Love It or Leave It -

November 18, 2017 1:03 PM

How Brexit Was Engineered By Foreign Billionaires To Bring About Economic Chaos – For Profit and How British Ministers, Spies, Oligarchs, Bankers and Russian Diplomats Colluded Over Brexit
(Brexit on the Blue)
posted by adamvasco (12 comments total)

The really scary bit is that you won't even need collusion to pull off this type of thing in the future... small tweaks to the population's social media feeds are all that's needed. The systems to do this are a side-effect of late stage capitalism.
posted by MikeWarot at 2:01 PM on November 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

This is a conspiracy theory. Quite a lot of Brexit voters are just immune to manipulation because they read nothing and don’t understand messages in the media, never mind Twitter. Others, face it, have rational reasons for their choice, even if they’re wrong.

Trying to discredit votes you don’t like is corrosive and may come back to bite liberal opinion hard on the arse.
posted by Segundus at 2:04 PM on November 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

This is not the stuff of mere conspiracy theories.

Yes it is.
posted by chavenet at 2:14 PM on November 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

As an actual conspiracy, this is mostly (not entirely) nonsense. As a set of aligned interests in the era of the super-wealthy and global capitalism, in combination with sophisticated, targeted media manipulation tools, it's just an accurate description of the sad state of things.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 2:39 PM on November 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

None of this would be happening if Benny Hill was still alive.
posted by delfin at 3:04 PM on November 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

I think the thinking which led to Brexit stemmed more from decades of influence by antisocial media rather than social media.
posted by biffa at 3:06 PM on November 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
And there was a lot of stupidity on both sides of the brexit campaign, my general impression was that both sides were being run by people who deep down wanted to lose.
posted by Lanark at 3:37 PM on November 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

Never attribute just to stupidity that which is adequately explained by maliciously willful stupidity.
posted by Riki tiki at 3:43 PM on November 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

It seems worth noting that on TruePublica’s “About” page there are at least two confusions of “it’s” and “its”, as well as a flattering reference from a Counterpunch article entitled “Clintonites Prepare For War On Syria”. The quote describes the site as an alternative to “corporate ProPublica” and juxtaposes it favorably with RT.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:53 PM on November 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

These analysis aren't very useful; either they reaffirm previously held beliefs in the power of an elite, or they read like overly-wrought conspiracy theories. They both come from the same site, which seems to hold a grudge against mainstream news for... being mainstream? If we're going to have more Brexit chat, I'd like a wide variety of sources, which cover a lot of ground, rather than two links from a weird website
posted by The River Ivel at 3:56 PM on November 18, 2017

Agreed. I'm surprised the mods have let this stand.
posted by verstegan at 4:04 PM on November 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

Now *this* looks like fake news meant to tar the real stuff as flaky conspiracy theorizing...
posted by saulgoodman at 4:21 PM on November 18, 2017 [2 favorites]