The German foreign ministry, which commissioned the study after suspecting it was being targeted by bots, said the findings highlighted the need for governments to systematically tackle the growing number of disinformation campaigns and recognise the effect they could have on elections.

  • Moira_Mayhem@beehaw.org
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    9 months ago

    That’s kind of a thing that only pro-propaganda people say.

    It’s pretty blatant, propaganda focuses on emotional appeal and not factual information. Usually several forms of intellectual dishonesty are part of it as well.

    Any side by side comparison of propaganda material and legitimate sincere discourse makes this plain.

    • tryptaminev 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🇪🇺@feddit.de
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      9 months ago

      To summarize beforehand. I think you are underestimating propaganda as a whole and you are significantly underestimating the propaganda capeabilities of western countries. This could also be seen as the success of western propaganda as opposed to russian or chinese propaganda.

      I have the feeling that you believe propaganda is plain to discern and subvertive efforts, which are common by all sorts of actors in liberal democracies too, are easy to identify.

      But this is not the case. The emotional manipulation can be very subtile. Media outlets that are considered highly reputeable are also engaging, sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowningly in larger propaganda efforts.

      I highly recommend you to read manufacturing consent, for an in depth analysis how government propaganda has been an integral part of western democracies. It certainly is not lacking behind Russia or China. If you think these kind of actions were in the past, have a read about the framing of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, when they made information about US war crimes and surveillance public.

      There is numerous historical examples, where the US successfully used propaganda in other countries as an offensive mean, to help people lose or gain power. And those that were couped into power more often than not were no democrats. There is no reason as to why similiar offensive use of Propaganda by western countries wouldn’t occur in other countries today too.

      What you, me and everyone else considers factual information and intellectually honest information is mostly created in reference to our personal believes, about how the world or certain issues are. To take an example: You see a media report about an US politician being accused of corruption. Neither you, me or enyone else has access to, and can verify the informations on which the accusation is made. I bet with you, that your subconcious or even your concious will evaluate the same article as more or less plausible depending on whether the accused politician is a Republican or a Democrat and which of the parties you are more or less aligned with.

      • Moira_Mayhem@beehaw.org
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        9 months ago

        Oh man nearly everything I read here is carefully crafted bullshit and english is not your first language.

        Enjoy your block.

        • arymandias@feddit.de
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          9 months ago

          Hast du einige Ahnung auf welcher Community du gerade bist?

          Pour beaucoup des gens ici, l’anglais est la deuxième ou la troisième langue et puis c’est possible et aussi complètement normal que on fait des petites erreurs.

          Beetje meer respect graag.

          • Moira_Mayhem@beehaw.org
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            9 months ago

            Hast du einige Ahnung auf welcher Community du gerade bist?

            Verstehen Sie, dass es Lemmy-Föderationen gibt?

            Beetje meer respect graag.

            I don’t respect propagandists, you are free to of course.

            Ok, let me be more specific then: They are using the same tensing errors and making the same phonetic drifts that Slavic root speakers working on the clock make.

            Is that unsubtle enough for you?

            • arymandias@feddit.de
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              9 months ago

              Ok, let me be more specific then: They are using the same tensing errors and making the same phonetic drifts that Slavic root speakers working on the clock make.

              Is that unsubtle enough for you?

              Yep the anti-Slavic racism is quite clear now.

              (Btw I’m impressed that you can read phonetic drifts)

              • Moira_Mayhem@beehaw.org
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                9 months ago

                (Btw I’m impressed that you can read phonetic drifts)

                The human brain is an amazing pattern matching system that can over time even without direct application can do things like smell parkinsons and recognize a song from 3 bars of music.

                And I’ve spent the last fifteen years of my life spending no less than 3 hours a day, nearly everyday, online actively learning to spot the tactics of forum sliders and propagandists in general. Note I am not just specifically referring to russian troll farms as when I started getting concerned no one knew they even existed. To clarify: I have been online since the late 80s, but only interested in spotting online propaganda since Gamergate started this entire shitshow.

                Add on top of that the fact that I am pretty firmly on the spectrum with several special interests that involve web communities, and that I have been using the internet very actively since before the web supported pictures.

                Over time I have learned that people develop an online ‘accent’ that is made up of phrases and idiosyncrasies that form within the forums they participate in. One of my earliest discoveries was that I could almost unfailingly spot people who had spent a significant amount of their time on 4chan due to the format their antisemitic posts took, that were different from other forms of antisemitism and characterized by the memes that became popular inside that forum but had little exposure elsewhere, like the early white nationalist Pepe memes.

                I’m not sure if it is because they hire locally at the Russian IRA, or that their target scripting phraseology is so strict but whatever the cause people from that organization have a very clear accent that is shaped by their Slavic language roots as well as the online communities who’s language they absorbed that makes their communications stand out if you are familiar enough with them.

                TO BE CLEAR: Slavic root language speakers who just use forums do not show this same ‘online accent’, and troll farms from China and the Philippines while contextually similar have their own idiosyncrasies.

                I may have been incorrect using the label ‘phonetic’ but I really have no other way to convey the fact that Slavic character pronunciation affects the way that Slavic people type in other languages.