How do we quit being suckers? How do we stop others from amplifying the lies/propaganda that they're producing? (I mean, I guess a first step is to be more skeptical ourselves, and that we stop repeating lies. But then what? "Teach others to do the same" may not scale as well as we would like...)
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.
Who you think is going to support that? Government? No matter the flag or hat color all are happy to have a herd that can be managed by the sound of a bell.
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.
There is not undemocratic regime that came to power because people had too much freedom. It did never happen anywhere and will never happen. Even with new things like the internet or punk music.
But the world is too complicated to reveal an iron-clad rule about this - a person can pick and choose historical events to back their argument.
One looks at social media today and sees rampant mis- and disinformation, and then sees authoritarians rising to power, ostensibly due to this information environment.
I would be very pleased to believe that uncensored social media makes the world more free; I am not sufficiently imaginative to see how.
To err on the side of freedom remains the correct choice. I am not saying that there are no negative social media platforms, I just say that there is no authority on the correctness of information and everyone is entitled to form their own opinion. And I am sure I won't like some of these opinions either.
Hitler had a massive and extensive censorship machine. People were afraid to say the wrong things. That today some people believe freedom of expression is the cause of his rise is misinformation itself and a huge educational gap. But true, the dynamics are more complicated if you look into it more closely, but in the end resolve to the same conclusion.