In today's #vatnik soup I'll explain why Elon Musk's (@elonmusk) "balancing act" of purging just one side will increase the spread of fake news and disinformation.
First of all I'd like to say that biased, systematic blacklisting of content that Twitter conducted was WRONG.
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Censorship is almost always bad and there are much better ways to fight dis- and misinformation (labels, semi-objective, external fact-checkers, etc.).
But based on recent events, it seems that Musk is just swinging this same system to the opposite direction.
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In his Nov 18, 2022 tweet he said that "Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized", yet there are no definitions or clear rules what is considered hate speech.
Elon also promised to reinstate accounts that were previously suspended.
Another neo-nazi, Daily Stormer's editor Andrew Anglin also regained access to their Twitter profile.
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The leaks from the Twitter Files has been advertised as a conspiracy among Twitter's ex-executives where they secretly decide what content gets seen, but Twitter has had a FAQ about these issues since '18: blog.twitter.com/official/en_us…
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Elon has also participated in the discussion about the Twitter Files. He has attacked the NYT (@nytimes), calling the outlet "an unregistered lobbying firm for far left politicians". He also said that Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) operates a "propaganda platform".
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In 2018, Science published a paper by Vosoughi, Roy, & Aral, titled "The spread of true and false news online". The paper concluded that "false news stories are 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than true stories are" and that ...
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... "It also takes true stories about six times as long to reach 1,500 people as it does for false stories to reach the same number of people." Allowing fake news spread freely will slowly drown the platform and more and more factual news stay hidden. doi.org/10.1126/scienc…
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I also consider Twitter's latest design choices part of the "dark pattern design" group. These design choices "trick" users to specific actions on the platform or "nudge" their thinking to a specific direction.
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Manipulation of the information flow, meaning what tweets Twitter shows us, can manipulate our thinking and "nudge" our worldview slowly to a specific direction.
How does Twitter shape our worldview if most of the content is actually disinformation?
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I have discussed this type of dark pattern design in my 2022 publication, "Facebook’s Dark Pattern Design, Public Relations and Internal Work Culture": doi.org/10.34624/jdmi.…
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Musk has also criticized the "woke culture" taking place in the Western society. We have to remember that this culture war has been fueled by Russian disinformation and propaganda throughout the years, topics ranging from LGBT+ rights to movements like BLM.
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To conclude: With the recent changes, we can pretty much expect Twitter to be the same as before, but the pendulum just swings from the left to the right.
And it will also contain MUCH more disinformation than before.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian politician and First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia, Sergey Kiriyenko. He’s best known for running both domestic and foreign disinformation and propaganda operations for the Kremlin.
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On paper, and in photos, Kiriyenko is just as boring as most of the Kremlin’s “political technologists”: between 2005-2016 he headed the Rosatom nuclear energy company, but later played a leading role in the governance of Russia-occupied territories in Ukraine.
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What is a political technologist? In Russia, they’re spin doctors & propaganda architects who shape opinion, control narratives, and manage elections — often by faking opposition, staging events, and spreading disinfo to maintain Putin’s power and the illusion of democracy.
Let me show you how a Pakistani (or Indian, they're usually the same) AI slop farm/scam operates. The account @designbonsay is a prime example: a relatively attractive, AI-generated profile picture and a ChatGPT-style profile description are the first red flags.
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The profile's posts are just generic engagement farming, usually using AI-generated photos of celebrities or relatively attractive women.
These posts are often emotionally loaded and ask the user to interact with them ("like and share if you agree!").
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Then there's the monetization part. This particular account sells "pencil art", which again are just AI-generated slop.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American lawyer and politician, Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee). He’s best-known for opposing the aid to Ukraine, undermining NATO by calling the US to withdraw from the alliance, and for fighting with a bunch of braindead dogs online.
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Like many of the most vile vatniks out there, “Based Mike” is a lawyer by profession. He hails from the holy land of Mormons, Utah, where he faces little political competition, allowing him to make the most outrageous claims online without risking his Senate seat.
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Before becoming a senator, Mike fought to let a nuclear waste company dump Italian radioactive waste in Utah, arguing it was fine if they just diluted it. The state said no, the public revolted, and the courts told poor Mikey to sit down.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American national security policy professional and the current under secretary of defense for policy, Elbridge Colby (@ElbridgeColby). He’s best-known for fighting with cartoon dogs online and for halting military aid to Ukraine.
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Elbridge "Cheese" Colby earned his bachelor’s degree from Yale and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. Before entering government, he worked at top think tanks and in the intelligence community, focusing on nuclear policy and strategic planning.
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Cheese quickly became a key voice for a “China First” strategy, arguing the US must prioritize military buildup in Asia over commitments in Europe or the Middle East. He sees (or saw, rather) Taiwan as the core test of US credibility.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’m going to talk about… Vatnik Soup! As some of you know, we also have a website where you can find every soup ever published. The site also has other useful resources, making it the most comprehensive resource on Russian disinformation & vatniks.
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Unfortunately, Elon has flagged the website as malware, as he might not be very happy about the soups I wrote about him - so far, they have garnered over 60 million views on X/Twitter.
The “freedom of speech” spokesperson doesn’t seem too keen on free speech, after all.
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The heart & soul of the website is of course the soups page. There you can find all 360+ soups, which can be sorted chronologically, by popularity, etc. You can also search for soups by title or even in the soup text: