this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2025
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Fediverse vs Disinformation

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Pointing out, debunking, and spreading awareness about state- and company-sponsored astroturfing on Lemmy and elsewhere. This includes social media manipulation, propaganda, and disinformation campaigns, among others.

Propaganda and disinformation are a big problem on the internet, and the Fediverse is no exception.

What's the difference between misinformation and disinformation? The inadvertent spread of false information is misinformation. Disinformation is the intentional spread of falsehoods.

By equipping yourself with knowledge of current disinformation campaigns by state actors, corporations and their cheerleaders, you will be better able to identify, report and (hopefully) remove content matching known disinformation campaigns.


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Same as instance rules, plus:

  1. No disinformation
  2. Posts must be relevant to the topic of astroturfing, propaganda and/or disinformation

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This evening my uncle messaged me to let me know that Moms Across America commissioned testing that found glyphosate and heavy metal contamination in Girl Scout cookies. To be fair, he did just buy some from my kid (no refunds!) and I understand the concern about food contamination, but something is off. What's the deal with Moms Across America? Why is their CEO a vaccine skeptic hoping to get hired by RFK Jr.? It seems like an organic food/anti-vax lobbying organization, but I wonder if there's more to it than that. Is she just that effective as an individual mom influencer?

Edit: the screenshot isn't uploading correctly, so I changed it to a link to the Pixelfed post I originally made.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I was under the impression that Girl Scout cookies are locally sourced, meaning that any contamination (if there really was any) would be a local issue, and not national. Unless, of course, one of the actual ingredients was lead, which to me seems ridiculously unlikely.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm not sure what locally sourced means. Girl Scout cookies come from a factory somewhere. I'll check the boxes when ours arrive, but I always assumed that Girl Scout cookies were just like any other processed junk food: probably containing trace amounts of various types of contamination, but unhealthy in the first place for their sugar content.

I'm not trying to defend Girl Scout cookies or Girl Scouts of America. My suspicion is that this awareness campaign by MAA isn't really about the cookies. I think it might be a rouse to rope people into their anti-vax agenda.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Sorry -- by locally sourced, I mean that they locate some sort of cookie maker in the area (state? region? county?) to produce the cookies for them. It isn't a single organization/location that creates the cookies, so contamination wouldn't be across all cookies distributed. At least, that's how I recall hearing it, long ago.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I think you were right as that's my memory too. But a long time back, at least a decade, it changed.

Their website says there are two producers, ABC Bakers and Little Brownie Bakers.

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