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Emrys

(8,923 posts)
15. I think most of us would settle for your not spreading RW BS from bot farms on DU
Tue Dec 30, 2025, 04:11 PM
22 hrs ago

See here, as you still don't seem to realize you were, at best and on the most charitable interpretation, gullible, unlike many of those who responded to your infamous OPs:

Note: Though based on research about recent campaigns targeting Taylor Swift, the findings have wider relevance for potential political influence operations in future, as detailed in the last paragraph quoted below.

Taylor Swift's Last Album Sparked Bizarre Accusations of Nazism. It Was a Coordinated Attack

Data analysis of social media posts painting the singer as a Trump supporter or white supremacist revealed a network of inauthentic accounts

...
Soon, online discussion of the [The Life of a Showgirl] album turned extreme in ways that many found bewildering. There were social media posts accusing Swift of implicitly endorsing the MAGA movement, trad-wife gender norms, and even white supremacy with dogwhistle references. While the far-right have been known to claim the singer as an icon of “Aryan” greatness despite her record of championing Democrats and liberal values — and President Trump himself has blithely and disingenuously shared AI-generated imagery depicting her as a supporter — this was a noticeably divergent trend, an apparent attempt to cancel Swift for those presumed affiliations. The attacks largely focused on specific word choices (her use of the term “savage” on the song “Eldest Daughter” was interpreted as racist) and symbols (a necklace for sale on her website stirred up Nazi comparisons because its lightning bolt charms bore a passing resemblance to the bolt pattern worn by the SS).
...

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What Swift’s defenders didn’t realize, however, was that they were pushing back against a false narrative that had been seeded and amplified by a small network of inauthentic social accounts. Worse, they were helping to disseminate those bad-faith allegations by earnestly engaging with them.

That’s according to new research from GUDEA, a behavioral intelligence startup that tracks how such reputation-damaging claims emerge and go viral on the internet. In a white paper examining more than 24,000 posts and 18,000 accounts across 14 digital platforms between Oct. 4 (the day after The Life of a Showgirl came out) and Oct. 18, shared first with Rolling Stone, the firm concluded that just 3.77 percent of accounts drove 28 percent of the conversation around Swift and the album during that period. This cluster of evidently coordinated accounts pushed the most inflammatory Swift content, including conspiracy theories about her supposed Nazi allusions, callouts for her theoretical MAGA ties, and posts that framed her relationship with fiancé Travis Kelce as inherently conservative or “trad,” with all of this framed as leftist critique.

Once the provocations were injected into the Swift discourse — often they appeared in edgier online forums like 4chan or KiwiFarms before migrating to popular social apps — they were organically sustained by the people challenging them on mainstream platforms. This, in turn, algorithmically reinforced their visibility. “The false narrative that Taylor Swift was using Nazi symbolism did not remain confined to fringe conspiratorial spaces; it successfully pulled typical users into comparisons between Swift and Kanye West,” the researchers wrote. “This demonstrates how a strategically seeded falsehood can convert into widespread authentic discourse, reshaping public perception even when most users do not believe the origin.
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The more recent, Swift-focused activity of these accounts may indicate the owner(s) dipping a toe in the water before pursuing other ends with this network in the future. After all, while [Blake] Lively has argued that [Justin] Baldoni is trying to sabotage her career with bot-driven commentary, it’s not immediately clear what anyone stands to gain from painting Swift as a closet MAGA voter.

“When we put our doomsday hat on, I think we can see that reality,” Paul says of the test-run scenario. It could be, she speculates, “that there might be other nefarious actors, not U.S.-based, who have reasons to see, ‘If I can move the fan base for Taylor Swift — an icon who is this political figure, in a way — does that mean I can do it in other places?’”

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/taylor-swifts-social-media-campaign-life-of-a-showgirl-1235480646/

Recommendations

3 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):

By the end of World War II we had nuclear weapons, relatively small nuclear weapons. Jim__ 23 hrs ago #1
If one goes up at supersonic speeds, all the others go up. Justice matters. 20 hrs ago #23
Yes, and the cure for diabetes is a diet of only doughnuts and candy bucolic_frolic 23 hrs ago #2
and 1 azzwhole to reverse 250 years of progress rampartd 23 hrs ago #3
There are still selfish troglodytes. haele 23 hrs ago #4
Yes, but we used to not listen to them. OldBaldy1701E 5 hrs ago #25
The internet. Used to be, the crazies would have to drive to 'conferences' Volaris 2 hrs ago #27
Yep. OldBaldy1701E 47 min ago #29
This book is really sobering SamuelTheThird 23 hrs ago #5
I heard Taylor Swift is mentioned in Revelations. BannonsLiver 23 hrs ago #8
I apologize SamuelTheThird 23 hrs ago #9
No check that, I heard she's a prize in a Cracker Jack box. BannonsLiver 22 hrs ago #14
I think most of us would settle for your not spreading RW BS from bot farms on DU Emrys 22 hrs ago #15
Straw man argument SamuelTheThird 21 hrs ago #17
Another attempt at dodging from you after your bravura performance yesterday. It'll fare as well. Emrys 21 hrs ago #19
What bs SamuelTheThird 21 hrs ago #20
What BS yourself. Nobody has to "worship" a celeb to be opposed to mendacious hate campaigns. Emrys 20 hrs ago #22
The crisis, when it comes canetoad 23 hrs ago #6
And democracy is not the default setting 31st Street Bridge 5 hrs ago #24
That would only be a temporary solution. BannonsLiver 23 hrs ago #7
Can't supply cat-harsis, but here's... GJGCA 22 hrs ago #10
I'll take it. 3catwoman3 22 hrs ago #16
Humanity will never "straighten out it's act". maxsolomon 22 hrs ago #11
Sad but true... GJGCA 22 hrs ago #13
Foundation Series OC375 22 hrs ago #12
The doctor's orders in "Dracula: Dead and Loving It"... BH liberal 21 hrs ago #18
A WWIII would be the end of humans with all the nukes flying Bayard 21 hrs ago #21
I believe Einstein was quoted as saying: Wounded Bear 4 hrs ago #26
An AI engineered virus is inevitable now I fear Ponietz 2 hrs ago #28
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