eatingcroutons:

Yeah, I got one of Tumblr’s you-may-have-unwittingly-interacted-with-propaganda-blogs emails too. And like everyone else, I kind of shrugged because really, what am I supposed to do about that now? I have search disabled on my blog, and my tags are a mess; there’s no way I could go through and actually find any of the propaganda I may have inadvertently boosted over the seven years I’ve been on this site.

But out of curiosity I looked over Tumblr’s list of IRA-linked blogs. And one username stood out to me. I recognised it because for several months last year it had been showing up constantly in my notifications after I reblogged one of their posts with a response.

That username was black-to-the-bones, and this is the post I reblogged from them:

When I first saw the post by black-to-the-bones, I wanted to know more about these women. I dug up the original Tweet, ran a reverse Google image search and… well, as you can see from my reblog, there turned out to be quite a lot of information about them on the internet, which I spent the next hour or two collating into my post.

Now, don’t get me wrong here: I am one hundred percent aware that history regularly erases the contributions of women, and especially women of colour. But as you can see from my reply, in this particular case the history of these three women absolutely is not “hidden from us”. The person attempting to hide these women’s history was black-to-the-bones themself.

The original post – which we now know was posted by a state-sponsored propaganda blog – took a legitimate issue, but misrepresented facts to stir up emotion about that issue. The issue was perfectly tailored to resonate with Tumblr’s culture of social justice, and it worked. The vast majority of reblogs of the original post do not include any correction or further information.

Again, don’t get me wrong: anger is important. It’s a necessary part of social justice. But we have clear evidence that bad-faith actors are intentionally fomenting false anger to keep us reacting emotionally rather than thinking rationally. And they are smart about it. They will mix in their attempts to divide and enrage us with innocuous cute videos to gain followers, and legitimate posts about issues. So that when they do post actual misinformation, it slips under our radar.

When propaganda blogs do something like try to smear a Jewish woman as a white supremacist, it’s obvious who their target is, and what their goal is. But I wanted to highlight the black-to-the-bones post above because it’s a subtler, more insidious kind of propaganda. It’s part of a continuum of tactics designed to keep up a constant background noise of outrage. 

Because while anger is important, constant anger makes it harder for us to empathise with each other. It makes it harder for us to be constructive, rather than destructive. And ultimately, it just exhausts us and leaves us too apathetic to care.

So getting back to my original question: What are we supposed to do about that now?

Fact. Check. Everything.

Your racist grandparents aren’t the only ones being targeted by fake news. We are being targeted with posts that are specifically designed to appeal to Tumblr’s social justice culture. So if you see a post about an issue that makes you angry, stop before you reblog. Check the source. Google the details. Make sure your anger about legitimate issues isn’t being exploited by malicious actors.

Propaganda like this relies on us reacting to outrage before we stop to think. Be smarter than that. Don’t let yourself be manipulated.

kisskissfuckshitup:

heliolisk:

heliolisk:

Yall i just got an email from tumblr saying I interacted with accounts made by the IRA …… is this even real????

The internet is wild

Im literally imagining some government worker in russia logging onto tumblr.edu and thinking to themselves “better change my url to ‘black-galaxy-magic’ to stay young n hip and relevant with the youth of america”

sooooo let’s break it down then because the fact that tumblr sent this email is mega important

if yall haven’t been living under a rock for the last year and a half, you may have heard that trump won the election. and you may have also heard that trump was helped out by russia in a ton of ways. one of those ways was by the russian troll farm, the internet research agency (IRA). there were 84 accounts on tumblr spreading anti-hillary propaganda and general discontent, mainly targeting POC and “socially aware” youth. some of those accounts were HUGELY influential, “4mysquad” being one of the top ones with tons of followers and popular posts.

a lot of them started with relatively innocent, pro-POC posts to gain a following, before moving on to anti-police, anti-hillary, and general anti-establishment to create distrust in the only major-party candidate against trump. like I said, many of the accounts were hugely influential so their posts spread FAR. all that visibility led to increased voter apathy, meaning less voter turnout and fewer people voting against trump. and tumblr was silent on this after the official indictment of the IRA, until literally just yesterday. 

so to sum up, the email you and a ton of other people got is saying that you were following and sharing posts from russian pro-trump propaganda blogs. i’d ask that you PLEASE reblog this, because it’s super important that everyone who got this email knows why they got it, knows what it means, and hopefully knows what they might be able to do better in the future

cr-est:

Somebody just throwing a million dollars on to my naked body and then leaving.

ridleyegas:

star wars fans: happy birthday john!! we love you!! ❤🌠🎉🎊

racist star wars fans:

This next idiot really managed to make a BIRTHDAY political. Enjoy his completely unrelated and ignorant commment.

These were taken from the official Star Wars Instagram’s comment section of their Happy Birthday post to John Boyega

I literally hate the Star Wars fandom so much. John Boyega can’t even have a BIRTHDAY off of this hate and racism bs.

John is the most fun, entertaining, and charming of the entire cast. There is literally no reason to dislike him. There is definitely not a reason to hate him. Not to mention Finn is the most interesting and relatable character of the new trilogy. Y’all can miss me with that “worst character ever” nonsense.

communistbakery:

honestly i peaked as a zygote like.. i was completely androgynous.. unproblematic.. no acne… truly my golden years

thedeadflag:

angels-tooth:

dykean:

dykean:

the “___ change my mind” guy sitting at a desk is Steven Crowder who is literally a deep conservative “comedian” and the biggest transphobe of 2018 so can we NOT use that meme anymore thanks. he literally calls trans people tr**** in some of his videos and refers to caitlyn jenner (I may not like her but Christ) as a transgender f@scist because she transitioned and refers to her transitioning as “going full #sjw.” this meme is cancelled and not funny. use google if you don’t believe me. bye

to all the people replying to this post saying: “but the original meme was about making fun of him you can’t tell me when to let a meme die” all i have to say to you is THE POINT IS THE MEME HAS GROWN OUTSIDE OF THAT CONTEXT. most of the people reblogging this had NO idea of the background behind the meme and were horrified to find out who the man in the picture was. that is because the meme has reached people with a very different message (as memes do) and become distorted. it no longer is a “parody meme” or whatever excuse you have for this. you cannot say to me “it’s just harmless it’s not like it’s spreading any of his idealogy” and not understand you are spreading the image of a man who is known to be racist, transphobic, anti-semitic, and made countless videos supporting harmful conservative ideologies that affect myself and many other people. i do not want this man’s face or any remnants of this image on my dashboard. if you want to keep using this meme, fine, i can’t physically stop you. but that is why i made this post and all the people telling me i don’t have a right to criticize something like this may kindly eat my sneakers.

This is my last post on this issue because frankly the amount of smug “Ugh Tumblr just doesn’t understand making fun of him is a good thing!!!” posts that over-simplify this particular issue is driving me nuts.

Making fun of bigots and taking away people’s ability to take them seriously is a good thing, YES. 

However, Steven Crowder could not give a single, flaming fuck about y’all turning his “change my mind” thing into a meme and clowning on him because this meme has brought him lots of attention and money. He talks about the meme on his Twitter and on his show. He loves the attention it brings him. It’s brought tons of traffic to his Youtube account and the video the meme comes from is at 5+ million views, while all his other “change my mind” videos are only at 1-2 million. 

His social blade is in the green and he’s gaining subscribers rapidly and getting millions of views on his videos.  This has literally only benefited him and he knows it.

He has “Change my mind” merch, guys. Come on.

He’s banking off of y’all “making fun of him”. It’s stopped becoming a joke and you guys are giving him more exposure and putting cash into the pocket of a literal transphobe because you think photoshopping “Pee is stored in the balls” on his sign is some kind of crushing blow to him when it’s literally the opposite.

Y’all think you’re landing some big “gotchya! tee hee” on him when he’s laughing all the way to the bank while y’all are literally fighting to keep his meme alive and fund his shit channel and his campus trips. He is literally participating in one at SMU as I type this, yet you really keep hammering at @dykean for asking you guys to reconsider spreading his face around for people to find him and his content. Is the meme funny? Absolutely. Is it worth helping a racist transphobe further his platform? No.

Seriously. It’s 100% predictable that if you signal boost a racist transphobe, even with the best intentions via making him a meme, enough white/cis people will buy into his views enough to benefit the racist transphobe. There are more people out there that believe there are only two genders, that believe enough of Crowder’s exact brand of cissexist logic to have those views reaffirmed and reinforced after exposure to him.

There are more people out there that refuse to believe white privilege exists, that believe enough of Crowder’s exact brand of racist logic to have those views reaffirmed and reinforced after exposure to him.

Folks can’t turn this guy into a meme, or a joke, because his views are too popular to be one. You’ll only win him viewers and supporters, and bring fence-sitters over to his views and away from more positive views, and let Crowder make money in the process.

He’s seen a 478.8% increase in subscribers over the past 30 days. It’s not a coincidence. The rate of increase in subscribers heavily outpaces the rate of increase in views, and that’s not a coincidence either. He’s likely earned more from views alone in this past month from the new subscribers than most people will earn in a single year. 

The five seconds of laughter isn’t worth the $$$ you’re helping put into his pocket. 

eloquentdrivil:

I legitimately do not understand why a vegan who’s dedicated to pursuing a 100% vegan lifestyle, to the point where they want their pets on a vegan diet as well, do not. just. keep. naturally vegan pets.

Rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, tortoises, iguanas, a fucking horse, for fucks sake!

Like. My god, you have so many options for pets that literally CAN’T eat meat! Why would you insist on keeping a predator, if you can’t stomach the idea that they’re goddamn predators??

Do you have any idea how goddamn loving a hamster can be? Would you like to know what it feels like when a bunny asks you for cuddles?

Vegan pets are a thing. Animals that literally only eat plant matter are a thing.

You don’t have to torture dogs and cats to live a purely vegan lifestyle. Go buy a fucking guinea pig.