Do you mean investors are trying to manipulate stocks by planting stories? Yeah, I think so. But intelligence agencies have whole training programs on how to manipulate narratives, and a very long track record of doing so.
See: Israel’s hasbara apparatus,
GCHQ leaked documents on infiltrating and derailing socialist discussions,
Church Committee Hearings,
“The Cultural Cold War” by Frances Stonor Saunders.
The top hits for my “WSB” search are:
World Sports Betting
r/WallStreetBets
World Superbikes
I don’t think any of their goons are astroturfing (well, maybe World Superbikes). Did you mean a different entity?
Corporatism leads to imperialism by the need to seek profits in new markets. Wherever we see lots of defense of imperialism, there is corporate backing behind it. That’s why I think lemmy.world is astroturfed. There’s a strong anti-communist and pro “free market” capitalist tendency on there. Posts that attack the Global South as the world’s villains. On the other hand, there are also many people on lemmy.world that speak out against imperialism and capitalistic exploitation. But the recurrent waves of reactionary politics on lemmy.world indicate to me the presence of astroturfing trolls. This makes sense even on a relatively small platform like Lemmy because it threatens to become a nucleus for organizing against capitalism.
Good evidence of astroturfing on Reddit. That Reddit took action and banned the Palantir agents only provides evidence that exposure of the op is the problem. Not evidence that Reddit acts in good faith.
Frequent Guardian readers more likely to agree with anti-China narratives, study finds.
Vexillographers are vexed by its vertex
Article warns that you will be profiled based on interests.
Article then profiles you based on interests. Proceeds to sell you VPN subscriptions.
Putin is openly anti-communist.
You can still be a middle-aged Tiktok star complaining about the high prices compared to the good old days.
That option remains. Seize it. Dominate the airwaves. Organize a rebellion.
Alive oil comes from the fountain of youth. For a canister that’s a great deal!
Friendly reminder that VOA, aka Voice of America, is a subsidiary of the US Agency for Global Media. It was established to convince people in the Soviet sphere that the US was better in every way. It continues that mission with America’s allies and enemies today.
The process of opening up a country’s media space is integral to getting those State department messages in there.
Propaganda is usually truthful or exaggerated truth. It’s the framing that is important. Some facts are focused on. Some facts are omitted.
I acknowledge that Russia, China and the DPRK have made mistakes and even done things that are deeply questionable. But I’m interested in comparing their mistakes or misguided actions to those of the most powerful military empire on earth. The one involved in hundreds of military actions and dozens of coups since its inception. The one with the largest per capita prison population on earth. The one which controls many of the world’s financial levers.
There is a difference in the scale of their mistakes or bad actions. Propaganda distorts that difference of scale. It focuses on the crimes of the “enemies” / “axis of evil” / “rogue states” but doesn’t examine context or culpability of the empire. They’ll choose one conflict, downplay 9 others, and give a one-sided view of that one conflict.
That’s how propaganda works. Every state produces propaganda. One state produces billions of dollars of propaganda each year.
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty is straight up State department propaganda.
When you decommodify a thing the state takes a role to ensure the good or service is provided to all. You can have a mixed system with private and public construction. But as long as there is a robust public housing sector, prices for all houses will be much lower than in the current system where we have scarcity.
Propaganda is when you punch someone in the face and then quote them saying “I’ll kill you” instead of mentioning the face punch.