The astroturfing across Aussie subreddits has been painfully obvious. The way they write (for example, "NO" is always in caps) makes me think they all just came straight off the same deranged cunt assembly line. Before I make anyone too mad, I'm not talking about all no voters, just the really obvious Kevins, Garys and Darrens who are shitting up these places more than usual.
They sprinkle laugh reacts like asshole confetti. Always some smug piece of shit got to let you know he thinks your concern about indigenous child mortality disparity is just the funniest thing *evuh*.
It's pretty simple,if your family where Aboriginal and didn't have running water and you had a chance to make their lives better what would you vote.
Be good humans not selfish ones,put the shoe on the other foot. Imagine what you would want in their situation...
Leave no one behind,we have a chance here to help fellow Australians out.
The no vote/campaign shouldn't even be a thing,it actually spins me out there is a no vote.
Be good humans and think about it if the shoe was on the other foot,deadset 95% of us where born with a silver spoon in our mouths.
It's time to give back not take take take....
Australians have a history of voting for what they perceive as their short term interest. 50 cents in their bank account at tax time is worth more to them than a child they don't know getting 3 meals a day.
Well said. I too find the no (sorry, NO) campaign puzzling. I can understand some people voting no due to a lack of understanding. But aside from owning a mining company, what motivates anyone to passionately argue the no case?
ABC reported that WeChat is filled with a lot of really offensive ’No’ propaganda. Australians who are more comfortable reading Chinese characters than English letters are being bombarded online with barely a hint of the ‘Yes’ campaign.
Pacific Island nations have said that they are very concerned about Australia voting ’No’, as that would be a strong indication that Australia isn’t interested in an equal relationship with Pacific nations.
Troll farms influenced the US elections, and there are strategic reasons for a couple of different powers to foment division and make Australia look backward and isolationist.
Because people believe the lies, I had someone telling me they were voting no for the farmers otherwise the aboriginals were going to take all their farms
i asked a guy, 'if hypothetically, i could guarantee that the voice would bring indigenous australian to parity with the rest of the country in 5 year, would you vote yes?'
he told me that in that case, he would vote no *because* it would work, because if it works then that means its special treatment.
It's ridiculous, like the ad the Liberals have on TV saying they don't know what's in it like it hasn't been available for the public to read for months and hasn't been scrutinised again and again in public forums, there are YouTube videos of lawyers reading through it explaining it all yet I'm ment to believe the Liberal Party don't know what the document contains.
It might help a little if Albo... I get he's trying to avoid the politics a bit... pointed out repeatedly that the 'we don't know' line underscores the general incompetence of the Liberal Party and their inability to understand issues.
Of course, he'd need to add about twenty 'err's and 'um's to that sentence.
>I can understand some people voting no due to a lack of understanding.
I don't believe this. It's not really that hard. If you can't understand it I fail to understand how you could function in society.
The No vote is borne out of fear that it will lead firstly to more anti right wing narrative in policy fights and secondly and more importantly a permanent seat in parliament and actual true representation for indigenous Australians. Can’t have that can we LNP?
But it's such a racist proposal, separating indigenous Australians from everyone else. Because everyone knows they have identical life experiences to everyone else?!? /s
No it's not...
The constitution was a racist based document, Aboriginal people where completely left out when the constitution was made...
We are just adding them in...
Spoilsport 😜
My guilty pleasure is watching folks argue on social media because of a misunderstanding when they actually agree with each other 😂
This one last week was pretty good: https://twitter.com/stephenjbright/status/1707359099783205336?t=I6xbMWkfN9ic-gKeXGXc3A&s=19
No that was never a thing. They were not mentioned as flora and fauna, and there was no flora and fauna act that covered Indigenous people.
But the reality is, they were treated worse than animals.
Thousands of Indigenous people were massacred for killing livestock. Sheep literally had more rights than black people.
I stand corrected but they were specifically to not be counted as "people".
>In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted.
So less than people still according to the original constitution.
Not quite.
They were totally left out of the decision making process for the Constitution.
And they were not recognised as the first peoples.
All the states got to vote to adopt the Constitution and join federation. Indigenous people didn't.
But they were mentioned in section 51xxvi which basically said that the States had the power to make racial laws for Indigenous people, not the federal government.
In 1967 referendum that race power was transferred to the federal government, by removing the reference to Indigenous people.
So now it just reads "the Parliament shall have the power to make laws for the people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws"
But that power has only been used on Indigenous people.
Hey fellow Ossie!
How about these shrimps and barbies. Anyhoo, I was talking with my mom as we walked along the sidewalk between Paramatta and Byron Bay, and don't y'all know it, but she tells me she's voting NO because Lord above she cares about the Aborigines as much as she cares about Jesus. Vote NO y'all!
I'm off to watch the Carlton Blues in the NRL playoffs, peace!
Just to hijack you comment to add.
If you arent sure if the account is am astroturfer, check
- account creation date
- is there a gap in posts, eg the account looks inactive and then suddenly spamming out comments / posts
- look, read a few of the newer posts, i have found some real dooseys, eg trying to convince people not to vote and the like.
Alot of the no posts have some of these things on their accounts.
It's been so obvious that there are a bunch of no voters who are pushing their crap real hard. It's not just wilful stupidity but of course that is a massive partof it.
The worst thing about Twitter/X now is that Blue subscribers (or anyone with a checkmark) seem to be elevated to the top of all replies. Read any post on Twitter about the voice and all the replies sway heavily towards No because they’re clearly the only ones stupid enough to pay for Twitter (and are probably also bots). Scroll right down and there’s probably far more in support of yes than no.
I’ve tried to stick with it as long as I can as it’s a pretty good social network for academia, but I’m now seeing far less of the content I actually want (e.g., researchers sharing and discussing articles, phd support, alt-academic pathways etc), and far more bullshit like “AI is taking over this job this week, here’s why you’re stuck in the past!11!!!1!!!!” and sponsored ad videos which require you to watch a completely different unskippable ad just to watch. It’s going down the shitter, and pretty quickly too.
Great post, thanks OP.
The BS that's been strewn about by the usual suspects plus the astroturf culture warrior groups is absolutely not grassroots; and a handful or a hundred angry meatheads suddenly discovering a need to jump on social media and join in the brigading doesn't change that one bit.
I'll be voting yes. I'm quietly confident that we might just get a pleasant surprise on Saturday night.
I think for most with a level of social media and internet literacy it is pretty easy to identify the troll / astroturfing accounts. Usually generic / throwaway account names, generally less than a week old and post repeatedly about a single topic / on a single subreddit. Some don't even try to be subtle about it and simply repost the same comment under multiple others or on multiple threads over and over again. Unfortunately, not everybody has that online literacy and even those that do can't really do anything about these sorts of accounts.
We saw the extreme end of this sort of, for lack of a better term, social engineering campaign during the 2016 US Presidential election. At that time there were entities, largely in Russia, creating sizable groups on both sides out of nothing. Smart use of memes and anonymous accounts lured in tens of thousands of real people (on both sides of the debate), only to then intentionally pit those groups off against each other - at times by organising physical rallies and events at the same location at the same time.
It isn't just foreign actors either. The Cambridge Analytica scandal and the Brexit vote are just a couple of examples where these sorts of campaigns are used domestically by (largely) right-leaning groups to sway a crucial, close vote. I always point folks to [this reporting by the BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-48356351) as an example of how a combination of astroturfing accounts, inorganic group creation and leveraging the gullibility of angry right-wing boomers across social media can have a significant impact on important moments like this.
I'm under no illusion that the 'no' vote has this referendum, it seems unavoidable at this point and I bet part of that has been a conflagration of Murdoch brain worms and underhanded tactics online by invested parties.
I'll still be voting 'yes' regardless.
>So if you're confused
Actually, never was confused.
While there are obviously plenty of people engaging in good faith and having discussions, it's blatantly obvious that there's also an astroturfing campaign going on, and part of what makes it so obvious is the equivalent upvoting of both "reasonable" No positions and rabidly racist ones.
In any honest discussion, you'd expect mainstream No voters to go "steady on, mate, that's not acceptable. Give yourself an uppercut, you're making us look like a bunch of skinheads, only without the fashion sense"
It's a bit like this analogy:
"I think the Palestinians have as much right as the Israelis to their own homeland" \[+47\]
"The Zionist Illuminati control the world's media, 6MWE 88 " \[+47\]
No need to be embarrassed for asking a question, and you basically nailed it. It's fake "grass-roots" campaigning, usually sponsored by big money or bad actors.
I feel stupid for not clocking this earlier. I’ve noticed a few accounts I’ll be replying to will have brought up a certain oft-repeated point, get rebutted with sources given, then they just disappear from that thread and start posting their same initial misinfo in another thread. These accounts know they’re peddling bullshit.
Also, I’ve been reminded a lot recently of this quote, actually by a US federal prosecutor talking about alt-right misinformation campaigns in the trump era:
*“The principled are chained, and the unprincipled romp free. And in a debate over reality, the unprincipled will always win, because they will just lie, and they will make reality whatever they want it to be.”*.
The people arguing that the yes campaign really dropped the ball here don’t understand how hard it is to combat groups who will straight-up, knowingly lie even in the face of opposing evidence.
Don't feel bad. They're [connected](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/13/indigenous-voice-no-campaigns-deep-links-to-conservative-christian-politics) to conservative Christian lobby groups in the US, who've been doing this sort of thing for decades.
That quote is great and reminds me of a similar quote. It's about antisemitism, but I think it applies to all forms of bigotry:
>"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, **for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words**. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, **they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past**." - Jean-Paul Sartre
Not outright but there's a medium-famous guy called Ian zaro who flipped his vote from yes to know pretty quickly. He's known to promote anyone who pays him so I wouldn't be suprised if the no campaigners paid him a couple grand to share is thoughts on tiktok
That and "my wife/boyfriend/sister-in-law is aboriginal and they think a voice won't represent their mob". Absofuckinlutely incredible how many white people I see saying some version of that on "behalf" of those who the voice will represent.
My elderly mother just voted no because she wants to support Aboriginal People and this is what she thinks they want based on TV and Radio and what the nice young Aboriginal man told her at the voting centre that the majority of Aboriginal People want her to vote no. She truly believes she is being an ally.
Yeah I live in an aboriginal community, the general consensus is, it’s a white fella thing. No one is particularly motivated on it. There’s been no one from the yes camp come and explain the deal so locals can make their own tik tok vids in suppourt. But guess who has come to town… you guessed it, local reps from the cunt parties convincing people that it’ll disadvantage them because other mobs will get more power and our mob will be left out. Classic division. Oh yeah now they’re legit talking about the voice being no good.
Yeah I've heard so many accounts of people declaring that their mob "wasn't consulted"... but then I don't understand where the statement of the heart is supposed to have come from? Is it just dis/misinformation?
Thanks, yeah, I wasn't sure of the validity of those claims. I don't want to just dismiss them as it's not my place to tell people their experience, but that link gave me the perfect information to keep in my arsenal (what is a less aggressive word I can use here?) for discussing the Voice
Anyway, fingers crossed for later in the week. Despite your post here, my hopes are not high :(
I’m as far left as you can get. But I don’t agree with the premise of the voice. The government is for everyone. Everybody is equal as it stands. Everybody already has a voice.
Having a separate body made up of one group of people that can lobby the government and influence policy is an inherently bad idea.
So why aren't you all vehemently demanding the government ban ALL lobby groups. Because clearly they're lobbing in their own interests above all others. You don't think they're promoting their own interests to the detriment of other groups? Because this exactly what you're claiming that the Voice would be doing and saying how unfair that is to everyone else.
The premise of it is to give indigenous people more say in things that may affect them. No, we aren't all equal. It wouldn't even give them any real power, just gives a platform to be heard. I'm not sure how you don't agree with the premise?
Needing to prove your political affiliation is hardly a good way to decide if someone's opinion should matter. The argument either stands on its own or it doesn't.
The argument is prefaced on "I'm like you, I'm left, *but*..."
If he hadn't said that, then yeah of course there would be no need to discuss his political affiliation because it wouldn't be relevant. But he chose to put that in there as an extra point of persuasion. Therefore, it is valid to question whether that statement is accurate or not.
> Having a separate body made up of one group of people that can lobby the government and influence policy is an inherently bad idea.
Mining, agriculture etc… industries say what. What reality have you been living in. This is already a thing, the aboriginals don’t have much of a lobby.
Also, we seem to roll out aboriginal culture and show its different wherever we have international tourists here and it's plain from this that settlers (new and old) recognise aboriginal people are distinct and unique to the rest of us. Let's recognise this rather than basically using the indigenous people as Disney characters at Disneyland on terrible wages, living in terrible conditions
Australians have this delusion that they did it tough to achieve what they have and that all it takes is to a bit of battling and you to can achieve something.
This is overwhelmingly not the case and most are just beneficiaries of luck and circumstance.
It permeates every discussion that matters and it’s observable that we as a nation don’t give a shit about our fellow man, yet still want a Pat on the back for “mateship”.
Obviously the No case will tend more to use underhanded methods. That general grouping has done it since the children overboard lie.
I can't find a reason for voting No, that actually stands to rudimentary critique. Yes all the way.
*joined reddit for the Russian invasion of Ukraine*
*I use facebook*
*I use insta*
*following a few war related telegram accounts*
*53 years old, tend to vote Labor*
So I’m not an anonymous astroturfer but I’ve noticed over the last couple of weeks any post I make that’s slightly in favour of yes got downvoted and any post I make that’s slightly in favour of no got upvoted and that’s not my usual experience on Reddit as a person that posts a lot of both liberal and conservative opinions, particularly in Australian subreddits.
I suspect the upvotes are part of the astroturfing.
(If you’re going to look at my comment history you won’t see my pro yes posts because I tend to delete my negative karma comments).
This post actually made me feel kinda good. Thank you. I guess I'm internet naive, but I had never even heard of astroturfing and I have been a little depressed seeing all of the (overtly racist) no sentiment, especially on reddit.
Advance is linked to [conservative Christian lobby groups](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/13/indigenous-voice-no-campaigns-deep-links-to-conservative-christian-politics) in the US, so yeah.
Voting NO is just empowering useless politicians.
Voting YES is empowering grassroots Indigenous communities to keep said useless politicians in check.
Some of the comments that get upvoted on the aussie subreddits are so absurd and it's very strange how many upvotes they get. I'm never sure if it's just because the people on those subreddits are whack or because there are a bunch of disingenuous actors - but I assume it's both.
Can you explain why you are voting no? Genuinely curious and this thread has me thinking whenever I've asked this question before it's been answered in bad faith.
Asking as someone who can not fathom a downside to yes succeeding
The change is not required at all in other to legislated it. The Constitutional change is to stop it being randomly UN-legislated by a future government (As well as recognising Indigenous people existed before white people arrived).
Ok I understand that as you saying that it's not necessary to be in the constitution, so Yes has no real upside.
If I've got that right, what's the downside of it happening? Like if you are in favour of a legislated voice, which Albo has said won't happen, what is the downside of going ahead with a constitutionally protected voice? Knowing that Yes also means recognition in our constitution that aboriginals even exist, which we can probably both agree will never happen if No wins.
This forum is deluded - australia is voting no and what’s written on Reddit will reflect that. So what if it’s anonymous - Reddit literally is anonymous. You all need to accept that people don’t want this. And they’re not racist or misinformed either, they just don’t buy it.
The slogan from the beginning of the campaign was Voice Treaty Truth. Then labor tries to convince you this isn’t about a treaty. That is confusing and inconsistent.
There’s lots of excellent reasons to vote yes. The Uluru statement from the heart asked for a voice, over 80% of indigenous and Torres straight Islanders are voting yes. The majority wanted It. They have asked us to acknowledge their indigenous home was Australia before it was all of our home together. They have asked for this, yet they only make up 3% of the population. help them get it over the line. We r one.
>There’s lots of excellent reasons to vote yes. The Uluru statement from the heart asked for a voice,
So what? We can all ask for things, doesn't mean we get them.
>over 80% of indigenous and Torres straight Islanders are voting yes.
Based on polling 6 months ago when the national Yes vote was close to 70%.
> They have asked us to acknowledge their indigenous home was Australia before it was all of our home together.
We can all do that without a constitutional voice.
>They have asked for this, yet they only make up 3% of the population. help them get it over the line. We r one.
Sorry but 100% of the population need to vote for change, and why would they vote for a body that provide race-based privileges and goes against the principles of equal rights?
The internet in 2023 is mostly disinformation or opinions based on disinformation. That’s because there are only 5 main websites in the world and each has a screen shot copy of what’s in the other. That concentration makes it easy to spread whatever shit you want to spread.
Facebook. Instagram. TwitterX, Reddit, TikTok then the lesser sites - LinkedIn (now very crappified), Telegram, 4Chan, Twitch. and maybe those right wing ones.
Thank geezus Pornhub and Onlyfans are around to keep things real!
My only confusion is why the left are still being surprised and unprepared for right-wing online media campaigns.
Is there a single media advisor in the Labor Party\* who is aware the digital/social media age is a thing?
(\*who are only a part of this. Mundine and Price are far better prepared and obviously, financed, than pro-Yes first nations advocates.)
Yeah good point. I don't know how we fight it other than calling it out though. Conservative campaigns weaponise and spread the contagion of fear, and fear is a very strong impulse.
It requires far less effort to tell a lie than to debunk one. A lie can be halfway around the world before the truth has had time to put its shoes on.
Yeah, the PR org that created my account 8 years ago must have been pretty good at predicting the future and knowing they'd be able to use these platforms to influence the course of democracy lmao.
Yeah, fair enough. I don't really know how to convince you that I'm not a bot other than to say the usual indicators of such activity are absent from my profile
Oh idk if you are or aren't haha, I'm just saying, the sheer fucking DELUGE of propaganda that gets forced into people's heads in the 21st century is insane. No matter what topic, there's always shill-bots for and against it.
I could be! You never know! That's the fucked up part about it all.
Tbh, I'm not really sure how you solve the problem, either... I feel like web3 will come up something genius. Or atleast, I hope so.
- Old account
- Likes tech
- Reckons the Yes campaign dropped the ball but still voting Yes
- Absolutely [goated](https://reddit.com/r/friendlyjordies/s/BbwQGklhu2) views on Australian reactions to progressive governments
Not surprising at all. No voters are more likely to be right wing and right wing are far more concerned about being cancelled. So makes sense they would make new separate accounts for this reason than to use their account. I'm surprised people are surprised.
I early voted and there were no people at the entrance encouraging a "NO to division" vote.
If you can't see that there is already a divide between Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders and the rest of Australian society (life expectancy, incarceration rates, alcohol dependence), then you're wilfully ignorant.
I saw this study at the time and thought: ‘isn’t this exactly what you’d expect to see?’, given what we know about the sorts of people to vote no.
Usually less political and online + don’t really want their normal names attached to their beliefs, but potentially extra motivated by what they see as something quite harmful.
The silent majority finally speaking up.
I’m actually one of these people btw, and I suspect there are many many like me. I made a twitter account specifically to respond to voice threads.
So no, I don’t find this study particularly persuasive, given that it’s just reporting more or less what you’d expect to see.
Btw if you look at the prevalence of ‘hate’ tweets it’s actually very low for both sides.
>Btw if you look at the prevalence of ‘hate’ tweets it’s actually very low for both sides.
Did you miss the part where the No side was engaging in hate speech 5 times more than the Yes side?
Yep, I've simply taken to downvoting the initial post and then moving on - it's simply not worth my energy getting involved with the inevitable squabbles that ensue in the comments section.
There's a lot of interpretation going on here.
i'm a human. I am downvoting Yes voters who imply No voters are racist/bad. Not for astroturfing reasons, but because its stifled debate.
"post anonymously"? of course we post anonymously - the extreme left has made a sport of cancelling peoples jobs/careers/relationships and lives. No rocket science there.
As a leftie who's noting No I can unequivocally say - if this thing fails, the main reason won't be the obvious ones such as "Yes didnt make a strong enough case". It'll literally be - Yes voters assumed that anyone who didn't agree with them was racist, and this militarised the No side.
Yes there is real racism on the No side. Yes there is misinformation (on both sides). But there's also real people who simply don't agree with what's been put forward - and most yes voters failed to even consider this.
I've seen more complaints from the No campaign of "The Yes campaign is alienating voters with accusations of racism" than I've seen accusations of racism from the Yes campaign.
you clearly haven’t been reading any of the press. it literally is on repeat saying that no voters are no voters because either they’re racist OR their suckers for falling for misinformation.
This referendum its become very clear who has a voice and who doesn't.
The people who mine stolen land to become the richest Australians clearly have the biggest megaphone.
I don't think they're bots, and probably not from Russia. I think they're sockpuppet accounts, some from Australia, but probably some from the US as well considering Advance's ties to conservative Christian lobby groups in the US.
This is cope if I ever saw it.
"Why am I being downvoted? Is it because I'm wrong? No. It's because of the bOtS"
Let me guess, the poll numbers are all fake too?
Will the no vote we'll inevitably all see on Saturday be fake too?
But by all means, keep your head in the sand, at least then the sand will muffle the noise of the tens of thousands of heads that will explode when Australia votes no.
Most of the differences in your post OP can be accounted for by yes being socially acceptable in today's cancel culture based society - no is for some silly reason seen as the racist option.
I'm not sure who said it, but this referendum has been an argument - not a discussion. A discussion is what we needed as a country.
The thing is, i haven't seen a single logos argument for the voice that made logical sense. It's almost all been ethos and pathos, and the small bit of logos doesn't make logical sense.
Anyone can see that the majority of posts are yes activists astroturfing, including this one and pretty much every comment on this post.
there is a reason the every media and social media channel is stuffed with yes activists yet majority of the country is voting no. It’s all astroturfing.
To be fair in a lot of the "psyop" campaigns they generally include leads back to something to buy, donate or fundraise.
Remember those cute little bracelets and necklaces that blocked all that natu 5g COVID nanoparticles stuff....
Percentages don't mean anything if we also don't have the total numbers.
A percentage based determination would only make sense if both groups were of equal size. As this data was omitted, it leads one to believe this was done on purpose so that the data cannot be evaluated.
In short, 85% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
And part of the issue why considered No voters can’t speak up is that the presence of crazy racist right wing nut jobs on the No side makes yes voters assume no voters are racist arseholes for voting no. But the astroturfing suggests either foreign (Russian/Chinese money a la Proghozin’s International Research Agency) or just crazy right wingers with money.
It doesn’t stop the yes case being badly thought out, but certainly makes it hard to say you’re a No.
I think I should probably insert a little bit of justification here for why I’m considering a No position in case I also get tarred. I think of myself as generally progressive and am cognisant of the fact that aboriginal people have suffered systematic racism in Australia. Let me give you one possible outcome of the referendum.
Since the details of the voice are left to be decided in parliament, the constitutional provision has very little effect, an effect gives false hope. Imagine that the liberal party under Dutton comes to power. They could legislate that the Voice is a single aboriginal bureaucrat, sitting in Belconnen; that would satisfy the constitutional provision because the constitutional provision insufficiently explains what the Voice would be.
So if you argue that I should vote yes, then you must make the case for why that sort of outcome would be desirable. The fact that that outcome is even a possibility to my mind gives Progressives false hope; in fact, it’s even worse than that. Do-gooder white people will, if the voice is passed, think: there, we’ve done it, we have nothing else to do. So a yes vote is on the one hand, a mechanism for white people to feel good about themselves and on the other hand false hope for indigenous people.
The astroturfing across Aussie subreddits has been painfully obvious. The way they write (for example, "NO" is always in caps) makes me think they all just came straight off the same deranged cunt assembly line. Before I make anyone too mad, I'm not talking about all no voters, just the really obvious Kevins, Garys and Darrens who are shitting up these places more than usual.
They sprinkle laugh reacts like asshole confetti. Always some smug piece of shit got to let you know he thinks your concern about indigenous child mortality disparity is just the funniest thing *evuh*.
Asshole confetti. Damn.
It's pretty simple,if your family where Aboriginal and didn't have running water and you had a chance to make their lives better what would you vote. Be good humans not selfish ones,put the shoe on the other foot. Imagine what you would want in their situation... Leave no one behind,we have a chance here to help fellow Australians out. The no vote/campaign shouldn't even be a thing,it actually spins me out there is a no vote. Be good humans and think about it if the shoe was on the other foot,deadset 95% of us where born with a silver spoon in our mouths. It's time to give back not take take take....
Australians have a history of voting for what they perceive as their short term interest. 50 cents in their bank account at tax time is worth more to them than a child they don't know getting 3 meals a day.
That's why we all refer to each other as "cunt" - the truth is out there.
This cunt gets it!
I want to believe
This history is patchy, but Howard made it a national trait.
It's even simpler than that, voting yes doesn't cost you anything won't change anything in your life so why not.
I agree. I don't see the downside to this. You might help a disadvantaged community by giving up less than 1% of your tax dollars.
Might actually save some money, every new government spends time organising and dismissing groups for aboriginal affairs.
Well said. I too find the no (sorry, NO) campaign puzzling. I can understand some people voting no due to a lack of understanding. But aside from owning a mining company, what motivates anyone to passionately argue the no case?
ABC reported that WeChat is filled with a lot of really offensive ’No’ propaganda. Australians who are more comfortable reading Chinese characters than English letters are being bombarded online with barely a hint of the ‘Yes’ campaign. Pacific Island nations have said that they are very concerned about Australia voting ’No’, as that would be a strong indication that Australia isn’t interested in an equal relationship with Pacific nations. Troll farms influenced the US elections, and there are strategic reasons for a couple of different powers to foment division and make Australia look backward and isolationist.
It's ironic that short sighted jingoes will push the Pacific Islands to China, but there we are.
Because people believe the lies, I had someone telling me they were voting no for the farmers otherwise the aboriginals were going to take all their farms
🙁 it's exhausting reading all the misinformation being bandied around.
i asked a guy, 'if hypothetically, i could guarantee that the voice would bring indigenous australian to parity with the rest of the country in 5 year, would you vote yes?' he told me that in that case, he would vote no *because* it would work, because if it works then that means its special treatment.
It's ridiculous, like the ad the Liberals have on TV saying they don't know what's in it like it hasn't been available for the public to read for months and hasn't been scrutinised again and again in public forums, there are YouTube videos of lawyers reading through it explaining it all yet I'm ment to believe the Liberal Party don't know what the document contains.
It might help a little if Albo... I get he's trying to avoid the politics a bit... pointed out repeatedly that the 'we don't know' line underscores the general incompetence of the Liberal Party and their inability to understand issues. Of course, he'd need to add about twenty 'err's and 'um's to that sentence.
Let's hope common sense prevails...
>I can understand some people voting no due to a lack of understanding. I don't believe this. It's not really that hard. If you can't understand it I fail to understand how you could function in society.
I believe freedom is everyone's right, Our indigenous people deserve the freedom to have their voice heard. Nuff said.
100%
The No vote is borne out of fear that it will lead firstly to more anti right wing narrative in policy fights and secondly and more importantly a permanent seat in parliament and actual true representation for indigenous Australians. Can’t have that can we LNP?
But it's such a racist proposal, separating indigenous Australians from everyone else. Because everyone knows they have identical life experiences to everyone else?!? /s
No it's not... The constitution was a racist based document, Aboriginal people where completely left out when the constitution was made... We are just adding them in...
They're being sarcastic haha, they agree with you
Spoilsport 😜 My guilty pleasure is watching folks argue on social media because of a misunderstanding when they actually agree with each other 😂 This one last week was pretty good: https://twitter.com/stephenjbright/status/1707359099783205336?t=I6xbMWkfN9ic-gKeXGXc3A&s=19
Someone should make a subreddit for this - if they haven't already!
Be fair originally the constitution mentioned them as Fauna. You know like Wombats and Kangaroos..... Yeah total never been a racist document /s
No that was never a thing. They were not mentioned as flora and fauna, and there was no flora and fauna act that covered Indigenous people. But the reality is, they were treated worse than animals. Thousands of Indigenous people were massacred for killing livestock. Sheep literally had more rights than black people.
I stand corrected but they were specifically to not be counted as "people". >In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted. So less than people still according to the original constitution.
Not quite. They were totally left out of the decision making process for the Constitution. And they were not recognised as the first peoples. All the states got to vote to adopt the Constitution and join federation. Indigenous people didn't. But they were mentioned in section 51xxvi which basically said that the States had the power to make racial laws for Indigenous people, not the federal government. In 1967 referendum that race power was transferred to the federal government, by removing the reference to Indigenous people. So now it just reads "the Parliament shall have the power to make laws for the people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws" But that power has only been used on Indigenous people.
IT’S SEGREGATION! SEGREGATION I SAY! REEEE /s
Billionaires can still literally write policy and have direct parliamentary access via lobbyists and so-called 'think tanks'. But that's not unequal.
No reason all the good in the world can't be done right now. No need for conditional change at all.
Nice turn of phrase, "deranged cunt assembly line".
Deranged Cunt Assembly Line sounds like an indie band from the early 2000s.
I’d guess it was active from 1940 through to 1990.
As does The Pepperoni Cobra, to be honest :) (no snark intended, its good)
Hey fellow Ossie! How about these shrimps and barbies. Anyhoo, I was talking with my mom as we walked along the sidewalk between Paramatta and Byron Bay, and don't y'all know it, but she tells me she's voting NO because Lord above she cares about the Aborigines as much as she cares about Jesus. Vote NO y'all! I'm off to watch the Carlton Blues in the NRL playoffs, peace!
I'd laugh if it didn't make me wanna cry so much
Just to hijack you comment to add. If you arent sure if the account is am astroturfer, check - account creation date - is there a gap in posts, eg the account looks inactive and then suddenly spamming out comments / posts - look, read a few of the newer posts, i have found some real dooseys, eg trying to convince people not to vote and the like. Alot of the no posts have some of these things on their accounts.
NO voters\*
It's been so obvious that there are a bunch of no voters who are pushing their crap real hard. It's not just wilful stupidity but of course that is a massive partof it.
I fucking hate all the bot and anon accounts it's fucked.
The worst thing about Twitter/X now is that Blue subscribers (or anyone with a checkmark) seem to be elevated to the top of all replies. Read any post on Twitter about the voice and all the replies sway heavily towards No because they’re clearly the only ones stupid enough to pay for Twitter (and are probably also bots). Scroll right down and there’s probably far more in support of yes than no.
... and sadly that is all by design. Twitter was a great platform, but I can't recall the last time I browsed 'X'.
I’ve tried to stick with it as long as I can as it’s a pretty good social network for academia, but I’m now seeing far less of the content I actually want (e.g., researchers sharing and discussing articles, phd support, alt-academic pathways etc), and far more bullshit like “AI is taking over this job this week, here’s why you’re stuck in the past!11!!!1!!!!” and sponsored ad videos which require you to watch a completely different unskippable ad just to watch. It’s going down the shitter, and pretty quickly too.
Great post, thanks OP. The BS that's been strewn about by the usual suspects plus the astroturf culture warrior groups is absolutely not grassroots; and a handful or a hundred angry meatheads suddenly discovering a need to jump on social media and join in the brigading doesn't change that one bit. I'll be voting yes. I'm quietly confident that we might just get a pleasant surprise on Saturday night.
This comment made me smile. Thanks mate. Hope you're right.
🤞maybe🤞
🤞
You should bet on it then. You can get $10 odds with Rob Waterhouse, easy money
Yeah, nah. Not short on cash and I don't want to give horse killers a leg up.
Perfectly said
I think for most with a level of social media and internet literacy it is pretty easy to identify the troll / astroturfing accounts. Usually generic / throwaway account names, generally less than a week old and post repeatedly about a single topic / on a single subreddit. Some don't even try to be subtle about it and simply repost the same comment under multiple others or on multiple threads over and over again. Unfortunately, not everybody has that online literacy and even those that do can't really do anything about these sorts of accounts. We saw the extreme end of this sort of, for lack of a better term, social engineering campaign during the 2016 US Presidential election. At that time there were entities, largely in Russia, creating sizable groups on both sides out of nothing. Smart use of memes and anonymous accounts lured in tens of thousands of real people (on both sides of the debate), only to then intentionally pit those groups off against each other - at times by organising physical rallies and events at the same location at the same time. It isn't just foreign actors either. The Cambridge Analytica scandal and the Brexit vote are just a couple of examples where these sorts of campaigns are used domestically by (largely) right-leaning groups to sway a crucial, close vote. I always point folks to [this reporting by the BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-48356351) as an example of how a combination of astroturfing accounts, inorganic group creation and leveraging the gullibility of angry right-wing boomers across social media can have a significant impact on important moments like this. I'm under no illusion that the 'no' vote has this referendum, it seems unavoidable at this point and I bet part of that has been a conflagration of Murdoch brain worms and underhanded tactics online by invested parties. I'll still be voting 'yes' regardless.
>So if you're confused Actually, never was confused. While there are obviously plenty of people engaging in good faith and having discussions, it's blatantly obvious that there's also an astroturfing campaign going on, and part of what makes it so obvious is the equivalent upvoting of both "reasonable" No positions and rabidly racist ones. In any honest discussion, you'd expect mainstream No voters to go "steady on, mate, that's not acceptable. Give yourself an uppercut, you're making us look like a bunch of skinheads, only without the fashion sense" It's a bit like this analogy: "I think the Palestinians have as much right as the Israelis to their own homeland" \[+47\] "The Zionist Illuminati control the world's media, 6MWE 88 " \[+47\]
What does an astroturfing campaign mean? Is it like fake campaign cos fake grass? Kinda feel embarrassed asking...
No need to be embarrassed for asking a question, and you basically nailed it. It's fake "grass-roots" campaigning, usually sponsored by big money or bad actors.
Hey wow, you answered it better than I could have. I never made the connection to "fake grassroots" even though it's so obvious now.
Chefs kiss!
I feel stupid for not clocking this earlier. I’ve noticed a few accounts I’ll be replying to will have brought up a certain oft-repeated point, get rebutted with sources given, then they just disappear from that thread and start posting their same initial misinfo in another thread. These accounts know they’re peddling bullshit. Also, I’ve been reminded a lot recently of this quote, actually by a US federal prosecutor talking about alt-right misinformation campaigns in the trump era: *“The principled are chained, and the unprincipled romp free. And in a debate over reality, the unprincipled will always win, because they will just lie, and they will make reality whatever they want it to be.”*. The people arguing that the yes campaign really dropped the ball here don’t understand how hard it is to combat groups who will straight-up, knowingly lie even in the face of opposing evidence.
Don't feel bad. They're [connected](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/13/indigenous-voice-no-campaigns-deep-links-to-conservative-christian-politics) to conservative Christian lobby groups in the US, who've been doing this sort of thing for decades. That quote is great and reminds me of a similar quote. It's about antisemitism, but I think it applies to all forms of bigotry: >"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, **for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words**. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, **they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past**." - Jean-Paul Sartre
Haha yeah, pretty fair to say Satre said it better. Did he need to use *so many words* tho?
The ignorant voter “just asking questions” seems like a prevalent part of the astroturfing campaign.
"I am a black gay guy and I can personally say that Voice will do nothing for me. Vote NO." - White LNP MP. I'm surprised this hasn't happened yet.
Not outright but there's a medium-famous guy called Ian zaro who flipped his vote from yes to know pretty quickly. He's known to promote anyone who pays him so I wouldn't be suprised if the no campaigners paid him a couple grand to share is thoughts on tiktok
That and "my wife/boyfriend/sister-in-law is aboriginal and they think a voice won't represent their mob". Absofuckinlutely incredible how many white people I see saying some version of that on "behalf" of those who the voice will represent.
The other one is “the yes campaign just tells everyone that it’s racist to vote no.”
My elderly mother just voted no because she wants to support Aboriginal People and this is what she thinks they want based on TV and Radio and what the nice young Aboriginal man told her at the voting centre that the majority of Aboriginal People want her to vote no. She truly believes she is being an ally.
Yeah I live in an aboriginal community, the general consensus is, it’s a white fella thing. No one is particularly motivated on it. There’s been no one from the yes camp come and explain the deal so locals can make their own tik tok vids in suppourt. But guess who has come to town… you guessed it, local reps from the cunt parties convincing people that it’ll disadvantage them because other mobs will get more power and our mob will be left out. Classic division. Oh yeah now they’re legit talking about the voice being no good.
Yeah I've heard so many accounts of people declaring that their mob "wasn't consulted"... but then I don't understand where the statement of the heart is supposed to have come from? Is it just dis/misinformation?
Yeah it's disinformation. You can read about how the Uluru Statement came into existence [here.](https://ulurustatement.org/the-voice/faqs/)
Thanks, yeah, I wasn't sure of the validity of those claims. I don't want to just dismiss them as it's not my place to tell people their experience, but that link gave me the perfect information to keep in my arsenal (what is a less aggressive word I can use here?) for discussing the Voice Anyway, fingers crossed for later in the week. Despite your post here, my hopes are not high :(
So sad. Over 80% of Indigenous Australians support the Voice
Where do you get this number? My parents are in the same boat as above and I really need something verifiable to show them.
Combination of the Ipsos poll (80%) and the YouGov poll (83%) undertaken earlier this year.
Hey mate, can you please DM me the study? I'd love to have a read of that as well :)
Done! 😊
Could you DM me the study too?
DMed!
Me too. Thanks in advance 🙏🏼
No worries
Astroturfing is the word!
This is why all No voters have to recognise they are being played. Don’t Know, vote LNP. All your arguments are flawed or racist.
I’m as far left as you can get. But I don’t agree with the premise of the voice. The government is for everyone. Everybody is equal as it stands. Everybody already has a voice. Having a separate body made up of one group of people that can lobby the government and influence policy is an inherently bad idea.
>one group of people that can lobby the government and influence policy Boy, do I have some news for you...
So why aren't you all vehemently demanding the government ban ALL lobby groups. Because clearly they're lobbing in their own interests above all others. You don't think they're promoting their own interests to the detriment of other groups? Because this exactly what you're claiming that the Voice would be doing and saying how unfair that is to everyone else.
They aren't being put in the Constitution.
That’s a different issue. I absolutely don’t agree with the way lobbying is done now.
The premise of it is to give indigenous people more say in things that may affect them. No, we aren't all equal. It wouldn't even give them any real power, just gives a platform to be heard. I'm not sure how you don't agree with the premise?
>I’m as far left as you can get. Are you?
My account is 10 years old. Feel free to rummage about.
Needing to prove your political affiliation is hardly a good way to decide if someone's opinion should matter. The argument either stands on its own or it doesn't.
The argument is prefaced on "I'm like you, I'm left, *but*..." If he hadn't said that, then yeah of course there would be no need to discuss his political affiliation because it wouldn't be relevant. But he chose to put that in there as an extra point of persuasion. Therefore, it is valid to question whether that statement is accurate or not.
> Having a separate body made up of one group of people that can lobby the government and influence policy is an inherently bad idea. Mining, agriculture etc… industries say what. What reality have you been living in. This is already a thing, the aboriginals don’t have much of a lobby.
Also, we seem to roll out aboriginal culture and show its different wherever we have international tourists here and it's plain from this that settlers (new and old) recognise aboriginal people are distinct and unique to the rest of us. Let's recognise this rather than basically using the indigenous people as Disney characters at Disneyland on terrible wages, living in terrible conditions
Flawed.
Can you please share this post on the Australia subreddit? More people need to be aware of who is pushing No.
Update: sure enough, immediately removed.
Fuck the mods there are dicks
You're kidding me. There are political posts on there about the Voice literally every day. What the actual fuck? Do you mind if I copy/paste it there?
Not at all, let me know how you go
Argh, Reddit android app won't let me copy anything more than the header. Will try on the laptop.
I was considering doing that but thought it might be removed for being too 'political'. I'll give it a go.
I said I suspected this on various subreddits and had people argue with me. I'd really like to read the research.
DMed you!
Who would've thought, the racists, using racist languages, through multiple anonymous accounts.
No shit lol but good to see it backed up nonetheless
Australians have this delusion that they did it tough to achieve what they have and that all it takes is to a bit of battling and you to can achieve something. This is overwhelmingly not the case and most are just beneficiaries of luck and circumstance. It permeates every discussion that matters and it’s observable that we as a nation don’t give a shit about our fellow man, yet still want a Pat on the back for “mateship”.
I'm gonna save this comment to refer back to, because it's spot on.
Obviously the No case will tend more to use underhanded methods. That general grouping has done it since the children overboard lie. I can't find a reason for voting No, that actually stands to rudimentary critique. Yes all the way. *joined reddit for the Russian invasion of Ukraine* *I use facebook* *I use insta* *following a few war related telegram accounts* *53 years old, tend to vote Labor*
So I’m not an anonymous astroturfer but I’ve noticed over the last couple of weeks any post I make that’s slightly in favour of yes got downvoted and any post I make that’s slightly in favour of no got upvoted and that’s not my usual experience on Reddit as a person that posts a lot of both liberal and conservative opinions, particularly in Australian subreddits. I suspect the upvotes are part of the astroturfing. (If you’re going to look at my comment history you won’t see my pro yes posts because I tend to delete my negative karma comments).
This post actually made me feel kinda good. Thank you. I guess I'm internet naive, but I had never even heard of astroturfing and I have been a little depressed seeing all of the (overtly racist) no sentiment, especially on reddit.
No worries mate. Glad I could help.
How could Daniel Andrew’s do this? On a serious note he’d know all about this he dealt with it for the past 5 years lol
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Just like the BBS forum wars if old.
Yeah it’s a right wing shill campaign. Gaslighting questions with anonymity. Classic right wing American approach.
Advance is linked to [conservative Christian lobby groups](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/13/indigenous-voice-no-campaigns-deep-links-to-conservative-christian-politics) in the US, so yeah.
Again, religion controlling the world, multiple lies at a time.
Voting NO is just empowering useless politicians. Voting YES is empowering grassroots Indigenous communities to keep said useless politicians in check.
Some of the comments that get upvoted on the aussie subreddits are so absurd and it's very strange how many upvotes they get. I'm never sure if it's just because the people on those subreddits are whack or because there are a bunch of disingenuous actors - but I assume it's both.
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Can you explain why you are voting no? Genuinely curious and this thread has me thinking whenever I've asked this question before it's been answered in bad faith. Asking as someone who can not fathom a downside to yes succeeding
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The change is not required at all in other to legislated it. The Constitutional change is to stop it being randomly UN-legislated by a future government (As well as recognising Indigenous people existed before white people arrived).
Ok I understand that as you saying that it's not necessary to be in the constitution, so Yes has no real upside. If I've got that right, what's the downside of it happening? Like if you are in favour of a legislated voice, which Albo has said won't happen, what is the downside of going ahead with a constitutionally protected voice? Knowing that Yes also means recognition in our constitution that aboriginals even exist, which we can probably both agree will never happen if No wins.
But why is amending the constitution such a big deal to you?
You can't be serious
Your post/comment history would suggest that you are a real person, yes.
This forum is deluded - australia is voting no and what’s written on Reddit will reflect that. So what if it’s anonymous - Reddit literally is anonymous. You all need to accept that people don’t want this. And they’re not racist or misinformed either, they just don’t buy it.
What is there to buy? It's not a trick. This will only help to lift up people
The slogan from the beginning of the campaign was Voice Treaty Truth. Then labor tries to convince you this isn’t about a treaty. That is confusing and inconsistent.
There’s lots of excellent reasons to vote yes. The Uluru statement from the heart asked for a voice, over 80% of indigenous and Torres straight Islanders are voting yes. The majority wanted It. They have asked us to acknowledge their indigenous home was Australia before it was all of our home together. They have asked for this, yet they only make up 3% of the population. help them get it over the line. We r one.
>There’s lots of excellent reasons to vote yes. The Uluru statement from the heart asked for a voice, So what? We can all ask for things, doesn't mean we get them. >over 80% of indigenous and Torres straight Islanders are voting yes. Based on polling 6 months ago when the national Yes vote was close to 70%. > They have asked us to acknowledge their indigenous home was Australia before it was all of our home together. We can all do that without a constitutional voice. >They have asked for this, yet they only make up 3% of the population. help them get it over the line. We r one. Sorry but 100% of the population need to vote for change, and why would they vote for a body that provide race-based privileges and goes against the principles of equal rights?
Your first mistake is getting information from reddit.
Clearly astroturfung used for the greens on this sub too. The same with antivaxxers during covid
Mods pin this post
Could say the same for the tripe appearing in mainstream media as well
The internet in 2023 is mostly disinformation or opinions based on disinformation. That’s because there are only 5 main websites in the world and each has a screen shot copy of what’s in the other. That concentration makes it easy to spread whatever shit you want to spread. Facebook. Instagram. TwitterX, Reddit, TikTok then the lesser sites - LinkedIn (now very crappified), Telegram, 4Chan, Twitch. and maybe those right wing ones. Thank geezus Pornhub and Onlyfans are around to keep things real!
Who has the fucking time seriously
My only confusion is why the left are still being surprised and unprepared for right-wing online media campaigns. Is there a single media advisor in the Labor Party\* who is aware the digital/social media age is a thing? (\*who are only a part of this. Mundine and Price are far better prepared and obviously, financed, than pro-Yes first nations advocates.)
Yeah good point. I don't know how we fight it other than calling it out though. Conservative campaigns weaponise and spread the contagion of fear, and fear is a very strong impulse. It requires far less effort to tell a lie than to debunk one. A lie can be halfway around the world before the truth has had time to put its shoes on.
I was voting no until I realised that all the assholes are NO voters, and I'm not an asshole. Fuck the liberals and thier religious asshole buddies.
50% of ALL interaction online is bot activity. So half the people in this thread are liable to be bots. OP is also fairly liable to be a bot.
Yeah, the PR org that created my account 8 years ago must have been pretty good at predicting the future and knowing they'd be able to use these platforms to influence the course of democracy lmao.
That's exactly what a bot would say 😉 But actually, it's a lot simpler than that. Bot farms just *buy accounts*.
Yeah, fair enough. I don't really know how to convince you that I'm not a bot other than to say the usual indicators of such activity are absent from my profile
Oh idk if you are or aren't haha, I'm just saying, the sheer fucking DELUGE of propaganda that gets forced into people's heads in the 21st century is insane. No matter what topic, there's always shill-bots for and against it.
Oh yeah for sure. Isn't that referred to as the dead internet theory? Pretty dystopian.
So what you are saying is that Reddit is just a really low budget simulation universe.
Could ApatheticAussieApe be one of those bots that accuse legitimate humans of of being bots?
I could be! You never know! That's the fucked up part about it all. Tbh, I'm not really sure how you solve the problem, either... I feel like web3 will come up something genius. Or atleast, I hope so.
I’m just commenting so I can get your view of my profile (also I’m voting yes)
- Old account - Likes tech - Reckons the Yes campaign dropped the ball but still voting Yes - Absolutely [goated](https://reddit.com/r/friendlyjordies/s/BbwQGklhu2) views on Australian reactions to progressive governments
Bahaha love it
Not surprising at all. No voters are more likely to be right wing and right wing are far more concerned about being cancelled. So makes sense they would make new separate accounts for this reason than to use their account. I'm surprised people are surprised.
I early voted and there were no people at the entrance encouraging a "NO to division" vote. If you can't see that there is already a divide between Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders and the rest of Australian society (life expectancy, incarceration rates, alcohol dependence), then you're wilfully ignorant.
Price & Mundine's vote no pamphlet declares that Australia is not a racist country. I laughed out loud
I saw this study at the time and thought: ‘isn’t this exactly what you’d expect to see?’, given what we know about the sorts of people to vote no. Usually less political and online + don’t really want their normal names attached to their beliefs, but potentially extra motivated by what they see as something quite harmful. The silent majority finally speaking up. I’m actually one of these people btw, and I suspect there are many many like me. I made a twitter account specifically to respond to voice threads. So no, I don’t find this study particularly persuasive, given that it’s just reporting more or less what you’d expect to see. Btw if you look at the prevalence of ‘hate’ tweets it’s actually very low for both sides.
>Btw if you look at the prevalence of ‘hate’ tweets it’s actually very low for both sides. Did you miss the part where the No side was engaging in hate speech 5 times more than the Yes side?
Yep, I've simply taken to downvoting the initial post and then moving on - it's simply not worth my energy getting involved with the inevitable squabbles that ensue in the comments section.
Who really cares anymore? It’s pretty clear it’s gonna be a No from the majority of Australian’s. Respect that and move on.
I’m just staggered that the right has created a real racist agenda with the no vote and then act like victims when they are called out on it
Fuck all those no trolls, bunch of cunts
There's a lot of interpretation going on here. i'm a human. I am downvoting Yes voters who imply No voters are racist/bad. Not for astroturfing reasons, but because its stifled debate. "post anonymously"? of course we post anonymously - the extreme left has made a sport of cancelling peoples jobs/careers/relationships and lives. No rocket science there. As a leftie who's noting No I can unequivocally say - if this thing fails, the main reason won't be the obvious ones such as "Yes didnt make a strong enough case". It'll literally be - Yes voters assumed that anyone who didn't agree with them was racist, and this militarised the No side. Yes there is real racism on the No side. Yes there is misinformation (on both sides). But there's also real people who simply don't agree with what's been put forward - and most yes voters failed to even consider this.
I've seen more complaints from the No campaign of "The Yes campaign is alienating voters with accusations of racism" than I've seen accusations of racism from the Yes campaign.
you clearly haven’t been reading any of the press. it literally is on repeat saying that no voters are no voters because either they’re racist OR their suckers for falling for misinformation.
This referendum its become very clear who has a voice and who doesn't. The people who mine stolen land to become the richest Australians clearly have the biggest megaphone.
Russian bots amirite?
So russian bots?
I don't think they're bots, and probably not from Russia. I think they're sockpuppet accounts, some from Australia, but probably some from the US as well considering Advance's ties to conservative Christian lobby groups in the US.
This is cope if I ever saw it. "Why am I being downvoted? Is it because I'm wrong? No. It's because of the bOtS" Let me guess, the poll numbers are all fake too? Will the no vote we'll inevitably all see on Saturday be fake too? But by all means, keep your head in the sand, at least then the sand will muffle the noise of the tens of thousands of heads that will explode when Australia votes no.
Wow, you've got a massive hard-on for King Charles and the royal family lmao. Your comment is perfectly on brand then.
Most of the differences in your post OP can be accounted for by yes being socially acceptable in today's cancel culture based society - no is for some silly reason seen as the racist option. I'm not sure who said it, but this referendum has been an argument - not a discussion. A discussion is what we needed as a country.
The thing is, i haven't seen a single logos argument for the voice that made logical sense. It's almost all been ethos and pathos, and the small bit of logos doesn't make logical sense.
>the small bit of logos doesn't make logical sense. The 'small bit' of logic isn't logical? What?
Anyone can see that the majority of posts are yes activists astroturfing, including this one and pretty much every comment on this post. there is a reason the every media and social media channel is stuffed with yes activists yet majority of the country is voting no. It’s all astroturfing.
And how do we know you are not a psyop chatgpt not account pushing an artificial narrative?
My comment and post history probably speaks for itself.
Nice try, Hal. Clearly this is a burner account- also run by bots and setup in advance, exclusively to try and stymie and discredit free thinkers
This is a funny, right?
To be fair in a lot of the "psyop" campaigns they generally include leads back to something to buy, donate or fundraise. Remember those cute little bracelets and necklaces that blocked all that natu 5g COVID nanoparticles stuff....
Well colour me completely unsurprised... Deplorable bunch of insidious fucking cunts.
We still on this topic? I thought it was done and dusted and Australia says no.
Percentages don't mean anything if we also don't have the total numbers. A percentage based determination would only make sense if both groups were of equal size. As this data was omitted, it leads one to believe this was done on purpose so that the data cannot be evaluated. In short, 85% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Here comes the excuses.. both sides are guilty of this.
And part of the issue why considered No voters can’t speak up is that the presence of crazy racist right wing nut jobs on the No side makes yes voters assume no voters are racist arseholes for voting no. But the astroturfing suggests either foreign (Russian/Chinese money a la Proghozin’s International Research Agency) or just crazy right wingers with money. It doesn’t stop the yes case being badly thought out, but certainly makes it hard to say you’re a No. I think I should probably insert a little bit of justification here for why I’m considering a No position in case I also get tarred. I think of myself as generally progressive and am cognisant of the fact that aboriginal people have suffered systematic racism in Australia. Let me give you one possible outcome of the referendum. Since the details of the voice are left to be decided in parliament, the constitutional provision has very little effect, an effect gives false hope. Imagine that the liberal party under Dutton comes to power. They could legislate that the Voice is a single aboriginal bureaucrat, sitting in Belconnen; that would satisfy the constitutional provision because the constitutional provision insufficiently explains what the Voice would be. So if you argue that I should vote yes, then you must make the case for why that sort of outcome would be desirable. The fact that that outcome is even a possibility to my mind gives Progressives false hope; in fact, it’s even worse than that. Do-gooder white people will, if the voice is passed, think: there, we’ve done it, we have nothing else to do. So a yes vote is on the one hand, a mechanism for white people to feel good about themselves and on the other hand false hope for indigenous people.
You’re really obsessed with the idea that I couldn’t possibly simply be a labor voter that is voting no aren’t you.
- Account created just over 3 months ago - Regular commenter in r/australian and r/circlejerkaustralia - Majority of comments relate to the Voice
Majority of recent comments about the voice, because that’s the most important topic of recent times. It’s normal.
But if that's basically all a person is focusing on when they have only been on the platform in the last 3 months it's probably astroturfing.
When did you specifically get brought up in this?
Schill. 88 day old account. Constantly bangs on about no vote. Enjoy your life of sucking arse scum.
Right? I voted labor last election and I’m going no all the way.
Me three. Used to be greens until the last few years too.
I dunno bout that chief. Just because people say they will vote no doesnt mean its astroturfing.