• @[email protected]OP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    317 hours ago

    Here’s what I think you should do:

    • Stop using the buzzwords. I get what you’re trying to do by introducing “blue MAGA” and “Trump Derangement Syndrome” into the conversation, but to people who are paying attention, it’s a massive red flag about what you’re trying to do. It will overshadow any more authentic-seeming point you’re trying to make.
    • Don’t tangle up multiple issues. You can say that the Biden administration supported a genocide in Gaza, or try to make this particular point about how invading Greenland is somehow consistent with previous US foreign policy, or that Ukraine is Nazis, or that Wikipedia is selling out their editors to fascist governments (that was you, right?). But combining all of them together into one account makes you stand out like a beacon. I think you want to silo your talking points more. Use one or at most two per account.
    • If someone calls you out for being a propagandist, take that as a learning opportunity. What did you do that gave the game away? In this case, it was some kind of previous interaction I had with you. I don’t remember what it was, although I think it was about Wikipedia, but it was something totally nutty that you were saying that you were insisting made sense. It meant I was dead certain that I could open your profile to the first page and find lots of material to point out about where you’re coming from. If someone does call you out, definitely don’t double down and amplify the volume of that conversation. Just dismiss it and go back to what you wanted to talk about.
    • I think you want to involve more general discussion and chatter into your accounts. Be yourself! Remember, you can have normal conversations. Not everything has to be about NATO. If you like hunting and riding four-wheelers, talk about that. If you’re just this guy who loves ATVs and being out in nature, but also thinks the US government is crazy for sending all this money to Zelensky when we have nothing to do with what’s going on in Ukraine, that’s going to blend in a lot better. Right now you’re acting almost like a caricature of a propaganda account, where everything has to tie back to Biden, NATO, and European geopolitics, all the variety of issues are all mushed together, and almost half your comments tie back to some talking point. A lot of the propagandists take this really low-effort style of commenting about their smokescreen of non-talking-point issues, but I think that’s a mistake, because someone who’s paying attention can see through it and it becomes a way to detect you.

    I think you’re doing really well though! In particular, I think you did a pretty good job with the deflection to taking some factual claim you made in service of that larger Frankenstein’s monster of bad reasoning, and insisting that the original claim is factual, you backed it up and showed sources, everyone’s just trying to cover it up because they hate the truth. That part was good. It redirected (or tried to, if I had taken the bait) away from the larger issue and into weird minutiae where you can defend that one detail point. So you have the argumentation down pretty well. You just need to introduce more cover to make it a more realistic account, and do a better job of what issues to focus on how much, and I think you can do really well.

    • Doug HollandM
      link
      English
      217 hours ago

      Philip, this is a frickin’ masterpiece. You ought to charge admission.

      The joy of reading it justifies not (yet) expelling @surph_ninja.

      • @surph_ninja
        link
        English
        2
        edit-2
        16 hours ago

        So the mod’s criticizing comments with sources as bonkers, and praising an astroturfer for writing a sock puppet guide.

        Wow.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        015 hours ago

        The advice to speaking truth to evil propagandists by spreading truth over multiple accounts is “masterpiece”?

      • @[email protected]OP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        017 hours ago

        I’ll open up a Patreon. Freelance NATO propagandist. At the silver tier, you can sync a tier list of Lemmy’s greatest propaganda accounts to your client, so a link appears on every one of their comments showing their propaganda tier and a link to them getting ridiculed in some previous comments section.

    • @surph_ninja
      link
      English
      -117 hours ago

      Folks, this is called DARVO.