It's so much easier to take someone at their word instead of looking into the many interwoven facts and details yourself. In fact, it can take so long fact-checking things these days to combat mis/disinformation that people simply.... don't.
It's way more laborious to disprove a lie than it is to simply recount a lie.
Russia may not have a decent military, or a decent government, but they are masters at controlling other countries public opinions.
I had a comment removed a few days ago because Lemmy has an automod which accused me of being ablist. In reality I was responding to a comment that was trying to push the narrative that Ukraine started the war, and is responsible for the war. It went on to say many MANY more completely untrue things, but definately tried painting russia as the good guy. I basically accused him of being brain dead, with a word that the automod didn't like.
But I'm pretty convinced they were a russian disinformation agent.
Medical term, used to describe a partially or fully non-functioning brain. In the 80s and 90s it became slang for "idiot", and somehow became a politically incorrect term. Now people are offended by term. Starts with R.
It is. It's probably exactly what hou think. But bots don't care, and AI is too primitive to be useful. Yet thats what moderation is sometimes. Especially on reddit.
Ah, that formerly acceptable word that also means "delay or hold back in terms of progress or development," and was applied not just to mental faculties but also things like a fire extinguisher?
Russia is NOT the only problem, they aren't even the main problem. There's quite a number of issues where the mainstream media discourse depends almost entirely on whose in office. As an example take a look at crime statistics since 1991 and then align the media coverage about crime with whose in charge at the time. Immigration is another one. 2,000 people or more crossing the border every day may or may not be a crisis depending on which political party is in charge.
Those and other issues aren't being manipulated, at least not primarily, by Russia Propaganda. That work is being done by mainstream media sources and the only way to know you're being manipulated into an opinion is by putting in the work to learn the context and history of an issue.
It's a massive time suck that can require hours, days, or even weeks to get a deep enough understanding to know you're being lied to and / or manipulated.