this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2025
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Fediverse vs Disinformation
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Pointing out, debunking, and spreading awareness about state- and company-sponsored astroturfing on Lemmy and elsewhere. This includes social media manipulation, propaganda, and disinformation campaigns, among others.
Propaganda and disinformation are a big problem on the internet, and the Fediverse is no exception.
What's the difference between misinformation and disinformation? The inadvertent spread of false information is misinformation. Disinformation is the intentional spread of falsehoods.
By equipping yourself with knowledge of current disinformation campaigns by state actors, corporations and their cheerleaders, you will be better able to identify, report and (hopefully) remove content matching known disinformation campaigns.
Community rules
Same as instance rules, plus:
- No disinformation
- Posts must be relevant to the topic of astroturfing, propaganda and/or disinformation
Related websites
- EU vs Disinfo
- FactCheck.org
- PolitiFact
- Snopes
- Media Bias / Fact Check
- PEN America
- Media Matters
- FAIR
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I mean, you can go look at Reuters headlines for the middle east.
https://www.reuters.com/world/israel-hamas/
It's hardly uncritically accepting of Israels narrative goals, which would be expected for a news outlet that tries to report objectively.
Given that the initial headline, which I don't think was as bad as people are responding, was shortly changed and their long history of good reporting and current history of seemingly not following someones dictated narrative, I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Sure, I'm not trying to dunk on Reuters specifically, I don't really care either way. It's about the principle of the thing, and the overall pattern of uncritical reporting in mainstream media.
F.U.D. is a strategy that works exceptionally well. It only takes a few headlines to sow the seeds of doubt that make uncontroversial stances increasingly untenable. Whether it's Trump's transparent lies, Big Oil/Tobacco/Asbestos' transparent funding of bogus "studies", or Israeli genocide denial, it doesn't matter; once these narratives are allowed to spread decontextualized and uncontradicted, well-intentioned actors are forced to spend an wildly asymmetric amount of time and energy into debunking insane and disingenuous claims before they can even begin to lay out their own arguments.
With this in mind I don't think it's unreasonable for people to be mad that a respectable journalistic institution would let even a single headline through that uncritically propagates Israeli F.U.D. covering up for war crimes.
I mean, I honestly don't think "Initial inquiry says Hamas camera target of Israeli strike that killed journalists" is uncritical propagation of Israeli FUD.
It's not a good title, since it clearly causes a misunderstanding and it doesn't convey key information like "whose investigation", but it's not disinformation.
FUD != Disinformation.
Propagating a lie without conveying that it's coming from a notorious liar is technically correct but also the very definition of FUD.