I don’t listen to populist podcasts, I just read Wikipedia instead.
this post was submitted on 15 Mar 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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Oligarchs are buying up and controlling all media. When they control the media, they not only control the news, they can literally manufacture the news.
- Leftists face much more pushback to be deplatformed than rightwingers.
- Leftists and corporate sponsors don’t mix, since leftists threaten capital, so paying for the program’s cost is an issue.
since leftists threaten capital, so paying for the program’s cost is an issue.
Just a friendly reminder to support your favorite leftist content producers with donations if you can afford to. There are a couple outlets that I really appreciate, and I have a small recurring monthly donation to them. I know it's not much, but every little bit helps.
- Cough-cough, folder leak, cough-cough, "on the left there are no bad tactics only bad targets". Also "I'm an overtly political Linux/open source YouTuber, but I shame anyone for politics if they're even a bit left of Margaret Thatcher, and both exxaggerate supposed DEI overreaches and overreport them for weeks". Also also "Keep your politics out of gaming, but I welcome mine".
- The very moment they mix you get post-2024 TYT, or similar brainrot.
You might also call it "cultural hegemony".
this is an interesting problem: let's say that there's 50 right leaning viewers and 50 left leaning viewers. let's also say that the 50 left leaning viewers are spoiled for choice and get 50 different YouTubers they're into, while the to right leaning viewers don't get as many quality options and settle on 5 YouTubers. each of the 5 YouTubers that appeals to the right now dominate the rankings specifically because the field is weak
I don't think that's what's happening though? Your example implies that there are 10x more content creators on the left than on the right and that's just not true.
It's not really a problem. Authoritarians need a few daddy figures while leftists prefer a variety of opinions.
The "society and culture" and "comedy" topics are only slightly right-skewed, which seems representative of the US voting behavior with Republicans winning more elections but not by much.
The non-political topics with political sprinkles are interesting, and where the right overwhelms the left. People don't listen to these shows because of the politics - they are there for the sports talk, or the discussion on getting and staying healthy, or for some inspiration and spiritual reflection - but the political sprinkles aren't enough to drive them away. Does anyone see a path to a left-leaning host attracting significant audiences for mainly sports or wellness or spirituality, with occasional progressive sprinkles?
Not really, left leaning people always have the same problem: something that could reasonably called a set of morals (other than might makes right).
Your examples are toxic masculinity, diet grifters, and metaphysical grifters. It's hard to square a sense of right and wrong with grifting.
I think you might be able to make inroads with women's sports but...you need already toxic men to care.
You could make a diet show that does actual medicine, but the advice would be eat less, especially less meat and less alcohol. Eat green stuff instead. Go outside every day. Can't make a long lasting show on this because it's stable advice...this is why you need a grifter to make the show last, the content just doesn't support the show.
Not gonna bother with metaphysical grifting, we get it.
Part of the problem is that telling the truth doesn't really sell an identity. If you subscribe to some niche pseudoscience, then it can be your "thing" and you can form a bond with others who are into the same niche thing. Selling lies also allows you to craft the narrative to appeal to particular demographics and target audiences. Part of how the human brain functions is that doing insane things together with other people (ritualism) helps form a bond - the insanity is part of the design, to distinguish the in-group from the out-group. There's also the problem that grifting makes money, and money lets you boost your signal and reach more people.
I have gotten a lot of social connections and philosophy learning through my congregation, consumed a variety of exercise safety and effectiveness tips, enjoyed discovering recipes that fit with my lifestyle and dietary preferences (many of which contribute healthy variety to my food intake), and get positive feelings finding spaces that share experiences and tips around specific health conditions I have. It's sad to see all of those experiences cast as me being a victim of grifting.
Asmongold
Never seen a person say that they're a centrist like 50 times, then go on to exclusively feature republicans, right wing channels, elon twitter simps, gamergate and just other clearly biased personalities. Wish he'd be more honest and say that he's clearly aligned with the right
LOL that always seems to be the way centrist roll.
They're conservatives but don't like the stink of conservative politics.
I thought we all agreed ages ago "centrist" means frothing at the mouth racist who insists on the free market above all aka a 90s republican.
people who prefer to form their own opinions instead of having it spoonfed to them tend to not idolize the flapping faceholes on tv the way republican incels do
Glad other people see it so obviously. They claim to be independent thinkers immune to brainwashing but all they do is listen to and repeat any drivel they already agree with. And if you bring their "alpha male" rhetoric into it it's even funnier because they're nothing but sheep who drool over any man who seems powerful. They are the opposite of everything they claim to be.
we also tend to cite our sources rather than say "do your own research"
What they mean: "Look up an article supporting your position on the web."
What it should mean: "Test your hypothesis and get your findings peer reviewed and replicated."
we need laws globally to force all news organization to print corrections of equal scale for iterms that are proved to be incorrect
We all want accountability and authenticity, but if you are going to suggest something like that, you at least have to consider the mechanism needed, and how difficult it would be to get it right.
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I fucking hate Joe rogan, man
The main reason I don’t follow much left-leaning content online is because a lot of it is utterly depressing.
I’m sure there is a way to change the presentation of things to stop fueling doomerism without needing to outright sweep bad things under the rug.
Put more focus on the solutions than the issues, for a start. When covering the opposition, always do so by rightfully making fun of them as the clowns they indeed are. Picturing them as competent in any way indirectly gives them more power.
I personally don’t want another source of sadness and anger in my life, but I do want to be connected to other leftists and leftist ideas.
Left wing comedians like John Stuart, John Oliver, and Stephen colbert are the only way I'm staying sane. They deliver the worst of the news in a lighthearted manner.
Last week tonight with John oliver hits the right spot for me.
There's only so much of that show I can watch because it's "Here's how fucking godawful this thing is, but it gets worse"
There's just so much of that shit you can handle before you start digging a hole in the backyard.
if you only watch the main segment that gets posted to YouTube, that's definitely how it goes. The full show does a good job of sandwiching it between light-hearted, palatable goofs.
Oliver is a pretty good entry point. Then again so is Sam cedar. Although the recent episode of Jubilee He was on is enough to drive any sane person mad. He pretty well owned everyone he spoke against. But they were so smug and ignorant they thought they were winning the whole time. But the majority report is generally fairly upbeat and informative. Sam and his co-host pretty well know what they're talking about and are decent presenters
Sam Seder
The in-your-face topics of "society and culture" and "comedy" are close to evenly split.
The shows the right is dominating in are things like sports and wellness and spirituality with political sprinkles. The left didn't even have one show in the article's survey of those topics.
It's been a while since I was into podcasts but Srsly Wrong used to be one of my favorites for a more optimistic discussion of leftist theory.
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They used subscriber count as a metric which is really stupid.
Peterson for example shows up with 23M for his total social media presence. His YT channel has 8.64M subscribers but he has become completely irrelevant and his videos average around 200k views with some exceptions.
View count is all that matters here if we are talking about political influence.
Not only that but we know for a fact subscriber count can be bought. X uses hundreds of thousands of bot accounts to fuel whatever they are in the mood for. It doesn't really mean much.
Also Rogan more than likely has a fucking ton of idle left wing subs. Dudes show was fucking great before he moved to Texas.
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Russell Brand is right wing?
Yes. It was a whole debacle when he switched back and went anti vegan. Not for the non vegan part but for the start leaning right part. Well .. maybe for the vegan part too depending on your plant bent.
He never used to be....
Russell Brand’s evolution from left-wing comedian to podcast hero of the alt-right
I remember when he started his YouTube vlog he was a communist or at the very least a socialist, but I haven't watched anything from him in like 10 years as I do not watch this personality based podcasts.
I guess the algorithm shapes the creators too, not just the viewers.
Oof that h3 blue marker i hope it stays but I feel like he will begin his grift to the right soon
Since they are full on Zionists and they basically use their community as a brigading attack dog I had a laugh when I saw them blue.
Yeah same i am a hasan fan over h3 and the fall out has sad
Maybe the left is just less terminally online than the right.
Also not as heavily funded by the right-wing sponsors. Tim Pool is funded by Russia.
the city is back up, it's a must, we outside
Is Lex Friedman right leaning? I haven't listened a ton, but I got a neutral impression.
There's a good piece on him here if you want all the details: https://www.businessinsider.com/lex-fridman-podcast-anti-woke-elon-musk-ai
Ah, that makes sense. It's more recent.
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