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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'."
It would be really amazing if someone could show me a single piece of this propaganda they can trace to the Russians. Where is the evidence?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Fortunately, they won't come for Slashdot. This is News for Nerds, we never discuss things like politics or rights or surveillance...
> We are all in a cave, strapped to a stone. Everything is an illusion.
That's what Russian propaganda wants you to believe, and you are spreading it, being a Putin's "useful idiot". According to this anonymous study, of course.
That's just another "Not our fault!" lie from Hillary! supporters.
"Look! a RUSSIAN squirrel!!!!"
Hillary! lost 2008's Democrat nomination to an upstart from nowhere despite the process being rigged for her.
Hillary! damn near lost the 2016 Democrat nomination to someone who wasn't even a Democrat despite the process being rigged for her.
Hillary! lost the 2016 Presidential election despite the media doing its damndest to help her.
Hillary! might have had a chance had if she weren't an unlikable corrupt harpy and if she had some accomplishment to her name other than marrying Bill.
Wait.... how do we know whether or not this /. post is propaganda about propaganda about propaganda?
This recursion stuff gets confusing sometimes.
-- Stu
/. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
The secret group PropOrNot also listed as "allies" many journalists and publications that have never heard of the group before the article. as is evidenced by their twitter responses.
When this came to light, PropOrNot edited their web page to list them only as "related projects."
To translate what really happened here is:
The Washington Post was duped by a fake article about fake news, and then other publicans were duped by the Washington Post's article about the fake article about fake news.
Journalism is now completely dead, or at least the kind the mainstream media used to produce. Its all now just lazy he-said she-said bullshit where the only filter is the bias of the Journalists and Publications.
Investigative journalism is now only done by independent folk with hidden cameras, and released on youtube. Thats what exposed Clinton's campaign tactics and voter fraud methods, its what exposed and subsequently destroyed ACORN, and so on.
"His name was James Damore."
...could we be seeing propaganda about propaganda about propaganda?
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
Right vs. left, just stop that nonsense. There has been no right and no left for at least a decade. The divide is between extremists and people who stand with both feet on the ground. Unfortunately, it looks like extremism has become more popular.
I admit I don't keep up with this stuff. I thought the North Koreans were the bad guys I was supposed to be terrified of. Now it's the Russians? The vodka people? Damn, I only have so much time to be afraid. Make up your minds.
> We are all in a cave, strapped to a stone. Everything is an illusion.
Right, but my iStone is smoother and thinner than yours.
The "fake news" narrative is getting old. She didn't lose because of "fake news", she lost because people don't like her and because poor folks don't see Democrats in power and think "my problems will be solved" any more.
No one is going to vote any different based on telling stories about Russian influence, even if they're true stories. And you won't be able to censor the Internet effectively. If you try to, it will backfire on you.
If you want the next Democrat candidate to win, here's a suggestion for Democrats: help people. Don't just pick fights. Don't just point and jeer. Actually do something to genuinely help. Do it with a motivation to help rather than to get even with people you hate and maybe help someone in the process. Help Americans to get votes from Americans. Help a broad, inclusive population of people if you want votes from a broad population of people.
If you don't want Democrats to win, then just keep fighting. Keep calling everyone a racist or some other name. Cater exclusively to SJW crybullys who want to scream about transgenger microaggressions and cultural appropriation. Keep doing nothing for regular people. And keep telling yourself you lost because of "fake news".
Actually it's anti-establishment nationalists vs. establishment globalists.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
"They're looking at someone else's fake news instead of our fake news! It's not fair!"
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
It was never one thing. The GOP had 8 years to craft a strategy against HRC. They knew she would be running after Obama and keeping the negative spot light on her was second only to discrediting the Obama administration. Clinton was no "shittier" than any other politician, so the only way for the GOP to win was to indict politicians as a whole. This lead to Trumps win and even thought it was not the way they wanted it, they were more than willing to jump on the bandwagon.
I'm not sure I agree with you completely. I agree that extremism is more easily found, I'm not sure if that's because it's more popular or if it's simply because more individuals are willing to express it.
I do believe that both the right and the left engage in logical facilities (you should pardon the pun) left and right. A few examples:
Death penalty and abortion
Reducing taxes and budgets passed
Objecting to "nanny state" (vis a vi public support) by calling it racism, bemoaning food assistance while cutting access to birth control (Family Planning funding)
Loss of constitutional freedoms vs. gun legislation vs. disenfranchisement
Effectively limiting consumer protections (by Strengthening monopolies) while claiming to be pro-consumer
Preventing private right of action and forcing consumers to use binding arbitration (Might as well not even bother, you're not going to win even if you are right)
and on and on and on. I think the average US person has simply either gone nuckin' futz or they are lied to so completely and pervasively as to have no worthwhile information to base a rational decision on. It's so bad that I don't even bother talking to people anymore (haven't for the last 20 years). It's so bad that I am seriously limiting even discussion in fora such as here. Worse, it's no better in other countries, and even worse in some.
I blame it on the commercialization of journalism, actions by special interests, and the lack of critical thinking skills being taught in public (and many private) education. The only answer I've found so far is to simply smile, nod, and back slowly away from the more vitriolic of them, and to not bother with media news outlets anymore.
NPR, PBS, BBC and a few others are attempting to get people talking to each other. So far, I've witnessed this devolve into brutal beatings twice. Yeah. Like I'm going to go "have a reasonable discussion with someone I don't agree with".
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Not really.
The Left is all about Big State solutions, which comes under the rubrik of "Statist Collectiivism" at the state level and "globalism" at the international level.
The Right (at least in the US, but increasingly internationally) is all about Individual Liberty. Since there can be no Individual Liberty without decreasing State power it means the Right is about limiting the power of government and letting citizens and the Free Market of voluntary exchange work out solutions. This is because power (the ability to enforce your will on the unwilling) is a zero sum game - the State only gets power by taking it from individuals, and vice versa
Of course there is a consensus that all States now require governments that can use force and coercion to take the wealth of the citizens. In this sense there is a "Uniparty" where political parties clothe themselves in the rhetoric of "Left" and "Right" but the implementations always require more taxation and more power for the State - which means the Uniparty has been drifting further and further Left. To dissent with this and assert citizens should be in charge is labelled "extreme".
What is considered "extreme" merely reflects what is outside of the fashions of the self-selection sociopaths who are the State (the State is an abstract entity, what the term actually means is the group of sociopathic 'elites' who claim the mantle of "State" to impose their will on others). The divergence between what the 'elites' (and their media sychophants) consider "extreme" and the bulk of the citizenry consider "extreme" has been increasing rapidly as the State moves further and further to the Left (Big State solutions). To the 'elites' and media who consider themselves to have transcended such things as family, borders, traditional culture, conventional morality, national sovereignty anyone who believes in these things is "extreme" - but only of they are Westerners. Any other nationality wanting these this is considered normal, just not for Westerners.
Hence we have the phenomena of Brexit and the latest US Presidential election where the 'elites' and media have views vastly different from those of the general population. What the elites consider normal and desirable (dissolution of nation states and creation of a single World government which pushes their agenda) is considered "extreme" by at least 160 million Americans, and conversely the media and 'elites' consider the desire for preservation of national sovereignty and individual choice that dissents from the elite's views to be "extreme". As always it is simply a matter of perspective.
Is the West being propagandized? yes, massively. Western media's best and most subtle propaganda technique is not in telling direct falsehoods, although that has become increasingly common, but more in what facts they choose to omit, They include any facts that follow their chosen 'Narrative' and leave out any facts that would shred that Narrative. Hence, reasonable people who don't check all points of view based their conclusions on half the facts and end up believing the media perspective (the perspective of the ruling 'elites'). Those that read more widely or have alternative sources of information that give more of the facts end up with different conclusions - mostly against the memes of the media and 'elites'. Once you understand that the propaganda comes through what is chosen to be talked about and more importantly what is not said, then you see an extremely consistent pattern - which means this is deliberate. Unfortunately this is invisible to most people, so they end up adopting the media and globalist positions very stridently and attack their fellow citizens, when it is the latter that is in possession of the more relevant facts.
So yes, the "Russian propaganda" meme comes from the media and elites. It may or may not be true, that is actually irrelevant. What it does is reinforce the chosen Narrative of the media and elites and provides them the excuse they want to crush
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
Right, but my iStone is smoother and thinner than yours.
My note 7 stone is warmer than yours.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
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
Ahh yes. "My side is sensible. The other side is extreme/insane/[insert slur here]." That's some well-reasoned analysis there.
Does your side actually do things to help the people whose votes you want? Maybe telling them to vote for you because you helped them might work better than telling them to vote for you because otherwise you'll call them names.
The biggest sign of extremism for me is when someone takes a stand and declares their side to be the right one and the other side to be the wrong one. Loyalty to a party of faction should come dead last in priorities, Put loyalty to fellow citizens first, even if they have different political stances.
Maybe I'm dense, but isn't it Congress' job to renew laws that have expiry dates? I skimmed the article but it didn't seem to clarify what I'm confused about. Is it the case that the R team did their right honorable duty as true statesmen to renew that law and Obama failed to sign it? The R team did have a majority in at least one branch of Congress in 2013, didn't they? My memory is hazy.
I mean, good grief. The president isn't a dictator. That's also why I'm not very worried at all about Trump! Trump! Trump! or even Darth Pence.
Also a good reason to have contempt for the D team when it had control of both houses of Congress 2008-2010. They could have passed something less corrupt than Obamneycare.
Like I'm going to go "have a reasonable discussion with someone I don't agree with".
How would anyone know whether they disagreed with you? A "reasonable discussion" requires explanations of your thoughts. A list of half-articulated observations isn't something people can "reasonably" discuss.
I'm sure some people will react and emote with you though. And congratulate themselves for being righteous because ... well, mostly because they enjoy thinking they're righteous and better than other people.
I think you're pretty much right in regards of the analysis what is happening, but you've subscribed to some propaganda on who is doing what. Because the forces at play in the US are first and foremost authoritarian and to the right (the latter of which doesn't really matter in the scheme of things).
I think this here shows this neatly:
https://www.politicalcompass.o...
"left" and "right" are solely economic points of view. You could also call them "socialist" and "capitalist". There's nothing in there about "liberty".
If you think there is some great conflict between "authoritarian" and "libertarian" at play there (or even "the Left" or "the Right" are on the side of "liberty"), you've just become the playball of propaganda. Because the only side here that's even playing is authoritarian, and it has won, it sets the policies, and orchestrates the propaganda. Of course it's nice to be able to constantly blame "the other side" for the shit you're doing. Which is what happens. Even if the other side happens to be firmly in your own camp.
Yes, there are people in the US fighting for liberty, but they're not "the Left" or "the Right", they're the ones that don't run your country. At all.
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse