what I find worst is that not all of this seems to be a work of a nation-state actor.
it seems like quite a lot of these are just made by people in 3rd world countries to make ad revenue. making videos for westerners gives you the richest audience, so the best ad revenue. and anger creates engagement, so making polarizing content gives you most reach.
On Twitter I think most of the "Decadent West" accounts are for ad share. Elon has a whole harem of these accounts to retweet and ask stupid shit like "But has he actually done something illegal"
yeah they cover this in the article. broadly theres like three types of this activity: nation states; individuals / loose groups with an ideological agenda; people who want ad revenue money.
Could also be a combination of both, e.g. like Russia's "rent a disposable saboteur" concept, just for misinformation instead of physical sabotage. If it brings in additional ad revenue then that's just the cherry on top.
It does go both way as for example I have seen westeners make videos about developing nations with huge population say India because it would get them more views. Sure the ad revenue per 1000 views would be less but you would just get more views overall and I have seen that there is still anger/polarizing content generated towards Indians as such.
Which also generates hate towards Indian people online too which is definitely quite a problem, so this issue cuts both ways.
In my opinion, I used to think that there used to be nation-state actors involved within the perception of a country but the thing is that you can just have such perverse incentives and you wouldn't even need to create nation-state actors and they can then stay away blame-free even.
Edit: another thing that I remembered is that it shouldn't be a developing nation or developed nation critique but rather an critique of the system in general as I have seen western people critique about for example UK's downfall and I have seen Indian people critique about for example say India's downfall.
My point is, everyone makes rage inducing content nowadays if one looks for it and the algorithm sometimes even pushes it and so the algorithmic structure has created these perverse incentives and is pushing them on all of us basically
Worse, it's often just monetisation without a specific agenda of radicalisation.
> The junk merchant doesn't sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client.
It seems the more people spend online the more they trust online picture whatever it is (for most people it's an algorithmically generated feed) and less pay attention to what they can see in person. Smartphone addition is harmful in so many ways.
I have a friend that is a "Bernie Bro." Basically, everyone sucks; right, left, etc.
He constantly sends me hate-porn videos; much of it obvious fakes; AI or not (It's been going on far longer than AI tools).
People get hooked on anger. It's -literally- an addiction, and they behave like addicts; seeking out the best "hate dealers," selling the "best" anger-inducing content, and savagely attacking anyone that questions the stuff.
I learned to just ignore most of what he sends me. I've asked him not to send it, and he's ignored it (like an addict).
I have friends that are into the far-right and far-left cesspits, too. It's pretty sobering.
What was it that Bill Burroughs said about heroin?
> "Junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy."
You could replace "junk" with "hate," and it would apply.
long term recovering addict here and yeah i’ve been trying to work on the “anger” stuff in this last year. you’re right. in the moment it feels good. and it’s very easy to replicate that dopamine hit though getting righteous about stuff — just go on HN and find something about AI (that’s for me anyway - “they’re wrong, must fix the wrong!”).
i guess we are kinda hardwired as humans to react to perceived danger/threats. warm and fuzzy nice feelings seem harder to cultivate and take a lot of persistent effort. so it’s much easier to fall into this anger/hatewatching cycle than the other more compassionate/reasonable/warm and fuzzy side.
dunno, most of this comment is probably pop psych bs, but it feels right for my experience so i dunno.
fwiw, i hope your friends finds their way to something a little more peaceful one day.
I see lots of that stuff in the Fellowship. I've seen resentments go on for decades, and metastasize. Since no one is putting a stem in their mouth, it's OK.
I gave up my anger at about the ten-year mark. It was really difficult. Just like giving up the substances.
In the past I think people were equally wrong when assuming their real life was accurately similar to average for the entire society they lived in and not a regional and perhaps class based bubble. I think there was a short period when amateur media was correcting more misconception than adding to it.
That's because Internet and apps has largely cut communities. People would rather stay at home and doomscroll tiktok videos, than meet their neighbors at the library and see that they are actually not scary at all
Interestingly on Facebook, Threads and Instagram, Meta keeps trying to push it's video creation AI to me, with short video clips showing exactly this sort of content. So it seems Meta itself is pushing you to create it also.
If you're into travel blogs YouTube will serve you an endless barrage of videos with photoshopped thumbnails, exclusively containing fearmongering about whatever country or city they're visiting. This has been going on since pre-AI times.
On social media, you'll see plenty of AI-generated videos of members of $GROUP acting badly. One way to make people hate each other even more.
It's been known for a decade+ that platforms paying by engagement / interaction incentivizes people to post things that cause strong negative emotions. Fear and hate sell in the algorithmic engagement economy.
The CBC recently reported on videos pretending to be from Canadians promoting similar anti-Canada messaging. They used AI generated copies of real Canadians and hired voice actors. They use this divisive content to drive views and ad revenue:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/alberta-separatist-youtube-ch...
Yes, this is story immediately came to mind to me. It also shows that the idea of poor people in the global south doing this for money isn't quite the entire story either. Most of the people exposed seem to be young Dutch people trying to make a quick buck attacking Canada.
The decline of personal freedom in the UK is far more troubling than the rise of AI propaganda.
1. Protest rights have become more restricted
2. Online speech is more regulated and more policed
3. Digital privacy has weakened relative to state power
> But you want to focus on one end of the spectrum?
Have you actually checked the contents of the channels? Despite the naming, they do provide a full spectrum. You won't see the Mayfair-Knighstbridge side of things though, as these are irrelevant outliers when it comes to the country as a whole.
> Rapes have not increased by some 200% over the last 10 years?
No. There has been an increase in reported rapes across many Western countries, due to a combination of much higher awareness (especially due to celebrities), and clearer laws and guidelines for the police on how to report, including many cases where offenses that would previously have been reported as "sexual assault" are now reported as "rape". There was also a huge jump in the reporting of historic offences, so if you want to know when they happened, you need to make adjustments from when they were reported.
> the social housing in London area is not majority occupied by foreigners?
No, it is not. That's (famously) completely made-up.
You appear to have been taken in by exactly the type of propaganda the article is exposing.
Social housing in the London area is only occupied by 47.6% foreign born nationals, which is technically not a majority. But that figure is from 2021, rather old, and in 2026 this figure may actually be a majority.
Less than half (47.6%) of London’s social housing was occupied by people describing themselves as born outside of the UK in the 2021 Census.
If someone tells you that some assertion about the world is completely made up and that you're falling for propaganda for believing it, this gives you extremely little information about whether or not that assertion is true, or whether closely-related assertions to that one are also true.
It's wrong and condemnable to use fake AI-generated videos or articles to push a narrative which is largely false, indeed.
You seem to be blinded by racist views, probably because you don't have access (or don't search for) evidence-based news channels
Most of the immigration is largely well-integrated, and is essential to the functioning of our economies. And that's even before we start talking about our values, which are to help each other out, when they are in dire situation, not push them down like racists do
I mean, it has objectively declined from a point in time where it held dominion over one in four of the world's souls, keeping most of them in poverty as it siphoned resources out of them, and blocked their own economic development, by dumping its own products into their markets at gunpoint.
And that decline is a good thing.
More recently? It's been making some effort towards burning the furniture.
It can be very interesting to read opinions in such places as "Letters to the Editor" in newspapers from the 1800s. The conviction that "things were so much better in the past" and "everything's gone to shit" (in the face of clear evidence to the contrary) is, and always has been, an integral part of the human condition.
Whereas the true story is that since Brexit, Britain has experienced a renaissance and a new golden age of prosperity, human flourishing, and enlightenment.
Such is the way to radicalize people - convince them with propaganda that their way of life is at risk.
what I find worst is that not all of this seems to be a work of a nation-state actor.
it seems like quite a lot of these are just made by people in 3rd world countries to make ad revenue. making videos for westerners gives you the richest audience, so the best ad revenue. and anger creates engagement, so making polarizing content gives you most reach.
On Twitter I think most of the "Decadent West" accounts are for ad share. Elon has a whole harem of these accounts to retweet and ask stupid shit like "But has he actually done something illegal"
Not what I expected when it was said “we will hang you with the rope you sell us”
yeah they cover this in the article. broadly theres like three types of this activity: nation states; individuals / loose groups with an ideological agenda; people who want ad revenue money.
Could also be a combination of both, e.g. like Russia's "rent a disposable saboteur" concept, just for misinformation instead of physical sabotage. If it brings in additional ad revenue then that's just the cherry on top.
It does go both way as for example I have seen westeners make videos about developing nations with huge population say India because it would get them more views. Sure the ad revenue per 1000 views would be less but you would just get more views overall and I have seen that there is still anger/polarizing content generated towards Indians as such.
Which also generates hate towards Indian people online too which is definitely quite a problem, so this issue cuts both ways.
In my opinion, I used to think that there used to be nation-state actors involved within the perception of a country but the thing is that you can just have such perverse incentives and you wouldn't even need to create nation-state actors and they can then stay away blame-free even.
Edit: another thing that I remembered is that it shouldn't be a developing nation or developed nation critique but rather an critique of the system in general as I have seen western people critique about for example UK's downfall and I have seen Indian people critique about for example say India's downfall.
My point is, everyone makes rage inducing content nowadays if one looks for it and the algorithm sometimes even pushes it and so the algorithmic structure has created these perverse incentives and is pushing them on all of us basically
Worse, it's often just monetisation without a specific agenda of radicalisation.
> The junk merchant doesn't sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client.
― William S. Burroughs
And it's scary how effective it seems to be, scary that an internet-based "reality" can appear more trustworthy that your real life...
It seems the more people spend online the more they trust online picture whatever it is (for most people it's an algorithmically generated feed) and less pay attention to what they can see in person. Smartphone addition is harmful in so many ways.
I have a friend that is a "Bernie Bro." Basically, everyone sucks; right, left, etc.
He constantly sends me hate-porn videos; much of it obvious fakes; AI or not (It's been going on far longer than AI tools).
People get hooked on anger. It's -literally- an addiction, and they behave like addicts; seeking out the best "hate dealers," selling the "best" anger-inducing content, and savagely attacking anyone that questions the stuff.
I learned to just ignore most of what he sends me. I've asked him not to send it, and he's ignored it (like an addict).
I have friends that are into the far-right and far-left cesspits, too. It's pretty sobering.
What was it that Bill Burroughs said about heroin?
> "Junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy."
You could replace "junk" with "hate," and it would apply.
long term recovering addict here and yeah i’ve been trying to work on the “anger” stuff in this last year. you’re right. in the moment it feels good. and it’s very easy to replicate that dopamine hit though getting righteous about stuff — just go on HN and find something about AI (that’s for me anyway - “they’re wrong, must fix the wrong!”).
i guess we are kinda hardwired as humans to react to perceived danger/threats. warm and fuzzy nice feelings seem harder to cultivate and take a lot of persistent effort. so it’s much easier to fall into this anger/hatewatching cycle than the other more compassionate/reasonable/warm and fuzzy side.
dunno, most of this comment is probably pop psych bs, but it feels right for my experience so i dunno.
fwiw, i hope your friends finds their way to something a little more peaceful one day.
45 years, for me.
I see lots of that stuff in the Fellowship. I've seen resentments go on for decades, and metastasize. Since no one is putting a stem in their mouth, it's OK.
I gave up my anger at about the ten-year mark. It was really difficult. Just like giving up the substances.
In the past I think people were equally wrong when assuming their real life was accurately similar to average for the entire society they lived in and not a regional and perhaps class based bubble. I think there was a short period when amateur media was correcting more misconception than adding to it.
That's because Internet and apps has largely cut communities. People would rather stay at home and doomscroll tiktok videos, than meet their neighbors at the library and see that they are actually not scary at all
Interestingly on Facebook, Threads and Instagram, Meta keeps trying to push it's video creation AI to me, with short video clips showing exactly this sort of content. So it seems Meta itself is pushing you to create it also.
Fake? These viewpoints won the majority in the brexit election. So it's a pushed narrative that won the majority of the public view.
As if Farage bought a cheaper Sri Lanka media consultant to win the next elections.
Part of a larger pattern.
If you're into travel blogs YouTube will serve you an endless barrage of videos with photoshopped thumbnails, exclusively containing fearmongering about whatever country or city they're visiting. This has been going on since pre-AI times.
On social media, you'll see plenty of AI-generated videos of members of $GROUP acting badly. One way to make people hate each other even more.
It's been known for a decade+ that platforms paying by engagement / interaction incentivizes people to post things that cause strong negative emotions. Fear and hate sell in the algorithmic engagement economy.
no paywall: https://web.archive.org/web/20260515071859/https://www.bbc.c...
The CBC recently reported on videos pretending to be from Canadians promoting similar anti-Canada messaging. They used AI generated copies of real Canadians and hired voice actors. They use this divisive content to drive views and ad revenue: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/alberta-separatist-youtube-ch...
Yes, this is story immediately came to mind to me. It also shows that the idea of poor people in the global south doing this for money isn't quite the entire story either. Most of the people exposed seem to be young Dutch people trying to make a quick buck attacking Canada.
The decline of personal freedom in the UK is far more troubling than the rise of AI propaganda.
1. Protest rights have become more restricted 2. Online speech is more regulated and more policed 3. Digital privacy has weakened relative to state power
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Yeah, there's deprivation and poverty in parts of the UK and also extreme wealth. It's a spectrum.
But you want to focus on one end of the spectrum? Yes, it's the truth but not the whole truth.
> But you want to focus on one end of the spectrum?
Have you actually checked the contents of the channels? Despite the naming, they do provide a full spectrum. You won't see the Mayfair-Knighstbridge side of things though, as these are irrelevant outliers when it comes to the country as a whole.
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[flagged]
> Rapes have not increased by some 200% over the last 10 years?
No. There has been an increase in reported rapes across many Western countries, due to a combination of much higher awareness (especially due to celebrities), and clearer laws and guidelines for the police on how to report, including many cases where offenses that would previously have been reported as "sexual assault" are now reported as "rape". There was also a huge jump in the reporting of historic offences, so if you want to know when they happened, you need to make adjustments from when they were reported.
> the social housing in London area is not majority occupied by foreigners?
No, it is not. That's (famously) completely made-up.
You appear to have been taken in by exactly the type of propaganda the article is exposing.
Social housing in the London area is only occupied by 47.6% foreign born nationals, which is technically not a majority. But that figure is from 2021, rather old, and in 2026 this figure may actually be a majority.
Less than half (47.6%) of London’s social housing was occupied by people describing themselves as born outside of the UK in the 2021 Census.
https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/foreign-born-residents-li...
If someone tells you that some assertion about the world is completely made up and that you're falling for propaganda for believing it, this gives you extremely little information about whether or not that assertion is true, or whether closely-related assertions to that one are also true.
> Rapes have not increased by some 200% over the last 10 years?
Recorded rapes. Which, giving the timeline of #MeToo, may reflect a change in willingness to report and prosecute.
This is the BBC, of course they're going to support the official position.
It's wrong and condemnable to use fake AI-generated videos or articles to push a narrative which is largely false, indeed.
You seem to be blinded by racist views, probably because you don't have access (or don't search for) evidence-based news channels
Most of the immigration is largely well-integrated, and is essential to the functioning of our economies. And that's even before we start talking about our values, which are to help each other out, when they are in dire situation, not push them down like racists do
On one hand those 3rd world despair porn accounts are a plague. On the other hand, my god has the UK declined.
How has the UK declined and who is to blame you think?
I mean, it has objectively declined from a point in time where it held dominion over one in four of the world's souls, keeping most of them in poverty as it siphoned resources out of them, and blocked their own economic development, by dumping its own products into their markets at gunpoint.
And that decline is a good thing.
More recently? It's been making some effort towards burning the furniture.
It can be very interesting to read opinions in such places as "Letters to the Editor" in newspapers from the 1800s. The conviction that "things were so much better in the past" and "everything's gone to shit" (in the face of clear evidence to the contrary) is, and always has been, an integral part of the human condition.
Whereas the true story is that since Brexit, Britain has experienced a renaissance and a new golden age of prosperity, human flourishing, and enlightenment.
lol.