Here’s a great example of how propaganda is abused online to fuel authoritarian narratives, or just for money (as YouTube, TikTok and Twitter all pay for views) Many people are talking about violent protestors setting “brush fires” The videos you see will show a two second clip from this video, and then cellphone footage from larger brush fires from the LA wild fires earlier this year. They cut off the fact that in this video, you see a protestor dumping water onto the small fire in the empty lot, and others with water bottles coming to help, after some young hooligans set fire to bushes in an empty lot with a firework. It was reported on Frontline Wildfire, but by the time LAFD got on scene the protestors had already put out the flames, and so it wasn’t listed as an LAFD incident. The LAFD puts out status alerts on *ALL* fires they respond to. And Frontline Wildfire is a joint public citizen and government data source tracking *ALL* active and recent brush/wild/forest fires in California. You can literally check for yourself if “the city is on fire” from multiple data sources - and guess what?! It’s not. During these protests vandals have: -Set one car on fire -Set off fire works -Set one piece of debris on fire on a highway -Set a bush on fire accidentally with fireworks in an empty lot (which was put out by protestors) -hit cement pillars with hammers (wtf?) And the idiots that did those things, should absolutely fucking be arrested by the LAPD, and many of them have been. The vast majority of protestors, and all protestors who actually care about the cause, are peaceful - so peaceful, that the LAPD (who loves to break out their riot gear and get overtime pay) has said the protestors are peaceful. But that doesn’t sell. That doesn’t let goons exercise power. That doesn’t let foreign governments stoke political divide in America to keep you distracted. And it doesn’t let clickbait farms who pay their rent on your outrage, earn from virality. So they clip together some current footage, with old footage, or they get one bad looking angle, and play it again and again, They shout at you to be afraid, and they hope you’re too dumb to check the facts yourself. Don’t let them profit from your fear. Don’t let them strip away other people’s rights, based on fear. Because you never know when the tide shifts and they’ll come for your rights. At that time you’ll hope other people don’t succumb to fear and misinformation. Get the facts.