If its not made of Chêne de Normandie its not a guillotine, it’s just a sparkling sliceyboi.

Death would be too easy. Take away his wealth, make him get a real job.

Hahahahahaha FUCK YOU ORACLE!

sorry, needed to get that out of my system

I don’t do deep packet inspection on Lemmy traffic, nor am I a behavioral analyst. I simply think it stands to reason that if there are organizations who are capable of running influence campaigns that Lemmy would be a natural target. Any online forum is potentially at risk of targeted disinformation campaigns. I don’t apply this logic on an individual basis, because witch hunts are just as counterproductive as being overly credulous. But I have a pretty simple razor that if someone is trying to incite me to violence, meet offline, or divulge personally identifying information I should block them whether or not they’re some kind of operative.

I think there’s a motive. If I were the FBI I wouldn’t be too concerned about actual violent outcomes, so long as they were lone wolf attacks or the product of tiny cells of radicals. It’s like a controlled burn in a forest. You get the fire out of the way before it reaches a critical mass. “Voting doesn’t work, burn down a government building” is a real hard sell to someone with a stable job, but the people it does sell to might one day be the types of people to organize and lead a meaningful opposition. So you flush them out early and fast. Some people might die, but Director Patel told me to catch leftists, not to prevent violence. As an added bonus, each violent act turns liberals more and more against what they perceive as an inherently violent ideology. “These are terrible times, and maybe if it prevents another bombing mass surveillance is acceptable even if I don’t like it,” they might think. You don’t have to go back too far to see that mindset in action. In the aftermath of 9/11 Americans saw an unprecedented erosion of their civil liberties. Terror is good for an autocratic regime.

That being said, I will grant that there’s no evidence of this. But then again there wasn’t evidence of COINTELPRO until the FBI field office in Media PA got broken into by a group of concerned citizens. Not that I’m condoning B&E. I also don’t think it would be productive to point fingers even if there were evidence the FBI was doing COINTELPRO 2. “So and so is a fed” is actually one of the tactics used in COINTELPRO to sow discord in infiltrated groups. Just, maybe we should keep in mind that we’re bound to see some discourse here that is trying to get us to play a useful idiot.

The difference between me and a conspiracy theorist is that I can point at past evidence. COINTELPRO is a historical fact, and part of that program involved infiltrating dissident groups and acting as agents provocateur. The Church committee found that the FBI engaged in “covert action designed to disrupt and discredit the activities of groups and individuals deemed a threat to the social order.” The committee also found that the tactics employed by the FBI “would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity.”

I am not saying the FBI is definitely here now. What I am saying is it would be naïve to assume that they would not be willing to run an influence operation on public forums where people skeptical of the US government gather, and it would be foolish to assume that nobody else is carrying out similar operations for their own respective interests, state-level or otherwise.

Mastodon isn’t American either and they still seized a Koliktiva server. Jurisdiction nothing. They can’t arrest you, that doesn’t mean they don’t have an interest in influencing you. And they’re one group of many who has an interest in running influence operations. Fuck dude, it could be Russia, it could be Mossad, it could be GISS. The barrier to entry is so low these days.

Lemmy is big enough to be a psyop target and has been for a while. This place is rife with feds and bots of every persuasion and they will try to influence you from every angle. As Lemmy grows it will only get worse. It’s easy to brush off pushback for criticizing nation states but also be aware that the FBI in particular has a history of trying to push people towards violent radicalism and in person meetups. Do not trust anyone online. Especially if they agree with you politically.

why is everyone commenting on a blank post

because the number of likes you get is proportional to the number of people who see it, not how amazing the thing you posted is

they are OK with anything that make line go up.

fellas, it’s okay to gently tell your lady that while the shopping trip has been fun you are getting hungry/tired and would like to leave soon

i will never understand why people find it so difficult to prepare and eat avocado.

1. Slice and twist
2. Whack the pit and twist
3. Spoon

And yet people struggle. Many go to the hospital. Why? Why is this so hard?

Don’t worry, someday nuclear war will knock the internet offline and you’ll never have to hear about american politics again

When people who care win

Oh, no, Mitch isn’t some contractor. He’s a regular employee.

Not the first time…

Genovia is a critical friend and ally to the United States. I stand with Genovia, both because of our shared values, which are so fundamental to the founding of both our nations, and I believe the bonds between the people of the United States and the people of Genovia are unbreakable, and we can never let anyone drive a wedge between us.

begging for meaningful action regarding how bright outdoor led displays can be at night. Forbskme of them its like they bottled the sun

Management lives in a different reality. I’ve never worked in a back office environment, but everywhere I have worked even “hands on” middle and upper management tends to stay in their bubble. On the rare occasion they do site visits there’s plenty of warning, so store managers scrimp on labor during the leadup and then overstaff relative to normal conditions to make sure everything looks perfect. It is very difficult for middle management and up to get a clear picture of what is actually happening because there’s no incentive to be honest. Being honest actually gets you punished, because when everyone else lies honesty makes you look incompetent.