Disinformation similar to the pro-Russian “Matryoshka” campaign is emerging on Bluesky, using deepfakes and fake profiles to spread pro-Russian messages, prompting calls for more proactive action from the platform.

  • DicJacobus@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Information warfare is Russia’s specialty, in that its the only way they can fight NATO. Convetionally, they would be wiped from the field. and they know that. the Ukrainian army, that was "supposed " to last 3 days, completely shitrocked them and fought them to a bitter standstill for 2 years to the point the only way Russia could push forward, was by getting Ukraine’s allies to stab them in the back (information warfare).

    They dont stand a chance in hell of defeating NATO militarily so their only option is to have NATO tear itself apart politically, (the third option of NOT being an imperialist warmongering sphere of influence obsessed peice of shit, is not negotiable, that concept is practically joined at the hip with Russia’s very identity)

      • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        2 days ago

        Just be very sure you trust the list owner, as some have already started doing shit like turning them into grudge lists once a bunch of people subscribe, using lists that are popular for leftist reasons to mass add trans people without subscribers knowing, etc. I think Bluesky has been cracking down on that sort of thing, but it’s also something they can only act on once they know about it.

    • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 days ago

      @rahaeli.bsky.social is an old school trust and safety worker/Dreamwidth admin who also runs an excellent collection of lists of inauthentic accounts.

    • Ofiuco@lemmy.cafe
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      2 days ago

      Wish there was one for mexican propaganda… The mexican userbase is really small, but I’ve already run into some bots

    • x00z@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      The Feddiverse doesn’t really protect against these kind of campaigns. That’s up to the instances themselves.

      And it’s not about mimicking official accounts. It’s about spreading and gaining traction to specific opinions. It’s known that disinformation campaigns have been targeting posts from real politicians. They boost the opinion while also boosting a counter opinion. Not to mention spread hate in the comments below them.

      • AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml
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        1 day ago

        I think a huge problem for the fediverse is going to be these kinds of coordinated troll campaigns. It will be so easy for them to launder accounts through undermoderated instances that are federated with their targets.

      • fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        The Fediverse is terrible at handling misinformation, maybe its biggest flaw. The budget is precisely $0 and it shows.

        • x00z@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Misinformation shouldn’t be a main concern of the internet.

          Whenever you go on the internet you should instead get a big “EVERYTHING ON THE INTERNET IS A LIE” disclaimer in your face.

            • x00z@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              It gives a false sense of trust. If you trust everything on the internet, you’ll trust everything on the internet.

              • boredtortoise@lemm.ee
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                24 hours ago

                Kind of. Limiting false information can’t reach an absolute point, so there’s always something to be not trusted so it will still cause less harm than a population not being able to discern falsehoods from an unlimited amount.

      • atro_city@fedia.io
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        2 days ago

        Veracity of news is important though. Some random person claiming Gandi rapes kids would carry much less weight than @[email protected] saying so. “News” from some mastodon.social account would (hopefully) get more scrutiny.

    • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      BlueSky’s verification system lets you make your handle any URL you own (via DNS or a meta tag in your HTML). Like the Washington Post’s handle is just @washingtonpost.com

      That seems like a pretty trivial thing for any institution to setup even if most users are just going to stick with the default (“whatever dot bsky dot social”), if only because a URL costs a few dollars a year.

      Not that I disagree about institutions being on Mastodon. Important government agencies should be basically everywhere. (Like a local weather service that issues critical safety warnings should be on every service possible.)