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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 18th, 2023

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  • From Folding Ideas’ “Triumph of the Will and the Cinematic Language of Propaganda”:

    ‘Triumph of the Will’ is not a triumph of film-making. I just want to lay that out before we even start. Chances are good that you’re familiar with ‘Triumph of the Will’ by reputation but have never actually watched it beyond referential clips, and a sizable portion of that reputation is in its value as an advancement of the art of filmmaking. This is propaganda.

    Like, that belief is in and of itself propaganda.

    Nazi sympathizers spent a lot of time between the film’s release in 1935 and the war promoting the idea of ‘Triumph of the Will’ as an advancement of filmmaking. It was an intentional message to promote Nazi state art as superior, to suggest that the Nazi mechanism can produce better more proficient art than the artist the Nazis were busy throwing in jail.

    It is however not a triumph of filmmaking; it is a triumph of budget. None of the ideas or techniques were new it is simply that no one had previously thrown enough money and resources at propaganda on this scale before. We’ll come back to this and develop it in more detail, but I want to be upfront with the fact that you should be highly suspicious of any messaging surrounding propaganda.



  • There was significant pushback against Lemmy when I first joined based on the prominent role authoritarian apologists for the Soviet Union played in its infrastructure and federation network. I saw the underlying structure of federation between servers and the collaborative nature of the threaded discussion system as unambiguously anarchist. I joined Lemmy to contribute my own thoughts and share the stories that catch my attention to the decentralized discussion, in spite of those valid concerns. I think I made the right choice. Lemmy is not pure, but it is good enough to build upon.

    In February 2025 (Pushing Back Against Big Tech), all of our admins in our capacity as moderators and posters agreed to stop sharing stories from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and Google in response to the leadership of those platforms overt support for fascism. We encouraged our moderators to follow suit, which they’ve done with overwhelming support. This is part of a coordinated movement to de-center these platforms from the web.

    Many famous people who used Twitter as their main social media have joined the movement also, and moved to alternative platforms to stop bringing traffic to the enemy. This represents a sacrifice on their part, as many do their own social media, and have to learn a new set of media tools. We support those creators who are making that sacrifice.

    Substack is one of those platforms many creators have made their new home. It has shown extreme growth since the collapse of Twitter. As an admin, I’m disappointed to hear that fascist voices are also finding a home on Substack. While Substack has declined to censor them, it has not overtly endorsed those voices, and is not boosting them over their non-fascist content. As a corporation hosted in America where censoring fascists is likely to draw attention from the new regime, their stance has an uncomfortable context. I hope they eventually do better.

    Assuming the shared goal of de-centering Twitter and dis-empowering its fascist CEO, blacklisting Substack is counter-productive. Substack is the home of several anarchist, left, and progressive voices. Linking to them should be encouraged. While it would be better if everyone joined the Fediverse or self-hosted instead of choosing another form of corporate social media, this is the home that many people fighting fascism have found. If they are producing anti-fascist content, it is counter-productive to our goals not to link to it.

    While many remain on Substack in spite of its poor decision, many authors have shown great moral fortitude by leaving the platform in protest. Authors like Jonathan M. Katz, Molly White, Ryan Broderick, and Casey Newton have left Substack and now publish content directly from their own websites. This is widely considered professional suicide, but you can support their ethical antifascist stance by reading their content and sharing it across the Fediverse. If they can survive and thrive without a corporate sponsor, it will encourage other writers to follow their example.

    We are living at a time when writing is dangerous. Rewarding authors with positive attention who take bold anti-fascist actions I think will be much more effective than trying to cut off another source of revenue for struggling writers. It is difficult enough to find content when the corporate behemoths are no longer an option. I think removing Substack in its entirety as a source at this point would make the Fediverse worse.












  • MBFC is claiming CNN is Left-Center, when it is owned by conservative billionaire John Malone. This is an example of MBFC’s intentional distortion of the political spectrum by falsely representing it as dominated by a left-wing bias.

    An example of CNN’s actual right-wing bias is when they put an obvious Trump Supporter on their televised panel of ‘undecided voters’. According to Parker Molloy from The New Republic, this isn’t “an isolated case of questionable representation in CNN’s voter panels. In fact, it appears to be part of a troubling pattern stretching back years.” She suggests it could be “a potential willingness to mislead viewers for the sake of compelling television.” - media ownership and their profit motive, and complicity of the media elite are sources of bias that MBFC does not adequately account for.

    !politics and !world now appear to be willing to consider backing away from MBFC. The vote to “Kill” – stop their bot from advertising MBFC in all of community posts – appears to be leading in both communities.

    If you upvote the Kill comment so that this lead becomes a landslide, you can make it even more embarrassing and difficult for them to claim ‘bots’ or backtrack.


  • ABC News is a brand of Disney Advertising. It is lead by a conservative billionaire, and is not a left-biased organization.

    Fact-checking is an essential tool in fighting the waves of fake news polluting the public discourse. But if that fact-checking is partisan, then it only acerbates the problem of people divided on the basics of a shared reality. Dave Van Zandt has admitted to a US-centric bias in MBFC’s ratings. It’s fairly easy to notice an American conservative lean in MBFC’s bias ratings, as well as their credibility ratings.

    A consortium of fact-checking institutions have joined together to form the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), and laid out a code of principles. You can find a list of signatories as well as vetted organizations on their website. MBFC is not a signatory to the IFCN code of principles. As a partisan organization, it violates the standards that journalists have recognized as essential to restoring trust in the veracity of the news. Partisan fact-checking sites are worse than no fact-checking at all. Just like how the proliferation of fake news undermines the authority of journalism, the growing popularity of a fact-checking site by a political hack like Dave M. Van Zandt undermines the authority of non-partisan fact-checking institutions in the public consciousness.

    Please choose “Kill” – to stop giving free advertising to MBFC on Lemmy.


  • For the first time in decades, The Washington Post will not endorse a candidate in this year’s presidential election, the newspaper’s publisher announced Friday, a decision that sparked widespread outrage among the paper’s staffers.

    “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election,” Post publisher Will Lewis said in a statement. “We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.”

    The Post reported the decision not to endorse was made by the newspaper’s billionaire owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, citing two sources briefed on the matter.

    CNN

    Media Bias Fact Check is a right-wing propaganda tool to repeat the laughable lie that the media has a left-wing bias.