Leaked internal documents from a Kremlin-controlled propaganda center

Do you think ID Checks on social media should be implemented to avoid those problems?

I don't think we can really stop outside propaganda. But it's depressing at how much Americans are affected by it. Many prominent Americans have re-posted material that is demonstrably traceable back to Russian troll factories.

I don't believe that those are actually the source of our differences, though I do think they exaggerate them. The real problem is that we seem awfully willing to believe the worst in each other, utterly suspending any thought of verifying it.

The Russians are pushing us to do what we're already doing to ourselves. Maybe if people see this and take a moment to think, things will get slightly better.

But I doubt it.

Which to me seems like one of two options are true:

Russia knows how to spend money a thousand times more effectively than any presidential campaign we’ve ever seen, and understands how to influence voters better than any American

Or

The $100k did absolutely nothing and we should go touch some grass

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12589987/Perhaps-re...

That's the first trap and it often engulfs us. Everyone is guilty sometimes of sit in a happy bubbles of confirmation bias and rejecting anything that doesn't feel right. Look at yourself first, look at the information you get and if it gives you a happy validated feeling then double-check it, because that might be all its supposed to do.

Start with skepticism of your own beliefs, when you talk to other people talk with the acknowledgement that we just don't know what is happening sometimes.

And teach - I tell my kids the same thing. You can be fooled, you can be scammed, don't trick yourself into believing you're too smart for it because that's what they want you to believe.

* Germany is getting economically fucked.

* the US is wasting taxpayers’ money.

* the Polish farmers were getting screwed by cheap, low-quality grain.

The US/EU strategy of downplaying all of the above works as long as the economy’s fine. And when it isn’t, one can whine about Russian propaganda all they want, but the incumbent political parties have great chances of being voted out.

Going after specific groups fails to treat the root cause. If we lived in a country where you were free to disagree without being alienated and we wouldn't have nearly as many free-radicals.

"you believe <X>, therefore you're just a typical demonic <Y>" is a great way to turn a radical idea into a radical person. Let ideas be radical so that people don't have to be

This serves our society not just for resisting foreign propaganda, but also reducing the inefficiency brought about by sycophants and the short-sighted promises of charlatans.

It doesn't scale well, it is a hard thing to maintain a society of critical thinkers, and there are powerful elements out there who actively work to oppose it, but alas the right thing is often not easy.

I think the crucial step is to raise awareness of this problem.

The message should be straightforward: there are covert groups of people looking to undermine and destroy what Western societies built, including our way of living - and they're doing so by passing as one of us.

They're sowing discord, they believe we're dumb, predictable, and easy to manipulate, and they want us to be in chaos fighting each other.

But the main issue is that some political actors see value in this, and prefer to leverage this dissent for the illusion of political gain, at the cost of destroying the social fabric - and this is the part I struggle to understand.

How can personal gain surpass the common good? Who knows.

One thing is internal political discord, it's part of democracy. But how do people welcome others to attack their peers?

It's like brothers who fight at home, but at school, they have each other's back against bullies.

Currently, one of the brothers is siding with the bullies.

For this to be successful it would need to be part of a political union, or else one side will agree with the propaganda bots stating this is the "old false boogeyman hunt, it is all fabrication of the deep state/CIA/etc". Then you have massive podcasts that love to entertain people with this stuff, once again for personal gain.

So without political union against it, it will only get worse.

Other things:

- social media profiles with more than X amount of followers would need to have id verified;

- social media personalities with X amount of views/reach would need to disclose their income statements;

By penalizing the companies that make that extremely easy and convenient for external actors to push their propaganda. Basically the whole userbase is for sale for the... really for the lowest bidder.

Learn the history of uncomfortable things. I’m reading The Wages of Destruction. It details the economic incompetence of the Nazis.

That was surprising! The Nazis (and fascists generally) are portrayed as competent to the point of ruthless roboticness. But that’s their propaganda, not reality.

Jingoism, isolationism (military and economic), racial scapegoating…these are used by extremists to consolidate power. In the medium run, they almost always fail. They rise because of dissatisfaction, almost always the fault of the elites. But at that moment of dissatisfaction, the polis has a choice: confront the problems head on, or distract with one of the above. When a society chooses the latter, it tends to fall.

Historically the nonsense leading up to all that weakens the state and prompts “integration” into a neighbour. (Conquest.) That both kept people rational and solved the problem when they weren’t. Modern warfare means that is no longer an option. So the stupidity runs longer, potentially for a lifetime, without resolution while the society rots.

Of course that is only one aspect but it would help a lot wrt online culture and propaganda.

  a first step is to be more skeptical ourselves

We should be more skeptical when a situation warrants skepticism, and trusting when a situation warrants trust.

Which is to say: everyone should quickly become wiser and worldlier. Sadly, that's not a realistic plan!

What we truly need is higher regulation of social media. With too much internet freedom, the world becomes increasingly unhinged. That's a bummer, but look around: the web we have now is failing us.

It's definitely great for an adversary of Russia to be able to claim that such an opinion is illegitimate, having being spread by an enemy agent. Now you don't need to engage with the argument and you can just dismiss it as an example of enemy propaganda.