Opensecrets.org has been around for a while. FEC filings are already pretty damning and yet power remains secure. We know who’s paying them, but it’s not illegal and the electorate doesn’t respond to that information. Even if there were a big list of all the dark money it seems like it wouldn’t do much. At least the data is public. Tell your friends.
Edit: and the hacker collective thing is mostly aesthetic. “Anonymous” is even less of a group than antifa.
I thought that was the elephant’s foot firna sec
“Please don’t point out that I made a huge mistake and should have known better”
I hate it when this happens!
Hahahahahaha FUCK YOU ORACLE!
sorry, needed to get that out of my system
I don’t do deep packet inspection on Lemmy traffic, nor am I a behavioral analyst. I simply think it stands to reason that if there are organizations who are capable of running influence campaigns that Lemmy would be a natural target. Any online forum is potentially at risk of targeted disinformation campaigns. I don’t apply this logic on an individual basis, because witch hunts are just as counterproductive as being overly credulous. But I have a pretty simple razor that if someone is trying to incite me to violence, meet offline, or divulge personally identifying information I should block them whether or not they’re some kind of operative.
I think there’s a motive. If I were the FBI I wouldn’t be too concerned about actual violent outcomes, so long as they were lone wolf attacks or the product of tiny cells of radicals. It’s like a controlled burn in a forest. You get the fire out of the way before it reaches a critical mass. “Voting doesn’t work, burn down a government building” is a real hard sell to someone with a stable job, but the people it does sell to might one day be the types of people to organize and lead a meaningful opposition. So you flush them out early and fast. Some people might die, but Director Patel told me to catch leftists, not to prevent violence. As an added bonus, each violent act turns liberals more and more against what they perceive as an inherently violent ideology. “These are terrible times, and maybe if it prevents another bombing mass surveillance is acceptable even if I don’t like it,” they might think. You don’t have to go back too far to see that mindset in action. In the aftermath of 9/11 Americans saw an unprecedented erosion of their civil liberties. Terror is good for an autocratic regime.
That being said, I will grant that there’s no evidence of this. But then again there wasn’t evidence of COINTELPRO until the FBI field office in Media PA got broken into by a group of concerned citizens. Not that I’m condoning B&E. I also don’t think it would be productive to point fingers even if there were evidence the FBI was doing COINTELPRO 2. “So and so is a fed” is actually one of the tactics used in COINTELPRO to sow discord in infiltrated groups. Just, maybe we should keep in mind that we’re bound to see some discourse here that is trying to get us to play a useful idiot.
The difference between me and a conspiracy theorist is that I can point at past evidence. COINTELPRO is a historical fact, and part of that program involved infiltrating dissident groups and acting as agents provocateur. The Church committee found that the FBI engaged in “covert action designed to disrupt and discredit the activities of groups and individuals deemed a threat to the social order.” The committee also found that the tactics employed by the FBI “would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity.”
I am not saying the FBI is definitely here now. What I am saying is it would be naïve to assume that they would not be willing to run an influence operation on public forums where people skeptical of the US government gather, and it would be foolish to assume that nobody else is carrying out similar operations for their own respective interests, state-level or otherwise.
Mastodon isn’t American either and they still seized a Koliktiva server. Jurisdiction nothing. They can’t arrest you, that doesn’t mean they don’t have an interest in influencing you. And they’re one group of many who has an interest in running influence operations. Fuck dude, it could be Russia, it could be Mossad, it could be GISS. The barrier to entry is so low these days.
Lemmy is big enough to be a psyop target and has been for a while. This place is rife with feds and bots of every persuasion and they will try to influence you from every angle. As Lemmy grows it will only get worse. It’s easy to brush off pushback for criticizing nation states but also be aware that the FBI in particular has a history of trying to push people towards violent radicalism and in person meetups. Do not trust anyone online. Especially if they agree with you politically.
because the number of likes you get is proportional to the number of people who see it, not how amazing the thing you posted is
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Also 1998: Olestra
Bad Lieutenant II. If you dont like it we can still be friends, but the harder you judge me for liking it the funnier it gets.
The past:
I think that falls under “back to the drawing board.” Functionally there’s little difference between talking to a model and taking a call. If management is pushing them to dictate and it’s causing a problem they should put them in cubes.
Nobody takes light pollution seriously but it’s as serious as a heart attack.
And I’m not saying we should shut off all the streetlights either. Although rigging them to motion sensors would be cool. Just that we should pretty please use full cutoff fixtures, ban uplights, and for the love of God use 3000k or warmer. 6000k for dusk-dawn lighting is insane especially in residential areas.
“I’ll fucking kill you! You traitor! You disloyal bitch! When I get out of this abominable binding you’re deader than your mom, your mom who’s burning in hell! I hate you! You’re actually already dead to me!”
as soon as the cone comes off:
“You’re a dick. don’t touch me. what’s for dinner”
I make light but what a poor kitty that looks so stressful