People use it like everyone fucking has the innate knowledge of every acronym out there
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.
Literally all VPN sponsored segments on YouTube.
Yup. There are reasons to use a VPN, mind you; but they involve the person actually knowing the risk, when it applies, and taking a cost vs. risk judgment. The FUD in those sponsors is basically “you don’t know so you might be at risk, subscribe to our VPN juuuuust in case”.
They straight out lie in those ads though. Like for example VPNs don’t protect your privacy at all when you’re browsing. Just because it says private in their name doesn’t mean you’re anonymous. Cookies and trackers work all the same via a VPN.
Or the biggest thing people forget, being logged in.
That’s an exaggeration though, most of them are coming at you with the 'hey! You can watch netflix germany now!" rather than ‘hackers are coming to get you’
Yeah they have all kinda changed their tune after Tom Scott came out saying they were all straight out lies. https://youtu.be/WVDQEoe6ZWY?si=Gnrk4Bx1kdFQStJP
After this video I could tell you tubers changed their ads. They still lie, but much less.
I’d say the ‘D’ (hah!) is more about making you doubt your position or thoughts on the matter. In your example, it’d make you doubt your choice to try using Lemmy, because of the fear and uncertainty.
It’s part of the short and distort tactic too, https://realpeoples.media/the-basics-on-cointelpro-and-how-to-counter-it/
I feel like tesla uses it to fight against Unions in Sweden
This shitty strategy is fairly used in the tech industry because most people are clueless about tech
Ah, so like every manager and client to ever exist in software development. I see
I think the D stands for ‘Division’. Divide groups with infighting such as wedge issues.
Uncertainty and doubt are synonymous.
Canonically the “D” in the acronym is understood as “doubt”, as you can see here, here (2 of 2), here. Division and infighting play no direct role here.
Uncertainty and doubt are synonymous.
They do overlap but complete synonymous are extremely rare. And I believe that, in this context, they refer to different things - the uncertainty as lack of knowledge on how something works, and the doubt on the outcome itself. (@DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com offers an alternate explanation, where the doubt is ideological.)
Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt.
It’s sometimes used as a noun for things that cause FUD, too.
As others have said Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt.
It entered tech lingo way back in the 90s when Microsoft was fighting an early wave of Linux on desktop. They would troll and present themselves as a reliable alternative.
They weren’t the first to do it. IBM’s unofficial motto in the 70s was “nobody gets fired for going with IBM”.
Guess you’re one of today’s lucky 10000
In a modern internet context:
Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt.
Often used in crypto circles when a shitty project is being accused of being a rug pull. The scammer may say “it’s just FUD, ignore it”.
On ‘the street’, if I called someone a fud, it is calling them an idiot.
Is that just a Scottish thing, ya fud?
Others have answered it pretty well, but here’s a more specific example:
In the long, long ago, IBM was the biggest seller of computer equipment, and by a wide margin. They alone decided the majority of standards in use, as well as what was coming soon. Anticompetitive monopoly tactics were standard there. For the vast majority of customers, you absolutely HAD to be compatible with whatever IBM was selling.
When one of IBM’s competitors would introduce a new and desirable product, IBM would often issue a press release. They would say that they have something similar in the works, and it won’t be compatible with the other brand. The safe option would be to wait for IBM to release theirs rather than take a risk on a whole new ecosystem. This was all despite the fact that IBM never actually had said product in development.
As a result, the customers would be afraid of being stuck on something incompatible, with an uncertain future. They wouldn’t buy it, but they would continue to buy their existing IBM options. Eventually the other product would fold (proving their fears correct), and they’d forget what IBM promised.
Or in Glasgow…
Fud means cunt, just like every other word.
Are you calling every word cunt? I can probably think of 5 words that aren’t cunt.
“Probably”
People use it like everyone fucking has the innate knowledge of every acronym out there
Or, you know, people use it like everyone fucking has the ability to use google.
Sometimes acronyms have more than one meaning, for example FPS are we talking about frames per second or first person shooter.
And sometimes bicycles are painted red.
“fear uncertainty and doubt” is a phrase I may have encountered once per year. Makes zero sense I have to Google shit all the time for a single use per year. I’m not going to remember something so utterly pointless and useless
So would you post once a year to the fediverse to find out instead?
The point was that the abbreviation’s existence is way stupider than posting about it.
It may help if you think of it like any old-timey slang. You don’t use it more than once a year, but when IBM/MS/ORACLE/CISCO were using those tactics against open source in the earlier days of the public internet - It was used a lot.
With lemmy being somewhat skewed towards the technically-minded, and older crowd, it is something we used as a general word often enough that to a lot of us it is just another word, and not an obscure abbreviation/initialism.
It means “Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt”.
It’s a modern kind of shit talking employed by large corporations in conjunction with astro turfing (pretending to be an unbiased commentator, when you’re really as biased as can be) to dissuade people from going to a competitor.
Because saying stuff like “I dunno dude, there’s been reports of a lot of problems with Product X” is a lot more persuasive than “Product X sux!!!”, especially when you don’t know the poster was paid by Company Y, a competitor, to say it.
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I get that web searches make finding knowledge easy but it kind of disturbs me that we shame people for not doing so and basically tell them “just Google it and shut up!”
Are we supposed to just never communicate with other humans aside from chit chat and personal opinions?
Never speaking to others about any info that we could glean from Google seems… weird, doesn’t it?
Who initially began the campaign of “just Google it” anyway? It sounds like an ad campaign for google
Multiple people already gave the correct answer. I did not tell him to shut up. I gave OP the tools to solve the problem himself in the future.
What are you upset about?
Would have been a lot cooler if you just didn’t reply
Was it quicker to make a post asking random people on the internet, and waiting for a factual response, than to type the same question into a search engine?
It was quicker and i had more fun.
In what context is this? I have never heard of FUD before in my life. Why the heck does Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt need to be arranged into an acronym?
Because posters on crypto/investing forums needed to refer to it frequently
Pretty much, right there with HODL.
It’s common in communities where rigid adherence to a set of beliefs is necessary to enforce cohesion. It’s commonly used to avoid engagement with “Facts U Dislike” (haha) by terminating all meaningful discussion.
Part of a flat earth forum and you’re posting an experiment you performed that suggests the earth is round? You’re spreading FUD that should be ignored.
Posting on a crypto shitcoins discord about how this kinda looks like a scam and maybe it’s not a good investment? That’s also FUD. You’re just mad that everyone else is going to be rich.
I had to look this up the other day and found it annoying. Absolutely feels like something not common enough to abbreviate to me
It depends on when you were around and reading geeky news sites. FUD came up often on Slashdot in relation to Microsoft:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty,_and_doubt#Microsoft
and the SCO v. IBM section are relevant.
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Privacy - devouring leach of society?
