this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2024
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To compare it to a previous era of media, would you say that someone wheatpasting a bunch of flyers everywhere is propaganda in the same way that the person with 59 accounts is?
I take issue with defining propaganda as only that kind of amplifying a point of view through technology, because that’s a really limited definition that doesn’t fit with the last two hundred years of use and one that almost seems to point at smaller organizations more than large ones but I’m willing to dive into it anyway.
This is a fascinating conversation
Wheatpasting is great. To me, the difference is twofold. Roughly speaking, you could say:
Like I say, I am fascinated that you don't see a problem with running a large number of accounts to create the illusion of popularity of a certain viewpoint, without it needing to be a persuasive enough viewpoint to gain popularity on its own
I brought up wheatpasting specifically to bring this point up, you said methods that produce more influence based on the monetary input are propaganda. Would you say that lobbying is propaganda? Would you say using any technology (such as wheatpasting) beyond yelling in the street is propaganda?
The reason I ask that last one is because that technology, the printing press, the paste and brush, cost money and produce a lasting effect.
Would you say that the way the Washington post and New York Times exercise editorial control over reporting about Gaza is propaganda?
I never said that I don’t see a problem with running a large number of accounts, we’re talking about weather it’s propaganda, not weather it’s problem or bad.
Ha. Let’s try again.
Does that clarify my categorizations?
I have trouble treating even the afp article I linked you to as having a relatively low amount of bias despite the reality that it presents more of the story than even the debunking site snopes does. The reason I don’t like it is that the article itself is very clearly trying to lessen the importance of trump regime eo 13937 (I think that’s the number. I don’t tend to open up a million tabs to verify everything and just type off the dome) to rebut actual republican propaganda about it.
Even though it has the information in there, I don’t like having to turn to counterpunch type stories to chase down proof of the basic facts that I saw play out.
Of course, there’s a real kernel of truth to that propaganda and while I don’t think that trump should get credit for the insulin price cap (which is why I didn’t say it!), I think that’s where you’re getting the idea that my completely factual claim from some other thread that the biden regime shut down the trump regimes price cap before they shut down the cia antivax disinformation campaign.
And I understand why you might be inclined to view things that way. It takes either sober minded and clear eyed assessment or naked cynicism to recognize that eo 13937, however flawed, was fundamentally a good thing and allowing people to suffer for an extra two years by walking it back and not funding it, allowing the drug companies complaints to hhs to result in its ultimate rescintion, while including an expanded version in a giant contentious bill is a fundamentally bad thing.
A clear eyed assessment would simply recognize these things as they are and a cynical minded outlook would see the history of the insulin price cap as a feather industry had assented to years before and both parties had been trying to claim for a while.
The point of all this is to say: it really seems like your gauge for propaganda is more of an us versus them scale than one that has a clear definition.
Our trustworthy, objective media, their cynical propagandists.
Cool