31 pointsby pseudolus6 hours ago6 comments
  • djohnston3 hours ago
    My favorite part of this whole game / controversy is how "doing your own research" on an issue leads you to the alt-right. Parody-level blunder from the left on that one.
    • throwawayqqq113 hours ago
      Any suggestions where the billions for biased economic research, biased LLMs, skewed algorithms, selective ad revenue, massive botnet operations, campaign funding, corrupted influencal networks, media ownership -- and the most important part: a functioning education system to immunize people against propaganda so they can actually do ther own research against all odds -- should come from?

      What would you suggest, when it turns out, that even with massive fact checking capabilities, lies just spread faster no mattet your factual accurracy?

      Blaming the left for the current upheaval is a right prolaganda message too, so did my broadening reply work on you? No?

      • mycall3 hours ago
        Fact checking isn't built into each article readers or video playback systems. That is half the problem as I would find a fact checking curator that I trusted and use that for all knowledge acquisition.
      • djohnston3 hours ago
        [flagged]
        • throwawayqqq113 hours ago
          And how did i discourage you from discovering the truth?
          • collingreen3 hours ago
            Remember you don't have to feed the trolls.

            It's frustrating when people fake argue with you on the internet and seem like they just aren't quite engaging with what you're saying. Unfortunately, sometimes that's the point since it inherently devalues the conversation as a whole.

            Not telling you what to do; just passing by and reminding that you're under no obligation to engage with a convo that isn't good faith because sometimes I forget that myself in the moment.

            • throwawayqqq112 hours ago
              I believe, i cannot reason pathological dipshits out of ther idiocy. I do this for the silent, maybe tumbling bystanders. But thanks for the heads up.
          • djohnston3 hours ago
            Not you - the game! The game is teaching children that the act of trying to independently research information is a dangerous pathway that can lead to extremism. That belief is drivel - any self-respecting intelligent child will instinctively reject it. I feel for those who fall victim to such indoctrination though.
            • throwawayqqq113 hours ago
              So by pointing out that an outsider of the game, the left, is not to blame for its outcome, i somehow made a point for that rigged game? I discouraged you with this?!

              Please dont reply. You are dwelling deeper and deeper.

              The actual problem is the _massive and intentional_ cognitive inability of critical thought.

    • seanmcdirmid2 hours ago
      They don’t mean actually “do your own research”, they mean “do your own research from these far right biased resources.” All you have to do is plant the seed of a bias and lead them to confirming those biases. Real research would require not having an opinion in the first place and just looking for the cause of a problem from a variety of sources with different biases.
    • baggy_three32 minutes ago
      This sort of thing is why I've moved away from left-wing politics as I've got older. I'm now centre-left and not much engaged with politics any more, whereas in my twenties I considered myself far-left and would be leafleting, going to protests, and have social groups full of people who felt the same way.

      I came to realise that most leftists are idiots who don't think for themselves and need to be spoonfed the latest acceptable opinions, usually from a social media echo chamber. And these opinions change with the wind.

      Like why shouldn't I do my own research and try to discuss it with people who supposedly have similar principles? No apparently that's not allowed and you'll get shouted down for it, maybe even banned for wrongthink.

      • jamiek8819 minutes ago
        Anyone who uses the term ‘leftist’ is just a right winger cosplaying.

        There’s a fascist take over of the government, citizens being executed in broad daylight on the street. But no the real problem is ‘leftists’ talking mean to me.

        Ok, 16 minute old account.

        • baggy_three12 minutes ago
          Thank you for a live demonstration of what I'm talking about. You sound just like the arseholes I fell out with back in the day.

          Not my government, by the way. I'm in the UK and so the propensity of USians to blast each other away with guns for stupid reasons isn't something that particularly concerns me. You people have a school shooting pretty much every week. Absolute shithole of a country no matter who is in charge.

          Also, are you aware you have neo-Nazi numbers in your username? Funny to see such an account complaining about fascism, in an incongruous kind of way.

    • estearum2 hours ago
      Much easier to flood the zone with bullshit when you have no regard for truth. It's extremely hard to propagate facts, especially since facts on almost any salient issue are complex, vague, apparently contradictory, and otherwise require a lot of attention to wrap one's head around.
    • torginusan hour ago
      The fundamental issue is that actual information of what the fck is going on in the world/your country and why is so far buried and removed from the public eye that people either accept the BS narrative, latch onto crazy conspiracy theories, or sink into total apathy.

      It would be journalists' job to actually dig into this, but you know.

      Working at an organization owned by a media conglomerate whose majority shareholder is a billionaire with very clear state connections usually qualifies as independent journalism among friends and state propaganda among enemies.

  • wolvoleo3 hours ago
    Goth girls would normally not subscribe to extreme right viewpoints so I wonder why they picked that look.
    • ksynwa2 hours ago
      It's probably similar to how the extremely pro-AI people started generating Studio Ghibli-style images in droves. It's sort of a disrespectful co-opting.
    • estearum2 hours ago
      The modern right is extremely, extremely confused.
      • laughing_manan hour ago
        The character was created by leftists. She was meant to be the antagonist in the world's cringiest teaching aid game aimed at teenagers but pitched as if they were four year olds. This whole thing was predictable.
    • jazzyjacksonan hour ago
      you want what you can't have
  • paulddraper2 hours ago
    > The Home Office said Prevent had diverted nearly 6,000 people away from violent ideologies. It added that projects such as the Pathways game were designed to target local radicalisation risks

    Original matter aside, this Ministry of Truth update is as creepy as anything else in the article.

  • dyauspitr3 hours ago
    I guess they have a hard time finding actual young women that would vote against their own interests.
    • elzbardico3 hours ago
      You know, things are not that black and white in the world. People have different problems, different points of view.

      The fact that the system gives them only two opposing, radical polarities, doesn't mean that there isn't nuance.

      You and I may agree or not, but there are indeed young woman who, for example, are not pro-choice. They may have varied views on the trans issue, they have different class/economics policy goals.

      You don't get to decree what young women interest are, neither me nor anyone else than themselves.

  • AndrewKemendo2 hours ago
    Hang on, this looks like classic Internet trolling:

    //

    Pathways: Navigating the Internet and Extremism is a simple multiple choice format game with basic animation. Its players are taken on a journey as characters at a college. They are invited to make decisions in scenarios including whether or download potentially extremist content or join an Amelia character on a rally organised by “a small political group” protesting against changes in society and the “erosion in British values”…

    However, it is a subversion of the Amelia character that has exploded across social media channels …

    Manga-style Amelia, a Wallace and Gromit version and AI-generated “real life” encounters between her and the characters of Father Ted or Harry Potter, accompanied by racist language and far-right messaging.

    …We have seen the meme having a remarkable spread and proliferating among the far right and beyond, but what’s also been of note is how it is now international

    //

    So a bunch of trolls did classic troll things (which is to be expected because you’re on the internet) then the right wingers picked it up and ruined it and then it spread to become a meme coin

    The article wants to make this as though there’s a hardcore group of right wing meme-lords in some giant conspiracy

    This is keeps happening and it’s super wierd.

    Remember the 2007 mooninite panic? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42225609

    Is trolling considered right wing now?

    • laughing_manan hour ago
      "Classic internet trolling" is exactly what it is. You can find video of the original game on YouTube -- it's got a painful "hello, fellow kids" vibe to it that just invites ridicule.
  • delaminator6 hours ago
    [flagged]
    • ben_w6 hours ago
      Has the Guardian ever described Boris Johnson or Jacob Rees-Mog thusly? The Tory party as a whole?

      Not "have said things that far/alt right cheer" but that they actually are more than "right wing"?

    • add-sub-mul-div4 hours ago
      Yeah, it's a bummer. As someone who doesn't vote for the right I sincerely feel bad for the sane and respectable people among the right who have watched their parties turn into this and have lost their voice and representation in the media.
      • qwertyu34 hours ago
        Isn't the issue that they've most representation in their party more than in media? If anything in the US, I would say the media held onto the idea that moderate conservatives as having a voice in their party for too long.
      • throwawayqqq113 hours ago
        I think its time for a distinction between (far) right and conservative.

        To me, (far) right means being primarilly focused on some image of an enemy, nowadays conveyed by social media, and without a substancial constructive political vision. Disgust toward some outgroup and an illusion of former greatness as main drivers for political agitation.

        IMO, conservatives can be similarly misguided by some bloated group identity but enlarge, its not their primary driver. Conservarism can find common ground with left leaning policies, whereas the far right cannot.

    • Balinares4 hours ago
      Maybe right wing people should stop pushing far right policies, then.