People who have turned to X for breaking news about the Israel-Hamas conflict are being hit with old videos, fake photos, and video game footage at a level researchers have never seen.

The Israel-Hamas War Is Drowning X in Disinformation::People who have turned to X for breaking news about the Israel-Hamas conflict are being hit with old videos, fake photos, and video game footage at a level researchers have never seen.

  • trailing9@lemmy.mlEnglish
    31·
    1 year ago

    When lemmy becomes popular, how will we make the solid information stand out and not drown in disinformation ourselves?

    Can we pull off an elite move and use the war to make lemmy popular right now by being the place on the internet that has the best collection of relevant and trustworthy X accounts?

    • RaincoatsGeorge@lemmy.zipEnglish
      45·
      1 year ago

      For starters the decentralized nature of lemmy means no one person or group can control the narrative. An instance with good moderators can remove bad actors and there’s no good way for a large group to get a footing and spew bullshit to everyone.

      The best part is those bad actors get to still be a part of the larger picture, can still engage with each other if they choose, they just cease to have any impact on everyone else. I believe I remember reading about how when the red pill q anons moved in and got mass defederated they complained because it’s just no fun to be a troll if the only people they can talk to is each other.

      It’s why we as a global society need to swap to this platform and ditch twitter. He’s literally making it so verified accounts can set it so only other verified accounts can respond. The only idiots with blue check marks are racist conspiracy dickhead trolls. If we are going to continue to call that place the sort of global commons, we are fucked.

      Decentralized networks with strong moderation tools are the only future for the internet that isn’t a cesspool of shit. Right now big corps fear this adoption because they cease to be able to buy their way into whatever they want. I do hope one day to see lemmy and mastodon spread further and gain a true foothold, we as a species must have this if we even remotely stand a chance of not spiraling into madness.

    • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      1 year ago

      Stop all such posts like the above: naked external links.

      When you want to link something, you must also add something personal to it, like your opinion, your own summary of what you think is the remarkable piece of news, your knowlege about the trustworthiness of that source, etc.

      Prove that you are a human. Prove that you have delivered some quality content. Or try it at least. Failure is OK. Automated low effort posting is NOK.

      IMHO that’s the only way how we humans can stay ‘above’ the bots. Disinformation campaigns are using the same bots as information campaigns.

      • MotoAsh@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        We don’t have to listen to them on Lemmy. They won’t be sold a blue check mark. They won’t be promoted above others.

        Also they could be blocked and removed far easier. Organized effort? Defederate.

        Bad actors have a much harder time in an environment not built to incentivize them.

        • lolcatnip@reddthat.comEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          You think people who are organized are gonna all use the same instance to make themselves easy to get rid of?

          • MotoAsh@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            So what? It’s a numbers game per server, then. Far better to splinter in to well managed subnets than can ban troglodytes than fester as a giant cess pool like Twitter X.

            It’s not perfect, but only fucking morons give up something better than nothing in persuit of a perfect that cannot happen on services that are publicly signed up for. Speaking of, Lemmy instances can go invite only or approval only, so no, those subnets won’t have to constantly churn trolls.

    • Dojan@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      1 year ago

      Perhaps a federation that has very curated posts? Thinking something like snopes.