renee.diresta

@renee.diresta@threads.net

NEW 📖 Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality
✍🏼Studies influence, propaganda, abuse
🦹🏻‍♀️ Recurring Twitter Files supervillain

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renee.diresta, to random

I am on Meet the Press today! It’s a v good episode on threats to democracy in the 2024 election. The 1st segment is so important – four Secretaries of State discussing threats to election workers, and how they are keeping both elections & their people safe. I’m in the 2nd, w/ @anneapplebaum2000, talking about propaganda & autocracies. The episode really pulls together different aspects of the challenge.

https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/may-26-the-threat-to-democracy-211655237643

mollyjongfast, to random

Wouldn’t the solution be to have more verified mainstream media Content on social media?

renee.diresta,

No; it’s not as simple as just seeing the content. It has a lot more to do with who these communities trust. There’s an increasing number of people who trust the podcast and influencer ecosystem, which some don’t even really see as “media.” It’s “people like me giving me news.”

renee.diresta, to random

Matt Taibbi writes first and asks questions after. It’s like journalism but in reverse.

RE: https://www.threads.net/@renee.diresta/post/C7SmBj0xTnD

renee.diresta, to random

🧵 I wrote ab the “is Signal secure?” manufactroversy on X. The Guardian wanted an explainer on why Elon & Jack were “concerned” about Signal. The answer, though, has nothing to do w/Signal’s product. It was part of an extended fight over whether woke NPR should be defunded & the CEO fired. Why? Because the CEO of NPR is on the board of Signal; by the Transitive Property of Bad People, Signal is thus compromised.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/may/18/npr-elon-musk-signal

bernybelvedere, to random

This is Catturd's new pinned post.

renee.diresta,

Paranoid victimhood + total ignorance of how algorithmic curation works.

renee.diresta, to random

These articles!! How do you write this story without noting what his alt-mouthpiece Children’s Health Defense pushes out daily? His starring role in a measles outbreak in Samoa that killed 80+ kids? “His anti-vaccine views are his best-known position, but our colleague Jess Bidgood points out that Kennedy’s overall campaign is more traditionally populist”. 🫥

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/14/briefing/robert-f-kennedy-jr-2024-election.html

renee.diresta, to random

Fascinated by Amazon leaderboards and product categorization for purely selfish reasons this time

RE: https://www.threads.net/@renee.diresta/post/C61juPfRBcL

renee.diresta, to random

I got an unexpected front row seat to the beginnings of ongoing conspiracy theorist rumblings about Signal last month because one thing paranoid cranks on Twitter love to do is play the “Transitive Property of Bad People” game.

Attacking Signal took off with a vengeance bc NPR didn’t cave and fire Katharine Maher, their new CEO, who is also on the Signal board. To punish Maher, rw activists mad at NPR began to go after all her affiliations. This is provocateur’s playbook 101. But anyway…

renee.diresta, to random

📣 Some personal news: 1 month from today, my book is out! 🎉 Bookthreads

🏢 It’s ab propaganda, influence, influencers, & institutions.

🪡It explains why people increasingly live in bespoke realities.

🤑 And it breaks down how paranoid cranks run smear campaigns for clout, money, and power.

I wrote the book during a wild year in which Jim Jordan subpoenaed me & Stephen Miller sued me —to shut me up. It’s time to tell the story.

Preorders are open —and really matter! https://amzn.to/4bbiDJD

renee.diresta, to random

This man unblocked me after NINE YEARS to imply I ran some kind of deep state sinister smear campaign targeting him. 💀

Literally nine years ago this happened and I never interacted with him again.

Incredible.

Fragile man boosts fragile man.

(Nassim Taleb, Paul Thacker, and Michael Shellenberger for the bullshit sandwich.).

renee.diresta, to random

There is no magical network that functions well absent moderation because the issue is people — and Jack knows that. He didn’t want to deal with thorny complaints because it’s easier to have a blanket “do nothing” policy than to bear responsibility/make hard calls.

I’m very interested in devolving control to users, middleware, and other mechanisms for reducing interpersonal issues. But that future requires acknowledging clearly that there are real trade-offs to moving away from centralization.

RE: https://www.threads.net/@documentingmeta/post/C6yYPxNrjIr

renee.diresta, to random

🧵A sweeping essay by @anneapplebaum2000 covers how Russia, China, and Iran’s propaganda operations have morphed over the last few years. It covers their intersection with American conspiracy theorist communities online — and, most importantly, the conspiracy theorists in power in the far-right wing of the Republican Party. The men who hold gavels in the House of Representatives. 1/2

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/06/china-russia-republican-party-relations/678271/

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/06/china-russia-republican-party-relations/678271/

renee.diresta, to random

This is an interesting interview with Dorsey in which he spills the 🫖 on his departure from Bluesky, which, for those who were on it early, was clearly a response to some moderation kerfuffles and ref-working early on.

Decentralized protocols are largely not subject to ref-working, for better or worse (forthcoming article on this!). That is true. But there are some coherence issues...

https://www.piratewires.com/p/interview-with-jack-dorsey-mike-solana

renee.diresta,

Algorithmic feed curation -which in an age of middleware could be determined through a user selecting from a market (Bluesky currently offers this!)- is something he finds enjoyable on Twitter, but also weightings in a centralized algorithmic feed are “censorship”. (The word has no meaning anymore)

An algorithmic curated feed is always going to pick winners and losers via rankings, and people will optimize their content to game it — there’s no neutral.

renee.diresta, to random

To catch everyone up:

  1. an NPR “whistleblower” wrote an article in The Free Press alleging anti-conservative bias at NPR three weeks ago
  2. the brand new CEO of NPR, Katherine Maher, had a bunch of tweets that revealed her to be progressive; opportunity!
  3. Rufo et al began to run their playbook: make the target a liability & discredit them
  4. when NPR’s board didn’t cave, they began to go after Wikipedia (she prev headed it) & Signal (she’s on the board)
  5. the BS went off the rails…
renee.diresta,
  1. they started alleging that Katherine Maher was a deep state agent/ “regime change operative” tied to the CIA
  2. they smeared her using the same tropey bs they’ve used on us for the last year: “color revolutionaries”, trying to censor the Internet.
  3. Rufo wrote up some of the batshit theories in his think tank’s blog
  4. Jack shared the post & Elon - who has spent several weeks calling her evil - wow’d

This is not isolated but if you’re off Twitter, you miss it. It’s an alternate reality.

renee.diresta,

And of course

  1. they got sympathetic House Republicans to launch a Congressional investigation. Because the NPR Board didn’t cave, you see, they need another bite at the apple. And your tax dollars will pay for it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/business/media/npr-republican-bias-ceo-katherine-maher.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

renee.diresta, to random

This is why proof-of-person tech is going to be one of the major market opportunities in the immediate future.

RE: https://www.threads.net/@crumbler/post/C6pYawWvdEv

renee.diresta, to random

Idk what to think…I just got this URGENT text message and yet I see no “”election interference””… 🤔

renee.diresta,

Some day we will reclaim the meaning of the word “”censorship”” from the bullshitters who appropriate it for self-promotional victimhood marketing campaigns.

renee.diresta, to random

Update

RE: https://www.threads.net/@techmeme/post/C6mGtCgKiGh

renee.diresta, to random

They are absolutely obsessed with the CIA. Everyone who says or does anything that challenges them or their ideological allies is a “”CIA agent”” or “”asset””. Me. The CEO of NPR. Maria Ressa. Taylor Swift. It’s deranged. It’s also absolute bullshit — they don’t understand how any of the systems they babble about actually work. But in that faction of the brain-rotted internet, if you make it trend, you make it true. The accusation is enough.

RE: https://www.threads.net/@fconniff/post/C6j292PpCAt

jonloomer, to random

When people who consistently troll get muted, blocked, and hidden without their knowledge, do they just assume they're being silenced by the algorithm as their baited engagement declines over time due to the accumulation of those muting, blocking, and hiding actions?

renee.diresta,

Yes. They decide they’re censored for their viewpoints or identity. This used to happen all the time on Twitter.

renee.diresta, to random

No, that isn't what VAERS is. It has nothing to do with compensation. When your main qualification for being tapped as a VP candidate is that you’re the ex-wife of a billionaire I understand the bar is low, but at least try to keep the antivax conspiracy theory scapegoats straight. 🙊

renee.diresta, to random

Grandma’s Birthday Cake posts have gotten millions of engagements since it became relatively effortless to generate images like this. Share our post on this with your older relatives to explain it: https://theconversation.com/from-shrimp-jesus-to-fake-self-portraits-ai-generated-images-have-become-the-latest-form-of-social-media-spam-226903

RE: https://www.threads.net/@egodeathiez/post/C6NFnivPvwe

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