https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1279128933695287296.html

I haven’t read this story, and probably won’t (too much else to read), but in thinking about the teaser (WHAT part of the internet…?) I realized why Parler has appeared now: it’s going to be a breeding ground for various lunatic right-wing ideas that will emerge at various points on “normal” social media simultaneously. So, more difficult to track and follow with corrective posts.

Just in time for the fall campaigns.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-2020-disinformation-war/605530/

«What I was seeing was a strategy that has been deployed by illiberal political leaders around the world. Rather than shutting down dissenting voices, these leaders have learned to harness the democratizing power of social media for their own purposes—jamming the signals, sowing confusion. They no longer need to silence the dissident shouting in the streets; they can use a megaphone to drown him out.

….

Over the past few years, hundreds of websites with innocuous-sounding names like the Arizona Monitor and The Kalamazoo Times have begun popping up. At first glance, they look like regular publications, complete with community notices and coverage of schools. But look closer and you’ll find that there are often no mastheads, few if any bylines, and no addresses for local offices. Many of them are organs of Republican lobbying groups; others belong to a mysterious company called Locality Labs, which is run by a conservative activist in Illinois. Readers are given no indication that these sites have political agendas»

This is why we need to question sources. Filter your sources to be legitimate ones.

«But when Twitter employees later reviewed the activity surrounding Kentucky’s election, they concluded that the bots were largely based in America—a sign that political operatives here were learning to mimic Russian trolling tactics.»

….

«“He tells you what you want to hear,” Willnow said. “And I don’t know if it’s true or not—but it sounds good, so fuck it.”

The political theorist Hannah Arendt once wrote that the most successful totalitarian leaders of the 20th century instilled in their followers “a mixture of gullibility and cynicism.” When they were lied to, they chose to believe it. When a lie was debunked, they claimed they’d known all along—and would then “admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”»

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/with-cops-away-its-like-capitol-hill-is-slipping-back-to-the-pinkertons-era/

«There’s a ton of work to be done reforming the police. But going back to the Pinkerton’s era has got to be one of worst ways to reduce inequality in a city already riven by it.»

In Hendersonville NC, saw a big black flag waving off the back of a Jeep. Figured since it wasn’t yellow, it’d be one of those POW/MIA things. Nope. Black Lives Matter. You go, bro (or sis, as the case may be).

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1278684311529586688?s=20

Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) Tweeted: Throughout this crisis, there’s been evidence that people’s behavior is only loosely tied to a state’s formal degree of openness. So there should perhaps be more explanations rooted in “people thought it was safe/got bored/complacent”; maybe not as simple as “reopened too soon”.

Interesting little essay:

https://t.co/eGpSjAVPHN?amp=1

https://twitter.com/RNS/status/1278010409576882176?s=20

Finally, the supreme court doing what it was hired to do.

Religion News Service (@RNS) Tweeted: In a 5-4 ruling today, the Supreme Court made it easier for religious schools to obtain public funds. https://t.co/KwW3xCB1hR