Yeah, having only just switched from GMail to Proton last week my heart sank when I saw “Proton are MAGA”.
Then I spent three minutes reading up on it and it’s like, the CEO said one thing about policy on regulation of big tech that was critical of the Democrats for not doing enough, and the internet has decided that means he’s MAGA.
It sounds ridiculous now with everything that’s happened in social media in the meantime, but I can see that being a thing in 2006 when the vibe of social media was very different to what it’s become now. Back then it was just a tidy little PHP site for you to chat and share photos with friends and family on. Literally nothing appeared in your feed that wasn’t a post from a Friend. It was basically a Whatsapp group with a photo gallery feature.
Since Facebook didn’t have the baggage it has now, it’s much easier to read refusing to join your girlfriend’s circle of friends and family back then as a wider rejection of her as a person, same as if you refused to join her family Whatsapp/Telegram/whatever group chat.
I’m not taking her side here, but I wanted to give a bit of perspective for people looking at it through the lens of 2025.
Came here to post the exact same thing
Russia are every bit as active in leftist groups whipping them up into a frenzy too. There was even a case during BLM where the same Russian troll farm organised both a protest and its counter-protest. Don’t think you’re immune to being manipulated to serve Russia’s long-term interests just because you’re not a conservative.
They don’t care about promoting right-wing views, they care about sowing division. They support Trump because Trump sows division. Their long-term goal is to break American hegemony.
Yeah I was thinking exactly this.
It’s easy to point to reasons why this study was unethical, but the ugly truth is that bad actors all over the world are performing trials exactly like this all the time - do we really want the only people who know how this kind of manipulation works to be state psyop agencies, SEO bros, and astroturfing agencies working for oil/arms/religion lobbyists?
Seems like it’s much better long term to have all these tricks out in the open so we know what we’re dealing with, because they’re happening whether it gets published or not.
As a European watching the news, sometimes I have to remind myself that lots of other countries also go to shit from time to time, it just doesn’t get reported on as much. We get a massively disproportionate amount of reporting from the US as a result of how the English-speaking internet works.
In fact even writing this I just noticed the sidebar’s description of the community I’m posting in, guess I should probably just block it (no offence).
Like maybe a GIMP 3.0?
Yeah I used to think that all these Tesla fan channels on YouTube and Instagram were because the brand was seen as somehow special and exciting, like Apple used to be under Steve Jobs. But now I’ve come to the conclusion that most of them are being paid under the table and not declaring it, because their collective reactions to the past year or more of insanity just don’t pass the sniff test.
hur, hur, you said VAG
umm guys this isn’t a news article, it’s a Black Mirror episode
Yeah. Fascist criminals like Yaxley-Lennon in the UK cry about their free speech, and when you look at the cases it’s stuff like trying to intimidate juries, or inciting crowds to set fire to buildings containing asylum seekers.
deleted by creator
I googled the author, he’s a Tech Bro pretending to be a media critic. Shame on The Guardian for publishing this moronic clickbait guff.
I would say the guy clearly doesn’t understand the most basic concepts of fiction, except I suspect he probably does but is ignoring them in order to push his agenda.
That was the opposite of nuance. It was pedantry that deliberately missed the point.
Or it’s rendered at 1080 and upscaled…
When an influential group of powerful people make hate speech a part of their standard rhetoric, is EXACTLY when you MUST block it on your platform, not a signal that it’s time to start letting it slide, you fucking pricks.
I’ve been paying for Office365 home for years. Recently I started a business and signed up for 365 Business for the company email address.
Outlook stopped working, because the 365 Business account - which I specifically signed up in order to do email - doesn’t include local Outlook, and my existing home-licensed one throws a hissy fit if I try connecting it to my business account.
Microsoft sucks.
This is true, and yet somehow when I buy the “XL” sized cartridges they don’t feel like they lasted much longer than the “S” size that came with it.