As a facilitator, working with both sides of an issue with a group can be hard. Doing so challenges me to practice non-attachment.
https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/facilitation/2023/03/working-with-both-sides
As a facilitator, working with both sides of an issue with a group can be hard. Doing so challenges me to practice non-attachment.
https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/facilitation/2023/03/working-with-both-sides
I just had to do one of the things I hate most: remove someone from the BSD Cafe. Thankfully, it's happened very few times, but it's my job to maintain the tone that currently makes the BSD Cafe a serene and positive place for its users.
This isn't about censorship or ideology - the last two users I had to remove had radically opposing political views - it's solely about maintaining the atmosphere. And that doesn't mean I agree or disagree with the content posted, but rather with the general tone brought into the Cafe.
Now I'm turning off my computer, because I still feel a sense of sadness about what I had to do.
Du coup je reposte ceci, qui n'a pas trop mal vieilli
https://next.ink/125319/edito-liberte-dexpression-nest-pas-synonyme-dirresponsabilite/
La haine se répand sur Instagram et Facebook depuis le changement de la modération - par @mart1oeil https://next.ink/188571/la-haine-se-repand-sur-instagram-et-facebook-depuis-le-changement-de-la-moderation/
Pretty sure #Trump is both such an idiot that he swallows whole online #disinformation campaigns & also can’t help but make shit up to further his personal agenda to mess with Democrat cities & states & to be a “strongman” dictator.
“#InformationWarfare is always a symptom of conflict, stoked often by those in #power to fuel their own #illiberal goals,” she said. “It confuses audiences, scares people who might otherwise have empathy for the cause & divides us when we need #solidarity most.”
#Disinformation in situations like these spreads so quickly & widely that efforts to verify #facts cannot keep up, said Nora Benavidez, senior counsel at Free Press, an advocacy organization that studies the intersection of #media, #technology & the #law. She described it as part of “a much longer effort to delegitimize #peaceful #resistance movements.”
#Russia & its supporters have long accused #GeorgeSoros or the US govt of covertly sponsoring “color revolutions” to overthrow govts—from the Arab Spring countries swept up by mass street #protests in 2011 to #Ukraine.
“It is nationwide conspiracy of liberals against not only #Trump but against American people in general,” #AleksandrDugin, a prominent nationalist in Russia, posted.
He based that simply on Mayor Bass’s role as a board member for the National Endowment for Democracy, the congressionally mandated org formed during the Reagan admin to promote #democratic governance around the world.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, the theme was echoed by accounts across #SocialMedia linked to #Russia, which often amplifies content that discredits the #UnitedStates.
Some posts disparaging the #protests were shared by accounts w/deceptive handles that closely resembled those of ofcl govt sources or news orgs.
#MikeBenz, a #conspiracy-minded #influencer on X who last year claimed that the #Pentagon used the pop star #TaylorSwift as part of a psyop to undercut #Trump, advanced an outlandish theory that the mayor had links to the #CIA & had helped start riots in the city where she lives.
It also fits into the narrative that #protests against government policies are somehow inauthentic. On his own platform, Truth Social, #Trump also suggested that the protesters were “Paid Insurrectionists!”
Numerous posts echoed unsubstantiated claims that the protests were the work of #GeorgeSoros as well as local #NGOs or #Democratic elected officials, including the #mayor of #LosAngeles, #KarenBass.
“These days, it feels like every time there’s a protest, the old clickbaity ‘pallets of bricks’ hoax shows up right on cue,” #SocialMedia Lab, a research center at the Toronto Metropolitan University, wrote on Bluesky. “You know the one, photos or videos of #bricks supposedly left out to encourage rioting. It’s catnip for #RightWing agitators & grifters.”
X posted a *Community Note* pointing out that the photo had nothing to do w/the #protests, but it still was seen >800k times. It was also widely reposted, including by several seemingly inauthentic accounts in Chinese.
An innocuous photograph of a pallet of #bricks, actually posted on the website of a building materials wholesaler in Malaysia, was cited as proof that the protests were organized by nonprofit organizations supported by #GeorgeSoros, the financier who, to the feverishly conspiratorial #RightWing, has become a mastermind of global disorder.
#JamesWoods, the actor who has become known for spreading #ConspiracyTheories, used his account on X to rail against the #state’s elected ofcls, especially #Governor #Newsom, a Democrat. He also reposted a fabricated quote, attributed to President Barack #Obama, discussing a secret plot to impose socialism on the country, as well as a video of burning police cars that was from 2020.
Darren L. Linvill, a researcher at Clemson University’s #Media Forensics Hub, said *#conservatives* online were “building up the riots in a performative way” to help bolster #Trump’s claims that #LosAngeles had been taken over by “violent, insurrectionist mobs.”
Linvill said the posts were also “a bit self-fulfilling.” “As they direct attention to it,” he said, “more #protesters will show up.”
The latest deployments prompted a new wave of misleading images to spread—some purporting to show #Marines & the #military service’s weapons in action. One was a still from “Blue Thunder,” a 1983 action-thriller about a conspiracy to deprive residents of #LosAngeles of their civil rights. It features a climatic dogfight over the city’s downtown.
The confrontation escalated on Monday as new #protests occurred & #Defense Secy #PeteHegseth announced—on X—that he was mobilizing 700 #Marines from a base near #LosAngeles to guard federal bldgs. They are expected to join 2k members of the #California #NationalGuard whom #Trump ordered deployed without the authorization of the #state’s #governor, #GavinNewsom, who normally [legally] has command of the #troops.
There were numerous scenes of protesters throwing rocks or other objects at law enforcement officers & setting cars ablaze, including a number of self-driving #Waymo taxis. At the same time, false images spread to revive old #ConspiracyTheories that the #protests were a planned provocation, not a spontaneous response to the #immigration raids.
The #disinformation also added to the confusion over what exactly was happening on the streets, which was portrayed in digital & #SocialMedia [& #RightWing *news* #media] through starkly divergent #ideological lenses. Many posts created the false impression that the entire city was engulfed in violence, when the few clashes were limited to only very small parts.