eureka

Thanks for explaining, sorry that I was rude, I just assumed it was a comment replying to a headline.

And you're absolutely right that most of the news stations are promoting ONP. They also manufacture outrage events like "Pauline talks to [controversial person] in a podcast". There is institutional media bias and the article barely even mentioned it: "The review pointed to “minimal media oxygen” and a fragmented audience as barriers to getting their message across.", that's the only time they even glanced at the mass media situation.

What can people do to counter this? It seems to me like the most effective approach is to bring people away from Murdoch/Silicon Valley/etc. mass media, or at least to inoculate them against the ads and bleaching that ultraweathy-owned media will push. It might be easier for centrists with progressive interests (e.g. queer folk might be interested in queer publications, environmentalists might be interested in pro-environmental media outlets) but for the bulk of people, it seems ABC and The Guardian might be the most acceptable mainstream publications.

Perhaps it could be useful to have some infographic resources to illustrate just how biased each of the right-leaning resources are. Not just some 'biaschecker.com' thing, but specific examples and statistics showing those advertisments. I wonder if the ABC Media Watch has done something like that...

Thorpe said exactly what I've thought and heard:

The outspoken Victorian said while she was grateful for time with the party, she sometimes found the experience alienating, as she felt the messaging targeted educated, privileged voters.

“They’re preaching to the converted, and they’ll always stay at that 10% because they just talk to themselves,” Thorpe said.

I've seen barely any Greens interaction beyond flyers so I might be wrong on this, but the Greens seem to be mobilising people who are already aligned, like doorknocking in progressive areas, more than any kind of deep organising of communities. I think that's something Chandler-Mather may have the intention and drive to change, but I don't know if the Greens rank-and-file, at large, will be capable of it. Quite frankly, I think a couple of socialist groups near me have fallen into the same trap of primarily appealing to the stereotypical young tertiary-educated urban progressivist crowd who already agrees with 90% of their policies, rather than actually listening to the rest of their greater city, engaging with them and working to build a broader movement alongside them.

Have you read the article you're commenting on?

First up, killer robots are already here. Drones in Ukraine have already killed troops acting autonomously.

And there's a real difference between weapons being used in international warfare, and being normalised in local police forces. Police purchase weapons with intent for [potential] use against civilians of their own region, and history consistently shows weapons intended for (e.g.) hostage situations eventually making their way into regular use against the most basic resistance, like tear gas and riot control ammunition being used and abused in Australian protests. I mention 'abused', an example of this abuse would be using a round designed for long range hits to the chest being deployed at close range to the head.

So when I see police forces doing PR on these robotic weapons, I am threatened. I fully expect these to be deployed against citizen protests, even if they don't fire metal ammunition.

[robots vs. masses]

I'm getting an impression that you're picturing an all-out human revolution against the billionaire oligarchs - a world in which the "revolutionary consciousness" Johnstone mentioned is already universal. But I don't believe oligarchs need to directly suppress 10 billion people. They already have a position of dominance over much of our existing political state, through political donation and mass media influence and institutional pull of essential businesses and more, their power over the state is not just limited to the Liberal Party and One Nation. And that state includes the police force who are more-or-less governed by the laws our politicians enact.

The biggest individual marches Australia has seen would be around 100,000 to 300,000 people, such as the 2025 March for Humanity, the 2003 anti-war protests and the Corroboree 2000 Walk for Reconciliation, all in Sydney. The March for Humanity had a helicopter and mounted units present, and there was at least one drone, although I'm not certain whether or not it was police-operated. But I don't believe it's the kind of event where robot weapons would be deployed for crowdwork.

How about events where some people expect police to violently suppress... weapons exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney. To be clear, this is still not an event where metal ammunition would be expected, but crowd-control weapons and violence are expected, so you might get protesters with the education, preparation and will to disable a robotic weapon. We're seeing numbers closer to "hundreds", at best maybe "thousands" but most of that crowd will disperse at the first signs of coordinated police aggression. Even if we assume no guns on the robots, I wouldn't even put this crowd at 1:1 odds in this scenario, unless they can very effectively use remote vulnerabilities (electronics jamming, paint bombing). I'd expect even a dozen robots deployed, alongside officers, would intimidate most of the crowd, and if you're allowed to add rubber bullets and tear gas to them, then it's a bloodbath.

But maybe I'm pessimistic or thinking too short-term, where most people today are living lives where an uprising isn't on the table. Let's assume ten percent of the population is rapidly educated, organised and mobilised against the state after a Bloody Sunday-type incident.

Firstly, I see no reason that such robots can't be industrially mass-produced and therefore could be somewhat expendable. A protestor flips the bot over like a tortoise? The operator can just start controlling a reserve bot that was waiting nearby on standby. A bot flips a protestor on their back? That could be days or weeks in a hospital. So it really is asymmetric warfare, even if we could each win 1:1 in a battle.

Another advantage of those robotic weapons is they can be remotely controlled - if an uprising occurs in Melbourne, teams of trained operators (e.g. some police and military) in all other cities could contribute to controlling the robot weapons. Depending on acceptable lag, they could even be controlled internationally, although maybe that's not as feasible in Australia if the robots aren't semi-autonomous. So to divide those resources, there would need to be widespread uprising to strain, or better yet, target the operators in many locations simultaneously.

My point being, I don't see a situation where 1,000 oligarchs would need to directly battle 10 billion people. They would need governments to turn against them first.

It's sad to see some of these replies are missing the point of the article.

“[Now they’re] attaining publicity, but also creating their own content so they’re able to connect with supporters and disseminate their message without the interference or mediation of journalists.”

Exactly, and if they're able to alienate their followers from 'Mainstream Media' (scare quotes intentional), then they can essentially form an information bubble and present messages which will be essentially left unchallenged. They can probably publish anything they want so long as it's legal. And that's when the cult-like effects really launch into frame.

I have no doubt that either this campaign, or similar ones, could be manufactured by foreign actors. The article links to this prior incident: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/iranian-state-media-australian-fuel-reserves-claim/zm35615a7

And that can make legal action against the creator difficult. So what can be done about it? To what degree is the social media platform responsible (as much as I despise them, I think their responsibility is limited, but they do provide a platform which enables this) and to what degree are people reposting it responsible? Is it arrogant or ignorant for me to suggest small fines for people spreading outright defamation like this, to solidify some actual accountability in social networks and hopefully make people more analytical about political propaganda? If our system can only prosecute the original creator, then they can just hide behind anonymity, jurisdiction or simply cop a fine as the cost of doing business.

Not to mention their soldiers in allied countries in WWII starting riots in response to US soldiers trying to segregate bars or engage in racial violence. And their allies weren't exactly antiracist countries either, that's how appalling that US generation could be.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bamber_Bridge
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Manners_Street
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Brisbane

I wouldn't even say there's a (capital A) Antifa at all. US antifascism tends to be based on independent affinity groups of a couple of friends, unlikely to even be a handful. They might be networked, they might just be individuals. Most just engage in community support, nothing police would be interested in. Antifuh is a scary boogeyman to blame everything on, another spooky scapegoat for fascists alongside trans people and communist infiltration.

You might get a public community meeting about combating fascists, but that's not what they're imagining.

Why not try a more unpopular opinion: Professional sports are profoundly toxic, including to the well-paid successful athletes.

spent 4 whole years acting like a paper mask was the trail of tears

No, this group wanted to intentionally catch the plague and spread it to non-white communities as a form of biological warfare. [more details]

See also: https://aussie.zone/post/34321108/23797324

I was expecting this lesser-known classic instead: [YTP] The Matrix Runs On Windows Vista

In this interview video, one of the interviewees talks about how they (a trans man) and a man dating a Hispanic partner both shared those secrets while they were members of a murderous white supremacist neo-Nazi organisation. This is not, by a long shot, the only similar cases I've seen, only the first which came to mind.

In my own country, a neo-Nazi group which tried to register the White Australia Party had a member with Central American heritage in their own flash mob (Alexander Gabriel Mare), and infamously had a love-hate relationship with this absolute clown of a member (fun video, even if sometimes confronting, with a happy ending).