this post was submitted on 16 May 2024
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This isn't about immediately filtered content, like the disgusting DuffMan George Floyd meme, or Holocaust denial. That's pretty well kept in check by mod tools. I'm also not talking about cogent or even pointed political discussion.

I'm not even talking about necessarily in this community directly, however in a lot of other spaces I've noticed a lot of accounts using divisive language and terms like "The ineffectual left" "single issue voters" "ignorant right wing morons". Lots of straw man arguments, lots of willful ignorance.

I'm not a centrist, I'm very very very far left however I know well enough not to patently dismiss the talking points of others, outside of course calls to genocide. I know what dog whistles sound like, and I'm hearing a lot of them lately.

Most egregiously I'm seeing very long form post replies that read very much like what is generated from LLMs.

So I guess my question is, how're we all fairing with what might be the largest Turing test ever?

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[–] AFKBRBChocolate 117 points 7 months ago (19 children)

I've noticed a huge influx of anti-Biden posts and comments, to the extent that I honestly think we're finally getting the reddit treatment. I remember there, when the Russian Internet connection went down, and for like a day all those kinds of posts nearly evaporated. And it seems like those accounts don't just do the overtly political things, they also engage in other areas, usually with a conservative slant.

[–] aodhsishaj 54 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Yeah, that's a lot of what I've been seeing, bad faith actors sowing dissent.

Edit: ducking autocorrect

[–] nifty 20 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] monkeyman512 16 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Are you certain? They could be making clothing with divisive messages.

/Jk

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[–] dogsnest 9 points 7 months ago

Pretty sure this was child labour, not actors.

[–] rustyfish 17 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I remember there, when the Russian Internet connection went down, and for like a day all those kinds of posts nearly evaporated.

Oh shit, I remember this one. For a short time Reddit became a loooooooooot friendlier. Not friendly but friendlier. You could have a nice conversation with someone opposing your views and it came to an actual trade of insights. I valued that a lot. No fucking derailment with stupid ass nonsense and childish jibes. (At least for the most part. Reddit is after all Reddit)

[–] AFKBRBChocolate 11 points 7 months ago

Yeah, for sure. And before that time I used to wonder how much truth there was in the idea of the Russian troll farms - it seemed a bit like a conspiracy theory, even though it was pretty well documented in the Mueller report. But that day was such a dramatic demonstration. The whole site suddenly shifted so much to the left, and the toxicity dropped so much lower.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago (2 children)

We used to think that if we had user-generated content, we would all be immune to governments, corporations and other powerful actors spreading propaganda because we would get our information from each other, not them.

Turns out: governments, corporations, other powerful actors are perfectly capable of paying "users" to "generate content" and not even disclose this.

The Internet used to be an exciting development, now it's just like, yeah it exists, so what.

[–] AFKBRBChocolate 10 points 7 months ago (4 children)

I remember, after being on the internet for a while, when the www standard was being adopted and all the web pages started popping up. It was so cool to see the kinds of content people were using it for. Then we got search engines like altavista, and it honestly seemed magical. It was like this egalitarian utopia, where all this knowledge was available to everyone; it was hard not to feel like it was the start of an amazing new phase for society.

So it was just soul crushing to me when we first started seeing intentional manipulation and misinformation. Search results that were skewed by paid advertisements or google bombing, propaganda being pushed into discussion forums, and all the fake news... it all represented the end of that amazing new phase. Heartbreaking.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

paying "users"

And using LLMs, then eventually getting useful idiots involved as well.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (13 children)

Yeah lots of anti-Bidens. Totally Russian trolls.

[–] radix 23 points 7 months ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/15/us/politics/russia-disinformation-election.html

It's starting, for sure. Assuming it ever really stopped, that is.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The growing intensity of straw manning over the past decade has hurt us all so much.

Don't try to characterize what "they" would do, then get mad at your hypothetical. We need to talk to each other instead of about each other.

[–] monkeyman512 22 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Good call. How are you? Have you had enough water today?

[–] Brunbrun6766 11 points 7 months ago (3 children)

You WOULD ask that you FILTHY bot!

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[–] RememberTheApollo_ 40 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Plenty of “genocide Joe”, lib bashing, “both sides”, implication that if you vote for Biden you’re complicit in genocide, and many other anti-vote and anti-democrat posts all around.

Not sure what you’re reading that constitutes “dog whistles”, there have been some posts mocking right wing responses and some fediverse self-policing and knee jerk reactions to the female trapped in the forest with either man or bear discussion that have already gone through several evolutions and iterations.

The mockery of singe issue voters is deserved taken in the context of the failure to vote being trump fascism and even more genocide. Not sure what you’re trying to offer there other than what? We should listen to more open to “genocide Joe” comments and become immobilized with ambivalence and again, let fascism win by inaction?

Personally, I’m not hearing dog whistles. I’m reading people directly trying to influence opinion to not vote for Biden by any means necessary while willfully and actively avoiding any consequences to a trump win.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I’m reading people directly trying to influence opinion to not vote for Biden by any means necessary while willfully and actively avoiding any consequences to a trump win

Exactly, Kremlin shills and trolls using Israel's genocide as a wedge issue to get their asset into the White House again so he cuts support for Ukraine and pulls out of NATO.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 7 months ago (9 children)

Wait... single issue politics is a real, proven, thing. Don't lump that in with ad hominem attacks. If you're not going to vote for someone you otherwise would because of a single issue, you're a single issue voter.

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[–] LemmyBe 32 points 7 months ago

It's election season, so get used to this. Other countries have learned how to divide us using social media, not to mention the years of experience Fox New and Co. have in doing just that. On top of it, we now have AI generated posts to contend with. It's not getting better anytime soon...personally, I just ignore any post that sounds like it's inflammatory (which sadly are almost all political posts, and everything Musk).

[–] weariedfae 25 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Yes it has been a stark difference that picked up this month. I was in what used to feel like a chill community and the sheer vitriol of the threads the past week has been really annoying.

[–] aodhsishaj 12 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Yes, that's absolutely the point of my post. Big upswing in bad actors.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 7 months ago (11 children)

I think some communities might benefit from a very strict no-politics rule. Because this right wing trolling is ruining lemmy for me.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Like when all the rightoids show up to a discussion and spam image macros of pigs shitting on their own balls?

Get real, this is a left-centered platform, 98% of the trolls aren't right wing, not by a country mile.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

TIL lemmygrad.ml is right wing.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

There's a lot of left wing trolling as well, even more so imo.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago (6 children)

I’m seeing very long form post replies that read very much like what is generated from LLMs.

Oh goodness, as one who has a bad habit of putting responses into essay form, I hope this doesn't refer to me. I'm not an LLM. Honest!

Okay, I'm pretty sure I'm human. It's a damn convincing hallucination.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Please select all squares with a bicycle.

[–] SkyezOpen 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

No bicycle detected.

Powered by tesla ai

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[–] aodhsishaj 8 points 7 months ago

You got me this time Chat-GPT4o

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Don't pay attention to them. Don't freed them and move on.

[–] aodhsishaj 18 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The kind of trolls I'm talking about start a conversation with you, ask you leading questions and pull into a discussion though. Then BAM dog whistles. It's insidious.

I'm well aware of the old adage "Don't feed the Trolls"

My larger question is how do we deal with the leverage an LLM gives trolls?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (5 children)

The kind of trolls I’m talking about start a conversation with you, ask you leading questions and pull into a discussion though. Then BAM dog whistles. It’s insidious.

If that happens stop talking to them.

how do we deal with the leverage an LLM gives trolls?

Once again, stop talking to them. Let the mods do their job.

EDIT or you can block them. You have the tools to solve the problem. Use them.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Not feeling that, but I block hexbear and lemmygrad

[–] rustyfish 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Aren’t they already defederated from everything and anything in the known universe?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (2 children)

They're fighting to remain federated; they feel the disdain from every sane /c and can (surprisingly) see the writing on the wall this time that soon they'll have to make sockpuppet accounts if they want to continue to troll.

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[–] mechoman444 12 points 7 months ago (7 children)

I have a comment on my profile where I express some observations about the cyber truck that weren't expressly negative and it was down voted to hell.

Maybe not so many trolls, but there's a lot of pretentiousness.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yes, the hexbears and their .ml ilk have started to use alts to troll the larger forums. Their admins openly admit that their only interest within the fediverse is information warfare.

Other instance need to be taking this as seriously as they would be taking a nazi instance admin admitting to the same things.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago

Yes - I wish Reddit would keep them...

[–] TokenBoomer 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Only during the night. They turn to stone during the daytime.

[–] yyyesss 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

yes, very much. i've been telling my partner it may be time to give up on Lemmy.

the ones that kill me are the long-form posts that seem to be making one point then pivot in the middle and get confusing. they're just muddying the waters but people who don't read past the first sentence or two upvote so they gain traction.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

I've had a lot of strawman arguments used against me lol. It's just the internet, I find

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