lvxferre , 8 months ago

Here’s an example. Let’s say that you don’t know how open source works, and I told you the following:

Why are you in Lemmy? It’s open source so any hacker can screw with it, and infect your computer with viruses. You’ll never know, right?

That’s FUD: fear, uncertainty, and doubt. It’s a disingenuous tactic to convince you to not do something, based on the following:

• You fear a certain outcome. In this case, a computer virus.
• That fear is vaguely associated with something that is uncertain for you. In this case, how a hacker could use Lemmy to inject viruses into your computer.
• The odds of that outcome happening are doubtful; it may happen, it may not, otherwise you could call me out for not happening. In this case, even if you don’t get a virus from using Lemmy, I can still say “well, some people get it, some don’t, but let’s play it safe and avoid Lemmy.”

This shitty strategy is fairly used in the tech industry because most people are clueless about tech, but they know that it has a big impact on their lives. However you’ll also see this in politics, religious debate (Pascal’s Wager is FUD), and others.