yes, trolls will often gish-gallop and this makes fact checking tedious. Still, do what you can when you can. If you only have the time/energy to debunk one of their statements, try to find one that may be load bearing to the others.
- Don’t attack the person, attack the position. You lose credibility once you start attacking the person (and that’s often violating a community rule and is just rude). Plus, they may not be a troll but simply misinformed themselves. Personal attacks will never win anyone over to your side.
- Remember that you’re not trying to change the troll’s mind; they’re on a mission, and they will not be deterred. Rather, your mission is to set the record straight for others who come across the post / comment chain.
- Finally, recognize Sealioning and know when to quit. Thanks to @Cryophilia@lemmy.world for that.
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Look for patterns / agendas in users’ post histories
- Does this person only post about a particular topic, and are most of those posts putting that topic in a typically flattering / unflattering light?
- Does the poster ever participate in any other communities or discuss other topics beyond a few here and there to point at as “proof” they’re not here with an agenda?
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Make sure you don’t take headlines as “news” unless you’ve vetted the source.
- If a news post has a link shortener as its URL, it’s probably to some sketchy site. (99% of the time, anyway)
- If it has an archive link that doesn’t indicate the source, at least click into it to see where the headline comes from. That’s my main gripe with archive links: they obfuscate sources and give a tabloid trash headline the same weight as a legitimate one.
- Remember that even with credible news sources, headlines are written to generate clicks and ad revenue. When time allows, read the whole story and provide any missing nuance/clarification in the comments for those who won’t read the whole article. This is particularly helpful when someone with an agenda posts credible articles, in bad faith, to push said agenda by using misleading or loaded headlines.
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Media Bias Fact Check is your friend
- https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/
- There are browser plugins you can install: Firefox Chrome
- The Tesseract UI is still functional and automatically adds MBFC badges and reports to posts. If that’s not your cup of tea, request a similar feature from the developers of your preferred Lemmy frontend.
- If the only sources covering a particular topic are considered low credibility, there’s probably a reason they’re the only ones covering that story. Alternatively, they may be publishing information that has not been corroborated yet.
- Social media is NOT a reliable source of news. Even if a reporter is posting story details to their timeline, that information may or may not be corroborated, there may be contradicting updates posted later that don’t get shared, etc. While it’s tempting to want to know what’s happening RIGHT NOW, wait for information to be validated.
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Unsubscribe / block news communities on Lemmy that allow low credibility sources to flourish
- Alternately, report those submissions. If the mods don’t take action, then unsub / block.
- If you’re an instance admin, consider admin blocking / hiding those communities
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Keep Bettetridge’s Law of Headlines in mind when the headline asks the reader a question
- “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.” (Usually, anyway)
Edit: Sorry, didn’t mean for this to turn into a whole TED talk. lol. Just kept thinking of things and adding additional tips suggested by commenters.
Additional Information: Tactics of Disinformation (PDF)
If anyone has any other tips, please share.
Here’s one:
Actually READ the Mueller Report.
In the section around social media, it describes how IRA employees masquerade on EVERY side of a wedge issue, with the goal being to polarize.
Like, their goal isn’t to crush BLM or take away abortion rights. Those are table stakes. They don’t REALLY care. That doesn’t destroy a democracy.
Their goal is to make having difficult conversations impossible by making each side appear to be as irrational and shrill as possible. They want people to conclude that whoever is on the other side of any issue is a dangerous lost cause, unfit for participation in society.
With this understanding, people need to understand that whatever your political alignment, there are IRA employees in your spaces saying things you might agree with. But just because you agree with them, doesn’t mean that their methodologies aren’t specifically tailored to damage Western Democracy.
it describes how IRA employees masquerade on EVERY side of a wedge issue, with the goal being to polarize.
I’m pretty sure I’ve encountered several of those on Lemmy. I won’t say who, but they frequently get called out and their post/comment history seems to confirm that.
Those types are classified as “false ally” if I’m not mistaken?
If I were getting paid for this I’d be a lot less grumpy
If you were getting paid for this you’d still be grumpy, but it would be performative instead of genuine.
I’m glad my sincerity comes across in this medium. I’m really quite grumpy.
I know, right?! 😆
That’s why I’m encouraging everyone to chip in and crowdsource it a bit.
No, I mean being a false ally. I get accused of it all the time and I’m just mad I’m doing it for free.
Ah. Well, I don’t know what to tell you there. lol I can only speak for myself.
Personally, I never accuse anyone of anything; I merely look at their history and judge for myself and respond accordingly (or not) on a case by case basis.
I did amend my first comment to caution against assuming someone is a troll just because they disagree with you. That also seems to be common from what I’ve seen: too many people (not just on Lemmy) seem to completely lack nuance and see the world in a black and white, binary way.
I think I’ll just turn around and accuse them of being IRA assets and cite the Mueller Report as evidence
This point was shown in the doc Hypernormalization too.
It’s pretty noticeable on Lemmy. I’m not entirely sure why there’s so many bad actors on here. On the one hand the small community means their hate dominates many threads, on the other there’s barely anyone here to influence.
There’s definitely also a lot of people who see the bad example created by bad actors and copy their style of discourse. I imagine a bunch of them will show up in this thread.
Get in early to look legitimate, and seed the hate within a niche group before it goes mainstream to ensure less work in the future.
I imagine they target every social media platform, including ones that are just starting, to various degrees. It’s easier to be part of the “in group” when that in group is smaller.
These guys thrive in small communities. Look at a lot of the city subreddits. They’ve been taken over by right wing reactionaries claiming there’s an unprecedented crime wave.
Fact check trolls
- Differences of objective facts, OTOH, should be checked.
Accounts that post lies shouldn’t just be fact-checked; they should also be reported for disinformation.
Correct.
I was trying to be generic as some communities or even instances don’t have or enforce rules like that. While I feel those should be avoided and blocked, you should definitely report misinformation anyway.
I would add to this: Talk about Information War. The core idea that warfare in the Information Age has both similarities and distinctions with traditional, physical warfare, needs to become more common knowledge.
Yes, trolls will often gish-gallop and this makes fact checking tedious. Still, do what you can when you can.
Don’t attack the person, attack the position
I have to disagree with these. Sealioning trolls run rings around us when we insist on taking the high road.
Ok, true. I am only recently learning of that technique.
Good point, though. I’ll update my guidance to mention sealioning and add a tip on knowing when to recognize it and quit.
I’m a believer you should always take the high road, for many reasons. Specifically, though, if you run afoul of community / instance rules, then your responses may get modded (rightfully, mind you) while the misinformation remains because it’s technically not in violation.
That’s actually a tactic I’ve seen in the wild: the troll will essentially goad someone into losing their temper and then report them. Basically the equivalent of the victim getting in trouble when fighting back against a bully at school.
I like to think of sealioning, traditional fact based refuting, and old-fashioned trolling as the rock-paper-scissors of online arguments. Facts beat trolls, sealions beat facts, trolls beat sealions.
I love that analogy and will probably steal it xD
I think this is a good point. It’s something I grapple with personally, because I’m a biochemist who is passionate about scientific communication, so “the high road” for me looks different than in many purely political discussions. I agree that there are cases when the appropriate and effective thing to do is to take the piss out of someone and not engage with their argument at all.
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mass program of civic education through schools, universities, and public advertising. Such a program should relentlessly emphasize the threat that Russia’s influence poses, clearly label it as an ongoing war, and give the public tools for understanding and countering Russian attacks in their varied forms
That’s the only really sound method they laid out imo. We can do it grassroots too, it doesn’t all have to be top-down organized and funded, it’s also on us a little bit.
The idea of flooding them with our own propaganda is interesting, but their information spaces are more tightly controlled than ours. It’s easier to reach those of them that come onto our turf, but those people will already be on guard.
But yea, there’s a war on. Whether we like it or not. We may be limited in how we can fight the physical side of it, but are far less constrained where this type of shit is concerned.
Lemmy.world has a big enough CIA influence, leave the rest of the world out of it
Y’all paranoid as fuck lol
