Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Nogoodniks



When I opened Facebook Monday Morning, first thing I was was an anti-Kamala Harris screed posted on the official Pickles comic Facebook page.

Unlike the commenters on the post - aghast the comic's author would inject politics onto a page usually reserved for gentle comedy - I knew the page had been compromised and taken over by a political propagandist.

Brian Crane, former owner of the compromised Facebook page, apologized to his readers and expressed frustration that it appears he won't be able to regain control of an online community built over years. He uses the phrase "nogoodniks," which brings to mind Russian propagandists, but who knows what's going on.

If this is the kind of thing you have to stoop to to get your message out, your message, to me, is worthless. This propagandist found a way to take over a Facebook page with a big reach. The people doing this obviously have an agenda, and it's not one that favors good faith political discourse, but is propaganda pure and simple. They're bad actors, whether you agree with the "message" or not.

If you condone this type of action to spread a message you agree with, you are part of the problem. We should not nod in unison with a message we agree with when the message is put out on social media in a deceitful manner.

Which, of course, makes Facebook part of the problem. They may not condone it, but appear either powerless to stop it or, as I suspect, no longer have humans at the tiller.

I engage very little with the political end of social media, particularly with that posted by people or organizations I don't know, because my cynical nature leads me to believe the vast majority of political content on social media is propaganda put out by bad actors.

Then crap like this shows up: People trying to profit off of his creative work.



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