So true, they’ve really been rapidly climbing in my books over the last year especially. One of my favorite news sources rn. Would love recommendations for ones of similar quality outside tech, for any topics?

No, actually, its the pro-vote meme with tons of upvotes at the top of Lemmy. Of course people posting anti-vote opinions is going to go up in the wake of people posting pro-vote opinions. Neither of these is propaganda. It’s just people disagreeing. I’m so tired of everything people don’t like on this website being called bots and shills. The accusation shuts down discussion

The first step to that would be convincing enough people of their views to reach critical mass, but whenever they try, people like you tell them to shut up

There are trans people that won’t vote at all, there are trans people that will vote blue no matter who. You can find all kinds of people. Its weird to say someone doesn’t care about trans people when some trans people share these views. Surely they care about themselves?

The fact these people’s arguments end up in trolley memes 50% of the time really shows the level of mental sophistication that they operate with. I’ve said it before, but it must actually be so comfortable to live in a world where your views are so simple that a literal binary “my thing (good); your thing (bad)” image macro encapsulates your entire line of reasoning.

Wait, are you saying I’m on a billionaire propaganda payroll? I mean, just really think about this, my friend. You seem cool and have your heart in the right place. But you’re telling a person on Lemmy that the view they’re sharing is billionaire money, but the big tech “vote” banners I see on apps and services are telling us to do the right thing, and that those are meant to be reverse psychology to make us not vote, so we need to actually do what those ads tell us, but not the other ads that tell us to vote for certain candidates, which are forward psychology, so we need to do not do what those say.

But I am the bad faith propaganda spreader? Or at best a good faith propaganda victim? Where is this billionaire “don’t vote” propaganda? I’ve never seen it on ads, billboards, or apps. The only places I see no voting sentiment are free social media, and among my IRL contacts. Is it possible that’s the billionaire psyop? Yes, it is. But it just seems weird because we don’t know that those things took money, but the “get out the vote” campaign definitely does.

It just seems like there’s a lot of convolution needed to make that stance consistent. I’m not denying that your stance ends up consistent, it just seems to have a lot of hoops to go through to get there.

Partially because I actually agree with the fundamental logic of the meme you posted:

Well-funded ad campaigns should not be trusted and are useful as an anti-compass. And I see a lot of well-funded “get out the vote” campaigns, including ones attached to large corporations.

I actually agree with the meme more than many people in this thread, since I’m not arbitrarily deciding which billionaire ad campaigns are legitimate based on what I already want to believe, but instead sticking to the logic regardless of the message.

So when rich people fund “both sides are the same” propaganda, its to convince me of the same thing, that both sides are the same. But when they fund “get out the vote” propaganda, its to convince me of the OPPOSITE, to not vote. How can I tell whether a message is intended as reverse psychology or not? Do I just decide based on what I’ve already determined I want to take away from it?

It kind of seems like by this logic, I can arbitrarily pick and choose which messages are legitimate by just presuming that its either reverse or forward psychology.

So when people tell me my vote doesn’t matter via free social media, I’m supposed to believe it isn’t regular people trying to express their views, but a coordinated propaganda effort, despite the fact that there is no “voting doesn’t matter” ad campaign on my freeway and Google’s homepage. But when I see huge corporations and ad campaigns telling me to vote no matter what, I’m supposed to believe that IS regular people putting money where their mouth is, and not a coordinated propaganda effort.

And I’m supposed to believe all of that in conjunction with the logic of the meme, that whatever powerful people spend money to convince you of, you should believe the opposite of. Except when it’s something I already want to believe?

Yeah not enough people are mentioning this. I see tons of advertising telling me to go vote, not for anyone in particular, just to vote. Advertising that clearly cost a lot of money. I guess the billionaires running those campaigns are supposed to be good ones? The meme defeats itself with its own logic

So what am I supposed to make of all the huge billboards, text and phone campaigns, professional advertisements, and pushing by companies like Google telling me to vote?

The thread here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50317991 raises some valid concerns about the Reddit post in question. It explicitly even says its been approved by the company, so idunno. 404 Media has done a lot of legit exposés in the last few years. I’m inclined to trust journalists over the guy posting on Reddit with permission from Proton. The screenshots apparently included show Yen telling an employee to do damage control with their personal account on reddit, which really makes things look even worse, doesn’t it?

TIL I am part of your botnet

Curious to hear from someone more knowledgeable about security if this seems like an economic attack by another country, or what? The only other motivation I can see here is to force supermarkets to be more secure without doing serious damage (serious like people starving).

Painful watching people who have clearly never bothered to read even the shortest excerpt of philosophy try to have a philosophical discussion

This neat trick doesn’t work in America, where they’d just arrest/deport/kill you for doing this

That’s cool that there are still standards for any channels there, lol. What’s the subdemographic you think he’s appealing to?

“Not professional or eloquent at all. Not funny, but definitely trying his hardest to be so. Lame jokes that he laughs at himself”

Sounds like the timeless qualifications for being a reality show host tbh