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Russian Fake News Ecosystem Targets Syrian Human Rights Workers (securityledger.com)
chicksdaddy shares a report from The Security Ledger: Kremlin linked news sites like RT and Sputnik figure prominently in an online disinformation campaign portraying Syrian humanitarian workers ("White Helmets") as terrorists and crisis actors, according to an analysis (PDF) by researchers at University of Washington and Harvard. An online "echosystem" of propaganda websites including Russia backed news outlets Sputnik and RT is attacking the credibility of humanitarian workers on the ground in rebel occupied Syria, according to a new analysis by researchers at The University of Washington and Harvard University. Online rumors circulated through so called "alternative" media sites have attacked the Syrian Civil Defense (aka "White Helmets") as "crisis actors" and Western agents working on behalf of the U.S. and NATO. Statistical analysis of the online rumors reveal a tight network of websites sharing nearly identical content via Twitter and other social media platforms, wrote Kate Starbird. Starbird is an Assistant Professor of Human Centered Design & Engineering at University of Washington and a leading expert on so-called "crisis informatics."
In activity reminiscent of the disinformation campaigns that roiled the U.S. Presidential election in 2016, articles by what Starbird describes as "a few prominent journalists and bloggers" writing for self described "alternative" news sites like 21stCenturyWire, GlobalResearch, MintPressNews, and ActivistPost are picked up by other, smaller and more niche websites including both left- and right-leaning partisan news sites, "clickbait sites," and conspiracy theory websites. Government funded media outlets from Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Russia figure prominently in the Syrian disinformation campaign, Starbird's team found. In particular, "Russian government-funded media outlets (i.e. SputnikNews and RT) play a prominent and multi-faceted role within this ecosystem," she wrote.
In activity reminiscent of the disinformation campaigns that roiled the U.S. Presidential election in 2016, articles by what Starbird describes as "a few prominent journalists and bloggers" writing for self described "alternative" news sites like 21stCenturyWire, GlobalResearch, MintPressNews, and ActivistPost are picked up by other, smaller and more niche websites including both left- and right-leaning partisan news sites, "clickbait sites," and conspiracy theory websites. Government funded media outlets from Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Russia figure prominently in the Syrian disinformation campaign, Starbird's team found. In particular, "Russian government-funded media outlets (i.e. SputnikNews and RT) play a prominent and multi-faceted role within this ecosystem," she wrote.
For millennials (particularly the one that posted this): 'fake news' is only a concern if you, the dumbass, believe it. 'Fake news' has been with us under its former name, 'propaganda' since human beings have had the ability to relay information to one another, and yet, time and humanity have marched on. Is there anything, anything at all, that folks 35 and under are capable of applying critical thought to? Is there a single millennial out there that wasn't molded into just a human-robot-victim hybrid by their parents? If this is representative of your 'higher education', you are right: your degrees are worthless. Just because you invent a name for something and start a meme does not mean you have personally discovered anything or that your style of sharing is anythng resembling accute or profound. Your parents have created the most epic failure of intelligence, consciousness, and presence of mind or heart the world has ever seen.
This isn't about Democrats, Republicans, Hillary or Trump. Russia didn't care about our politics, they cared about destabilizing us. They did so by making us turn against each other. Over 50 million ad impressions per week. If you're on Facebook, you saw them. And they were designed so that the people who saw them would be most likely to engage (like/comment/share). https://www.usatoday.com/story...
For context:
3,393 advertisements purchased (a total 3,519 advertisements total were released after more were identified by the company);
More than 11.4 million American users exposed to those advertisements;
470 IRA-created Facebook pages;
80,000 pieces of organic content created by those pages; and
Exposure of organic content to more than 126 million Americans.
Half of Americans saw their content.
There are no "moderate rebels" and there are no knights in white hats. There are terrorists of varying degrees of viciousness, funded, trained and armed by the US and UK, trying to overthrow another government. The real propaganda is the US media, working on behalf of the oligarchs, OWNED by the oligarchs, who are the real power in our broken government.
We dodged a bullet not letting Clinton take us to war with Russia, but Trump is just a patsy. If they can't get him into a war in Syria, they'll do it in Iran.
The main stream media did report that intelligence showed there were no weapons of mass destruction.
In activity reminiscent of the disinformation campaigns that roiled the U.S. Presidential election in 2016
[At the cost of some karma....]
I looked through about 100 of the Facebook ads in the dump and got bored. They were targeted at anything polarizing. Presumably later ones were around the two candidates, but I didn't see it.
The early ones were all inciting LGBTxxx, Black Racist, White Racist, Pro/Anti Immigration, Anti-Police passions. Most of the ads had almost no exposure receiving on the order of 0-10 clicks and a few dozen views, although a few received over 1k views and dozens of clicks.
Seems to be a long running low level propaganda operation aimed at dividing the US into camps/sowing dissent/keeping wounds open. Considering the polarization in the country, it could well be working in the long run, but I don't think we can honestly blame our woes on external actors.
It would be more accurate to state that the -reaction- to the disinformation campaigns roiled the post election year.
Definitely worth seeing if anything can be done about them because of the long term damage they are designed to do, but not significant in a single election. I am not terribly optimistic about countermeasures however, Russia will just get a bit better at hiding their connection to ads and everything will continue on as it has.
--- Mercutio was right.
Even if you aren't a ShareBlue paid shill, you unfortunately are propagating their ideas. You should really consider signing up with them and picking up a paycheck for doing nothing more than posting your views on your 12 year old account. They pay extra for that kind of authenticity. ShareBlue is the flagship of progressive anti Trump opposition and if you're not on board with them, you should be. You're just working for free, which makes you a sucker. :(
Lets back up a little.
The OP expressed a very common and valid viewpoint.
The AC replied accusing the OP of being a member of a policial advocacy group, seemingly Shareblue, and made a fairly strong implication that the OP was astroturfing.
The OP denied the ridiculous charges.
And now you jump in and suggest... I don't even understand what your argument actually is. That the OP is no longer supposed to advocate for their beliefs because there exists a progressive news site, that you accuse of astroturfing?
I stole this Sig
Every once in a while, a story comes up on /. that makes me question the authors sanity. This is one of them.
There is plenty of reason to doubt the neutrality and motives of the White Helmets, outside of and being shared around long before any Russian news stories. There are plenty of pictures where the same people are seen as victims in different locations, and the curious fact that the White Helmets are routinely at the scene immediately and seemingly active exclusively in islamist-controlled territory.
So what is this story? FUD? Did too many questionable details about these guys surface recently?
From an outside perspective, two things seem to be obvious: One, the White Helmets are doing humanitarian work and providing emergency services to civilian victims in a war zone. Two, they are clearly aligned with one of the sides in this conflict.
Neither of these diminishes the importance of the other.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Yes, it's no longer the Slashdot it once was when you first joined... today.
Hi Vlad!
They did so by making us turn against each other.
As if you needed any help in that area.
What is turning people against each other is the doctrine of total competition that neo-liberalism has brought to every aspect of modern life. It used to be limited to sports and the workspace and even there we had rules of fair play.
During the cold war, there was a balance between capitalism and socialism in most western countries, because it was understood that releasing the full barrage of unrestricted capitalism on people would make them turn towards communism. After communism (rightfully) fell, that balance wasn't necessary any longer.
Really, the biggest thing Russia ever did to regular Americans was crumbling down and dropping communism. The ripple effect of that is still showing itself today with every year the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer while employee rights get demolished, regulations abandoned, any echos of the New Deal or similar compromises in other western countries are lost and the future of future generations is sold for the benefit of next quarters profits.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Don't be stupid.
Wow. Complaining about a lack of "trusted news authority" and then citing breitbart.com. That's stupid squared.
You are welcome on my lawn.
One example is "Weapons of Mass Destruction" fake news which was publicized by almost all main stream media
I remember it being all over the news that that was a fake claim by the government. it seems you've fallen into the "fake news" trap by believing fake claims about the media.
I check at least one contrary argument before making my mind.
Not every story has two sides.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
"just real Nerds" who only created their Slashdot account today are complaining about spammers.
The Internet Research Agency must be having a hard time hiring good people.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Buddy, I've been on slashdot since I stumbled upon Chips and Dips looking for hints on how to use gimp. Rob had some cool ideas and I stayed for the tech news. The fact that this site has an obvious political bias makes me sick when I remember it was all about tech and not 15 pages of: "well this is tech because well reasons and global warming" or "you better believe this needs to be talked about because 'tenuous reasons' and Trump said mean things" which somehow peripherally affects tech--it doesn't. At this point, i'd be happy sitting in a global warming induced desert on my russian government controlled non-net neutral, non general purpose, NSA, FSA, and Chinese intelligence backdoored approved propaganda device praising trump's 32nd landslide election and knowing that my starving children are starving to make america great again.
i am so very tired....
I don't know why the ones who write the article talk about some kind of secret network.
These stories are on Russia today and Sputnik since weeks. These are known Russian state websites.
The White helmets are portrayed as the ones who fabricated the proof for the chemical attacks. I don't know if anyone has a proof of what is true or not.
CNN's ratings are down 20%...I cannot understand how they believe what they're doing is in their best interests.
You have to stop thinking about "the news" as a business. I have an article that will help:
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos signed the $250 million Washington Post deal with no due diligence
The objective isn't to earn money selling advertising, needing viewership/readership to accomplish that. The objective is to dictate what people think about...everything. It's mind control, not business. It has a financial payoff, but it's not as direct as subscriber numbers or advertising revenue.
Of course US will say they're the good guys and Russia will say they're the bad guys. Who is right? There are no independent journalists on the ground. You will never know.
Faith is all you have to go on.
Holy shit! You Russian trolls are really losing it. Your blatant, "But who knows what's real?" is your last, pathetic, desperate attempt to say something, anything, to make it seem there is no truth to the situation.
The fact is the white helmets are like the Red Cross. Neutral people whose sole job is rescue people after Russia bombs a hospital or civilians in bread lines. To claim otherwise is simply the latest propaganda to come out of your St. Petersburg location.
Now scurry along and get your bottle of vodka. Vlad will be proud of you for putting out another lie. It's all Russia is good for.
Please get the facts straight.
The White Helmets are US-UK-Turkish funded emergency first responders who seem to do their work only in jihadist infested rebel areas in Western Syria (but not for example in Kurdish areas). In the places where they're seen, a "human rights worker" would have his head chopped off.
The Telegraph
The Guardian
It is undeniable that the White Helmets and the Syrian American Medical Society are western funded yet operate only in jihadi held territory. Their videos are staged. Their claims are questionable. The fog of war is thick in the mainstream media.
I've been reading this site for years, writing as AC on and off for more than a decade.
Prove it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Given the long history of American 3 letter agencies doing exactly this to third world countries, you'd think they would have spent some effort protecting America against the exact same attack vector.
> Russian is a race?
Do you really think that's a great way to excuse bigotry? Let's just lump everyone you don't like into one giant group and hate them collectively for the actions of certain individual members. And you really think that's doesn't deserve to be called out? I mean, you seem to think that "I think that guy is Russian" is a way to discredit everyone.
> Or maybe, since you can't plausibly that claim comments denigrating a documented practice by a nation that considers the U.S. to be its biggest enemy is more than a "sloppy accusation," you thought that you needed to add a charge of racism to spice things up.
There are plenty of shills for all sorts of parties, including political ones like ShareBlue / Correct the Record, what's sloppy is to call out a particular person for working for the Russians when you have nothing in the way of evidence other than them disagreeing with you.
"Shills exist, you disagree with me and I've never seen you before, therefore you're a shill" isn't logic and it's a very weak position to take. You should have an actual rebuttal to whatever they say if you want to be heard, otherwise you're just a noisemaker.
The point is that you're just making noise, you're not presenting any thought or argument, you're just poisoning the well. This, ironically, is *exactly* the sort of discord you say the Russians are supposed to be sowing among us to begin with!
If we're going to blindly accuse people of being Russian trolls, shouldn't we start by looking at those who are helping to sow division, like you? You know, the very thing everyone seems to agree that they're doing?
Anyhow, you're free to post and say what you want, but it's pretty clear that you're just a noisy bigot. Frankly, that discredits you far more than anything I could say about you.
That said, it could be amusing to let you explain your bigotry to the bar association :) You could have fun listing them every time you appear pro hac vice...
Nazi-obsessed Gulag-apologist trolls sure do have a lot of repressed homoerotic feelings for "right wing" celebrities.
Real wages are falling or stagnant.
Yes, if you want to be pedantic, who is actually getting poorer is the middle class, which is being eroded away, while the poor simply stay poor. But the point is that the wealth gap is increasing.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org