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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...
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."
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".
Well, Americans didn't stay home.
CNN right now says Trump has 62,693,993 votes in the popular vote. That's more than any Republican has ever gotten in the popular vote (closest was George Bush in 2004, with 62,040,610). Obviously, these numbers are influenced by there being more Americans than before, and Trump is at 46.3% of the popular vote, while GWB's reelection was 51%. It is off by a few percent only, however- whatever the magnitude of Trump's thing, it still only affected a couple voters out of every hundred.
For comparison, Obama got 69.5 million votes in 2008, and 66 million in 2012, to Clinton's 65 million.
I feel that the solid performance of the 3rd parties this time around is the big thing not being talked about. Gary Johnson in 2012 set yellow team records for a Libertarian with 1.3 million votes. In 2016, he got over 4 million votes- Wikipedia says it is "more votes than the previous eight Libertarian presidential tickets combined", and was over 3%. The Greens got .36% of the vote in 2012, and 1% of the popular vote.
The reason that the 3rd party tickets are interesting is that *both are the same candidates as in 2012*. It is implausible that Johnson and Stein quadrupled and tripled in popularity- it is much more likely that many voters who consider themselves leaning towards the libertarians or the greens, but who usually vote for republicans or democrats, instead did not, driven away by the candidates.
America didn't seem to stay home, is my point- they definitely chose third party options a lot more than normal, though.
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.
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.
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.