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Facebook is paying people overseas promoting Alberta separatism

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Re: Facebook is paying people overseas promoting Alberta separatism

#91
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case of Germany nope. Germans were not against the wars but there was not a huge support case. Especially WWI it was only a nationalistic educated minority who supported the war. Most people were not so keen to die

> Especially WWI it was only a nationalistic educated minority who supported the war. Definitely not minority. There were hawks "attack now" and doves claiming "we are not ready we get ready and attack". Moreover, large parts of Germans population did not accepted defeat of WWI, thought the peace was betrayal and wanted a redo. In 1914, the "spirit for the war" was high. > Most people were not so keen to die It just…

> It just so happen that young men and former soldiers were the keenest on WWII.

Weren't they subject to crushing economic conditions as a result of the diplomatic terms on which WWI ended? The context is important (as usual).

Re: Facebook is paying people overseas promoting Alberta separatism

#93
post #7

Canada may not have laws against this, but some countries might classify this as "subversive activity harmful to the nation". That is normally punished by imprisonment, losing the right to conduct business and hold public office.

Usually they couldn't care less about what you say about another country. Unless, of course, if you say bad things about a certain country when you are in another certain country, you get deported. Hmm.

Re: Facebook is paying people overseas promoting Alberta separatism

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine Israel's various hasbara operation dwarfs its relevance and funding by multiple orders of magnitude. I don't see much evidence it plays a role outside of being useful to blame for inconvenient discourse.

Sure, but that's a good example. They obviously push pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian and probably a good deal of outright anti-Muslim positions. But do you think they push random divisive issues, unrelated to their own interests, just to destabilize countries they don't like? I think the evidence for that is much weaker.

They certainly benefit from the division in the states. A large majority of AIPAC funding comes from American Evangelical groups. Why wouldn't they?

There's no doubt in my mind that there's a constant effort to keep it that way.

There's entire apps designed to organize brigading efforts online: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/01/24/gaza-is...

Re: Facebook is paying people overseas promoting Alberta separatism

#95

I've said for a while that I think this sort of thing is a much better explanation for trends we see than moustache-twirling foreign dictators "spreading dissent" for the heck of it. Yes, they exist and yes, they have troll factories, but they usually promote narratives with some immediate benefit to themselves. When they do promote irrelevant stuff, I think it's just to build social media clout for their actual mess…

There's a meme that most "nationalist" Twitter/X posters in the UK are actually from South Asia, and only doing it because for people in low-income countries the Twitter payments are a viable source of income. I'm not on Twitter anymore thankfully, but when I was there seemed to be a lot of truth to this. It even got to the point of there being successful witch hunts outing quite large/popular accounts as being India…

On the other hand... on the internet, everybody is an American (or a Brit).

There are many people who don't live in a country where English is spoken natively, but who speak it well enough to lurk on the English internet. Those people are exposed to American and British politics and start to form opinions. It's not unusual for us to have our own takes on what happens in these countries.

Re: Facebook is paying people overseas promoting Alberta separatism

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who of credit has claimed otherwise, that dictators spread dissent as an end rather than as a means?

>Who of credit has claimed otherwise By my rough estimation a third to a half of these people: https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders

Those people are people with high HN karma, a lot of it for posting or submitting technical discussions. Is that enough to give that much weight to their opinion on political topics?

Re: Facebook is paying people overseas promoting Alberta separatism

#97
I live here, rural and in areas you'd expect this to have more traction. Nobody is even talking about it. It just doesn't come up in conversation. It might get fifteen percent of the vote and only then because only people that care will bother to show up.

Re: Facebook is paying people overseas promoting Alberta separatism

#99

I've said for a while that I think this sort of thing is a much better explanation for trends we see than moustache-twirling foreign dictators "spreading dissent" for the heck of it. Yes, they exist and yes, they have troll factories, but they usually promote narratives with some immediate benefit to themselves. When they do promote irrelevant stuff, I think it's just to build social media clout for their actual mess…

Its been discussed for long time already how russian methods work : The ex-KGB defector you're thinking of is Yuri Bezmenov (also known by his alias Tomas Schuman). The strategy he described is called "Ideological Subversion" (also referred to as "Active Measures" or "Psychological Warfare") Their time scale is measured in decades. 1. Demoralization Undermining the moral and cultural foundations of a society — making…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook is paying people overseas promoting Alberta separatism

#100

I've said for a while that I think this sort of thing is a much better explanation for trends we see than moustache-twirling foreign dictators "spreading dissent" for the heck of it. Yes, they exist and yes, they have troll factories, but they usually promote narratives with some immediate benefit to themselves. When they do promote irrelevant stuff, I think it's just to build social media clout for their actual mess…

Its been discussed for long time already how russian methods work : The ex-KGB defector you're thinking of is Yuri Bezmenov (also known by his alias Tomas Schuman). The strategy he described is called "Ideological Subversion" (also referred to as "Active Measures" or "Psychological Warfare") Their time scale is measured in decades. 1. Demoralization Undermining the moral and cultural foundations of a society — making…

>1. Demoralization Undermining the moral and cultural foundations of a society — making people lose faith in their own country, values, and institutions ~15–30 years (one generation)

took Putin less than 10 years to do that to Russia. the collapse is postponed while the regime's eunuchs and dogs are fed, of course, but God wills it, that might not be the case for much longer.

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