Funny events in anti-woke world

[Samtemdo8]

Content Court are cool people. Even when they're taking somebody like the Quartering down, it's an eye sore of listen to Q's voice. The overly self smugness and satisfaction wreaks of him. Thank you for the video though

************ has the audacity to say: "I'm not racist/homophobic, I was raised by 2 Black and Gay dads."

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

QAnon Has a Disturbing Takeover Plot to ‘Eliminate’ Elected Officials

A known QAnon grifter has amassed an army of loyal followers on Twitch in her scheme of “retaliation.“

www.vice.com

A known grifter and QAnon supporter who claims she can time-travel has amassed an army of thousands of loyal followers to carry out a plot to oust elected officials across the country and replace them with QAnon believers—and she’s using game-streaming platform Twitch to do it.



Terpsichore Maras-Lindeman has spent the last four months building an intricate network of groups in all 50 states, urging followers to dig up information about elected officials and cough up hundreds of dollars to take part in her scheme.



Maras-Lindeman has promised her followers that the plot will bring about “retaliation” for what she believes was a stolen election last November, and ultimately see the return of former president Donald Trump to the White House.



All the while, Maras-Lindeman, who streams under the name Tore Says, has grown her subscriber base massively, raking in tens of thousands of dollars since the beginning of the year. She even managed to convince her supporters to cough up over $87,400 in a crowdfunding campaign, which she used to buy a new Tesla.



Maras-Lindeman is part of a growing ecosystem of grifters and hucksters who are leveraging the widespread belief that Trump’s election loss was somehow orchestrated by shadowy figures and companies tied to the Democrats. This so-called “Big Lie” has taken hold within the mainstream Republican Party, and fringe figures like Maras-Lindeman have succeeded in carving out a niche that’s proving to be highly lucrative.



When President Joe Biden was inaugurated on January 20, QAnon supporters were distraught—after all, they were promised that would never happen.



Building the army on Twitch

For some it was the final straw, but others, who had spent years devoted to the conspiracy movement, needed something to latch onto—and Maras-Lindeman provided that.



A week after Biden’s inauguration, Maras-Lindeman outlined an audacious plan to oust sitting lawmakers across the country and replace them with Q believers who were tired of having elections stolen from them.



And they were going to begin with Ohio.



“Ohio’s gonna be lit, next week we’re gonna be setting some serious fires,” she told viewers on her Twitch channel, ToreSays, on Jan. 29. Then, she issued a warning to the lawmakers: “You want a great reset? Here it is. We’re gonna do it our way, and that’s by eliminating you.”



The plan was relatively simple: Maras-Lindeman claimed that vote-counting equipment used in states across the country were not properly certified and that as a result, all elected officials—both Democrat and Republican—were illegitimate. This opens the door for anyone to file what’s known as a “quo warranto” lawsuit, an arcane legal action that requires a person to show by what warrant an office or franchise is held, claimed, or exercised.



But so far neither Maras-Lindeman nor any of her supporters has provided evidence to back up their claims that the voting machines are invalid.



After filing the lawsuit, any resident of a particular state can then justifiably oust an elected official from the same district and replace them until a new election was held.



“From what I can discern, the final step is meeting at the Ohio Supreme Court, where they’ll look to have Ms. Lindeman filing their election fraud warrants, in an effort to remove the ‘illegally elected’ representatives, and take their place,” Genevieve Oh, a livestreaming analyst who has been closely tracking Maras-Lindeman’s activity on Twitch for months, told VICE News.



“Looking at her followers’ messages and reactions, she seems to have legitimately convinced her viewers they’re going to take Ohio Senate and House of Representatives’ seats through this movement,” Oh added.



So far over 60 people in Ohio alone have signed up to take part in this mass lawsuit filing, according to an online spreadsheet used by the group and seen by VICE News.



Over the course of the next four months, Maras-Lindeman’s support base grew dramatically on her Twitch channel. In parallel, she organized state-specific groups on the encrypted messaging app Telegram to allow citizens in those states to coordinate their efforts and get people to sign up to challenge elected officials.



Each state channel has at least one administrator who relays Maras-Lindeman’s instructions to the group, while in-person Zoom calls with hundreds of people have also been organized.



While some of the groups, like those in Ohio and Wisconsin, have over 500 members, some others had just a few dozen participants.



The campaigns have been given different names. In Ohio the plot to unseat elected officials is called “Operation 1776” while in Wisconsin the campaign is called “Operation Reigns.”



A document shared with the Wisconsin group and viewed by VICE News gives those involved a rundown of what the campaign hopes to achieve.



“The majority of us are not ‘claiming’ a seat with the intention of remaining in it long-term (although I think many of us should consider this), nor are we attempting a long term coup; we simply want to hold their place just long enough to prove our point and assure WI voting is safe, secure, and transparent. If they (those ‘elected’) are TRULY OUR servants (and our actions will remind them they are), they should then support our effort to bring upon the changes required to institute a fair election process so they may (or may not) be re-elected.”



Digging up the dirt

There are also side channels on Telegram, where dedicated supporters began digging up and sharing personal information about the elected officials in their states, including phone numbers and email addresses, which are then used to harass those officials with phone calls and emails.



VICE News monitored the activity on two Telegram channels linked to “Operation 1776” and contacted all those who have signaled their intention to challenge lawmakers in the state. Only one responded but refused to answer questions unless VICE News publicized his YouTube channel.



Maras-Lindeman didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment, and immediately after VICE News first contacted her, we were kicked out of the Ohio-focused Telegram channels.



Initially Maras-Lindeman suggested she would lead an in-person meetup of supporters who would walk to Ohio’s Supreme Court and file the quo warranto writs en masse, and that it would happen almost immediately. But that hasn’t happened yet. Repeatedly over the course of the last few months, she has deflected and delayed, telling followers she needs to get everything in place before filing the lawsuits so it won’t be a waste of time and effort.



That became much harder last month when a group called “We The People” filed a quo warranto lawsuit in Arizona, with 19 people demanding that 19 elected officials —or “inadvertent usurpers,” as they were called in the filing—vacate their seats.



Maras-Lindeman subsequently claimed credit for the Arizona filing. On her Telegram channel se shared a messages that said: “So proud of my team in AZ. We worked hard to get this out there and all because @ToreSays taught us how to fight.”



But some of Maras-Lindeman’s supporters reacted angrily, demanding that the lawsuits in their states were filed immediately, But rather than giving specifics, Maras-Lindeman has retreated from her earlier bolder claims about what will happen in Ohio, now preferring to tease her followers with hints about what is to come.



“So now we’re gonna talk about our lawsuit, without talking about our lawsuit,” she said during a livestream on Twitch on May 11. “I want you to pay attention to this and we’ll talk about it when it’s signed, sealed and delivered around June 10th, hopefully. It could take plus or minus a couple of days.”



Despite repeatedly failing to deliver on promises, Maras-Lindeman’s popularity continues to grow—alongside her ability to earn money from her subscribers.



Maras-Lindeman first gained notoriety in the right-wing conspiracy ecosystem when she appeared in the conspiracy-laden documentary “Shadowgate,” made by former InfoWars reporter Millie Weaver, who also streams on Twitch.



Prior to that, Maras-Lindeman’s past appears to be a patchwork of lies, half-truths, and contradictions.



For example, her profile on Together We Served, an online veteran community, stated that she reached the rank of lieutenant, served in the combat zones of Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and in the Office of Naval Intelligence, and was awarded multiple medals, including a Purple Heart. According to a Washington Post investigation, Maras-Lindeman did serve in the Navy, but for less than a year more than two decades ago. Maras-Lindeman told the Post she didn’t know who created that now-deleted profile.



Since leaving the military, the 42-year-old claims to have held various intelligence contractor positions. In the “Shadowgate” documentary, she claims to have carried out a notorious 2008 intrusion into the State Department’s passport records on then-presidential candidates Barack Obama, John McCain, and Hillary Clinton. She even claimed she carried out the intrusion on the direct orders of John Brennan, who would later go on to become director of the CIA.



Brennan has denied any knowledge of Maras-Lindeman. and like most of her claims about her work as an intelligence contractor, she says they can’t be verified because of the covert nature of the work she does.



But what may be most worrying to the thousands of people who are giving her money every month is that she has already been found guilty of ripping people off by misrepresenting what the money she is collecting is for.



In 2018, a judge in North Dakota, where she was living at the time, ordered her to pay $25,000 after she was found to have used money collected—which she claimed was to fund homeless shelters and wreaths for veterans’ graves—on purchases for herself at McDonald’s, QVC, and elsewhere.



Maras-Lindeman has appealed the court’s decision to North Dakota’s Supreme Court, claiming bureaucratic failings and identity theft caused the confusion.



Despite her questionable background, Maras-Lindeman has managed to become a celebrity within the world of election-fraud hucksters, partnering with Weaver to produce more Shadowgate documentaries, and fostering close ties with former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, who’s bankrolling the controversial audit in Maricopa County.



And she is converting that notoriety into hard cash.



Maras-Lindeman only began broadcasting on Twitch on July 20 last year, at first averaging just nine viewers, according to data collected by Oh and shared with VICE News.



By August, her mix of QAnon and election fraud conspiracies had begun to gain a following and she was averaging 390 concurrent viewers. By the end of the year, when she was being quoted in election fraud lawsuits by “Kraken lawyer” Sidney Powell, Maras-Lindeman’s streams had reached 1,000 concurrent viewers.



And last month, she was averaging over 4,000 viewers on each livestream, peaking at over 5,000 concurrent viewers on May 10, the day the quo warranto lawsuit was filed in Arizona.



Maras-Lindeman now has 18,300 subscribers to her Twitch channel, and since December alone, those subscribers have brought in $35,000, according to analysis by Oh. And because she’s a verified partner on Twitch, she gets to keep 70% of that.



While her subscriber base may seem low compared to the hundreds of thousands of followers some QAnon influencers have, Maras-Lindeman has an incredibly engaged and loyal audience, especially when compared to other Twitch streamers.



Take, for example, Lisa Vannatta, a gamer who livestreams on Twitch as STPeach. She currently has over 1 million followers on Twitch, a following that rises to over 3 million when you add in her other social media platforms. She’s been streaming full-time for more than six years and generally gets about one-fifth the level of live-viewership that Maras-Lindeman does.



Despite the fact that she shares conspiracy theories, is orchestrating a nationwide uprising, claims to be able to travel to the future, and features a burning Q as part of her logo, Maras-Lindeman’s channel continues to be verified and is listed among the most popular Twitch channels anywhere in the world.



“One might be misled by her very low follower count, [but it is] utterly irrelevant and not indicative of her reach whatsoever,” Oh told VICE News. “Whenever broadcasting, Lindeman—the QAnon believer with highly visible Q-adjacent iconography in her on-platform content—is in top 150 Global Channels, top 75 English Channels on the most popular, Amazon owned, livestreaming service in the world, significantly surpassing career broadcasters with millions of on-platform followers in terms of reach.”



Twitch did not respond to VICE News’ request for comment about Maras-Lindeman’s activity.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Oh humans, seriously stop it. How can we get you to just stop?

Why People Share Conspiracy Theories Even When They Know They Are Untrue

Why do people share conspiracy theories even if they know that they are untrue? As a new paper shows social motives are key.

www.psychologytoday.com

KEY POINTS

• Many people are willing to make tradeoffs between sharing accurate information and sharing information that will generate more social engagement.
• People are sensitive to the social feedback they receive on social platforms.
• Positive feedback for sharing conspiracy theories powerfully influences what people share subsequently.

Co-authored by Bella Ren and Maurice Schweitzer
Social media often confronts users with difficult choices: sharing unverified content that would generate social engagement, or sharing content that they know is more likely to be true but is less likely to be “liked.” Put differently, the decision to share conspiracy theories for many people reflects a calculated trade-off.

The spread of conspiracy theories has significantly limited our ability to deal with crises, from addressing climate change to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 70 million Americans who are eligible for a vaccine have chosen not to get one and approximately half of these people have misinformed beliefs, such as the belief that the government is using vaccine injections to insert microchips into people.

Beyond Beliefs
A growing body of work has begun to advance our understanding of why people believe in conspiracy theories. This work has found that people who feel like they lack control over events, and who dislike uncertainty and ambiguity are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories.
Many questions remain, however, with respect to why people share conspiracy theories. Although early work presumed that people on social media share content that they believe, our new research reveals that people are often willing to share conspiracy theories that they know to be false. In fact, we found that 40 percent of participants admitted that they would be willing to share conspiracy theories that they know to be untrue.

Why?
It turns out that when many people share information they care about broadcasting information that will boost their social engagement. We found that when the social rewards (such as the number of “likes” people received) were high, many people were willing to share conspiracy theories that they knew to be untrue.

We Share Misinformation for Social Connections
Conspiracy theories, compared with factual news, triggers higher emotional arousal. This makes conspiracy theories particularly attractive for generating social engagement. Consider the following example: a choice between rebroadcasting two posts. One post reports that Princess Diana died in a car accident. The other post reports that the royal family secretly plotted to murder Princess Diana and her lover. One post is more likely to be true. The other is far more engaging, more likely to grab attention, and more likely to trigger a reaction.
article continues after advertisement
In one of our experiments, we varied the motives for the content people shared. In one condition, we paid participants a bonus for sharing information that would generate more “likes.” In another, we incentivized posts that would generate more comments. In a third, we paid participants a bonus for sharing accurate information.

What content did people share?
When we incentivized sharing content to generate social engagement (“likes” and comments), nearly 50 percent of participants shared posts about why the moon landing was fake, UFO spacecraft in Area 51, or how COVID-19 is an engineered bioweapon. When we rewarded people for sharing accurate information, however, nearly all of them shared posts about the 2021 U.S. capitol attack, global warming, and racially motivated violence. From this study, we found that people can separate fact from fiction—and that they expect fake news to generate more comments and more likes.

People Readily Share Conspiracy Theories
We also found that people are ready to share fake news even without monetary incentives. We created a social media platform that simulates how people interact in online social environments. In this platform, participants shared posts and received feedback from others across multiple rounds. In our experiments, we modified the feedback they received.
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Conspiracy theory sharing across conditions,before and after receiving social feedback
Source: Ren, Dimant, Schweitzer
When we gave people on the platform more positive social feedback (i.e., more “likes”) for sharing conspiracy theories, the percent of people who shared conspiracy theories almost doubled after only a few rounds of interaction. That is, we found that people are incredibly sensitive to the social feedback in their environment. As soon as they found that sharing misinformation would generate more “likes,” they sacrificed accuracy in pursuit of social feedback and attention. Of course, our experimental setting differs from real platforms in many ways. For example, the reputational consequences for sharing misinformation was lower in our experimental setting. Still, our findings reveal that the decision to share misinformation may be surprisingly sensitive to social incentives.

Taken together, our findings identify social motives as an important driver of the decision to share conspiracy theories. Anticipating greater attention and engagement, individuals may choose to share posts that they know to be untrue. Ultimately, by sharing misinformation people may shift their beliefs and those of others. As a result, policymakers may be able to curb the spread of misinformation by simply shifting incentives for social engagement by shutting down bots that “like” and retweet misinformation and encouraging official institutions to support true news.

! (Gotta lighten one's mood somehow)

 

[BrawlMan]

Oh humans, seriously stop it. How can we get you to just stop?

Why People Share Conspiracy Theories Even When They Know They Are Untrue

Why do people share conspiracy theories even if they know that they are untrue? As a new paper shows social motives are key.

www.psychologytoday.com

! (Gotta lighten one's mood somehow)

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This doesn't surprise me, and that's kind of already been proven earlier for the past couple of years. Especially in the mid to late 2010s. We're just seeing it an online article or book form now.

Also that screenshot, the reason why that dude ain't getting any sex is because he's probably an egotistical asshole. I wouldn't want to be in the same room as that guy either. So I don't blame other men or women for not wanting to get involved with him either.

 

[Hades]

The fossil fuels industry won

While utterly repulsive its also very impressive. Global Warming was already proven forty years ago if not longer and yet the fossil industry successfully kept convincing the public that more research needed to be done before we could be truly sure. Successfully implementing a false reality where global warming is just one possibility of many and keeping that up for decade after decade will likely be known as the PR coup of the century.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Hitler wasn't the most apt comparison, just all I could think of at the time for someone trying to achieve what the forces against them were always going to squash.

But you are, admittedly, correct about the industry being pervasive. For example despite the rhetoric Biden is currently on pace to approve drilling on federal lands faster than Trump ever did.

Despite a Pledge to Ban It, Oil and Gas Permitting Is Up Under Biden

Legal and political realities seem to have tempered the administration’s ambitions for ending fossil fuel extraction on federal lands.

www.audubon.org

Because, y'know, we slow down environmental collapse by moving to NG. Which is why we're going to pump more gas to make sure we offset any gains you could think of for NG. And don't forget Trump's big claim of being a net energy exporter was built on the back of Obama's work in making the US a net oil exporter. It's certainly grim, the Democrats aren't a compromise, they're actively making things worse hand in hand with Republicans.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

************ has the audacity to say: "I'm not racist/homophobic, I was raised by 2 Black and Gay dads."

So just to be clear Ethan "I love saying the N world" Klien is the good guy fighting racism here?

 

[Agema]

While utterly repulsive its also very impressive. Global Warming was already proven forty years ago if not longer and yet the fossil industry successfully kept convincing the public that more research needed to be done before we could be truly sure. Successfully implementing a false reality where global warming is just one possibility of many and keeping that up for decade after decade will likely be known as the PR coup of the century.

It's even worse than that: the fossil fuel companies were the first organisations institutionally aware of global warming, because they commissioned a load of the early research.

 

[Gergar12]

This makes me so happy. Hillary Clinton is a war criminal.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

You know, if they were booing her for the actual crimes, that would be great.

But it's just Q shit.

 

[Samtemdo8]

So just to be clear Ethan "I love saying the N world" Klien is the good guy fighting racism here?

Who the hell is Ethan Klien?

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Who the hell is Ethan Klien?

H3H3 the content court guy.........

 

[Samtemdo8]

H3H3 the content court guy.........

I just found out who they are and just see them is "That H3H3 Guy"

 

[Samtemdo8]

Oh humans, seriously stop it. How can we get you to just stop?

Why People Share Conspiracy Theories Even When They Know They Are Untrue

Why do people share conspiracy theories even if they know that they are untrue? As a new paper shows social motives are key.

www.psychologytoday.com

! (Gotta lighten one's mood somehow)

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What do I see in his eyes?

 

[Gergar12]

Prediction the corporate democrats will hoodwink the progressives on the 3.5 trillion budget bill. They will pass the corporate 1.2 trillion "bipartisan corporate bill", but won't pass the other bill. 10 or more progressives(including the justice democrats) will vote against the 1.2 trillion bills with the toll roads (not a bad idea if it cuts road usage), then Pelosi will pressure fake progressives, and or moderate republicans lead by Liz Cheney and or Adam Kinzinger. Which I suspect all along, I knew they would use republican votes since the 1.2 trillion bill is a must pass.

Either the progressives get the 3.5 trillion bill( or 1 trillion, or 2 trillion) or they don't. I can then be glad I left-wing activism(other than DSA) which has achieve too little in the short term to matter but could matter on the longer term.

 

[Trunkage]

Prediction the corporate democrats will hoodwink the progressives on the 3.5 trillion budget bill. They will pass the corporate 1.2 trillion "bipartisan corporate bill", but won't pass the other bill. 10 or more progressives(including the justice democrats) will vote against the 1.2 trillion bills with the toll roads (not a bad idea if it cuts road usage), then Pelosi will pressure fake progressives, and or moderate republicans lead by Liz Cheney and or Adam Kinzinger. Which I suspect all along, I knew they would use republican votes since the 1.2 trillion bill is a must pass.

Either the progressives get the 3.5 trillion bill( or 1 trillion, or 2 trillion) or they don't. I can then be glad I left-wing activism(other than DSA) which has achieve too little in the short term to matter but could matter on the longer term.

FORCE THE VOTE!

I did like how the corporate Dems blamed the prog Dems and said they this is a seperate bill and should be votes through... like they aren't going to not do reconciliation as they promised if they get their way

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

What do I see in his eyes?

The (very low-res) ghost of Christmas present...

 

[Trunkage]

The evil Howard Stern strikes again

Nolte: Howard Stern Proves Democrats Want Unvaccinated Trump Voters Dead

Do you want to know why I think Howard Stern is going full-monster with his mockery of three fellow human beings who died of the coronavirus? Because leftists like Stern and CNNLOL and Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and Anthony Fauci are deliberately looking to manipulate Trump supporters into not...

www.breitbart.com

 

[BrawlMan]

The evil Howard Stern strikes again

Nolte: Howard Stern Proves Democrats Want Unvaccinated Trump Voters Dead

Do you want to know why I think Howard Stern is going full-monster with his mockery of three fellow human beings who died of the coronavirus? Because leftists like Stern and CNNLOL and Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and Anthony Fauci are deliberately looking to manipulate Trump supporters into not...

www.breitbart.com

Fuck off Howard Stern! You always sucked and everyone knows it!

 

[tstorm823]

The evil Howard Stern strikes again

Nolte: Howard Stern Proves Democrats Want Unvaccinated Trump Voters Dead

Do you want to know why I think Howard Stern is going full-monster with his mockery of three fellow human beings who died of the coronavirus? Because leftists like Stern and CNNLOL and Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and Anthony Fauci are deliberately looking to manipulate Trump supporters into not...

www.breitbart.com

That article is dumb partisanship itself, but it gets close to what I've been telling people for months: Democratic rhetoric about the pandemic is making it worse and discouraging people from doing the right thing. Where the article goes off the rails is acting like it's some deliberate conspiracy to kill people off, cause that's just a silly thing to accuse people of. It's one of those incompetence rather than malice situations. By being jerks about the vaccine, they unintentionally discourage everyone who dislikes them from getting vaccinated, and then because they believe themselves responsible for only their side, they don't recognize that they're causing the problem.

Like, if a product is associated with an unsavory celebrity, people who resent that celebrity avoid it, right? A vaccine is no different. When Trump was trying to take ownership of the vaccination efforts, the left was hesitant. Now that Democrats have decided that they're the vaccination party, they are chasing people away from vaccinations by association, and the more the parties split on the issue, the more they're being jerks about it, which only further encourages people to not get shots out of spite. And still they think themselves righteous because they're advocating for vaccines, not recognizing their abject, counterproductive incompetence.