PaulMB
pfm Member
Exactly. Because being banned from certain outlets is seen as part of the conspiracy and added proof that a conspiracy exists.
C4 QAnon The Cult Of Conspiracy
- Thread starter Tony L
- Start date
Exactly. Because being banned from certain outlets is seen as part of the conspiracy and added proof that a conspiracy exists.
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
What surprises me is how these conspiracy theories thrive, but genuinely anti democratic moves by Republicans or Tories, such as voter suppression, gerrymandering, or bills to eliminate the right to protest, or powers to ministers to override judicial decisions they don’t like, pass by these same people unnoticed.
Joe Hutch
Mate of the bloke
Actually, there's something of an overlap there, because conspiracy theorists do oppose restrictions on public gatherings. Which makes life difficult for everyone else who has genuine concerns about this issue, who might fear that a) they are seen as supporting the nutjobs and b) they may be tarred with the same brush.
The AoS nutjob-in-chief posted many loony tunes videos about this or that secret plot linked to Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all, but also posted videos from more credible groups which expressed concerns about Covid-related restrictions becoming permanent and being used to suppress protests.
waxkinglyrical
pfm Member
Of all the troubled individuals on show, in my view the pair that came over worst were Flynn and Lindell.
Tony L
Administrator
Yes. Pretty clear they knew it was bullshit, pretty clear they were more than happy to use it to obtain power. Same MO as Al Qaeda, Taliban, KKK etc using religion. The overlap with religion seems very significant, I’d like to see stats as to how many Q believers are Christian fundamentalists.
russel
./_dazed_and_confused
Politicians are quite cheap to buy, find one that will do your bidding, fund them, fund smearing competitors and you are there for not much cash.
Mullardman
Moderately extreme...
I'm currently banned from posting on Facebook. I think there's a few hours of the 3 day ban left. My 'crime' was a post which literally read "Evidence? Naaahh.. thought not.. You people are so gullible.". This was judged to be 'bullying and harrassing'. I appealed and got the same judgement, I tried to log into the 'Supervisory Board' for a higher appeal and could not do so. It is also worth noting that as far as I can see, no opportunity is given to modify or delete a post. You just get a ban. It's bloody ridiculous. These morons can post clearly ridiculous and unverified/unverifiable fantasy, including calling 'non believers' 'sheeple' etc., but just asking them for evidence gets you a ban.
My 'unacceptable' post was in response to the Q Anon bollocks about '8 million kids abducted every year and kept in underground tunnels to be abused by democrats' or whatever. Just prior, in response to some muppet posting, 'I can't imaging what happens to all those poor children' or similar, I had simply asked the poster to consider whether there was any evidence whatever that 8 million, or anything like that number, were really going missing... I was of course told that it is a FACT!!!!!
I also messaged the F'book Help and Support asking them to explain to me what it was about my post which warranted a ban, and pointing out that it was not racist, sexist, discriminatory, bullying, harrassing, threatening etc., etc. Naturally. No reply. At the very least, I'd say that F'book's 'algorithms' need work.
As soon as I'm able, I intend to post a public question. 'Why did I get a three day ban for suggesting that some people who believe 'conspiracy theories' are 'gullible?'
Probably get me banned for life...
In another debate, I had some guy backing up his claim that vaccines do not work and are 'killing thousands', by linking to a clearly private site ( "Run, managed and paid for by its membership" in the small print.) Under the guise of 'Yellow Card Reporting', it listed the main vaccines, alongside 'reports of side effects' and 'deaths'. There was no supporting evidence whatever.. just those bald figures, and crucially, no referencing of how many administered doses of the vaccines had produced these alleged outcomes.
When I pointed out to the original poster that he appeared to be poorly versed in the art of interpreting statistics and applying discrimination to 'evidence', he finally stopped arguing back. I like to think that I may have actually persuaded him to see through the bull, but I don't hold out much hope.
Finally, for those about to advise me to stop getting 'sucked in' by F'book, I can assure you that I use it almost exclusively for maintaining contact with friends etc. I'm not remotely sucked in by the ads, the 'give us your first initial/birth date/start sign' etc., and I only occasionally, look at the negative comments inevitably attracted by NHS 'Get Vaxxed' posts etc. It can be good fun shooting these idiots down, .. or it can get you banned...
My 'unacceptable' post was in response to the Q Anon bollocks about '8 million kids abducted every year and kept in underground tunnels to be abused by democrats' or whatever. Just prior, in response to some muppet posting, 'I can't imaging what happens to all those poor children' or similar, I had simply asked the poster to consider whether there was any evidence whatever that 8 million, or anything like that number, were really going missing... I was of course told that it is a FACT!!!!!
I also messaged the F'book Help and Support asking them to explain to me what it was about my post which warranted a ban, and pointing out that it was not racist, sexist, discriminatory, bullying, harrassing, threatening etc., etc. Naturally. No reply. At the very least, I'd say that F'book's 'algorithms' need work.
As soon as I'm able, I intend to post a public question. 'Why did I get a three day ban for suggesting that some people who believe 'conspiracy theories' are 'gullible?'
Probably get me banned for life...
In another debate, I had some guy backing up his claim that vaccines do not work and are 'killing thousands', by linking to a clearly private site ( "Run, managed and paid for by its membership" in the small print.) Under the guise of 'Yellow Card Reporting', it listed the main vaccines, alongside 'reports of side effects' and 'deaths'. There was no supporting evidence whatever.. just those bald figures, and crucially, no referencing of how many administered doses of the vaccines had produced these alleged outcomes.
When I pointed out to the original poster that he appeared to be poorly versed in the art of interpreting statistics and applying discrimination to 'evidence', he finally stopped arguing back. I like to think that I may have actually persuaded him to see through the bull, but I don't hold out much hope.
Finally, for those about to advise me to stop getting 'sucked in' by F'book, I can assure you that I use it almost exclusively for maintaining contact with friends etc. I'm not remotely sucked in by the ads, the 'give us your first initial/birth date/start sign' etc., and I only occasionally, look at the negative comments inevitably attracted by NHS 'Get Vaxxed' posts etc. It can be good fun shooting these idiots down, .. or it can get you banned...
Tony L
Administrator
If you are seeing the things you describe it has to be friends or local groups that are sharing them. Hint: these people aren’t your friends, they are idiots. Unfriend/delete or leave the group. I have zero tolerance for morons and I have unfriended several people for anti-vaxx BS or Brexit racism/nationalism etc. Life is just way too short to deal or engage with pricks IMO. I actually rather like this about Facebook as it does reveal things about people and enables such choices to be made.
PS The reason you will have been banned is the person you engaged with and/or others reported your post. Most things go unnoticed as mods simply don’t have the time to monitor stuff.
Mullardman
Moderately extreme...
Not so Tony. As I made clear, I occasionally engage with random people who post anti vaxxer, conspiracy stuff. It's good sport when I'm in the mood, but as I've described, you can fall foul of 'Da Rules' remarkably easily.
Not convinced by that. F'book has been making efforts to 'clean up' it's act lately and as far as I am aware, they employ automated systems to try to do this. I assume certain combinations of words can 'trigger' a sanction. It is these systems which are rubbish.
https://uk.pcmag.com/software/94523/why-did-facebook-remove-your-post-this-doc-might-help
davidsrsb
pfm Member
Quack medicine started this, crystal, auras, iridology...... all the way back to snake oil
Tony L
Administrator
How do you even get to see it? In many years of Facebook membership I have only ever seen such dickheadery if a “friend” shares it. It just doesn’t interrupt my feed of new album releases, computer geekery etc etc. You must have somehow consciously put yourself into an echo chamber. In fact thinking back I know you do as one followed you here! I actively choose not to. I’ll engage and moderate on pfm as it is my job, but no way in hell will I bother with racist or conspiracy theorist scum on Facebook. It just isn’t worth my time and any such person isn’t my ‘friend’ despite what I might once have thought. Very easy to quietly unfriend and block. Done. Gone.
Mullardman
Moderately extreme...
Tony, I'm struggling to recognise your view of F'book c.f. mine. I have told you quite clearly that I sometimes get involved with the comments posted after NHS 'Get Yer Jab' posts, or sometimes following other 'News' articles which 'pique' my interest. I'm happy to have a bit of 'sport' with anti vaxxers etc.. especially if I can demonstrate their appalling lack of grasp re statistics etc. On my feed now I'm seeing The Independent, 'Best fo Britain', 'Labour Future', 'HMV Ad for vinyl', assorted friends, groups etc. I choose which to engage with or when. It's my choice. It's not a failing and it has nothing to do with my choice of F'book friends.
You use F'book your way, I'll use it my way.
Facebook regularly shows you “friend of friend liked this” content. Its algorithm does this because, contrary to what we’ve all mostly figured out by the time we’re teenagers, it still thinks that your friends’ friends are automatically people that you would call friends.
There’s also the effect of bait-and-switch pages that poison the algorithm’s ranking. Some mischief-maker puts up a “Here’s to our brave NHS Heroes” page or “Things only eighties/seventies/sixties kids understand” page to farm likes and links, a friend of yours reacts to some stupid post about Spangles or Monster Mash adverts, so they get tagged as liking that page, then the page owners start slipping in divisive propoganda amongst the normal posts, so sooner or later you end up seeing stuff like “Britain for the British” because that page your buddy liked ocassionally posts borderline racist things. FB then sees you dwelling on the posts - and yes, it was only while you were thinking “where the **** did that shit spring out of?”, but the site is really only tracking dwell-time, not your actual reaction– so now it thinks that Nazism/QAnon/Anti-vaxing or white supremacy is something you’re actually into.
A friend of mine got sucked into anti-vax stuff via FB. Largely because their friends in the wellness/yoga/organic-living community cannot accept the concept that there are things that cannot be cured by meditation/exercise/green vegetables/crystal-energy, and so they line up against medicine with some pretty deranged people. A very good article here on it: The dark side of wellness: the overlap between spiritual thinking and far-right conspiracies | Health & wellbeing | The Guardian
The irony here is that most these “body is a temple” gurus promote vitamin supplements as an alternative to what they call “chemical medicine”... as if vitamin tablets are made in thatched cottages by monks...
There’s also the effect of bait-and-switch pages that poison the algorithm’s ranking. Some mischief-maker puts up a “Here’s to our brave NHS Heroes” page or “Things only eighties/seventies/sixties kids understand” page to farm likes and links, a friend of yours reacts to some stupid post about Spangles or Monster Mash adverts, so they get tagged as liking that page, then the page owners start slipping in divisive propoganda amongst the normal posts, so sooner or later you end up seeing stuff like “Britain for the British” because that page your buddy liked ocassionally posts borderline racist things. FB then sees you dwelling on the posts - and yes, it was only while you were thinking “where the **** did that shit spring out of?”, but the site is really only tracking dwell-time, not your actual reaction– so now it thinks that Nazism/QAnon/Anti-vaxing or white supremacy is something you’re actually into.
A friend of mine got sucked into anti-vax stuff via FB. Largely because their friends in the wellness/yoga/organic-living community cannot accept the concept that there are things that cannot be cured by meditation/exercise/green vegetables/crystal-energy, and so they line up against medicine with some pretty deranged people. A very good article here on it: The dark side of wellness: the overlap between spiritual thinking and far-right conspiracies | Health & wellbeing | The Guardian
The irony here is that most these “body is a temple” gurus promote vitamin supplements as an alternative to what they call “chemical medicine”... as if vitamin tablets are made in thatched cottages by monks...
Nick_G
pfm Member
I'm currently banned from posting on Facebook. I think there's a few hours of the 3 day ban left. My 'crime' was a post which literally read "Evidence? Naaahh.. thought not.. You people are so gullible.". This was judged to be 'bullying and harrassing'. I appealed and got the same judgement, I tried to log into the 'Supervisory Board' for a higher appeal and could not do so. It is also worth noting that as far as I can see, no opportunity is given to modify or delete a post. You just get a ban. It's bloody ridiculous. These morons can post clearly ridiculous and unverified/unverifiable fantasy, including calling 'non believers' 'sheeple' etc., but just asking them for evidence gets you a ban.
My 'unacceptable' post was in response to the Q Anon bollocks about '8 million kids abducted every year and kept in underground tunnels to be abused by democrats' or whatever. Just prior, in response to some muppet posting, 'I can't imaging what happens to all those poor children' or similar, I had simply asked the poster to consider whether there was any evidence whatever that 8 million, or anything like that number, were really going missing... I was of course told that it is a FACT!!!!!
I also messaged the F'book Help and Support asking them to explain to me what it was about my post which warranted a ban, and pointing out that it was not racist, sexist, discriminatory, bullying, harrassing, threatening etc., etc. Naturally. No reply. At the very least, I'd say that F'book's 'algorithms' need work.
As soon as I'm able, I intend to post a public question. 'Why did I get a three day ban for suggesting that some people who believe 'conspiracy theories' are 'gullible?'
Probably get me banned for life...
In another debate, I had some guy backing up his claim that vaccines do not work and are 'killing thousands', by linking to a clearly private site ( "Run, managed and paid for by its membership" in the small print.) Under the guise of 'Yellow Card Reporting', it listed the main vaccines, alongside 'reports of side effects' and 'deaths'. There was no supporting evidence whatever.. just those bald figures, and crucially, no referencing of how many administered doses of the vaccines had produced these alleged outcomes.
When I pointed out to the original poster that he appeared to be poorly versed in the art of interpreting statistics and applying discrimination to 'evidence', he finally stopped arguing back. I like to think that I may have actually persuaded him to see through the bull, but I don't hold out much hope.
Finally, for those about to advise me to stop getting 'sucked in' by F'book, I can assure you that I use it almost exclusively for maintaining contact with friends etc. I'm not remotely sucked in by the ads, the 'give us your first initial/birth date/start sign' etc., and I only occasionally, look at the negative comments inevitably attracted by NHS 'Get Vaxxed' posts etc. It can be good fun shooting these idiots down, .. or it can get you banned...
It's the CHAOS Mull. And social media is the CHAOS Engine.
Tony L
Administrator
Absolutely, you do you, but don’t be surprised or annoyed when such engagement results in a reaction from the platform moderators.
Jim Audiomisc
pfm Member
It's worse than that. People get fed items 'similar' to ones they've been seeing, and DON'T get to see things that give a different 'view'. It's all to get people to go on seeing adverts. The main purpose of anti-social media is to get you hooked on any old cr*p that gets you looking at yet more ads. Education and Rational Thought aren't wanted as they might upset your sucking up the ads.
i.e. The sh1tstorm we now have is fostered by the way anti-social media is designed to work. It's the money for them that matters, the user is the product.