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submitted 1 year ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

Facebook said Tuesday it has identified a sprawling online propaganda effort: a pro-China campaign that had a presence on more than 50 websites.

The campaign “appears to be the largest known cross-platform covert influence operation in the world,” Meta said in a report. The researchers said the broadly coordinated postings of pro-China images, videos, comments and audio files were part of a yearslong operation that researchers had previously dubbed “Spamouflage.”

The findings underscore the potential for internet propaganda campaigns to attempt to exploit internet platforms to influence the U.S. election in 2024. Since 2016, Russia, Iran and to a lesser extent China have all launched covert online efforts to influence U.S. voters.

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[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 61 points 1 year ago

Not here though. Much like glorious leader Xi Jinping, Lemmy is free from corruption and beautiful like cherry blossom in the wind.

[-] Prandom_returns@lemm.ee 39 points 1 year ago

Propaganda pushers are the absolute fucking bottomfeeders of the lowest lows.

If your job is purposely, wittingly mislead people, you're a fucking waste of blood and organs.

[-] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 11 points 1 year ago

If your job is purposely, wittingly mislead people, you’re a fucking waste of blood and organs.

Not to in any way minimize the evils of propagandists, as they're pushing much more damaging messages, but that describes most of the advertising industry. It's just that those liars and manipulators are doing it for a brand so people waste money rather than a political cause.

It's kind of crazy that we just tolerate an entire massive industry that adds nothing to the world and is based around misleading people. And it's a business run out of fancy glass buildings out in the open rather than hidden away.

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[-] HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 1 year ago

Honestly, I feel like propaganda at least aims a bit higher than typical marketing. You're trying for grand aims of state and party, not trying to convince people to stew their livers in Bud instead of Coors.

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[-] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 1 year ago

Wait do they just mean lemmygrad and hexbear users being federated to all the other instances?

[-] roboticide@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Lol, right?

But actually probably not because it's just taken for granted tankies are here and they actually have to "work" to "infiltrate" places like Facebook and Reddit.

[-] GuyDudeman@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

Why is Lemmy not on this list?

[-] Godric@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago

Because lemmy shills are super obvious, nobody has to "discover" them

[-] socsa@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 year ago

They aren't even good at it. Their entire schtick is literally "you are obviously biased because you haven't read enough Lenin", like it's this big gotcha.

[-] krolden@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago
[-] socsa@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

As far as I can tell I've read way more Lenin than your average lemmy tankie

[-] teft@startrek.website 6 points 1 year ago

Reading the article it seems like the whole operation was super obvious and a bit amateurish. Par for the course.

[-] Alteon@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

Yeah, motherfuckers over at lemmygrad are astroturfing HARD. It's like the Russia/China circlejerk over there. The "greatest socialist experiment of all time". Smfh.

[-] uniqueid198x@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 1 year ago

I see you haven't met hexbear yet

[-] bioemerl@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago

The “greatest socialist experiment of all time”. Smfh.

Ten years later:

China wasn't actually socialist, it was capitalist!

[-] Alteon@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Don't tell them that. They'll call you an evil colonialist Democrat.

[-] Cleverdawny@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

And then tell you that Democrats are fascists

[-] SeaJ@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago
[-] banneryear1868@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

USSR maybe, Russia today is a capitalist hegemon. China is a mixed economy, and I find on the communist subs people often don't realize it went through all kinds of neoliberal reforms. There's both pro and anti China propaganda. Shen Yun for instance is pretty absurd anti China propaganda run by the Falun Gong.

[-] SeaJ@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago

Tankies still shill for Russia and China despite neither being communist.

[-] awwwyissss@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago
[-] Roundcat@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago

Hey ya'll, I know some of you are here on lemmy, and I let me just say...

Ya'll doing alright? I've read recently about a lot of flooding in Hubei and Jingxi provinces, and despite how I may feel about the CCP and all, I want to make sure ya'll are good.

[-] GBU_28@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago
[-] pudcollar@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago
[-] Roundcat@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Don'cha be correctin' my gammar like some kinduv harvard elite!

Its ma dialect, y'ain't gonna tell me how t'contract n conjugate!

[-] sendmestuff@feddit.nl 7 points 1 year ago

Fuck the people whose work is to push government propaganda. Being a prostitute is more honest than that. You are doing humanity a disservice.

[-] Prandom_returns@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago

Weird jab at sex workers..

[-] local_taxi_fix@lemmy.one 11 points 1 year ago

The prostitution comparison is completely out of left field. You're implying that sex workers are dishonest, which I don't see at all. The proposition of a sex worker is very upfront.

Lawyer, salesman, CEO, politician, or advertising exec would all be way better examples of dishonest professions.

[-] sendmestuff@feddit.nl 2 points 1 year ago

You are all right. My comparison was quite unfortunate. I wanted to compare with something that some ppl tipically think its less honest. But i agree, i think prostitution/sex work is an honest field of work, much more honest than being a banker, politician nowadays.

[-] GBU_28@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

What's at all dishonest about sex work?

You're literally showing your client your butthole, no secrets there

[-] treefrog@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

This is going to get easier and easier for states to do as AI becomes more common.

[-] JokeDeity@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

WOW, I'm really surprised by this revelation. 🙃

[-] Wahots@pawb.social 1 points 1 year ago

I see this shit even on relatively small platforms. China and Russia have always been politically fraught. You think people would know that by now. I've seen more than my fair share of tankies waving pro china/Russia symbols around with LGBT and black power content, and I ask them if they actually know what they've done to groups like that in their own countries, lol.

[-] Faresh@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

i have recently seen quite a few articles such as these, denouncing pro-china propaganda, but I feel like it is foolish to think that china is any worse in that regard than our own countries (western perspective).

I feel articles like this one, only foment anti-chinese sentiment, in favour of just another world power.

[-] Fades@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

No fucking shit literally every world power plays this game

[-] ikidd@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

It's like something happened in 1989, not sure what, can't put my finger on it...

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this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
290 points (97.1% liked)

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