this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2026
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Fediverse vs Disinformation

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Pointing out, debunking, and spreading awareness about state- and company-sponsored astroturfing on Lemmy and elsewhere. This includes social media manipulation, propaganda, and disinformation campaigns, among others.

Propaganda and disinformation are a big problem on the internet, and the Fediverse is no exception.

What's the difference between misinformation and disinformation? The inadvertent spread of false information is misinformation. Disinformation is the intentional spread of falsehoods.

By equipping yourself with knowledge of current disinformation campaigns by state actors, corporations and their cheerleaders, you will be better able to identify, report and (hopefully) remove content matching known disinformation campaigns.


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Same as instance rules, plus:

  1. No disinformation
  2. Posts must be relevant to the topic of astroturfing, propaganda and/or disinformation

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Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger accused the CIA and corporate actors of editing the online encyclopedia to serve state and institutional interests during an interview with the German daily Berliner Zeitung published on 7 August.

"I believe Wikipedia is already compromised," Sanger said.

He added that the platform was identified early as a propaganda instrument, and that its anonymity rule made it easy to use as such.

[...]

"The powerful are very interested in Wikipedia," he said, describing the site's pseudonyms as a mask, saying that the platform treats the positions of institutions such as the World Economic Forum and the World Bank as established fact.

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[–] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 35 points 1 month ago (1 children)

He warned that such distortions now spread far beyond the site, as search engines and chatbots draw on the site’s texts and use its content for training.

"Such models do not develop a life of their own once they are launched. They are functions of their training data," he said, arguing that the platform is now written from a fixed worldview he labels GASP – globalist, academic, secular, and progressive.

On Gaza, Sanger said Wikipedia's coverage is "clearly very one-sided," in favor of Palestinians, and backed founder Jimmy Wales's intervention on the "Gaza genocide" article, where Wales argued the introduction should contain more of the Israeli perspective.

DA WOKE CIA IS PUSHING GENOCIDE NARRATIVES AND TRANSING THE KIDS

Ffs this guy is garbage and this article is garbage.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 36 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I said it already in the crossposted thread, but I'm starting to feel like the rash of negative articles about Wikipedia recently seems like a coordinated smear campaign.

Larry Sanger isn't wrong that "the powerful are very interested in Wikipedia," but that's because they fucking hate it and want to see it destroyed in favor of shit like grokipedia that they have control over. As for the rest of the article, I think it itself is the disinformation.

[–] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 14 points 1 month ago

He's just butthurt that they kicked his worthless ass out of Wikipedia because he broke their rules without remorse - calling onto his Shitter-minions to support him on WP. Whiny loser.

[–] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

Larry Sanger is desperate to control Wikipedia and it's really sad.

[–] ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Is this the nutter who made conservapedia? Cuz that place is a shitshow and the dude is bonkers

[–] Saledovil@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Citizendium. Conservapedia was founded by Andrew Schlafly.

[–] ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Oh, so a completely different cofounding nutter who spun up an alternative to wikipedia?

... Two nickels! Not a lot, but weird that it happened twice.

[–] renzhexiangjiao@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I thought it was a tankie line at first. I guess tankies and zionists have more in common than they care to admit

[–] Saledovil@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago

Both are authoritarian ideologies, and the thing with authoritarian regimes is that the material conditions of running a dictatorship overwrite whatever ideologies they might champion.

[–] sushiatnight@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago