Just crazy what is happening
this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2024
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That seems like an unnecessarily rude way to put it. A major nation using the full force of its intelligence/military apparatus to manipulate the average person minding their own business using ever evolving forms of propaganda isn't something I really feel a citizen should need to deal with on a personal level. I don't believe most people feel or should feel they are the target of another nation, especially one they are not in a hot war with. Our governments are failing us by allowing it to happen because enough of them don't have the desire to stop it.
It is people that look like you, talk like you, live where you do, having the support of people and organizations you trust spreading disinformation. It gets rehashed and passed along by people you see and know in your real life. There is a basic level of personal responsibility, but when no one teaches you how to spot it, when it appears in legitimate media vetted by professionals whose job it is to spot this and they all fail you, crapping on an individual just trying to live their life isn't right.
No, it usually gets rehashed by media that gives a fuck about facts or reality anymore because all that matters is clicks. And clicks are generated by creating outrage and encouraging doom scrolling, not by informing people. Because they have to compete with an even darker pit of ragebait and engagement farming that is social media. Which for a lot of people even replaced other media.
You are right in regards to singular people not being suddenly responsible for falling for a well organised propaganda campaign. Nonetheless nothing of this shitshow fell from the skly suddenly or was quickly created by one bad actor throwing money at it. We are watching the pile of crap that is persistent media failure for many, mnay years now. Without giving a shit about it.
Should governments protect us better? Sure, in a perfect world. But we, not some government, killed the media when we refused to pay for information anymore. And when we happily started shoving bullshit created on social media by algorithms with the sole intent of keeping us engaged into our brains, instead of trying to actually be informed about the world.
Things like for-profit media and social media have financial interest in getting you to devote attention to things you really have no interest in. They are not growing their market if you aren't getting sucked in to whatever they are pushing at you.
It can be innocuous. I am only on Facebook to share stories of animal rescues here on Lemmy. That is literally all I do there. But I get pushed plenty of stuff I never asked for. I keep getting video of hoof care. I don't have any livestock. A lot of things in the video I find absolutely repellant. But I watch so many of them now, so they keep pushing me more. At first I said, this is disgusting, I don't want to see this. But now, I see how much work the guys have to do to keep these animals healthy, and I feel it has to be such a huge relief for something weighing so much to have its feet fixed and feeling good again. That's the kind of thing a media algorithm will do.
But you get people with legitimate complaints with life. Not finding work, not making enough money, feeling they have no rights, wondering why life isn't going their way. They start to get pushed things where some people give legit advice, and some will be a little darker. Linger on those mean spirited ones a bit too long, and the computer says, oh they seem to like this, send them more. Without even actively looking for it, you start to get exposed to things you never would have looked for. Pickup artists, nationalists, zealotry, racists. You get fed it in larger and larger doses and you may or may not notice.
Algorithms do what they're built to do. But we don't always remember they're there. We don't know who is making them or what behavior they are looking for. Most people probably couldn't really tell you what an algorithm is. Most public officials are included in that. Tech will keep getting better, and hopefully we do as well.