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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BobbyTrivia" data-source="post: 7332" data-attributes="member: 2035">I've followed a lot of different angles in the general political discourse ever since Trump was elected, which I know created a bit of a crazy time. I'm trying to stay on-topic with this post, but I'll admit that it got a bit long-winded.An idea that I've seen brought up, though I wish I could recall its source, was that there was simply no need to create this sort of false discourse. I mean, it's there, and there's plenty of evidence of it being there, but it isn't what's most effective. What's most effective is to simply seek out an individual or group that is saying what you want to be heard. Then, signal boost. Amplify that signal so it's heard by all.Don't take any of the following as fact; I'm simply illustrating an example of what I mean: I've watched a bit of Destiny on YouTube lately, and he's been questioning who is actually listening to MikeFromPA and taking him seriously -- he comes off as an angry idiot with nothing of value to say. Someone did some digging and it seems that MikeFromPA has a single, large donor who is consistently gifting subs to boost up the sub count. Obviously viewer and follower bots exist as well, and if you were gifted a sub, you would presumably watch a bit more. After a certain point, much of his growth will come naturally and the need for bots will fall, since he will consistently be recommended as a channel. Now that he's a voice in the "political Twitch space," other big streamers take notice and he can latch onto their success. He makes ridiculous claims and practically admits that he doesn't want his viewers to actually do anything (in terms of political action) and to simply watch him for "entertainment" instead. But, he is a figure that creates a lot of controversy wherever he goes. He gives a bad name to the "dirtbag left," giving conservatives an easy target, while also wasting the time and energy of anyone closer to "the center." If this is your goal as an individual or an entity, it's really simple to seek out someone like this and boost their signal. Pay, pay, pay. There is no need to create fake content or write scripts or anything of the sort -- all you need is the money and the intent.Back to my own opinion and away from hypothetical land:Personally, I think it's a far bigger problem that trash gets signal boosted constantly. It also doesn't help that social media algorithms tend to give preference to controversial topics, which tends to create more division, and pulls us further apart. A movement like "Q" probably would've died off by now if it wasn't signal boosted, with malice intent or not, by big tech companies and the general media. How much trash has been maliciously amplified by a foreign actor to split apart America? How much trash has been maliciously amplified by the US to create in-fighting within targeted countries? Again: it's a lot easier to amplify an individual or entity that is already saying what you want them to say than it is to create that signal from scratch.Thanks for your post, and I loved the MGS2 clip. Just hearing it made me immediately want to break out a sampler, though I doubt I'll ever get anything worth listening to out of it <img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/AGORA/tongue.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":p" title="Stick Out Tongue    :p" data-shortname=":p" /> I think that you and I actually agree on the general result of your post, but I think we disagree on its implementation -- you seem to posit that fake content is the problem, whereas I'm positing that (most of) the content is legitimate but the signal of said content is being artificially boosted. It would become irrelevant and naturally die off, but is instead likely boosted by malicious actors and lifeless algorithms that prioritize controversy over "utility" (however you would define "utility" in this case).I've moved my personal communications almost entirely over Signal and ProtonMail, and I spent a full year out of the last year and a half or so on a privacy-conscious Linux install. I've also moved to self-hosting for much of my media consumption, though my YouTube addiction is kicking back in (I enjoyed PeerTube for many months, but proper YouTube feels like a drug most days). That said, I don't believe that this fixes anything until something new and groundbreaking comes along.Remember our reliance on newscasters and journalists who at least tried to do their jobs, but were run by a few large companies? The regular ol' internet was meant to fix all this. Remember when YouTube was made up of individual creators? When "Spotify" was just one of several P2P applications and you would just search up exactly what you wanted and were forced to create your own playlists or mixtapes or whatever? And then over time, those few large media companies bought up all the smaller media companies. Year over year, they took over everything. And then they started to "understand" and utilize the internet. They stomped all over "by the people, for the people" or whatever slogan you prefer to idealize the internet with. Wherever a solution crops up, abuse and mal-intent will soon follow. P2P would arguably make things worse since it'll be even easier to signal boost bad actors, and even more difficult to do proper "moderation" ("censorship," "curation").In my opinion, there cannot be a real solution outside of individual education. And, also in my opinion, much of this education doesn't require a tinfoil hat to espouse. I don't think it's reasonable to pursue "stopping" these types of campaigns. I would be happy to explore this further if you'd like, however. My mind isn't totally made up.</blockquote>

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