this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2024
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politics

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[–] [email protected] 84 points 1 month ago (4 children)

I wasn’t aware that there were claims until this post.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They were probably spread it on right wing sites to reinforce to those voters they shouldn't vote for the Dems, just in case they were thinking 'maybe I shouldn't vote for the asshole that acts like a toddler and fucked up a pandemic response when there was a good plan?' Nope next vp has abuse claims so you can't vote for them, and they are all happy with being angry anyways so it's a win.

Ugh I hate how much it seems plausible, it's like a badly written movie plot that no one would think could happen if it was the 90s, even early 00s.

[–] Cryophilia 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Nah, I think it would make more sense to spread rumors in left wing spaces. Worked on Al Franken.

Those of us on the left have a serious problem with instantly excommunicating anyone accused of sexual misconduct. We don't wait for all the facts to come out, we instantly disavow them.

And then, in the worst case, we start attacking anyone who calls for having a level head.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Mostly I don't disagree with this assessment, but by now we're talking about the boy who cried wolf. Republicans have been very outspoken with their "groomer" talk so many provably false times, meanwhile Trump and his cronies have committed a number of sex crimes and/or shown a lack of remorse for the victims thereof that it's hard for them to come off as credible with this stuff anymore. I do miss Al Franken, though.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I wasn't either. Sounds like they did a pretty shitty job of spreading the false claims.

[–] jordanlund 31 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There were several posted here that were removed for misinformation.

[–] Berdi 27 points 1 month ago

Good job! Thanks, Mods :)

[–] rsuri 11 points 1 month ago

There's a whole separate world of propaganda claims on X. Another one that I'm unfortunately aware of due to my republican relative: claim that Georgia's Republican governor is planning to rig the election for Kamala by importing votes from overseas.

[–] pjwestin 3 points 1 month ago

They were very amateurish. They were a fake set of emails that were clearly put together in a text editor. The formatting of the dates was inconsistent between emails, and in one screenshot, you could even see the text cursor, indicating the email had just been typed on the user's screen. Apparently, even some Qanon promoters were stepping forward to debunk them. They were covered in the latest QAA podcast.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago

It would be easy to believe since the Republicans support their abusers.

[–] Passerby6497 25 points 1 month ago (1 children)

"Russian propaganda unit"? You mean the right wing media?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Yes. I followed a group of Russian trolls around for a bit and they will systematically seed right wing social media with shit stories. It'll start on far-right sources and if the story picks up steam, it'll migrate to more mainstream sites, like twitter, where it's usually repeated by right wing politicians.

Fake news sites are built and referenced until a site with better standing quotes the articles and is listed as the original source.

If you did deep enough, you can usually trace stories back to Kremlin run outlets as well. However, by the time you have done all the digging and research, the next new conspiracy is already topping the charts.

Many of the mega-posters on .ml follow the same patterns, actually. You can guess their timezones by when they post and comment and their day job seems to be posting on social media between 9-5. In the case of Lemmy, it seems to be used as a jump-off point for actual fake news sites. (Fake news sites are rarely used as headlines and are more used as comment fodder during any arguments.)

While I am picking on right wing and tankie stuff here, this applies to any opportunity to spread shit with a variety of agendas and no political views are immune.

[–] LostMyRedditLogin 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Exactly. That's what the liberals don't realize is that every political alignment is being used to spread Russian propaganda. The main goal is spreading division everywhere and make the US completely dysfunctional.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Well, I would say that some groups are more vulnerable than others. There are a multitude reasons for this and it depends on education level, religious standing, geolocation and plenty of other factors.

It's kind of an odd generalization to say that "the liberals don't realize". Certainly some don't. All parties have their version of "Karen" or grandparents that post insane Facebook rants, after all.

Some groups are far more vocal when repeating Kremlin propaganda verbatim, though. That could easily skew the perception of who is actually believing what.

[–] LostMyRedditLogin 25 points 1 month ago

When is the US actually going to take Russian interference in our elections more seriously? They've done almost nothing since we've known about it in 2016.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago

This is my surprised face

[–] jordanlund 10 points 1 month ago
[–] iAvicenna 7 points 1 month ago

this alone is reason enough not to vote for third party candidates

[–] GreenKnight23 2 points 1 month ago

of course they are, because nobody in their right mind would believe something so absolutely ludicrous other than the MAGAts.