Recent video purportedly showing a man destroying ballots marked for Trump is a disinformation campaign, say officials

Russian actors were behind a viral video falsely showing mail-in ballots for Donald Trump being destroyed in the swing state of Pennsylvania, US officials said on Friday, amid heightened alert over foreign influence operations targeting the upcoming election.

The video, which garnered millions of views on platforms such as the Elon Musk-owned X, purports to show a man sorting through mail-in ballots from the state’s Bucks county and ripping up those cast for the former president.

  • cheese_greater@lemmy.world
    341·
    11 days ago

    There needs to be a way where people can be as misinformed as they like but policy and institutions and basically everyone else—like—doesn’t have ti give a fuck.

    Like, they wanna watch Fox News or worse all day and get bamboozled by Truths™️ and memes, be our guest.

    We need to start idiot-proofing society even further to where these folks are basically irrelevant besides whether their rights and obligations are being mutually ensured. If they are socially disruptive they need to understand they wont be getting The Donald criminal justice experience, they are always so gobsmacked when they have to find out there’s no jet coming for them

    If their “news” source can be shown to be a nexus through which they have been radicalized and linked to the flowing criminal initiatives, that also needs to stop and be held accountable. Are they also allowed to erroneously yell that a theater is on-fire causing mass stampede deaths and disfigurement?

    • YeetPics@mander.xyz
      151·
      11 days ago

      Seems like Linus made the right call, and you are absolutely on the right track for dealing with these types moving forward.

      If you hate something so much you stop building and direct your energy entirely into regressing, you have broken the key social contract that allows you to waste your time on a key board and you should be socially excluded from participating.

      Caillou misbehaved, too. That didn’t slide.

    • BossDj@lemm.ee
      10·
      11 days ago

      In the show Mythic Quest, their game is invaded by tons of Nazis who are making the game absolutely miserable for everyone. In the end, they decide to >!Create a server and push all the Nazis into it, who would then unknowingly never be interacting with anyone but themselves!<