Do you mean investors are trying to manipulate stocks by planting stories? Yeah, I think so. But intelligence agencies have whole training programs on how to manipulate narratives, and a very long track record of doing so.

See: Israel’s hasbara apparatus,

GCHQ leaked documents on infiltrating and derailing socialist discussions,

Church Committee Hearings,

“The Cultural Cold War” by Frances Stonor Saunders.

The top hits for my “WSB” search are:

• World Sports Betting

• r/WallStreetBets

• World Superbikes

I don’t think any of their goons are astroturfing (well, maybe World Superbikes). Did you mean a different entity?

Corporatism leads to imperialism by the need to seek profits in new markets. Wherever we see lots of defense of imperialism, there is corporate backing behind it. That’s why I think lemmy.world is astroturfed. There’s a strong anti-communist and pro “free market” capitalist tendency on there. Posts that attack the Global South as the world’s villains. On the other hand, there are also many people on lemmy.world that speak out against imperialism and capitalistic exploitation. But the recurrent waves of reactionary politics on lemmy.world indicate to me the presence of astroturfing trolls. This makes sense even on a relatively small platform like Lemmy because it threatens to become a nucleus for organizing against capitalism.

Good evidence of astroturfing on Reddit. That Reddit took action and banned the Palantir agents only provides evidence that exposure of the op is the problem. Not evidence that Reddit acts in good faith.

If you are interested in my views and where my loyalty lies you can ask me about those things. Is there severe oppression in China? What is it? Do you mean Xinjiang? Have you seen any evidence to support this? Any evidence to the contrary?

Frequent Guardian readers more likely to agree with anti-China narratives, study finds.

I read independent journalism from China. It’s called Ginger River Review if you’re interested.

Independent news media was almost totally killed off in the US and Canada with the media mergers. Good thing Substack and for a while Medium, also YouTube, and just independent websites popped up. Of course YouTube is owned by Google and the reporting on it reflects their censorship.

As for authoritarian, that’s a core part of the propaganda campaign developed by NATO / The Atlantic Council to deal with states that don’t bend the knee to US empire. It’s a smear that distorts what is happening in The West (increasing authoritarianism) and in China (improving quality of life).

I don’t think anyone in this thread is anywhere close to implying all western news is true or that all non-western news is false.

Yes, I agree. But it’s a common belief in the West that Russian and Chinese news, for example, are pure propaganda. The irony is that this belief is itself the result of propaganda.

That’s a good point. I totally agree. Every news source has its biases.

The scary thing is getting hundreds of millions of people to believe Western news delivers the truth, while non Western news delivers the lies.

Also I don’t believe there is a single correct position on every issue. But on genocide there is a basic take: stop it immediately.

Consider The Guardian’s campaign against Jeremy Corbyn as an anti-Semite. Or their many character assassination pieces against Julian Assange. These campaigns serve the interests of the Zionist lobby and the US empire, respectively.

If you are critical of modern imperialism and capitalism, then The Guardian and AP do not have good takes on many issues. Currently, The Guardian publishes articles critical of the genocide in Gaza, which is the only correct position to take on the issue. However they have served Zionist interests in the past and carried water for US warmongers.

While they get on the bandwagon when critical mass gets unstoppable they also manufacture consent for empire.

Article warns that you will be profiled based on interests.

Article then profiles you based on interests. Proceeds to sell you VPN subscriptions.

You’re not going to believe this, but Tom Cruise… has identified you as an agent of Xenu.

So do you think the wedding dress shop is laundering money for a drug cartel?

Also, is rethinkDNS an alternative DNS which protects privacy?

Putin is openly anti-communist.

What about the fact that many large VPNs are owned by (the same) ad companies / data mining companies? Despite the technical discussion, aren’t we ultimately placing our trust in the hands of the untrustworthy?

Tariffs can be paid by the export country, indirectly. They usually have to lower the price of the commodity to make it competitive under tariffs.

Under Fordist economics the domestic industrial boost would lead to increased wages and buying power.

Under neoliberalism the domestic industrial capitalists gain a larger market share and then don’t pay their workers more. Then they are faced with the problem of what to do with products that are unaffordable.

Propaganda is usually truthful or exaggerated truth. It’s the framing that is important. Some facts are focused on. Some facts are omitted.

I acknowledge that Russia, China and the DPRK have made mistakes and even done things that are deeply questionable. But I’m interested in comparing their mistakes or misguided actions to those of the most powerful military empire on earth. The one involved in hundreds of military actions and dozens of coups since its inception. The one with the largest per capita prison population on earth. The one which controls many of the world’s financial levers.

There is a difference in the scale of their mistakes or bad actions. Propaganda distorts that difference of scale. It focuses on the crimes of the “enemies” / “axis of evil” / “rogue states” but doesn’t examine context or culpability of the empire. They’ll choose one conflict, downplay 9 others, and give a one-sided view of that one conflict.

That’s how propaganda works. Every state produces propaganda. One state produces billions of dollars of propaganda each year.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty is straight up State department propaganda.

Calculator?! Those thieving, energy-sucking piles of garbage! Abacus till I die!

But seriously, AI is insidious in how it data mines us to give us answers, and data mines our questions to build profiles of users. I distrust assurances of anonymity by big data corpos.

Would be funny if Boeing started cutting corners with their hitmen, too.