US Intelligence may have launched a social media information war to break Canada. Some Youtube videos are suddenly flooded with comments like this.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trump-annexation-destabilizing-canada-1.7479890
Perhaps I'm just paranoid.
it is extremely likely that llm bot account Farms are behind this, inauthentic behavior networks are for sale and are routinely used to boost right wing bullshit like this these days. you are not paranoid if they are actually out to get you
What's hilarious about it, though, was something evident while watching the outcome of the elections here in Australia.
The right wing funders pay for these bots. The tame billionaire press report on the groundswell of support... And then the right wing politicians and strategists believe the papers and TV pundits that they 'trust'. Meaning that they have no actual fucking clue what the people's mood truly is. And can't react to it.
So you get the absolute hilarity of watching right wing pollies have their worldview crushed live on air as election results come in. Our right wing guys believed the press and their own analysis that they were in with a shot at government - and were disavowed fast and thoroughly while the nation watched them get the worst trouncing in decades.
The problem with disinformation programs is that you risk catching yourself in them.
Canadian expat living in the UK here. Do not be so quick to dismiss these as bots.
I moved to London 6 months before the country shot itself in the ass with Brexit. Even days before the vote, literally everyone I spoke to in person and online agreed that Brexit was too stupid to happen, but my wife wasn't convinced. She'd been spending time on right wing subreddits, reading the misinformation and vitriol. She was convinced that Leave would win.
The day after the vote, two of my work colleagues proudly announced that they'd voted to leave.
Our social spheres are small, and despite (or perhaps also because of) the internet, typically insulated from people with whom we disagree. There are very likely more Leavers out there than you might think.
Alberta has had a deep "fuck Canada" streak for as long as I can remember. It's entirely plausible that at least some of these comments are from real idiots with real power to vote Leave, and we dismiss them at our peril.
Also Canadian in the UK. Hello from The North™.
I moved just as it was being implemented, and the people at my local who had voted leave, there weren't many, that were shocked that they couldn't go through the EU express lane at passport control....was frankly disturbing.....
Protestations of "this wasn't the Brexit I voted for!" abounded.... And like.... motherfucker.....this is exactly the Brexit you voted for dumbfuck!
Bot avalanche. I’m sitting here with in laws from AB, life long conservatives they think Marlaina is a big mouthed idiot, for the first time in their life they voted liberal because Polievre is not a compelling leader - and them and none of their conservative Christian friends or anyone they know anywhere in Alberta have any interest in separating. The internet doesn’t reflect the real world. There IS no critical mass of people in AB who want to separate. And oil & gas is not a culture, it’s an industry - not an identity.
That's what a French teacher in Alberta was saying today, being from Quebec they have an opinion on separatism may they want it or not.
"Being allowed to pollute as much as you want isn't a national project contrary to Quebec's project when they had their referendums."
Has an implausibly high number of these comments perchance been posted at night hours? (I noticed that once with pro-AfD comments in Germany.)
The motherland time zone demands. It!
You might look at the history of Calexit and Brexit to deduce who's behind Albexit.
Makes sense. I already was wondering what David Cameron was doing nowadays.
Regardless of whether or not these particular comments are US intelligence, I am 100% convinced that Trump is going to try and make Alberta the Canadian Donbas.
They'll do their little Wexit vote thing and they'll lose, but there will be a massive amount of disinfo in all of the places you'd expect saying it was rigged, and they'll just escalate from there. Who knows when the guns break out, but I feel like there are people down south who are planning on this leading to a military "liberation"
Albertan First Nations need to steal the spotlight.
Recent polling by Angus Reid shows that major opposition from First Nations (as secession violates their treaty rights) either would not effect Albertans/Saskatchewanians opinion on leaving or would make them more likely to want to leave
https://angusreid.org/referendum-alberta-saskatchewan-smith-moe/
This can be anybody really. Russia for example is known to just stir the pot as much as possible. Whatever argument will cause destabilization.
Funny, Danielle Smith does the same thing...
The backend on YouTube is pretty much designed to encourage skub (ragebait/"engagement"). Having comments that are incendiary is good for the video's performance.
Does that make it the perfect breeding ground for astroturfing and pushing misinformation? Probably. Bad actors can basically use it as a cheap form of advertising and pushing ideas that benefit them. Even the creator of the video if it was a video that has a completely opposite viewpoint of those comments still stands to benefit from having them because that increases engagement and their revenue.
So I guess my point is is that YouTube has a lot of problems and there is a multitude of reasons why comments like that have a home there and motives for them.
the shorts are good for that ragebaiting, but putting stuff out of context.
This is scary because astroturfing campaigns like this is part of how the Russians managed to annex Crimea. With enough propaganda and psychological warfare you can eventually turn people against their own interests. Ask the Chechens.
Ordinary people have no clue that this is going on. They need to know so they can recognize it.
As someone who lives in Southern Alberta. I can say that no one I've spoken to would support this nonsense. Mainly because they understand how levels of government work, how funding works, and how trade deals work. The basics lol.
russian bots wouldve done the same, if not at a better effect than US would.
This is much more mundane but no less evil or wholy encapsulating of those in power than a perfectly executed conspiracy, because this is simply the only way U.S. Silicon Valley Techbros know how to monetize online communities (which is boring AND evil, the saddest kind of worst). They sell the capacity to distort and undermine the communities that choose their platforms as foundations like a hotel charging guests for rooms while also selling the service to assassinate any of their guests on demand if a wealthy person is willing to pay a reasonable sum.
Canada is under grave danger so long as it is reliant on U.S. Silicon Valley Tech companies to provide and more importantly moderate social media infrastructure, but it is a much more pathetic grave danger than you might expect.
This is why it is awesome to see lots of Canadians on the fediverse!
it is both mundane and a conspiracy
Would be nice if people just completely disregarded the opinion of about 5 obvious bots or a troll house. Counting on you Canada. Don't get sucked into the social media shit hole like the rest of the world did.
Closer to #40 by GDP if they were to keep their economy as strong as it is now, which they wouldn't as they would be landlocked and absorbed by the US in a matter of months and would then by #23 out of 51 states instead of the #1 province...
Obviously not from Alberta. Proper grammar and punctuation is a dead give away.
Wouldn't exactly be hard considering how many porn bots I see.
He says that in spite of visible signs of Canadian unity in the face of annexation threats, there are those who are vulnerable to the siren call, particularly among the young who feel economically disadvantaged
And they're talking about bolstering social media, watching money flows, but not bolstering defense and living standards.
Youtube comments have always been some of the biggest sources of bots and are extremely prone to manipulation. Especially since when legitimate users comment they very often dont appear while bots can comment so often they're guaranteed to appear. In addition I feel like google allows for like manipulation by the US gov.
In addition I feel like google allows for like manipulation by the US gov.
We got receipts, for example: Mexico sues Google over changing Gulf of Mexico’s name for US users
i noticed they started rearing thier ugly head in the comments on youtube around 2020, then it just became "woke this and that" on the most "progressive type of videos". then suddenly overnight right wing shorts started to appear at least once in a while, plus hypermasculinity videos.
Danielle is greedy for Canada's oil (not Alberta's oil...Canada's oil) and she is willing to use all kinds of chicanery while she gets more and more in cahoots with our southern neighbours.
This has been happening for a while on shit like toktok. I personally suspected Russia.
this is everywhere. I can't read comments on UK news videos because they're spammed with absolutely vile sewage spewed from LOADS of accounts. definitely botting going on.
Hey, totally not an American agent here. Comments have totally always been like that. Just ignore it and don't push back, troll them, or engage in anyway. You should just post about how you don't like this stuff on Lemmy where it's just us here.
Canada has a history of separatists, most notably Quebec who held two referendums on the issue.
The first (in 1980) was rejected by 60% of Quebec voters. The second (in 1995) was extremely close -- 50.6% to 49.4% against separation.
After the last vote the Quebec separatist movement seemed to die down a bit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_sovereignty_movement
While we should pay attention to what some Albertans say on the issue I am hopeful that others will look to Brexit and Quebec for teachable moments.
@dwazou Just because your paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not out to get you
Balcanization is the word canada is looking for
We'll see. If think USA is pulling a Crimea with Alberta. It's the same strategy with separatists.
Canada should ban YouTube for being foreign interference with their sovereignty.
oh shit sorry
Mouth breathers will breathe thru their mouth
YouTube comments are more conservative usually unless they are on the Rational National.
People read YouTube comments? 😂
Talk to real people that you know, don't form your opinions entirely from the internet
Meh they can have Alberta.
Ignorant statement.
I guess every single Albertan Liberal voter downvoted this joke. 😂
I might have said this before ICE started kidnapping people off the streets with no due process. If AB became American, how would BC connect with the rest of Canada? Ain't no way anyone is going to drive around, and flying over is too expensive.
I'm not crossing the American border anytime soon; likely never again in my life.
Complex geopolitics at play.
Both Alberta and Saskatchewan hold key natural resources (oil and potash).
Both are essentially land locked and are unsustainable as soverign nations being surrounded by the US and Canada.
If either seceded from Canada, the most likely outcome is annexation by or willingly joining the US, which would be problematic for Canadian sovereignty as a whole.
I'm all for Alberta's self determination but Canada cannot and will not allow allow this to happen.
If Albertans don't like that, I fully support them seeking asylum / refugee status in the US.
It's likely not even a US op, and division like this benefits places like China and Russia even more.
All the US did was take Russia off the cyberthreat list and stop monitoring their VPNs. The Russian bots have been very obvious across all US platforms.
A data scientist supposedly uses emojis like that?!
America is Russia.
Cant spell russia without usa!
Amerussia
It's time to recognize that the US is fully capable and has deployed propaganda operations throughout the world over the years. We may or may not have been a target so far, but the more we try to decouple, the more we're becoming a likely target. And they're not gonna come out and say we're being targeted.
Why not both meme?