Sometimes they're just so close to getting it.

[CC27]

Tommy Carcetti (44,256 posts)

Sometimes they're just so close to getting it.

My Trumpist mother-in-law, bless her heart, spends much of her time these days browsing her phone.

Lord knows what exact websites she is looking at, but I know it includes Fox News, Newsmax, the New York Post and some other right-wing sources. And besides those heavily biased but comparatively mainstream conservative sources, I'm pretty sure she also comes across those completely bogus false "news" websites that pop up over social media.

And when on her phone, she'll frequently blurt out whatever "news" she happens to come across. Usually it just gets ignored by everyone in the room; occasionally, she'll get a muted response from my father-in-law, who shares her politics but is far less openly vocal about it.

Just as an example of what we're dealing with, I recall one instance a few years back where she apparently read something that one of the ingredients of Lysol was COVID. Yes, COVID. It was cringeworthily embarrassing just to hear.

Sometimes she'll share something non-political but equally as fraudulent. Like the time she shared an alleged video of an elephant fighting a crocodile. It took 2 seconds for my kids to tell her that it was AI generated.

Anyways, this past weekend she brought up AI, and was complaining that there was so much AI generated stuff on her social media feed she didn't know what to believe. She mentioned an example about a supposed story of Elon Musk donating money to Charlie Kirk's children, which she was sad to find out was completely fake.

Now she is saying she doesn't know what she can trust on the internet.

Normally this might be an awakening moment, and maybe lead to better things. But I fear she's just too far gone.

But clearly she has inadvertently come across an inconvenient truth, which is that she has become a mark for online disinformation.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220703469

My eyes just rolled into the next room.

[SVPete]

Anyways, this past weekend she brought up AI, and was complaining that there was so much AI generated stuff on her social media feed she didn't know what to believe. She mentioned an example about a supposed story of Elon Musk donating money to Charlie Kirk's children, which she was sad to find out was completely fake.

Now she is saying she doesn't know what she can trust on the internet.

Normally this might be an awakening moment, and maybe lead to better things. But I fear she's just too far gone.

But clearly she has inadvertently come across an inconvenient truth, which is that she has become a mark for online disinformation.

Now do ABSBC, CBSBS, NBSBC, CBSNN, and MSBSNBC.

[FlippyDoo]

If Vice City Tommy doesn't care for places that put out false info, he should really visit a website called DemocraticUnderground.com and check out all of the BS on there. It's like a fertile BS farm.

Then we have this part...

Just as an example of what we're dealing with, I recall one instance a few years back where she apparently read something that one of the ingredients of Lysol was COVID. Yes, COVID. It was cringeworthily embarrassing just to hear.

I'd need the Vice City guy to show me this "article". I know there were some claims that Lysol KNEW about Covid before it came out, but I find it hard to believe that there were any "articles" claiming that Covid was an ingredient.

[SVPete]

If Vice City Tommy doesn't care for places that put out false info, he should really visit a website called DemocraticUnderground.com and check out all of the BS on there. It's like a fertile BS farm.

Then we have this part...

I'd need the Vice City guy to show me this "article". I know there were some claims that Lysol KNEW about Covid before it came out, but I find it hard to believe that there were any "articles" claiming that Covid was an ingredient.

Having seen the crazy crap that some way-out-there anti-Covid-vaxxers have posted online (not here, other than one member who "knew" I am paid by Big Boogie-Pharma), it is not utterly impossible that some crazy Covid-CT-ist posted that absurdity somewhere - it's hard to to over-estimate the degree of crazy to which crazies will go - but both the claim and the claim it was found somewhere commonly visited are pretty implausible.

[ADsOutburst]

Yes, there is a lot of fake stuff on the internet, such as on Bluesky, left-wing social media channels, and... Democratic Underground.

Just as importantly, there is a lot of real stuff going on in the world that is not talked about in the aforementioned places.