• lynny@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Social media. It wasn’t until very recently that people started to realize just how harmful it actually is.

    • manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech
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      1 year ago

      Less social media IMO, more the weaponization of techniques first researched in the 60s-80s made real and pushed via automaton to all corners of the public internet.

      The reason you become vulnerable is because you abdicate control (most had no idea) of your feed to providers that own domain names.

      This was a co-option of how the internet worked previously.

      • ieatpwns@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        What kind of techniques were researched? This sounds interesting to learn about. Do you have some terms I could search that will help me learn more?

          • erogenouswarzone@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            I always thought the Cambridge Analytical scandal was just the left trying to point fingers at how Trump could have possibly won, instead of blaming the Democratic party for their terrible handling of the Sanders campaign, and how Clinton was so utterly unlikable, they grasped at so many straws, we’re still reeling from it to this day.

            The big ones being the Ukrainian war, the failure of the Afghanistan pull-out, and of course CA.

        • PoliticalAgitator@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Well this might come as a shock but the techniques used to groom suicide bombers also work on white people too. Prey on their disillusionment, pump them full of hatred for “the enemy” then give them the means to carry out an attack.

          But if you’re digging back through history, check out how once upon a time, everyone from the US government to Coca-Cola was awkwardly trying their hand at mind control.

          Fortunately, they’ve pinky promised that’s all behind them now, despite having access to millions of people who voluntarily pin their own eyes open and spend the night scrolling through rapid flashes of sex, violence and extremism, in their own DIY Clockwork Orange therapy (only it’s trying to make them worse, not better)

          What could go wrong except for everything that’s currently going wrong?

          The damage done by giving neoliberals power and the far-right platform is going to take decades to undo, if we survive it at all.

          Climate change is progressing at an alarming rate while the oil and gas lobby teach AI how to astroturf, cheered on by every billionaire hoping they can fire their employees and pocket their wages.

          If the far-right are given the power they need, they’ll decimate the population searching for whatever magic group they need to genocide that will make their parents love them, their mental illness evaporate and their dicks 14" long. When they finally realize no such group exists, we’ll get to see what happens when you give the nuclear launch codes to wife beaters ane school shooters.

          Vote better.

        • manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech
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          1 year ago

          there were a number of university experiments on human choice often dealing with a disparity of information between the parties.

          What was learned by the US government in its testing was also known. The reality is experiments like these were done very heavily up until the 60’s with the vast majority getting nixed by the early-to-late 70s

          this coincides also with our release of mental patients which were as much experiment subjects as they were patients. We were mapping out people’s behavior to information stimulus for most of the 20th century.

          the programs were all stopped but the information continued on and is used in many strata of our lives.

          https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0by2ybb/mk-ultra-the-cia-s-secret-pursuit-of-mind-control-

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

          Subliminal Marketing (one of many techniques) is banned however use of the technique in other mediums is not. https://smallbusiness.chron.com/laws-subliminal-marketing-69892.html

          With regards to international actors and thier domestic collaborators, check into Foundations of Geopolitics. Its a playbook being followed.

          • jmp242@sopuli.xyz
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            1 year ago

            I don’t think the SPE is that good a reference, and also not super meaningful to this sort of case of Internet manipulation anyway. Look at the amount of points showing it was basically not a normal experiment but predetermined to act out how the PI wanted - in that wikipedia link.

            My understanding of MK Ultra was basically the government wasted a lot of money because of fear of missing out vs the Soviets. It didn’t accomplish anything.

            And subliminal marketing has been widely debunked to my knowledge. People thought it might do something, but experimentally it didn’t.

            I would have pointed to disinformation campaigns myself - there is research that implies it works.

          • ieatpwns@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            That geopolitics book is buy some Russian guy right? I’ve heard that it’s literally being played out even though it was written a long time ago

            • manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech
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              1 year ago

              printed in the early 80s, written by the man who is considered the grandfather of the current Russian’ govt’s ideology and “plan”

              he has the ear of putin, or did.

        • ComradeKhoumrag@infosec.pub
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          1 year ago

          Abortion was a very well researched controversial topic to divide the feminist movement as much as possible.

          Most propaganda boils down to fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) to promote division and conqueror the smaller groups

    • speaker_hat@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      I agree, and I think it’s even more broader: Anxiety and stress. These are extremely dangerous and underrated, and even exploited by many (e.g. news, politicians, workplace, social media, marketing). It’s like sticking a cigarette into your mouth without you able to immediately take it out.