#inoculating our hellsite

[stormsthatrage]

Hey folks. Real talk time. I've been seeing some discourse on the USAmerican side of tumblr that genuinely scares me, so I felt the need to put together a few reminders to hopefully spread around Tumblr. If you have the spoons, please create your own posts about these things so we can make sure as many people as possible are informed.

Tumblr staff did not just decide for themselves that certain accounts might be Russian trolls. US law enforcement agencies conducted a federal investigation, and found that Russian trolls were conducting Psy-Ops operations across multiple social media sites. The Russian trolls had the express goal of influencing the outcome of the 2016 election. If an account was banned for being a Russian troll, it was due to this federal investigation. It was not a false accusation from a tumblr staff member that didn't like what a liberal activist was saying.

It is highly likely that Russia has not stopped using this tactic.

Many of these trolls twisted the truth to split the Democratic party. I can't find it anymore, but there's an old post where you can literally see this in action. In the post, a Russian troll -- who had been pretending for a long time to be a liberal activist on tumblr, and was thus trusted by the community -- misquoted Hillary Clinton to make it seem like she was against free college and student debt forgiveness. The Russian agent quoted something Clinton said in a debate with Bernie Sanders: "I disagree with free college." Not included by the Russian agent was the vital context, in which Clinton argued for free and debt-free community college and public universities. This is the full quote the Russian agent didn't use, which was made in reference to private schools only: "I disagree with free college... I don't think the American people should pay for Donald Trump's kids to go to college."

The Republican party often struggles to win the popular vote in presidential elections. It is in the Republican party's best interest to split the Democratic vote.

In order to win the presidential election, MAGA needs to get liberals to vote for third-party candidates or to not vote at all. Please do not let them trick you into serving their agenda.

A third-party candidate has not won the presidential election since the 1800s.

If you do not have the spoons to read news articles or watch multiple news channels, it is vital to be aware that you are especially vulnerable to propaganda on social media. You do not get the full story from tumblr posts. You do not get nuance on current events from tumblr posts. You may be being straight-up lied to on tumblr posts. Remember to take things with a grain of salt. Remember that a lot of propaganda relies on inducing outrage and strong emotional reactions.

If you are upset about the Gaza-Israel situation, and it is going to affect your vote, you must read news articles -- not tumblr posts -- about what Biden has done, what Biden has failed to do, and what Biden's opponents' plans and stances are. This is an area where the propaganda is going to be strongest, and if you want to do right by the citizens of Palestine and Israel, you have to research what's happening. Do not act based off of information from social media, because so much of it will be biased if not downright false. If you don't have the spoons to read or watch the news on these things, I urge you not to vote based off of just this issue, because it would be so easy to vote against your own morals if your only info is from tumblr. And if you think the situation is important enough to determine your vote -- well, then it's clearly important enough to research properly.

Again: In order to win the presidential election, MAGA needs to get liberals to vote for third-party candidates or to not vote at all. Please do not let them trick you into serving their agenda.

Anyway, please reblog or create your own posts on these topics. Let's work together and aim for herd immunity against propaganda.

[absentlyabbie]

yknow, i do find it hilarious that the relentlessly invasive pornbots have inoculated our little hellsite so that the types of users who reign on instagram and etc and make "photos of how hot and wealthy and traveled and adorned in high-end brands i am" their entire presence and personality

utterly incapable of thriving or even surviving here

this ground is fertile for weirdos and lethally hostile to So Hot So Wealthy life

[sea-glass-and-fire]

personally, i have no problem with celebrities joining tumblr. Corporate accounts from big brands, yes, but not celebrities. I know everyone is afraid that they're going to ruin our culture and make Tumblr into a likes-driven algorithmic hellsite, but honestly, i don't think they COULD. I think the culture of Never Checking People's Usernames provides a layer of protection -- half the time none of us see who we're reblogging from until AFTER, and that inoculates us pretty well against a culture of everyone reblogging something just because of who originally posted it. I mean, Neil Gaiman, author of many people's blorbos, is an active user, and half the time i see him on my dash his contribution is followed by someone saying 'i didn't even notice this was neil gaiman!!'

all of this to say: I actually think it would be extremely funny if a bunch of celebrities had to deal with the reality of being relatively unpopular on tumblr because their imported fans from twitter don't know how to reblog anything and none of their posts are funny enough to breach containment.

[goblincow]

Contender for main character of the day on the other hellsite:

This post exhibits all the symptoms of a toxic level of dunkability.

You'd like to think by now that all the old Don't Feed The Trolls signs might have left some sort of impression, but evidently we need to bring them back.

Anyone with any experience online should be able to tell that this is bait for the fascist little penisman to hoover up engagement (and credit where it's due, they've calculated the dunk factor like a pro) but it goes to show once again that either:

Everyone has shit for brains and can't compel themselves not to dunk or

The engagement farm works as planned and the deliberate inclusion of junk like QTs feeds it.

I know this is me doing a little dunking and that's fun and all but I really want to reiterate that

No amount of personal responsibility will solve the systemic forever-toxicity of the cyberhell we swim in (because the machine will have blood) and

We should all resurrect the old ways and inoculate against cyber-sickness as best we can - look to the wisdom of our ancestors and DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS