I’m 100% sure there are massive propaganda (lies, hoaxes, half-truths, finger-pointing) campaigns funded by states themselves, either to keep their own power, or to get more power in other states. How does one fight them and not feel like it’s not worth the effort?
My strategy is to tell my view of things when the topic arise, then entertain/ignore/poke holes in their arguments when I can depending on energy levels and patience that day
How do you know your view wasn’t formed based on a successful propaganda campaign?
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You can’t, all by yourself. At least not in the same scale. Fight them in conversations with people in your life whom you can reach when they repeat misinformation. That’s all you can do unless you are motivated to get involved in politics or journalism.
Ha youre starting to unironically wake up. The short answer, get informed the best you can, focus on what actually matters, and be willing to pivot on things you believe.
You will never stop misinformation campaigns, but you can make fun of them while posting alternative information to those posts when you find them.
You can also just ask yourself ‘who would pay to have this exact bit of information out there’ regardless of if you believe it is misinformation or not.
Like the idea that Maduro is a brutal dictator. Who is paying for that perspective? Who paid the Nobel committee to give a far right literal fascist the Nobel peace prize just because her rich family no longer had slaves thanks to Maduro? Why was Kissinger, one of the most evil and destructive men to have ever walked the earth, a man with a higher kill count than Alexander the great or Stalin, given that same prize?
“Who would pay” can be simplified to “who benefits”.
Who benefits from saying that the war in Ukraine is a one-sided invasion? Who benefits from saying that it’s just a small scale military operation?
Sometimes, details get more confusing because there are way more actors in play. Who benefits from saying that obesity is a personal failure to maintain good habits? Who benefits from pointing out the relationship between obesity and low-quality food/poor access to fresh produce?
Remember that the bigger an issue is, the more investment there is in the propaganda machine. Therefore, the harder it is to really build a good understanding.
You cant fight it, you can only prevent it from reaching yourself and the people around you. The main channel for propaganda is conventional commercial media (TV, newspaper, radio) and social media(facebook, tiktok, twitter). You cant destroy those, you can only defend the people close to you.
I started traveling, propaganda all looks so petty with perspective that it doesn’t take up as much brain space while I’m learning new things around the world.
Or playing super Mario 64 on my laptop around the world.
I feel like I’m winning by not playing the nationalism game.
I am the master of ignoring a lot of media. I am also great at telling things based on sheer experience of what happens around me first-hand. There are also arbitrary things I do to prove whether or not something is what something says. You just pick your own battles.
Get off the internet most of the time. It’s mostly useless and you only have one life.
Block the community if it is one of the following
Politics, news, languages other then english, or regional communities.
