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.
Same as instance rules, plus:
Wait, this is a... a supposition, not an obvious fact?
That people often virtue signal and tailor their purported beliefs as a way to be rhetorically appealing to certain groups?
... Have I woken up in another dimension or is this not just basic social dynamics, psychology, and also political campaign strategy... and marketing?
Did 'social psychologists' just now finally catch up to Baudrillard?
I sometimes feel that way when reading certain studies, but it's important to remember that we need scientific studies to prove things even if they seem obvious to us because that is how science is done. Sometimes the obvious thing ends up being wrong, or we learn new things about the obvious thing.
I mean yes, empirical investigation is always good, but ... anybody could have empirically tested this concept at like, basically any time in the last 50 years?
and yet they didn't?
That is the source of my vexation.
Granted, I don't purport to know everything about psychology... but yes, I am quite confused as to how this seems to be the first time actual empirical studies have been done on this concept?
I don't know, I feel that has to be wrong in some way, and that just this article is oddly worded in such a way that my impression from it is that... this is basically a novel concept for these authors.