How Propaganda Destroys Unity in The United States
This is the story of how I found 50501 thanks to a calculated online disinformation campaign designed to discredit this movement before it even began. But, before I jump into that, let’s rewind…
I still remember sitting in our “computer room” as an adolescent, listening to the shrieking sounds of our desktop modem connecting to AOL, feeling like I was about to have the world at my fingertips. Back then, the internet was mostly a garble of Netscape web pages filled with dancing pixelated GIFs and seedy chat rooms where everyone was greeted by “a/s/l?” But through the haze of bizarre screen names and almost impossible-to-use search engines, the potential of this new information highway was intoxicating.
Imagine, all the knowledge in the world, universally accessible! As the internet filled with information about anything one could think of—and many things most have never heard of—I had so much hope that this would help create a more fact-based society and allow us to advance our knowledge to the next level. My hope flourished as more and more people got online, as computers shrunk in size until they could fit in our pockets, and as they shrunk in cost until almost anyone could afford one.
Boy, was I wrong.
OK. Perhaps “wrong” isn’t entirely accurate. The internet has given us a plethora of facts and has truly increased the flow of knowledge and sharing of information. Social networks have helped us stay connected with long-lost friends and faraway family. Heck, I can even credit the internet for introducing me to my husband. However, the internet is also the perfect example of yin and yang. Where there is information, there is equal, if not greater, disinformation.
It turns out, the internet is the perfect tool for spreading propaganda. As a Director of IT in an educational setting, part of my role is to teach adults and children about Digital Citizenship, which is summed up as both how to be safe online and how to not be a jerk online. Another part of my role involves understanding how mis/dis/malinformation spreads. It spreads like wildfire, especially through social media, and not by accident but through deliberate tactics. The cacophony of misinformation makes people unable to tell truth from lies, and lays the perfect groundwork for an authoritarian regime to control the public through propaganda.
Here’s how it works: the same addictive social media algorithms that cause us to doomscroll for days are also optimal for spreading propaganda. And, the online propaganda isn’t just targeted at one demographic, but is widespread across the sociopolitical spectrum. Countless studies and articles expose the use of online propaganda, particularly by authoritarian governments like Russia and China—the largest perpetrators of online propaganda—exposing their reach and efficacy. Propaganda campaigns influence elections, public opinion, legislation and, in my opinion, have played a heavy hand in creating the wide divide we are experiencing among Americans today.
So, how did this propaganda machine bring me to 50501? Like many of you, once this current administration took office and the “shock and awe” phase began to dismantle our Constitutional rights, I initially felt powerless. I began looking for effective ways to use my voice and privilege to stand up for my country. While protesting was not my first choice—due to being busy working full time and raising children while balancing a disability that makes it hard to trust my body—I perked up when I first learned that this new group 50501 was organizing protests across the country on February 5th, 2025.
I was curious. My curiosity led me to search the web for more information. In the early days, there wasn’t a lot out there. I found the 50501 Reddit, and eventually the Discord and I did what many of us do online: I lurked. From a bird’s-eye-view these seemed like legit albeit haphazardly thrown together protests. But, a few days before February 5th, I found a post that caught my eye:
I have purposefully obfuscated the account that posted this, but I’ve left the community safety warning. I was able to find this same main post with the identical safety warning spread all over liberal-leaning social media. It was always a Facebook post image, but it was on Bluesky, Reddit, Substack and, naturally, all Meta apps.
My spidey-sense immediately tingled, and I recalled principles from my Digital Citizenship course. This was a disinformation campaign, and an effective one too! How could I tell? Well, first off, the language used in that big red banner, “COMMUNITY SAFETY WARNING” looked similar to other auto-generated warnings on social media platforms, but it was not a standard one. Secondly, the “r/Albuquerque” was referenced in every image I saw, regardless of the state it was posted in. Third, when the same image originating from one social media platform is circulated among multiple platforms and posted from multiple accounts, it should raise an eyebrow: a single source with no fact checking information was picked up and spread around. And finally, it invoked fear and was repetitive—both tenets of propaganda.
My suspicion was that the original warning infiltrated social media, likely by bots, and was then picked up by legitimate activist communities. Without doing any research, these groups reposted and warned their members to steer clear of this new group. Some even went so far as to speculate that because “5-0” was in the name that it was clearly a police trap and we would be walking to our doom.
Now I was definitely going to the protest! If this new grassroots movement group caused this much fear that there was an orchestrated propaganda campaign to scare people away before it even began, then they must be doing something right!
February 5th came. There were over 50 protests throughout the nation—at least one in every state. They stayed peaceful and lawful, despite any misgivings spread by the disinformation campaign. In Boston, I showed up with my sign, nervous as I walked towards the State House. I hadn’t been to a protest downtown since 2017 when our borders were shut and immigrant rights were threatened. I could not stay home then, even though I was pregnant with my oldest child, and I could not stay home now. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I felt too old to be going out protesting and I was keeping exit routes in mind just in case I felt the need to flee.
I was greeted by an older woman proudly holding her sign high in the air with a smile on her face, and I suddenly felt like I was where I should be. I passed a counter-protester holding up a “Only Two Genders” sign, who was engaged in conversation with another protester. The fellow protester looked up at me and asked, “Are you a Democrat?” When I responded with, “No,” he turned back to the counter-protester and said, “See?! I told you we’re not all Democrats!” It was an oddly cordial interaction between the protester and counter-protester, despite the divisiveness of his sign.
For an hour we chanted, we rallied, and we came together in a solidarity that I had not felt sitting behind screens at home. Despite the bitter cold, when I left, I was warm with a feeling of hope and purpose that I had temporarily lost after the election. Not only was 50501 not a trap, but it was the wakeup call that I needed to rally back into action.
Misinformation and propaganda campaigns, like the one launched against 50501 in February, are purposeful. They are meant to scare us into staying at home. They are meant to induce us to retreat into our own internet echo chambers. And they are meant to pit us against each other. Oh, and, sometimes they are extremely effective. The division caused by internet propaganda over the past 10+ years is directly related to the threat to our democracy that we face today. Let me give you an antidote:
First, research before you repost. You have the onus to ensure what you share is fact, not fiction, or else you contribute to the problem.
Get offline, especially off social media, and form real relationships in your community. The creation of community is an act of resistance under an authoritarian regime.
When you do go online be mindful that, especially on social media, you are the product. Keep this in the forefront of your online communications and be mindful of what you amplify. Don’t be fooled by clickbait.
Read books. Follow independent journalists. Return to long-form media to enrich your knowledge.
Lastly, learn to build bridges with those who you don’t think you can agree with. I know this is a touchy subject, and I am not at all insinuating you should place yourself in abusive relationships. However, we are all in different stages of learning and if we do not spread knowledge we will not grow. To learn is to look at things from different perspectives. We get those perspectives from each other. Enter conversations with an open mind and patience and you may be surprised how much common ground we all have.
Propaganda is not new. It is an effective multifaceted tool used to sway and divide. We must learn to turn away from the noise and reunite with our neighbors if we want to save our United States and allow it to evolve to a country that extends the American Dream to all of our people. Internet propaganda has divided us. It is time we reunite.
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