This has to be one of the funniest things that's ever happened

Satirical news site The Onion has purchased Right Wing Conspiracy Platform Infowars, formerly owned by Alex Jones.

The deal was part funded by the families of victims of the Sandy Hook Massacre who were awarded millions in damages from Jones and the site for pushing the conspiracy that it was all staged.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c30p1p0j0ddo.amp

 

Karma

 

I do not know why o why these sacks of 5hyte do this sort o things. It is incomprehensible they spread lies like this, what is the purpose, what is the end game? Like Cambridge Red says, karma will do for these haters.

 

I debated with both Brit & American Anti-vaxxers on another forum...it's difficult to comprehend how they can, apparently sincerely, believe figures handwritten on a piece of paper or a free Office type spreadsheet and then posted on Twitter by someone with no obvious credentials.

 

A friend of mine who studied anthropology is pretty adamant that it comes down to the way our brains work and how we are pre programmed to conform to societal consensus. Essentially if you are told something enough times then your subconscious begins to accept it and your perspective changes. So even when it's something completely crazy that you know isn't true, you can eventually become receptive to it. The implication is that it's not people being stupid as we often view them.. but being indoctrinated when they spend too long listening to the wrong people.

It's a scary idea to accept because you have to accept that you are less in control of your own mind that most of us would want to believe.

 

A bit like when Labour said a million times pre election that their manifesto was fully costed and they were not going to raise taxes other than those already outlined in the manifesto?

 

Or when Boris said he was going to build 40 new hospitals

 

Well no. Kinda the opposite actually. You picked an example of something that you cant go anywhere without people complaining about it (eg your post).

Its more akin to what Musk did with Twitter by making it an aggressively right wing echo chamber through bots and a modified algorithm. Making unpopular and extreme opinions seem much more mainstream meaning more and more people end up taking up that belief.

Labour are literally not savvy in that way at all.

 

This is why I really want people on the left to actually talk on twitter and other places about important things, instead of just labelling the other side nazis, racist, stupid etc. Obviously there's plenty of those about and are usually the loudest. But there's millions more who aren't like that. Calling someone a nazi because they're misinformed is just going to make them even a more staunch defender of their position.

Its easy to gloat over here about the labour win, but my first reaction was fear at seeing just how many votes Reform got. All over Europe people are shifting right. Now in America, Donald trump has absolute power - house, senate, supreme Court, winning majority of the swing states and shockingly even the popular vote. Which i still find mental now. But quite clearly just labelling people x, y & z is just pushing more people over or cementing their decision. He literally won Latino men - I just can't call them racist and a nazi because clearly there's some real big issues at play. Couple that rhetoric with a bad candidate and this is what happens.

I think our messaging is brilliant for the most part. The issue is how we deliver it and how we combat the opposition and not patronise or condescend potential voters.

 

The issue is that Twitter is long gone. X is a toxic right wing populist weapon now. What we're trying to do with Bluesky is how we counter this. There is actual moderation and a nuclear block option. The extremists, the content scrapers, the engagement farmers, the bots (and terrifyingly the literal nazis) are all maintained in lists that can either be blanket blocked or perused and blocked individually. It means that you can have actual conversations without the troublecausers triggering everyone.

What is really interesting is that left wing people moved en masse as soon as the election was done, ready for a fresh start and a more positive experience. Within days, tonnes of the the major right wing accounts, who are quite happy with Musk's X, followed us over... Because they literally only exist on those platforms to 'own the libs'.

Its a bully culture.. so we built tools to cut them out of our lives. Thats nothing to do with their political beliefs, its to do with the way they treat people of differing opinions. It'll be interesting to see if they turn on each other when starved of targets.

 

I've never heard of blue sky mate but any platform that is trying to do good is fine by me. The further the divide however the more we enter our own echo chambers. People on X will only see right wing rhetoric and vise versa for the people on the left with blue-sky - obviously the right wingers joining blue sky are set in their ways anyway if they're in joining for that particular reason so they are long lost.

It does bother me how toxic social media is. Even on here at times. Its barmy. I know I've been guilty of it too, though. I do miss the days where social media was in its infancy - back when people used to warn you off dating other people whom you meet online now I think people think its weird if you don't meet online!

 

Sheffield Wednesday have already opened an official club account on Bluesky. Think BFC should be doing the same. Their X account still seems to be active though. Will be interesting to see if there's a mass exodus of corporate accounts from there.

 

The MAGA lot are quite happy for Musk to be the the thing they’ve accused George Soros of for years aren’t they?

 

Bluesky is Twitter in 2011 when i first joined. With a million people joining a day, Bluesky is the only way to fight back. Conversations are very different when one side doesn't have an army of trolls amplifying everything they say and overwhelming opponents with personal attacks.

X actually cant survive in its current format as its algorithm is designed for a one sided war. People are leaving and engagement is disappearing rapidly. The remaining extreme right wing people can go back to truth social but that will never be a go to platform for organisations and media. Bluesky is already becoming that mainstream platform. Its where most people will end up. Threads will never fully take off because its just another data capture tool from Meta. Lots of us will never give our data to them, knowing they take ownership of all data on their platform and will sell it to the highest bidder!

 

What became of Threads, and where is that on the neutrality scale?

Weren't a million folk a day joining that at one point?

 

I mention it in the post above. Politically its fairly neutral to post on but they take ownership of all data and are free to sell to the highest bidder. Everyone gets all their digital marketing data from Meta. I refuse to hold any accounts with them having seen what they hold on you.

Interestingly the club looks like they opened a Bluesky account today

 

Yes, cheers. Saw your post too late.
I joined Threads when it looked like it was going to work, but just checked now and seems it hasn't really worked. Club hasn't posted a thread for 15 weeks.
So I'll give BSky a go. I'll search the club out to follow.

@milnerfield

 

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https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/15/the-onion-infowars-bankruptcy

Been put on hold according to this. Alex Jones has done a video of himself inside the studio with a kitchen sink - same way Musk did for twitter. Didnt watch the video though.