this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
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Fediverse vs Disinformation

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Pointing out, debunking, and spreading awareness about state- and company-sponsored astroturfing on Lemmy and elsewhere. This includes social media manipulation, propaganda, and disinformation campaigns, among others.

Propaganda and disinformation are a big problem on the internet, and the Fediverse is no exception.

What's the difference between misinformation and disinformation? The inadvertent spread of false information is misinformation. Disinformation is the intentional spread of falsehoods.

By equipping yourself with knowledge of current disinformation campaigns by state actors, corporations and their cheerleaders, you will be better able to identify, report and (hopefully) remove content matching known disinformation campaigns.


Community rules

Same as instance rules, plus:

  1. No disinformation
  2. Posts must be relevant to the topic of astroturfing, propaganda and/or disinformation

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[–] [email protected] 85 points 3 months ago (6 children)

But how many gold bars has she had sewn into her work attire?

The shocking part of this is the up to 15k in a 401k after 5 years. Like.. That's surprisingly low.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 3 months ago (1 children)

She has to maintain a residence in both DC and NYC. That could be a big factor in not having money to invest.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

$174K Congressional salary ($14500/month) is nothing to sneeze at, but with median rent being $4480 in NYC and $2549 in DC, she'd still manage to be "overburdened" (i.e. spending more than 30%) on housing costs.

Although I know I (being a FIRE type of guy) could max out tax-advantaged investment space ($23K 401k + $7k IRA = $30k, or $2500/month) from the $7k/month left over after housing, I don't know what other high expenses a Congressperson might have that could make it harder (lots of travel costs, etc.).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Thanks for putting some numbers to my theory.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Not to mention that the government takes 24% of that in taxes, and she might be paying income tax in two different states. Add on sales tax and POOF, there goes half her money.

[–] phdepressed 16 points 3 months ago

She makes 147k and lives in the Queens/Bronx where avg rent is ~2000 for 600 sqft and also has to have a place in Washington DC where average rent for a 1bd 1ba in ~2300 for 700 sq ft. She probably pays above average in for a larger place due to her job so let's say 2.5k in her district and 3k in DC. After tax she has 1.85k/mo to spend on non-rent expenses including her student loans.

This is all napkin math and while she also probably has some paid speeches her overall budget after 2 rents isn't too different from an average college grad without family help even if she makes decent money.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Perhaps she invests elsewhere; where one can better control which entities they are funding. She's a principled person.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I don't think they should be allowed. Principled she may be, but most of them aren't.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The most telling number is the 401k one. If she was the wealthy sort, she'd probably be exploiting that sort of thing as much as possible.

Or maybe not, because she knows it will be in the disclosure. But most wealthy people follow professional advice on how to pay the least taxes, and that includes exploiting retirement fund tax breaks.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

401ks have specific limits on how much you can contribute. Most big wealth comes from ownership of stock and other assets.

[–] phdepressed 5 points 3 months ago

Yeah, but the 401k limit is 22.5k (for 2023). You max the tax advantage before investing in non-advantaged stuff.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Huh, she's like rally bad at congressing.

She's probably doing something like whats in the job description instead of not that, which is the style at this time.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

It just strikes me as the episode of simpsons where the kids add up principal skinners yearly income and determine he must be a millionaire because his 25k income and being 40 years old to them means he made a million dollars.

https://comb.io/SqKAv3.gif

Like you have to pretty much ignore everything and be very bad at math to make it seem like she should be well off.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

she should get one of those NIL deals

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

Too bad. It would help her to fund a future presidential campaign.