Then you’re in a bubble. One of the most frustrating things about the right currently is they have a large network that is very good at sharing information. They have a much tighter grip of current events than anyone I’ve seen on the left. The left are miles behind on any current events. Whenever something is happening, I’ve been heading over to right wing spaces because as much as I hate it, they tend to know things much faster and in more detail then the left wing spaces.

Just look at Lemmy here. Most information is a post and then 100 comments of talking about how upset we all are and gob smacked. But there is no further insight.

When I go to right wing spaces, it is similar but i do get extra information like background details about who individuals were or what led to an event that isn’t in an article. It comes with tons of bullshit but I trust I know ways to verify information enough to spot the bullshit.

Absolutely not true. I find more often they use lots of statistics. That’s the whole facts over feelings thing.

Exactly, and something that is entirely missed by the left is that you don’t need to “win” the argument. Just have fun. You can make them look silly by showing their absurdity by just joking with their dumb arguments. Jon Stewart is great at this. He doesn’t need a whole segment logically destroying every point in a monotone diatribe. He throws up video of a Republican saying one thing and then doing the complete opposite then cuts to him laughing and shrugging. The viewer comes to their own opinion. It’s entertaining. That’s the game. People online on the left ignore that game.

I’ve used it to learn how to read sheet music and help learn other skills I normally wouldn’t be able to.

I would have no problem getting anyone at r/conservative to pull up similar data points and statistics to show immigrants are taking jobs, contributing to crime statistics or any other claim. It’s very eerily similar to the emerging opinion on the left when compared to opinions on the right towards immigrants.

Regardless of validity of opinion. What I’m noticing is the role the media has played on shaping opinion and fed it.

That might actually reinforce my point

It’s the same sentiment towards immigrants that’s seen on the right.

The media have been running the exact same headlines. It feels weirdly like the corporate run media have an agenda to show us all the horrors of AI like they will take our jobs, they are going to collapse our society, they are a threat to our children, they contribute to organized crime. Same headlines every time.

I anticipate people here will be bothered by this statement just like if you say immigration isn’t really a big problem in r/conservative. The media is insidious. But I really think it’s a good opportunity to see how it shapes public opinion.

You’re wrong. Completely wrong on so many levels. This is all about engagement. That whole “too enlightened to engage” attitude is exactly how the right managed to take over so much of the online space. Right-wing think tanks and PR firms invested in engagement, nonstop posts, repetition, platform saturation. And it worked.

People see the same ideas echoed over and over again, and eventually it shapes how they think. That’s why regular, everyday people, people who aren’t even political start parroting right-wing talking points. Even my kids and their friends are saying this stuff.

It’s not because they believe it. It’s because that’s what they see. All the time.

The reason it’s gotten this bad? A whole chunk of people on the left thought disengaging was smart. That if they just ignored it, it would go away. It didn’t. It spread. And now we’re here.

Part of being intelligent is being social. Being social means we mirror and sometimes go with the crowd. That’s just how it is. Which means if you think people are intelligent, it means it also should understand they will be susceptible to certain things like this. I think it’s a sign of intelligence to be susceptible to certain things like this because these tactics are built on the idea that groups of people share similar social habits. Shared social habits is a sign of intelligence. It’s anti social people who failed to socialize that are harder to manipulate.

I remember a study once showing that you can skew the views of any group if only 10% of that group change their opinion.

I think this is really important here because if you’re on an social media and you see nothing but right wing views, I think it does influence lots of people. This is why I get so mad seeing attitudes suggesting we should all just ignore it all like it’s a waste of time.

Wasn’t one of the phone companies found to be purposely slowing down older phones with each new update

So you allow them to influence other people with their ideas?

It’s stuff like this why people in real life all share the same opinion on trans issues and other right wing issues. It’s this stuff that has allowed their arguments to spread. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what you were supposed to be doing. You gave them a red carpet and helped contribute to the spread of their propaganda by disengaging. Changing their opinion was not ever said as a goal. You need to challenge their opinion to show it is badly formed. If it isn’t then you need to evaluate yours.

I would say never disengage. We’ve all lost so much disengaging especially if the argument is difficult. It leaves the argument unchallenged and if you can’t answer it and you feel strongly about trans issues what did you think someone casually viewing it would think.

We need better arguments and we need honesty. If it’s a good argument, it’s a good argument denying it out of feels only weakens the entire thing.

Lemmy is filled with people who gave the right a red carpet treatment. Probably the last place we should ask questions about engagement to.

It’s like asking r/relationship about relationship advice. It’s a terrible idea

Oh you got me. You’re right. People online are very in touch with reality

Don’t let the random deter you online. The online crowd are very out of touch

Saddam insane isn’t going to be happy about this

I have never known a North American protest to succeed at anything in my lifetime.

Yea this is what I’m hearing from my dad as well. He’s tuned into right wing media.

There was a time when it use to be that I was more informed then him. Something has changed. Hanging out on left wing social spaces has put me so far behind the information curve.

On left wing spaces I see a lot of angry reactions but nothing really informative about a current event. But then I talk to my dad and he’s got all these facts which I argue like an asshole only to find out my sources were lacking not his. It’s so frustrating.

Found some information

https://www.reddit.com/r/behindthebastards/comments/1lbggh1/i_found_vance_boelter_on_a_website_that_is_now/

My right leaning dad is saying this today. They’re being told the Iranian military is doing to seize control

Yeah, people create stuff online without getting paid all the time. We literally built the Internet that way. Go back to the early days forums, blogs, dumb memes, personal websites, fan videos none of that was about money. People made stuff just to share it, to be part of something, or just because they wanted to.

It’s only after financial incentives got introduced ads, sponsorships, “influencer” money that everything started getting worse. Suddenly it’s all algorithm-chasing. Everyone’s copying each other, following trends, tweaking thumbnails, timing posts. The content got way more polished, surebut also way more boring. It’s all the same stuff over and over.

So yeah, people deserve to get paid if that’s what they want. But pretending like people only create if they’re paid is just wrong. Humans naturally create. Always have. We write songs, we draw, we tell jokes. Money didn’t start that, it ruined it. It made it a job. It made it about likes and reach and SEO. It turned the internet into a shopping mall.

Now everything online feels fake. Safe. Recycled. All because the moment you attach money to something, people start optimizing for profit instead of originality. That’s the trade-off.