“Fucked your mom. Sorry you had to find out like this.”

They were always Nazis. The more mainstream-seeming “alt-right” guys were just suit Nazis. They feel more comfortable coming out in the open now, even if it’s still a bit draped in “doing it for lulz” deniability. I’m skeptical that they’re fully aware that it’ll hurt their legitimacy. They’re dug in like ticks in their echo chamber, are constantly goading each into being more openly extreme, and celebrate the push back there.

Hopefully this instructional video answers your questions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgGb9tSOKbs

Yes:

One, its terms of service ban content that “is violent or threatening or promotes violence or actions that are threatening to any other person.” Ghost founder and CEO John O’Nolan committed to us that Ghost’s hosted service will remove pro-Nazi content, full stop. If nothing else, that’s further than Substack will go, and makes Ghost a better intermediate home for Platformer than our current one.

I don’t think we’re completely saved forever but they tried making podcasts Spotify-exclusive. I remember a bunch of Gimlet podcast hosts being like “please come to Spotify to listen to us – it’s better than it used to be!” They ended up caving because people didn’t listen. Podcasting is built around RSS – even though people aren’t really aware of it – and people expect to get them this way.

RSS is the hero that saved us from Spotify (et at.) walling off podcasts behind their paywall.

Google weirdly gets a lot of credit for killing things that are very much alive and well.

Yes.

For example, if you search for the old fediversenews url, you can subscribe to it: https://venera.social/profile/fediversenews/

Yep, I follow a couple Lemmy communities from Friendica.

Do your parents need to know why you need to go to the doctor? Can’t you say it’s for some other, less embarrassing reason? Not that you need to feel embarrassed but I don’t think your parents will be harmed by the white lie. And it doesn’t really change the outcome for you, right?

A good place to start might be a book like ‘Autocracy, Inc.’ by Anne Applebaum. Unrelated to this but her book on the Holodomor, ‘Red Famine,’ is amazing too. She’s an expert on modern authoritarianism. The book’s about autocrats in general but deals a lot with disinformation and propaganda. It’ll give you a pretty high level view of who those people are, what their goals are, and how disinformation fits into their strategies. A big part of recognizing disinfo is being able to evaluate whose interests a piece of (dis)info might serve.

You’ll find a lot of books about Russian disinformation because Russia has been the most active, the most ambitious, and the most successful at weaponizing propaganda. I’d look for books written by academics but who are writing for a popular audience. ‘Active Measures’ by Thomas Rid is an example. That book in particular goes into the origin of disinformation in the Soviet Union (the term was actually coined by Stalin) and how it carried over into modern Russia. Russia’s a good starting point too because everyone else has copied them like crazy – although they’re now openly collaborating, Republicans are stealing from this playbook.

Bellingcat is good resource to get into the anatomy of disinformation networks and operations. They’re the gold standard in open source investigations and have uncovered some insane shit – disinfo networks, Russia downing MH17, a network of Russian illegals (like in ‘The Americans’). Reports like this one are extremely detailed and get into the nuts and bolts of how propaganda networks are structured and how information passes through them. Their ability to track down spies using the Russian equivalent of door dash is internet MacGyver shit too.

Caroline Orr Bueno is a disinformation researcher whose newsletter Weaponized Spaces also dives pretty deep into disinformation networks, often tracing it back to a single point of origin. She links to a lot of great resources and is super accessible. She’s also awesome. I assume she’s moved on to bsky but she used to be on Mastodon and would answer any questions you had about her work. Good person!

Stories, not Reels. Stories are photos that disappear after 24 hours.

I think it was just for like a week or two so it wouldn’t necessarily show up in the yearly averages in those charts.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2017/07/25/msnbc-beat-fox-because-it-covered-the-news/

“Malevolence tempered by incompetence”

One thing working in our favour is their utter stupidity. They’re constantly stepping on rakes and then having to devote resources to managing the fallout.

“Hey guys can you help me disconnect from the fire hose of human joy to appease all the grumps around me?”

We can’t and we won’t.

Raccoon for Friendica is great if you’re on Android.

I think we may need to reach a new consensus on this: is there still a quiet part?

People would be making Molotovs in their kitchens immediately.

As the person asking people to fact check the claims of weird conspiracy theorists, I’m gonna have to ask for your sources on that one.

Edit: For anyone wondering, MBFC is transparent about their funding sources.

Edit2: an MBFC conspiracy theorist just making shit up??? I’m shocked…

I’m awarding you three demerits for a reply that doesn’t make sense. Govern yourself accordingly.