Hacker News Reader

Comment by yllus | Hacker News Reader

There's a Yellow Vest Canada group on Facebook that is in full-on tinfoil hat conspiracy mode (wildfires in Alberta are being set by Muslims, stuff like that; see https://twitter.com/theBurlyChef/status/1133592129639313409 ). I wouldn't be surprised if the use of a European group to spread disinformation or even promote violence caused this to happen.

View on HN

These rapid growing movements seldom have any requirements to join and allow the spread of all kinds of misinformation really well.

Another group will pop up in x weeks and the facebook groups will have people doubting vaccines, blaming immigrants, blaming the current government, and as an average user you can't sort who's just an angry middle aged person or a russian bot.

Actually in France, the government has been way more often caught lying about the yellow vests than the opposit.

I haven't heard much about this - care to elaborate?

One case: https://www.euronews.com/2019/05/02/french-government-claims... There were others, but I'm too lazy to search. I remember seeing one other at least. Never seen any fake news problem with yellow vest. Usually Lemonde is prompt to denounce them.

Never seen any fake news problem with yellow vest.

That's just outright laughable.

Here's a 20 page report detailing how the yellow vest groups have been flooded by fake news, presumably by foreign agents.

https://avaazimages.avaaz.org/Report%20Yellow%20Vests%20FINA...

You can be sure where ever there's angry people in the world Russia will be there to help fan the flames.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com