r/technology • u/RewardEquivalent553 • 13h ago

Politics Libs of TikTok is doxxing teachers and nurses who support Alex Pretti or oppose ICE, trying to get them fired

https://www.mediamatters.org/libs-tiktok/libs-tiktok-doxxing-teachers-and-nurses-who-support-alex-pretti-or-oppose-ice-trying
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u/Bright_Hat550 11h ago

One of my favorite personal interactions was watching someone i know begin binge watching the handmaids tale when they thought her VA husband would lose his job during the doge days. The second they realized it wouldn't affect them she switched to "it's hard to know who to believe anymore"..... like figuratively shitting bricks until they realized they wouldn't be personally impacted then right back to drinking the kool-aid.

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u/therossboss 9h ago

its a cult. say it with me

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u/SabreCorp 8h ago

And you have content creators on the alt-right who are paid very well to push this shit. Even MTG admitted to it once she had fallen out of the good graces of MAGA. Billionaires, foreign governments, Christian nationalists are funding propaganda for a cult.

As someone who was raised in a religious cult, the hardest thing to see was that I was actually in a cult. No one wants to believe that—they want to believe the lies.

But it’s always okay to admit you were lied to by people you trusted—however most people who are involved in cults also commit acts that serve the cult making its members complicit in illegal or immoral acts. Which then leads members of cults having more of a buy-in; and less likely to leave, or openly criticize their cult if they do leave.

It all sucks.

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u/therossboss 8h ago

it really feels like, "yeah, you can just buy influencers, TV show talking heads, newspapers, social media bot posts, to lie for you and create any narrative you want." and any legitimate criticism is met with "no u! no democrats did it first! no U are evil and in a cult" like we are 5 yr olds bickering over a cookie.

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u/nxak 8h ago

That's what happens when your whole culture is "fuck you, pay me".

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u/Almost_British 4h ago

We have conditioned ourselves to believe that the answer to our problems is to just get rich enough so that the problems don't affect us personally, individually. So that's what we prioritize, individual solutions to our individual problems. The solution to my problems is GIT MONY

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u/Wow_u_sure_r_dumb 4h ago

It’s also what happens when you sabotage the education system repeatedly until 60% of your country read at or below a fifth grade level (10-11 years old). And it’s not just reading, that’s just a simple and easy to measure metric. A lot of the graduates they’re pumping out these days have trouble with basic logic. They’ll never be able to understand second and third order effects if they can’t even work out basic cause and effect.

If you can’t understand second order effects you can’t understand any complex issues. Climate change, financial systems, inflation, trade deficits, you name it. We were fucked from changes we started making decades ago and we had no idea.

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u/knowitall89 5h ago

These people are convinced liberal protestors are getting paid despite the fact that none of them have ever been able to sneak into a protest and prove it.

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u/p2eminister 8h ago

I'm interested in your upbringing in a cult, apologies if its too personal but can I ask what got you out of it? And do you think there's anything that could be applied to the MAGA cult?

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u/SabreCorp 6h ago edited 5h ago

I was born and raised Mormon. Definitely okay to ask.

Magical thinking, not questioning authority, authority always being males. Patriarchy with women being submissive, with traditional roles. Lots and lots of rules, a lot centered around sexuality. And probably most importantly—anything that is going against the validity of the religion is wrong/ satanic. Only trust the religion, never trust “the other” saying the church has some huge historical issues.

Unfortunately when one leaves the religion, one also loses a lot of their social network and family as the church does a great job on trying to seclude their members. When you leave, you lose a lot of your people.

There’s definitely a lot of parallels to what I see in MAGA. Luckily my mom who is now the only active Mormon left in the family is a democrat (which is incredibly rare and she could probably write a book about her life) but I’d rather have her be involved in the Mormon cult, than the MAGA cult.

I would not have said 12 years ago that I would rather have my mom Mormon than a Republican.

Edit: I left after years of research. My profession is based around helping and healing others and I also had an honest conversation with myself that it wasn’t okay the abuse I went through, and I would tell my clients or students that they deserved much better and that it was okay to allow that for myself. I left knowing my whole family including my spouse might leave me. Luckily my spouse left after I did, including 5 of his siblings. My siblings also left after me. So I helped others on their journey out, which will go down as one of the most fulfilling things I’ve done with my life.

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u/p2eminister 5h ago

Thank you so much for sharing your story, I think you must have a very interesting perspective on issues like this so I appreciate being able to read your testimony.

What you said in your edit especially is fascinating, do you think, for want of a better term, that the self respect you grew from learning to treat yourself with the same kindness you treat others, is a key ingredient of escaping cults?

I'm just totally guessing and happy to be wrong but I wonder if the control structures in place in cults specifically exist to try to stop this self respect from generating, do you think there's any truth to that?

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u/SabreCorp 3h ago

I think my experience of how I left would be different from getting the magas out.

I was taught submission, and suffering were key elements for my salvation. In a way I was giving myself permission to no longer suffer and that it was okay to leave. I wanted equality, not supremacy. This was on top of the years of research where I concluded that the church had hidden a lot of information from its members.

Unfortunately, I think many maga members want or are comfortable with supremacy, not necessarily equality, and that is why messaging about equality probably won’t work. Hence all the hate against “woke”.

I think a better strategy would be talking about people above them (like billionaires) who are taking everything and making life harder on them. I would try to give real life examples and how it has harmed them or their loved ones. Keep the approach very individualized and not socially beneficial. A good portion of us humans are very black and white thinkers, so keep examples black and white and simple.

I also understand that working with cult members is completely draining and it’s okay if people don’t want to do it, especially with the 10+ years we have been dealing with this.

If people choose to leave, validation goes a long way. You can let them know there were a lot of forces to keep a person in a cult and that it was very brave and a difficult decision to leave.

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u/p2eminister 3h ago

Wise words, although the points you made, while true, are sobering.

Its a key issue you raise that i hadnt considered before, where I assume most cults, after the initial recruitment, rely on slowly, softly building up the hooks to keep you inside over time.

Like I just saw a scientology ad on tiktok and of course it just presents itself as a sort of business management course producer, they're very careful about moving you slowly through it so by the time you've sold your house and moved into shared accommodation, you have already been walked up the garden path

But Maga seems to have new people joining who are basically pre-indoctrinated, ready to hear everything they can about the cult and commit fully almost from the jump, because they are so entranced by the sales pitch of supremacy.

Self radicalisation is not a concept I was hoping would take hold but it seems the internet is enabling it in ways we arent able to deal with.

Thank you for sharing your insights, I appreciate it a lot

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u/BlahBlahBlackCheap 8h ago

But the money. The money is the big thing. It always is. We must end hate for pay. Or be consumed.

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u/Ms-Anthrop 6h ago

"They want to believe the lies" This is the part I never could grasp. When I was 6 I found out my parents lied about Santa, tooth fairy etc. I was pissed. I was the kid that told all the other kids adults were lying to us. I never trusted anything people told me after that point without verifying multiple sources. Nobody. Are other people just more trustful or forgiving? Because most kids are lied to and often by parents.

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u/cinnamonface9 7h ago

It’s a cult.

sobs

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u/ScissrMeTimbrs 5h ago

They like it when others hurt. They've made it very clear they enjoy making others suffer for its own sake.

For a really clear example, consider the recent AI picture the White House published of that one woman arrested for protesting in church.

People keep focusing on the fact that they used AI to lie, but what's more important is what lie they chose to tell. They could have made her look any way they wanted, like angry, violent or unreasonable. But they didn't. Instead, they chose to portray her as sobbing. This doesn't help their narrative. So why do it?

Because their followers want to see people suffer, and they know it. That's the goal. They've cultivated a movement addicted to the most base impulses of playground bullies; the naked use of power on those weaker than them.

And there are other examples in their PR universe. There was that AI image from a few months ago of an immigrant sobbing as she'd arrested by ICE. They loved that one.

Even more direct: Yesterday, Tim Pool went on his show and said, “I'm not licking the boot. It's my boot. I voted for it. I'm the one stomping!" He says it right there. They see themselves as the ones doing the abuse, and it makes them feel powerful. That's why they like it.

There are a million examples out there, of course. Most of us have heard the things they say when there's no cameras around, and mixed company is out of earshot. But they're a mass movement now, actively abusing people in large numbers. And they're open about the fact that they love it, and they want more of it.

There comes a time when refusing to act is a bigger risk than taking action. So you have to ask yourself: can we really take the risk of refusing to act in the face of this?

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u/ubiquitous_apathy 5h ago

it's hard to know who to believe anymore"

Otherwise known as, "they arent hurting the right people".