This is increasingly becoming a pattern - when Charlie Kirk was shot, conservatives reflexively invented a narrative about how the shooter was trans. I suspect it's a deliberate strategy to craft...
This is increasingly becoming a pattern - when Charlie Kirk was shot, conservatives reflexively invented a narrative about how the shooter was trans.
I suspect it's a deliberate strategy to craft the first impression, because often it's the only impression so now a ton of people will forever think Kirk's shooter was a trans leftist and not the MAGA nut he was.
It's just another form of slander - claim that they're the "common sense party" by inventing lunacy and smearing the other side with it.
I think it’s important to emphasize that as far as we know, the shooting is entirely the shooter’s fault. They made sure of that by keeping their plans secret. Nobody else got a chance to...
I think it’s important to emphasize that as far as we know, the shooting is entirely the shooter’s fault. They made sure of that by keeping their plans secret. Nobody else got a chance to intervene.
But it doesn’t seem to be the case that their ideology can be summarized as “MAGA nut?” They had a transgender roommate and this seems to have been an important part of their motivation. It seems misleading to leave that out.
Whatever crazy mix of left and right ideas the shooter ended up with, they are not the fault of anyone else in particular. Everyone using this shooting as justification to attack others for their ideas is doing something wrong. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to talk about it all in this context?
It is true that every bad idea exists on the Internet and there’s a chance someone will amplify it for their own purposes. Someone said something bad is not necessarily news, but people will try to make it news, and scale matters. The people who do the amplifying are part of the problem. Condemning is still amplifying.
Why are you blaming the shooter for the actions of the right wing media and government? You can certainly wish he'd written a manifesto I suppose but it's not "entirely" his fault that they lied....
I think it’s important to emphasize that as far as we know, this is entirely the shooter’s fault. They made sure of that by keeping their plans secret. Nobody else got a chance to intervene.
Why are you blaming the shooter for the actions of the right wing media and government? You can certainly wish he'd written a manifesto I suppose but it's not "entirely" his fault that they lied. It's not even a little bit his fault that they lied.
Ah thank you for the clarification, @PuddleofKittens was specifically talking about the false narrative created so that seemed to be what you were speaking about.
Ah thank you for the clarification, @PuddleofKittens was specifically talking about the false narrative created so that seemed to be what you were speaking about.
Are they even doing it at this point, or is it all some LLM sent out to cause trouble everywhere? The more outrage and fighting that happens among common people, the less time and attention we...
Are they even doing it at this point, or is it all some LLM sent out to cause trouble everywhere? The more outrage and fighting that happens among common people, the less time and attention we have for important things.
I wonder if there’s a way to perform this sort of analysis faster (say, in realtime) the next time a stupid “controversy” starts swirling online. Figure out who’s promoting it before it’s too...
I wonder if there’s a way to perform this sort of analysis faster (say, in realtime) the next time a stupid “controversy” starts swirling online. Figure out who’s promoting it before it’s too late. I think everyone would benefit from automated whistleblowers exposing bad-faith actors as early as possible.
I’m getting into a habit of doing a Google News search before posting links to see who picked up a story, rather than sharing the first link I see. Maybe there’s a better link? If there are no...
I’m getting into a habit of doing a Google News search before posting links to see who picked up a story, rather than sharing the first link I see. Maybe there’s a better link? If there are no mainstream newspapers touching it, that’s a bit suspicious. If it’s new, maybe wait a bit before posting, because it does take time to write articles and a better one might appear.
But you can’t stop someone else from posting it anyway. It seems unreasonable to expect people to be really careful about posting links?
I’ve sometimes explored writing my own forum software. One thing I think might be helpful would be to have a “drafts” page where people can just paste a link. Turning it into a proper topic and promoting to the front page can be more of a group activity.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world will keep amplifying bad ideas, so this would just be a way of getting higher quality locally.
There was a post on r/fauxmoi that hit the front page around the time of this “jeans/genes” controversy which simply highlighted the fact that Sydney Sweeney is a registered Republican. I remember...
I remember thinking that that was both odd and alarming. Everything about this American Eagle ad hysteria felt manufactured, even at the time, but perhaps only due to the fact that I’ve made it a point to keep up with both conservative and left-leaning news sources, so that initial imbalance was more palpable.
I can’t say that I don’t have an appreciation for how finely tuned a master narrative machine the Republican sphere has operating currently. They are very good at trial and error, and are willing to amplify, pivot, and adjust themselves along new, more resilient and productive (to their cause) narrative lines at the drop of a hat.
I am skeptical. I don't really follow any conservative online media (except one very conservative gaming forum, lol), yet for a while I did see posts about the ad regularly, mostly on Instagram...
I am skeptical.
I don't really follow any conservative online media (except one very conservative gaming forum, lol), yet for a while I did see posts about the ad regularly, mostly on Instagram and Reddit, and they were all western style liberals criticizing the ad and arguing about dogwhistles. That's how I learned about it. This is anecdotal, but still.
What is not anecdotal is the article showing that with the exception of one day the social network that posted about the ad the most is Bluesky, a platform known to be predominantly liberal. Apparently those posts did not trigger their "words associated with racism or bigotry" filter, but obviously they were still amplifying the signal.
Since this is an article about the cycle of outrage, it seems like it should call out everybody feeding the outrage. Conservatives made complaining about liberals who get, in their eyes, inadequately outraged about "normal" things one of the foundations of their platform. This is bad and hypocritical and it's good to call it out. It also only works because a group of hyperprogressives just keeps getting outraged. This is also bad and should be called out.
The meat here is that right-wing personalities and popular influencers found something to be outraged about and helped other people become outraged about it. Hyperprogressives, as you call them,...
The meat here is that right-wing personalities and popular influencers found something to be outraged about and helped other people become outraged about it. Hyperprogressives, as you call them, will always exist. The trouble here was how easily a few popular right-wing posters were able to stir up a hornets nest from what was essentially nothing.
I disagree that this article should call out the fact that this type of manufactured outrage can occur regardless of political bent. The article was about the facts of this one specific instance, which had very clear political lines. There isn't a need to say both sides here because we're discussing a very specific instance.
So will political opponents who try to exploit any fuckups that the other side does. By this reasoning the outrage cycle is inevitable and nobody is to blame. As per my middle paragraph above I am...
Hyperprogressives, as you call them, will always exist.
So will political opponents who try to exploit any fuckups that the other side does. By this reasoning the outrage cycle is inevitable and nobody is to blame.
The article was about the facts of this one specific instance, which had very clear political lines.
As per my middle paragraph above I am not entirely convinced by their analysis.
I think it's unfortunate that rage bait exists and also that people are so easily triggered by it. Neither problem is easy to solve. There will be more rage bait. If it's not manufactured, people...
I think it's unfortunate that rage bait exists and also that people are so easily triggered by it. Neither problem is easy to solve.
There will be more rage bait. If it's not manufactured, people will create it on their own. Calling it out is utterly ineffective and often amplifies it. A draconian moderation regime to eliminate rage bait would cause more problems than it solves. But it might help to have voluntary moderation schemes that work for the people who adopt them (similar to ad blockers).
Educating people to not take the bait is also difficult.
Call me crazy, but despite needing defenders of liberal society at this moment, I think that the retreat into the bushes strategy that the Democratic party in the US is a great chance for us all...
Call me crazy, but despite needing defenders of liberal society at this moment, I think that the retreat into the bushes strategy that the Democratic party in the US is a great chance for us all to watch the right eat itself.
It's risky, but without a proper foil I'm hoping that the worst actors begin to eat each other.
This is increasingly becoming a pattern - when Charlie Kirk was shot, conservatives reflexively invented a narrative about how the shooter was trans.
I suspect it's a deliberate strategy to craft the first impression, because often it's the only impression so now a ton of people will forever think Kirk's shooter was a trans leftist and not the MAGA nut he was.
It's just another form of slander - claim that they're the "common sense party" by inventing lunacy and smearing the other side with it.
I think it’s important to emphasize that as far as we know, the shooting is entirely the shooter’s fault. They made sure of that by keeping their plans secret. Nobody else got a chance to intervene.
But it doesn’t seem to be the case that their ideology can be summarized as “MAGA nut?” They had a transgender roommate and this seems to have been an important part of their motivation. It seems misleading to leave that out.
Whatever crazy mix of left and right ideas the shooter ended up with, they are not the fault of anyone else in particular. Everyone using this shooting as justification to attack others for their ideas is doing something wrong. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to talk about it all in this context?
It is true that every bad idea exists on the Internet and there’s a chance someone will amplify it for their own purposes. Someone said something bad is not necessarily news, but people will try to make it news, and scale matters. The people who do the amplifying are part of the problem. Condemning is still amplifying.
Why are you blaming the shooter for the actions of the right wing media and government? You can certainly wish he'd written a manifesto I suppose but it's not "entirely" his fault that they lied. It's not even a little bit his fault that they lied.
I meant the shooting is entirely the shooters fault. Sorry, I’ll clarify.
Ah thank you for the clarification, @PuddleofKittens was specifically talking about the false narrative created so that seemed to be what you were speaking about.
Thank you too. Sometimes it’s possible to avoid arguing about misunderstandings :)
Are they even doing it at this point, or is it all some LLM sent out to cause trouble everywhere? The more outrage and fighting that happens among common people, the less time and attention we have for important things.
I wonder if there’s a way to perform this sort of analysis faster (say, in realtime) the next time a stupid “controversy” starts swirling online. Figure out who’s promoting it before it’s too late. I think everyone would benefit from automated whistleblowers exposing bad-faith actors as early as possible.
Seems like a news aggregator in the genre of ground news would show this story as being majority reported in only right wing media.
I’m getting into a habit of doing a Google News search before posting links to see who picked up a story, rather than sharing the first link I see. Maybe there’s a better link? If there are no mainstream newspapers touching it, that’s a bit suspicious. If it’s new, maybe wait a bit before posting, because it does take time to write articles and a better one might appear.
But you can’t stop someone else from posting it anyway. It seems unreasonable to expect people to be really careful about posting links?
I’ve sometimes explored writing my own forum software. One thing I think might be helpful would be to have a “drafts” page where people can just paste a link. Turning it into a proper topic and promoting to the front page can be more of a group activity.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world will keep amplifying bad ideas, so this would just be a way of getting higher quality locally.
There was a post on r/fauxmoi that hit the front page around the time of this “jeans/genes” controversy which simply highlighted the fact that Sydney Sweeney is a registered Republican.
I remember thinking that that was both odd and alarming. Everything about this American Eagle ad hysteria felt manufactured, even at the time, but perhaps only due to the fact that I’ve made it a point to keep up with both conservative and left-leaning news sources, so that initial imbalance was more palpable.
I can’t say that I don’t have an appreciation for how finely tuned a master narrative machine the Republican sphere has operating currently. They are very good at trial and error, and are willing to amplify, pivot, and adjust themselves along new, more resilient and productive (to their cause) narrative lines at the drop of a hat.
I am skeptical.
I don't really follow any conservative online media (except one very conservative gaming forum, lol), yet for a while I did see posts about the ad regularly, mostly on Instagram and Reddit, and they were all western style liberals criticizing the ad and arguing about dogwhistles. That's how I learned about it. This is anecdotal, but still.
What is not anecdotal is the article showing that with the exception of one day the social network that posted about the ad the most is Bluesky, a platform known to be predominantly liberal. Apparently those posts did not trigger their "words associated with racism or bigotry" filter, but obviously they were still amplifying the signal.
Since this is an article about the cycle of outrage, it seems like it should call out everybody feeding the outrage. Conservatives made complaining about liberals who get, in their eyes, inadequately outraged about "normal" things one of the foundations of their platform. This is bad and hypocritical and it's good to call it out. It also only works because a group of hyperprogressives just keeps getting outraged. This is also bad and should be called out.
The meat here is that right-wing personalities and popular influencers found something to be outraged about and helped other people become outraged about it. Hyperprogressives, as you call them, will always exist. The trouble here was how easily a few popular right-wing posters were able to stir up a hornets nest from what was essentially nothing.
I disagree that this article should call out the fact that this type of manufactured outrage can occur regardless of political bent. The article was about the facts of this one specific instance, which had very clear political lines. There isn't a need to say both sides here because we're discussing a very specific instance.
So will political opponents who try to exploit any fuckups that the other side does. By this reasoning the outrage cycle is inevitable and nobody is to blame.
As per my middle paragraph above I am not entirely convinced by their analysis.
I think it's unfortunate that rage bait exists and also that people are so easily triggered by it. Neither problem is easy to solve.
There will be more rage bait. If it's not manufactured, people will create it on their own. Calling it out is utterly ineffective and often amplifies it. A draconian moderation regime to eliminate rage bait would cause more problems than it solves. But it might help to have voluntary moderation schemes that work for the people who adopt them (similar to ad blockers).
Educating people to not take the bait is also difficult.
I agree, and I don't have an answer either. I wish I did. I am not convinced about the usefulness of the linked analysis though.
Call me crazy, but despite needing defenders of liberal society at this moment, I think that the retreat into the bushes strategy that the Democratic party in the US is a great chance for us all to watch the right eat itself.
It's risky, but without a proper foil I'm hoping that the worst actors begin to eat each other.