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Are We Seeing Propaganda About Russian Propaganda? (rollingstone.com)
MyFirstNameIsPaul was one of several readers who spotted this disturbing instance of fake news about fake news. An anonymous reader writes:
Last week the Washington Post described "independent researchers" who'd identified "more than 200 websites as routine peddlers of Russian propaganda" that they estimated were viewed more than 200 million times on Facebook. But the researchers insisted on remaining anonymous "to avoid being targeted by Russia's legions of skilled hackers," and when criticized on Twitter, responded "Awww, wook at all the angwy Putinists, trying to change the subject -- they're so vewwy angwy!!"
The group "seems to have been in existence for just a few months," writes Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, calling the Post's article an "astonishingly lazy report". (Chris Hedges, who once worked on a Pulitzer Prize-winning team at the New York Times, even found his site Truthdig on the group's dubious list of over 200 "sites that reliably echo Russian propaganda," along with other long-standing sites like Zero Hedge, Naked Capitalism, and the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.) "By overplaying the influence of Russia's disinformation campaign, the report also plays directly into the hands of the Russian propagandists that it hopes to combat," complains Adrian Chen, who in 2015 documented real Russian propaganda efforts which he traced to "a building in St. Petersburg where hundreds of young Russians worked to churn out propaganda."
The Post's article was picked up by other major news outlets (including USA Today), and included an ominous warning that "The sophistication of the Russian tactics may complicate efforts by Facebook and Google to crack down on 'fake news'."
The group "seems to have been in existence for just a few months," writes Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, calling the Post's article an "astonishingly lazy report". (Chris Hedges, who once worked on a Pulitzer Prize-winning team at the New York Times, even found his site Truthdig on the group's dubious list of over 200 "sites that reliably echo Russian propaganda," along with other long-standing sites like Zero Hedge, Naked Capitalism, and the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.) "By overplaying the influence of Russia's disinformation campaign, the report also plays directly into the hands of the Russian propagandists that it hopes to combat," complains Adrian Chen, who in 2015 documented real Russian propaganda efforts which he traced to "a building in St. Petersburg where hundreds of young Russians worked to churn out propaganda."
The Post's article was picked up by other major news outlets (including USA Today), and included an ominous warning that "The sophistication of the Russian tactics may complicate efforts by Facebook and Google to crack down on 'fake news'."
Fortunately, they won't come for Slashdot. This is News for Nerds, we never discuss things like politics or rights or surveillance...
This story presents facts about Russia's troll factory in St. Petersburg, just as I have done in numerous previous postings and got hammered by the Russian trolls. Go ahead, check my most recent postings to see how the trolls mindlessly mod me down for reporting facts about this troll factory, about the continuing shipments of cargo 200 from Ukraine (i.e. dead Russian soldiers), the terrorists in Ukraine who openly admit Russian soldiers are fighting there and supplying them with arms and munitions, or the Russian soldiers who state they have been sent to Ukraine and have fought there, and finally, the law which Putin signed which bars Russian mothers from talking about their sons who have died while fighting in Ukraine or even talking with other mothers about these deaths. Or course the graves of these dead Russian soldiers say otherwise, as do reports from eyewitnesses and families.
This story need to be modded down in like fashion. Wouldn't want the Russian trolls to have to see the facts of their dear leader's propaganda industry.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I mean, it's bullshit for the reason the summary said- they basically accused Ron Paul of being a KGB agent. If the Russian propaganda machine is secretly vigorously promoting conservative libertarians, free market libertarians, and every right wing blog they can name, give me a fucking break. Just like when they made a list of "fake news" sites that somehow included every single right wing website except fox news, and it was some liberal professor who made the list. Just because the right has loonies doesn't mean that the left loonies should be dug up and given a grand platform to blather.
"We have always been at war with Eastasia." -- George Orwell, "1984"
Three and a half years ago the US government, under the Obama administration, let the ban on propagandizing US citizens expire - and immediately began writing and spreading "fake news".
From an FP article dated July 14, 2013:
So the only thing new here is US citizens noticed one of the government's renewed, official, domestic propaganda operations.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Okay, so PA won't be recounted - they've passed the deadline. MI's AG has said he'll move to block the recount, so nothing will happen there. W/o PA, recounting MI and WI is worthless: even if they flip those 2 states to Hilary, it won't change the overall results.
So does Jill Stein have any mechanism and plan to return these donations when the recount ends? Answer is no: she's said that their costs are running higher, but the recounts ain't even happening in PA. Which is a way of disguising the fact that she plans to pocket the cash for the Green Party once the recounts end/get rejected/aborted.
It's funny when the Right screams voter fraud, the left calls them all stupid because they have no evidence.
When he Left screams voter fraud from Russian hackers that they have zero evidence of, we have to waste millions of taxer payer money with lawsuits and recounts.
There is a difference between voter fraud and election fraud. Voter fraud is when an individual is able to cast a vote they are not supposed to. So far there has only been 4 cases of actual voter fraud this election. Election fraud is on a massive scale where hundreds or thousands of votes are changed or suppressed. It is easier to change the outcome of an election with a rigged election. Republicans falsely claim that voter fraud is a massive problem, so when they control state legislatures, they gerrymander districts and pass onerous voter ID laws that make it difficult or impossible for people who don't generally vote Republican (usually people of color) to vote (they don't need Russian hackers). This is a form of election fraud (but legal). Other forms of election fraud are tampered with ballot boxes like that has been reported in the Wisconsin recount. Democrats claim election fraud. They are not the same or equivalent. Election fraud can be harder to prove or do much about.
We need a balloting system that is auditable. A recount isn't an audit. An audit checks to make sure the system is working as it is supposed to and that votes are counted and reported accurately. This usually means some sort of paper trail. You can still use electronic voting machines as long as it prints a record that can be viewed.
As a side note, I favor an instant-runoff balloting system so that voter preferences are recorded, so that a candidate in a multi candidate election, a candidate doesn't win with a plurality of votes (Candidate A gets 39%, Candidate B gets 37%, Candidate C gets 24%. Candidate A wins but 61% didn't vote for him).
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Unfortunately, it looks like extremism has become more popular.
Not from where I'm sitting. From everything Trump has said and done after the election, he's actually been quite reasonable - it's Clinton supporters that have gone insane, and during the election were pulling every dirty trick possible to win. Reasonableness triumphed over extremism for once, I'm hoping it's the start of a trend.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So does Jill Stein have any mechanism and plan to return these donations when the recount ends? Answer is no:
http://www.jill2016.com/how_wi...
By no, you mean of course yes.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
So a 13-year-old girl declared she was gang rape. A journalist picked up the story and some Russian TV channel talked about it, without making sure the rape was real. This kind of sloppy journalism is common everywhere. I live in Quebec and here absolutely all mainstream media will do it (the only difference is our media will hide the ethnicity of the alleged rapist if he's black or Muslim).
Then Russia's Foreign Minister made a comment implying the German police could try to minimize the case to protect asylum seekers. Considering the German police did exactly that after the Cologne attacks (as well as other multiple attacks in other German cities), also considering that the police admit it was at least statutory rape, yet try to minimize this as "child abuse", I'd say the comment was justified.
Then, the BBC decided to use this story about this sloppy journalism and a somewhat legitimate comment from a Russian Minister to try to spin it into some kind of "Russian propaganda".
The truth is this article is an example of anti-Russian propaganda, not an example of the supposed Russian propaganda. This BBC story is an example of the typical "fake news" that plagues our mainstream media. And the fact that you can't see it is frightening.