Pointing out, debunking, and spreading awareness about state- and company-sponsored astroturfing on Lemmy and elsewhere. This includes social media manipulation, propaganda, and disinformation campaigns, among others.
Propaganda and disinformation are a big problem on the internet, and the Fediverse is no exception.
What's the difference between misinformation and disinformation? The inadvertent spread of false information is misinformation. Disinformation is the intentional spread of falsehoods.
By equipping yourself with knowledge of current disinformation campaigns by state actors, corporations and their cheerleaders, you will be better able to identify, report and (hopefully) remove content matching known disinformation campaigns.
Same as instance rules, plus:
President Donald Trump said his administration blocked $50 million for condoms to be sent to Gaza through its pause on foreign aid. But it has provided no evidence that $50 million was ever directed toward condoms for Gaza. The contractor identified by the State Department said it has not used U.S. ...
Quick Take
President Donald Trump said his administration blocked $50 million for condoms to be sent to Gaza through its pause on foreign aid. But it has provided no evidence that $50 million was ever directed toward condoms for Gaza. The contractor identified by the State Department said it has not used U.S. aid “to procure or distribute condoms.”
Visit us @ !fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com for all the latest news on the topics of astroturfing, propaganda and disinformation.
What's the deal with Moms Across America?
These "Mom" organizations make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Why is my uncle messaging me to let me know that *Moms Across America* commissioned testing that found glyphosate and heavy metal contamination in Girl Scout cookies? I mean, he did just buy some from my kid (no refunds!) and ...
This evening my uncle messaged me to let me know that Moms Across America commissioned testing that found glyphosate and heavy metal contamination in Girl Scout cookies. To be fair, he did just buy some from my kid (no refunds!) and I understand the concern about food contamination, but something is off. What's the deal with Moms Across America? Why is their CEO a vaccine skeptic hoping to get hired by RFK Jr.? It seems like an organic food/anti-vax lobbying organization, but I wonder if there's more to it than that. Is she just that effective as an individual mom influencer?
Edit: the screenshot isn't uploading correctly, so I changed it to a link to the Pixelfed post I originally made.
Media Bias Fact Check selects and publishes fact checks from around the world. We only utilize fact-checkers who are either a signatory of the
Visit us @ !fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com for all the latest news on the topics of astroturfing, propaganda and disinformation.
If it weren’t for those meddling Europeans - EUvsDisinfo
A constant narrative evolution
The Kremlin’s take on peace has evolved over the last three years. During the early days of Russia’s full-scale war, there was no space for narratives about peace, only for an ill-advised tone of triumphalism. Then, realising the Ukrainian resolve to defend their homes would not be easily broken, the Kremlin started talking about peace while its bombs rained down on Ukrainian civilians. Moscow quickly devised ‘peace proposals’ that were merely empty PR stunts, deploying the narrative of peace to support Russia’s war, masking Moscow’s true [imperial ambitions](https://euvsdisinfo.eu/the-kremlins-call-for
Chinese online influence operation called for overthrow of Spain's government, report says
cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/1839567
Here is the link to the report: https://graphika.com/reports/chinese-state-influence
A Chinese social media operation that aims to whip up political anger in the West has called for the overthrow of a foreign government when impersonating protesters criticising flood relief efforts in Spain, online analysis outfit Graphika said.
Graphika said an operation dubbed Spamouflage, which it believed was linked to the Chinese state, posed this month as human rights group Safeguard Defenders to spread online calls for the government to be toppled in response to the catastrophic floods in October that killed 224 people.
"This is the first time we have seen Spamouflage directly calling to overthrow a foreign government," Graphika said in its latest report.
...
The report also finds:
- Chinese covert influence operations have impersonated human rights organizations critical of Beijing, almost certainly in a
As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faces a Senate vote to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, right-wing media are split on whether to support his nomination. Some claim the nominee — who has a long history of undermining scientific research and promoting health misinformation — is a “bipartisan...
As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faces a Senate vote to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, right-wing media are split on whether to support his nomination.
Some claim the nominee — who has a long history of undermining scientific research and promoting health misinformation — is a “bipartisan” solution for “Making America Healthy Again,” while others have highlighted his past extremism, Democratic affiliations, and pro-abortion beliefs. Some right-wing media have also covered for Kennedy’s extremism in the past, largely ignoring his vaccination views.
Kennedy has a history of pushing harmful policies and embracing extremism — and right-wing media have played cover for him [...]
Visit us @ !fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com for all the latest news on the topics of astroturfing, propaganda and disinformation.
What's the deal with Moms Across America?
This evening my uncle messaged me to let me know that Moms Across America commissioned testing that found glyphosate and heavy metal contamination in Girl Scout cookies. To be fair, he did just buy some from my kid (no refunds!) and I understand the concern about food contamination, but something is off. What's the deal with Moms Across America? Why is their CEO a vaccine skeptic hoping to get hired by RFK Jr.? It seems like an organic food/anti-vax lobbying organization, but I wonder if there's more to it than that. Is she just that effective as an individual mom influencer?
Philip Low shared his views on Musk's alleged Nazi salute in widely shared posts on Facebook and LinkedIn.
The post available on LinkedIn (archived) and Facebook (archived) was a response to Musk's controversial gesture at U.S. President Donald Trump's inauguration rally, which many observers called a Nazi salute. The post said Low had known Musk for 14 years and that they texted frequently and went to each other's birthdays before they had a falling out. Part of the post reads:
Elon is not a Nazi, per se.
He is something much better, or much worse, depending on how you look at it.
Nazis believed that an entire race was above everyone else.
Elon believes he is above everyone else. He used to think he worked on the most important problems. When I met him, he did not presume to be a technical person — he would be the first to say that he lacked the expertise to understand certain data. That happened later. Now, he acts as if he has all the solutions.
[…]
*Visit us @ !fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com for
In recent remarks to the press, President Donald Trump restated his intention to impose 25% tariffs on U.S. imports from Mexico and Canada as early as Feb. 1. His reasoning: "vast" illegal immigration and "massive" amounts of fentanyl coming to the U.S. from those countries. But Trump drew a false e...
“We’re thinking in terms of 25% on Mexico and Canada because they’re allowing vast numbers of people … to come in and fentanyl to come in,” Trump told a reporter who asked about the tariffs while Trump was signing executive orders in the Oval Office on Jan. 20.
The following day, in a press conference from the White House, Trump again explained why he may move forward with the tariffs.
“They’ve allowed, both of them, Canada very much so, they’ve allowed millions and millions of people to come into our country that shouldn’t be here,” Trump said. “They could’ve stopped them and they didn’t. And they’ve killed 300,000 people last year, my opinion, have been destroyed by drugs, by fentanyl. The fentanyl coming through Canada is massive. The fentanyl coming through Mexico is massive.”
Trump is exaggerating the number of fentanyl-related deaths in the U.S., and his Canada and Mexico comparison is off-base, too.
In this post, we take a quick look at the numbers to give some rela
The Kremlin’s strange idea of peace - EUvsDisinfo
Even before Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he professed that Russia only wanted peace, if only Ukraine and Western countries would give him the peace he wants. Towards the end of 2021, he made unrealistic and unreasonable security demands whose conditions, if fulfilled, would have made NATO allies feel profoundly insecure. Just a few days before Russia’s invasion, he sent a low-level official to present Ukraine with conditions for peace that it could not possibly meet. Since then, his negotiation proposals have insisted upon the ’denazification’ of Ukraine, an impossible demand since the Kremlin considers any Ukrainian who believes in Ukraine’s sovereignty to be a Nazi.
Visit us @ !fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com for all the latest news on the topics of astroturfing, propaganda and disinformation.
A new memo issued by the Trump administration directing the federal government to temporarily cease disbursing billions of dollars in funds appears to draw on arguments made by Russ Vought, the president’s selectee to run the Office of Management and Budget.
Vought was a primary architect of Project 2025, a sprawling effort organized by The Heritage Foundation to provide policy and staffing recommendations for President Donald Trump’s second term. In addition to that role, Vought is also the founder of the Center for Renewing America, a MAGA-aligned think tank that has spent over a year arguing that the president can unilaterally refuse to spend funds allocated by Congress, an authority known as the impoundment power that was severely curtailed by Congress in 1974.
Visit us @ !fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com for all the latest news on the topics of astroturfing, propaganda and disinformation.
School meals for low-income students. Cancer treatment trials. Housing assistance for veterans. These are among the fede
What the memo says
The Jan. 27 memo directs federal agencies to "temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance" until officials ensure that the programs are consistent with Trump’s policies.
The memo singles out programs related to foreign aid, diversity, equity and inclusion, "woke" gender ideology and funding related to the "green new deal" pending a review. (The "Green New Deal" was a policy blueprint focusing on the environment that was backed by some Democrats in 2019 but was never enacted. Trump has used the term in the past as a catchall for green energy initiatives.)
Visit us @ !fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com for all the latest news on the topics of astroturfing, propaganda and disinformation.
Media Bias Fact Check selects and publishes fact checks from around the world. We only utilize fact-checkers who are either a signatory of the
Visit us @ !fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com for all the latest news on the topics of astroturfing, propaganda and disinformation.
Media Bias Fact Check selects and publishes fact checks from around the world. We only utilize fact-checkers who are either a signatory of the
Visit us @ !fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com for all the latest news on the topics of astroturfing, propaganda and disinformation.
With initial efforts aimed at swinging upcoming German elections and discrediting Ukraine, Russia's "Doppelganger" influence operations have expanded to the BlueSky social media platform. It took the Russians a while to get around to it, but they've finally begun running their disinformation operat...
The tech billionaire was accused of making the Nazi salute at a rally for President Donald Trump.
Visit us @ !fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com for all the latest news on the topics of astroturfing, propaganda and disinformation.
Lost in translation, vol. 2 - EUvsDisinfo
Visit us @ !fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com for all the latest news on the topics of astroturfing, propaganda and disinformation.
The Kremlin’s misuse of Nazism as a weapon of information manipulation - EUvsDisinfo
Russia’s obsession with framing Ukraine as a Nazi state serves to justify the ongoing invasion and to distract from Russia’s own historical baggage. This manipulative narrative, a cornerstone of Kremlin disinformation, relies on historical revisionism to falsely depict Ukraine as a haven for fascists. This grotesque distortion of history trivialises the horrors of Nazism and manipulates public perception both at home and abroad.
The Kremlin has long played fast and loose with history to bolster its legitimacy, particularly regarding its World War II past. It insists that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a 1939 agreement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, was merely a ‘necessity’ and should not be viewed as a complicity in fuelling Nazi war efforts and paving the way for the outbreak of World War II. By downplaying its role in enabling the Nazi regime, Russia deflects attention from its own murky historical actions, creating space to level baseless accusations against Ukraine.
From the moment Trump took the oath of office, rumors about his first actions as America's 47th president spread like wildfire.
Visit us @ !fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com for all the latest news on the topics of astroturfing, propaganda and disinformation.
