Do you mean investors are trying to manipulate stocks by planting stories? Yeah, I think so. But intelligence agencies have whole training programs on how to manipulate narratives, and a very long track record of doing so.

See: Israel’s hasbara apparatus,

GCHQ leaked documents on infiltrating and derailing socialist discussions,

Church Committee Hearings,

“The Cultural Cold War” by Frances Stonor Saunders.

The top hits for my “WSB” search are:

• World Sports Betting

• r/WallStreetBets

• World Superbikes

I don’t think any of their goons are astroturfing (well, maybe World Superbikes). Did you mean a different entity?

Corporatism leads to imperialism by the need to seek profits in new markets. Wherever we see lots of defense of imperialism, there is corporate backing behind it. That’s why I think lemmy.world is astroturfed. There’s a strong anti-communist and pro “free market” capitalist tendency on there. Posts that attack the Global South as the world’s villains. On the other hand, there are also many people on lemmy.world that speak out against imperialism and capitalistic exploitation. But the recurrent waves of reactionary politics on lemmy.world indicate to me the presence of astroturfing trolls. This makes sense even on a relatively small platform like Lemmy because it threatens to become a nucleus for organizing against capitalism.

Good evidence of astroturfing on Reddit. That Reddit took action and banned the Palantir agents only provides evidence that exposure of the op is the problem. Not evidence that Reddit acts in good faith.

Frequent Guardian readers more likely to agree with anti-China narratives, study finds.

Article warns that you will be profiled based on interests.

Article then profiles you based on interests. Proceeds to sell you VPN subscriptions.

The irony is that a stillsuit is designed to prevent dehydration. But in her case it was the cause of dehydration.

There can be enough work. We can build parks, fund art, literature, music. If the needs of society are met with less labour, the free hours can be put to creative work.

But that requires a government for the people.

Like that, but instead of buying a tomato it’s shaping minds.

People are lazy. But I bet more people cut their own fruit now that food is expensive.

Jeffrey Goldberg is editor of The Atlantic, a former Israeli prison guard, and very tight with the US security state. He has a history of writing DoD press releases as news.

His invitation was not a mistake.

benzene has entered the chat

I’m guessing they didn’t expect a specific answer. Well done.

Putin is openly anti-communist.

He was smoking the reefer, too! He sold that film for drug money.

So… is no one going to comment that it looks like Mads is going down on Hideo?

Propaganda is usually truthful or exaggerated truth. It’s the framing that is important. Some facts are focused on. Some facts are omitted.

I acknowledge that Russia, China and the DPRK have made mistakes and even done things that are deeply questionable. But I’m interested in comparing their mistakes or misguided actions to those of the most powerful military empire on earth. The one involved in hundreds of military actions and dozens of coups since its inception. The one with the largest per capita prison population on earth. The one which controls many of the world’s financial levers.

There is a difference in the scale of their mistakes or bad actions. Propaganda distorts that difference of scale. It focuses on the crimes of the “enemies” / “axis of evil” / “rogue states” but doesn’t examine context or culpability of the empire. They’ll choose one conflict, downplay 9 others, and give a one-sided view of that one conflict.

That’s how propaganda works. Every state produces propaganda. One state produces billions of dollars of propaganda each year.

Good film. One of the few good Lovecraft adaptations, IMHO.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty is straight up State department propaganda.

Richard Stanley was hired to direct “The Island of Doctor Moreau” but was replaced by John Frankenheimer after a few days of shooting. However, Stanley considered the film to be his baby (he co-wrote the script) and didn’t want to leave. So he disguised himself as one of the mutants and secretly remained on the shoot.

You can watch the documentary about the shooting of this B-movie and it’s full of weird details like that. It’s called “Lost Soul: the doomed journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Doctor Moreau”