Not touching that one….Does this mean that the troll farms considered Christians more easily manipulated?
OB
Not touching that one….
This is an article talking about the problem.
Conspiracy theories: why Christians are so susceptible - Eternity News
It's also easy to find other articles lamenting Christian gullibility, often written by Christians.
christians and conspiracy theory - Google Search
While I understand that and data bears it out, my own anecdotal experience is that about 90% of my Christian friends and acquaintances are generally positive, supportive and intelligent folks listening to science. Maybe only 2 of them are FULL on conspiratorial, and a few of them are just over cautious (in my opinion).I don't blame you. My hand was shaking as I typed the words . As it turns out I'm not alone in seeing Christians as having a collective susceptibility to conspiracy theories (there are obviously exceptions like your good self )
In post #18 I followed up with links to a range of articles bemoaning Christian involvement with conspiracy:
OB
While I understand that and data bears it out, my own anecdotal experience is that about 90% of my Christian friends and acquaintances are generally positive, supportive and intelligent folks listening to science. Maybe only 2 of them are FULL on conspiratorial, and a few of them are just over cautious (in my opinion).
Forums tend to attract the crazier people out there. Though social media is working hard to catch up, it seems.If I get the time and the energy I might go looking for hard data on the proportion of Christians who support the various conspiracy theories floating around from Evilution to the Great Reset via anti Vaxx, Climate Change, the Mark of the Beast, 5G, Trump's election, chip injections etc. etc. etc.
In the meantime CF postings suggests that the proportion of conspiracy theorists is significant.
I'd say the Internet has developed in such a way to give those with weak faith new ideas. Weak faith + new ideas can result in crazier ideas.Combine that with the sorts of articles I'm seeing, written by Christians, deploring Christian susceptibility and the problem seems to be real. I also see a problem where the line between Christian belief and outright superstition seems to be very fuzzy. This doesn't help.
Very possible with churches. My church has a good number of university professors in attendance, so I think it skews more toward rational. It's also large. If you have a smaller church with a either a pastor or a few loud people in good standing who begin to accept conspiracy stuff, then I think there's a good chance it might skew the other way.There may also, be a 'birds of a feather' thing happening where those with a tendency towards conspiracy will naturally mix with like minded folk. In your case is it possible that, as a 'rational' Christian, your acquaintances will naturally be those of a similar mindset?
LINK
19 of Facebook’s top 20 pages for American Christians are run by Eastern European troll farms overseas, [Facebook] internal documents leaked to MIT Technology Review reveal. [Content for Black Americans was also targeted.]
For the most part, the people who see and engage with these posts don’t actually “like” the pages they’re coming from. Facebook’s engagement-hungry algorithm is simply shipping them what it thinks they want to see. Internal studies revealed that divisive posts are more likely to reach a big audience, and troll farms use that to their advantage, spreading provocative misinformation that generates a bigger response to spread their online reach.
The Facebook study was conducted in 2019, and found that these troll farms were targeting the same audience that Russia attempted to manipulate in 2016 with their own Facebook misinformation campaign. Though Facebook was aware of the troll farms and their manipulation of Americans in 2016, they did little to address the issue.
“Our platform has given the largest voice in the Christian American community to a handful of bad actors, who, based on their media production practices, have never been to church,” wrote the report’s author, Jeff Allen, who used to be a senior-level data scientist at Facebook.
LINK
19 of Facebook’s top 20 pages for American Christians are run by Eastern European troll farms overseas, [Facebook] internal documents leaked to MIT Technology Review reveal. [Content for Black Americans was also targeted.]
For the most part, the people who see and engage with these posts don’t actually “like” the pages they’re coming from. Facebook’s engagement-hungry algorithm is simply shipping them what it thinks they want to see. Internal studies revealed that divisive posts are more likely to reach a big audience, and troll farms use that to their advantage, spreading provocative misinformation that generates a bigger response to spread their online reach.
The Facebook study was conducted in 2019, and found that these troll farms were targeting the same audience that Russia attempted to manipulate in 2016 with their own Facebook misinformation campaign. Though Facebook was aware of the troll farms and their manipulation of Americans in 2016, they did little to address the issue.
“Our platform has given the largest voice in the Christian American community to a handful of bad actors, who, based on their media production practices, have never been to church,” wrote the report’s author, Jeff Allen, who used to be a senior-level data scientist at Facebook.
I don't blame you. My hand was shaking as I typed the words . As it turns out I'm not alone in seeing Christians as having a collective susceptibility to conspiracy theories (there are obviously exceptions like your good self )
In post #18 I followed up with links to a range of articles bemoaning Christian involvement with conspiracy:
OB
I see just as many atheists and agnostics drinking the Trump kool-aid.
I see just as many atheists and agnostics drinking the Trump kool-aid.
I see just as many atheists and agnostics drinking the Trump kool-aid.
Here's some figures from Pew Research.
Looks like only 15% of atheists are Republicans. Allowing that only a proportion of these will have drunk the Trump kool-aid and that atheists are a tiny minority of the overall population, it seems unlikely that atheistic kool-aid drinkers amount to significant numbers.
View attachment 306683
Party affiliation among atheists - Religion in America: U.S. Religious Data, Demographics and Statistics | Pew Research Center (pewforum.org)
OB
Troll farm? But you can't even eat them!
It's kinda funny when you consider that Eastern Europe is largely at least nominally Christian...like America, come to think of it. Hmm. Maybe in the future American Evangelicals will be part of troll farms scamming Romania or something.
To be fair that's party affiliation, a lot of people consider themselves republican/conservative, but still vote democrat due to how far right wing and crazy the republican party has been of late.
You're right.
Looks like that actual atheist Trump vote was around 11% (see post#34).
OB
You see similar accounts on Twitter and a few look familiar. They have lots of followers. The catchy sayings resonate for obvious reasons.
~bella