“Out of the Rabbit Hole: From Radicalization to Amplification of Far-Right Content Online” – Becca LEWIS | Stanford Cyber Policy Center

Algorithmic radicalization (or radicalization pipeline) is the concept that algorithms on popular social media sites such as YouTube and Facebook drive users toward progressively more extreme content over time, leading to them developing radicalized extremist political views. Algorithms record user interactions, from likes/dislikes to amount of time spent on posts, to generate endless media aimed to keep users engaged. Through echo chamber channels,…

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Inside Fiji’s Violent Doomsday Cult | Investigators

Grace Road Church believes a nuclear-tinged Judgement Day is rapidly approaching — and that Fiji is the post-apocalyptic promised land from which they’ll feed humanity. But despite repeated accusations of abuses, including ritual beatings and forcing members to perform unpaid labour, they received a warm welcome from Fijian officials. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd_7meGoyGs An investigation by the OCCRP…

A Lavagem Cerebral do Meu Pai (The Brainwashing of My Dad) | Documentário (2015)

Uma cineasta, Jen Senko, explora a mudança radical de seu pai na transição de um democrata a um fanático de extrema direita, após sua imersão em talk radios de extrema direita e particularmente no principal canal conservador norte-americano, a Fox News. Senko descobre que este é um fenômeno poderoso que tem dividido famílias por todo…

The Manufacturing of a Mass Psychosis – Can Sanity Return to an Insane World? | Academy of Ideas

“The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.” Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: A Study of the…

Trump and QAnon: the Cult and the Conspiracy | Al Jazeera

After being forced off mainstream social media, QAnon followers fled to the outer reaches of the internet and, since then, QAnon’s gamification of reality has morphed into more pragmatic goals - like electing certain politicians. Chief among them is Donald Trump, whose occasional flirtation with the movement has moved to more of an open embrace.…

How Propaganda Is Destroying Democracy | Breaking The Vote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQJNflbciYU The VICE News team travels through Texas in search of what a post-Trump Republican party looks like. Plus, they report on the propaganda coursing through society and the dangerous intersection between Qanon and the Evangelical church. RELATED CONTENT:

Manipulating our emotions | DW Documentary

Advertising agencies, politicians and social networks rely on emotions as a means of manipulation. They use our feelings to try to influence our decisions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4SIlJE0Qs0 Can we be manipulated without even noticing it? Can our attention and thoughts be directed from outside? Increasingly, it appears that there are mechanisms for playing on emotions to sway…

Japan’s Strangest Cult? | False Gods

From Margaret Thatcher seances to promising to eliminate North Korea, Happy Science is a controversial new religious movement with over 12 million members in 90 countries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIS-RE3gO64 Led by its charismatic leader, Ryuho Okawa, the group’s followers believe he is a divine being, but others have accused him of leading a cult. We hear from…

“The 10 tactics of fascism” – Jason Stanley | Big Think

Fascism is a cult of the leader, who promises national restoration in the face of supposed humiliation by immigrants, leftists, liberals, minorities, homosexuals, women, in the face of what the fascist leader says is a takeover of the country's media, cultural institutions, schools by these forces. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpCKkWMbmXU Fascist movements typically, though not invariably, rest on…

Chomsky interview: Bolsonaro Is Spreading Trump-Like Fear of “Election Fraud” in Brazil | Truthout

By C.J. Polychroniou - Truthout, July 16, 2021 Since 2019, Brazil finds itself in the midst of one of its most difficult periods since the end of the military dictatorship in 1985, thanks to the inhumane policies of the Jair Bolsonaro regime which parallel those of Donald Trump’s administration. President Bolsonaro is an apologist for the…