Slashdot Mirror
Czech Republic Sets Up Counter-Terrorism Unit To Counter Fake News Threat (cnn.com)
According to CNN, the Czech Republic is setting up a new counter-terrorism unit to combat the rise of fake news or "foreign disinformation campaigns." The counter-terrorism unit is called "The Center Against Terrorism and Hybrid Threats," and is due to start operating on Sunday, according to an interior ministry statement. CNN reports: The new center is intended to monitor internal security threats, including attacks on soft targets and extremism, as well as "disinformation campaigns related to internal security." Its establishment follows the publication in September of a Czech intelligence service report that identified Russian disinformation and cyber-espionage activities as a potential threat to the Czech Republic, European Union and NATO. The Czech Republic is due to hold a general election next year. According to the Czech Security Information Service (BIS) annual report, Russia in 2015 used "influence and information operations" to try to manipulate public opinion in the Czech Republic in relation to Syria and Ukraine. Russia is involved in conflicts in both these countries. Russia's hybrid warfare operations included "weakening the strength of Czech media" through "covert infiltration of Czech media and the Internet, massive production of Russian propaganda and disinformation controlled by the state," the report said. Other Russian operations included founding puppet organizations, the "covert and open support of populist or extremist subjects," and "disrupting the coherence and readiness of NATO and the EU," the report claimed. "The above-mentioned activities pose a threat to the Czech Republic, EU and NATO not only in relation to the Ukrainian and Syrian conflicts. "The infrastructure created for achieving these goals will not disappear with the end of the two conflicts. It can be used to destabilize or manipulate Czech society or political environment at any time, if Russia wishes to do so." According to the Czech interior ministry, its new unit won't be interrogating anyone, censoring online content or bringing legal proceedings, nor will it "have a button for 'switching off the internet.'" But it will monitor threats, inform the public about "serious cases of disinformation" and promote internal security expertise.
While there was plenty of dirty pool to go around in the Democratic primary fake news was non existent. I was knee deep in politics and the 'Fake News' sited in that article didn't register with me. And I waited in line two hours to vote Bernie.
Bernie also lost because we let a ruling elite decide our politicians (google the phrase "Sheldon Primary" sometime). That had more to do with it than just about anything. And don't forget, the Democrats have a lot of economic right wingers who are just social liberals. Bernie didn't fly well with them. Honestly I don't think Bernie would have won the primary for just that reason. Which makes all the Dirty Pool even stupider. It was completely unnecessary.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
lots and lots of page views. Worse, Fake News only really works with the worst sort. Either people who aren't all there (Alzheimer's, which given aging populations is a real problem) or folks who never learned critical thinking (which, despite what the right ring will tell you, is a skill that can be taught. That's what all those English Classes are for).
The worst thing is you can't even harness Fake News for good. The sort of person who's on the ball enough to do good isn't going to fall for Fake News. Where the sort of person who is just needs a little push in the right direction to do something nasty. That's why you don't see left wing Fake News very much. The ones selling it (not good natured lefties but folks in the page views biz) admitted as much when asked in several interviews. Lefty Fake News gets debunked too fast to spread like good Fake News needs to...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Why was my post modded down, but APK's wasn't?
Because I'm out of mod points.
Often the truth isn't even hidden.
Let's look at the recent and ongoing illegal immigration disaster unfolding in Europe.
A lot of the time the news reports include photos or video footage that contradicts what is claimed in the associated written or spoken report.
We'll see reports that discuss how most are supposedly Syrian refugees, but the photos and footage will show large numbers of Sub-Saharan Africans.
We'll see reports that discuss how most of them are supposedly women and children, but the photos and footage will show large numbers of young, fighting-age men, with almost no women and children to be seen.
We'll see reports that talk about how peaceful and law-abiding these people supposedly are, but the photos and footage show them attacking lorries in Calais, or fighting with border officials in Greece, or sneaking into Europe illegally, or committing yet another violent attack against European civilians.
Just looking at and analyzing the pictures and video footage, and ignoring what's written or said in the associated report, will give a more accurate depiction of what's actually going on.
So basically the problem is that Russia is pushing its own war propaganda against government's own. Fake news is likely to be on both sides.
You haven't seen the extent of Russian trolling. The so called "Olgino brigade" (well, they have multiple offices and the one at Olgino has long since moved) dominate any comment section on a story even remotely connected to Russia, Ukraine, US, Israel, Turkey, etc, on most prominent news sites. They up-mod each other, operating many many sockpuppets through proxies in the country. While they generally speak good Polish (or in this case, Czech), they are trivial to spot: for example, they love to call any opposition "fascist" -- that's a term which was massively used in Soviet propaganda but in Poland used exclusively for Mussolini's Italy even during the commie times -- where an American would say "nazi" we have "hitlerite", so use of "fascist" stands out. In the past they had to mention "Right Sector" in every sentence, nowadays they go for UPA or Bandera. Somehow they're also extremely anti-semitic (not sure what's the gain for Russia here).
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
In Russia they call anyone they dislike a fascist. Any government that disagrees with Putin is a fascist, any government that wants to align with the west is fascist, any nation that allied with Nazis over fear of USSR invasions is called fascist. It is sort of the equivalent of Americans calling people they don't like, socialists. Because Russia had such a rough time of it after the USSR breakup (despite that being a good thing on the whole) they tend to lean back on winning in WWII as a point of personal pride. We have dimwitted people in the US saying "you'd all be speaking German if it wasn't for us!" and so similarly the dimwitted people in Russia will accuse othesr who are opposed to Russian government policies as nazi or fascist.
This fake news stuff is getting boring. Let's start a conspiracy theory instead: the CIA splashed a Russian military plane in retaliation for helping Wikileaks expose Clinton and the rest of the Democrats as people you wouldn't trust to walk your dog.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/28/europe/russian-military-plane-crash/index.html
I mean, it's a troll, and a bad one, but you could at least try a little harder. "critical of white cis-hetero men"? I can't tell if you're attacking or supporting feminism. In either case I got none of that in my English class. I had one class built around that sorta thing and it was mostly there to give me exposure to other cultures/ideas in the hopes that any lingering racism I might have picked up from my folks I might disabuse myself of (how's that for Intellectual Snobbery, I used the phrase "disabused of". Hope I used it correctly...).
And I litterally have no idea what you're last comment is about. Again, please try harder. If you're gonna troll me I need to understand the trolling well enough to respond. C-, see me after class.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
There's lots of bad to say about Monsanto. GMOs make a lot of people nervous because we don't fully understand them; and by 'we' I mean all of us. It's not like we've got a 100% perfect grasp on genetic engineering. Still most progressives when pressed will admit that it's the only solution to feed our population. Sure, we've got nutters who'll disagree, but they're our nutters and we recognize them as such.
As a progressive (and a Democratic Socialist who waited in line 3 hours to vote Bernie) I'm nervous about Nuclear. Fukushima isn't exactly a glowing recommendation (it glowed, I suppose). The trouble with nuclear is that sooner or later some asshat "Job Creator" is going to take over the plant with promises of all the money privatization will save and cut maintenance and safety. Which is exactly what happened in Japan. Until Nuclear plants are cheaper to run and maintain safely than not or until American embraces government regulation I'll stick with Natural Gas fired plants and as much wind/solar as I can get.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The title is also part of the tag line. Ie fox NEWS. Its not news, but they sure pretend it is, and its not anywhere near 4 hours a day, its at best 20 minutes a session with three sessions a day or 1 out of 24.
Fox "news" is one of the most succesfull propaganda campaigns in history and the purveyours of fake news have copied the model and abandoned trying to be subtle. The fairness doctrine needs to be re-established for broadcast television and truth in advertising enforced by the FTC with severe financial penalties for fraud.
What a bullshit. The above post is a typical example of how Russian propaganda works. Spreading doubt by repeating blatant bullshit. The Czech government doesn't publish fake news or propaganda. Russians and manu0601 just don't get what propaganda is and that not the whole world thinks in the same twisted way as they do. Hint: Giving a press conference is not propaganda. (BTW, there is not much propaganda from the Russian government either except in the Ukraine conflict, when the Russian government simply 'lost it' - the downing of that airliner was really a big mishap and after the first misstep was taken, there was no turning back.)
The state sponsored Russian trolls do not spread much fake news and their goals are not to inform anyone about anything. They are not an 'alternate source of information', as they would like to spin their purpose for obvious reasons. It's all about spreading disinformation and doubts to further some extremely imperialist, outdated and fairly fascist world view that Putin and his rich oligarch friends for some bizarre reason deem appropriate.
The big question is why they keep cultivating this outdated world view. Putin and his oligarch friends are consistently leading their country backwards and want to spread their idiocy elsewhere when there is no reason for it. The Cold War is long over, they could have opened up their country easily. Russia could be a flourishing major world power and economy by now. Instead, Putin has turned it into a fucked up oligarchic shithole that attempts to annex other countries and propagates ridiculous outdated views about 'masculinity' and 'nationalism' to the outside world that make no sense in the 21st Century. Meanwhile, everyone with a brain moves away from Russia (even the oligarchs!) or drinks himself to death. It's really quite mysterious why Putin keeps ruining his country even though he could easily change it for the better. Maybe this has something to do with his past and/or lack of sound advisors. Anyway, Russia is a really weird anachronism. The problem is that Putin may be the last one who could fix it, his successor might be like a transition from Lenin to Stalin...