Once we isolate key people, we look for people we know are in their upstream – people that they read posts from, but who themselves are less influential. (This uses the same social media graph built before.) We then either start flame wars with bots to derail the conversations that are influencing influential people (think nonsense reddit posts about conspiracies that sound like Markov chains of nonsense other people have said), or else send off specific tasks for sockpuppets (changing this wording of an idea here; cause an ideological split there; etc).

The goal is to keep opinions we don’t want fragmented and from coalescing in to a single voice for long enough that the memes we do want can, at which points they’ve gotten a head start on going viral and tend to capture a larger-than-otherwise share of media attention.

(All of the stuff above is basically the “standard” for online PR (usually farmed out to an LLC with a generic name working for the marketing firm contracted by the big firm; deniability is a word frequently said), once you’re above a certain size.)

https://archive.is/PoUMo

  • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksOP
    1151·
    8 days ago

    Also this,

    “The opposition party is the media,” Steve Bannon, who helped run Trump’s 2016 campaign, told PBS Frontline five years ago. “And the media can only — because they’re dumb and they’re lazy — they can only focus on one thing at a time.”

    So the solution, per Bannon? Overwhelm them.

    “All we have to do is flood the zone,” he said. “Every day we hit them with three things. They’ll bite on one, and we’ll get all of our stuff done, bang, bang, bang. These guys will never — will never be able to recover. But we’ve got to start with muzzle velocity.”

    https://www.npr.org/2025/02/07/nx-s1-5289315/trump-week-in-review

  • HubertManne@piefed.socialEnglish
    37·
    8 days ago

    I mean this is seen all over. Spoiler crap is a big reason we are where we are. You pretty much have to assume this type of crap with all discourse now and realize that the big problems are wealth disparity and corps being given to much power along with that most people ultimately want a society were people have food and shelter and education and healthcare but they can be manipulated against their own values really. Its a crazy time.

    • Maeve@kbin.earth
      43·
      8 days ago

      The thing is, no one manipulated against their own values think they are. A quick glance at your upvotes* shows plenty agree, but among those are at odds with each other. And that’s fine, we just need to be willing to listen to other opinions, and recognize no one has a truth monopoly, and none are free of our own cognitive biases.

  • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
    355·
    8 days ago

    Worth noting that 50501, the biggest supporter of remaining “peaceful”, still has no cohesive message despite being controlled by democrats. Same shit happened with the women’s march and occupy Wallstreet.

    • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
      161·
      8 days ago

      Because activist regressive mods made their way into nearly every 50501 public form, including Lemmy months ago

      Got a permaban for calling out bot activity for the first time on the main instance, so fuck them and everyone involved. Their fault for not doing their jobs

    • Revan343@lemmy.ca
      113·
      8 days ago

      still has no cohesive message despite being controlled by democrats

      Lol. They have no cohesive message because they’re controlled by democrats

    • John@lemmy.mlEnglish
      148·
      8 days ago

      50501 is a liberal movement whose only goal is pre-trump status quo.

      Lenin talks about the need for a working class Vanguard, otherwise these spontaneous protests/movements will always get co-opted by liberals and mainstream, and eventually fizzle away. We saw it happen with BLM, occupy, women’s march, etc

      I don’t have any long term hope for 50501, but we’re using the momentum to recruit for DSA and workers movements.

  • tyler@programming.dev
    15·
    8 days ago

    Pure evil. They reference the banality of evil, but that only applies if you have no clue your part of it. That user is most definitely evil and immoral. Pretending like you just gave up and are doing it because you’re part of another group of people is just hiding behind a facade. They know what they’re doing is immoral, yet they call it amoral. They know what they’re doing is making things worse, yet they say FB is doing it and nobody thinks all those people are evil.

    Pure evil.

  • FreakinSteve@lemmy.world
    102·
    8 days ago

    Okay. I dont understand this thread. I for one advocate for violence against Nazis. I fully expect that “peaceful protest” will lead to juuuust enough capitulation by the Nazis to calm everyone down so they go home and let the Nazis further entrench their power while the protesters think they won. Someone in the thread mentioned the dissolution of BLM and Occupy by milquetoast shitlibs; without violence the same happens here IMO. @TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world

    What are we advocating for here?