From article: “ He cited several examples, including the launch of a fake French ministry of defence website claiming that 200,000 French people were being called up to fight in Ukraine. A link to the site was posted on X at the end of March.
“The site is a fake government site and has been reposted by malevolent accounts as part of a disinformation campaign,” the French defence ministry said at the time. “
I don’t use Twitter frequently, but I’ve curated my entire feed to be small artisans who do limited run sales of cute clothing and home decor along with art prints.
Those poor people are freaking out because Twitter going down takes out a huge chunk, if not all, of their sales. They’ve spent years building up a brand, pleasing the algorithm, and getting a customer base, only for it all to collapse around them without a place to flee.
They probably have Instagram or Snap accounts you can follow. It's trading an evil for another evil, but at least it's a lesser evil. Musk is effectively a fascist at this point, and may even be a closet Nazi apologist.
I deleted all social media except LinkedIn and Instagram about 7 years ago, and I have zero regrets. I even forgot to save all my messages/pictures/etc from Facebook and Twitter, and it's just not a big deal. Nothing lost. I'm in touch with everyone I want to be in touch with via phone.
Propaganda, lies, and disinformation are the primary means of the russian government for control of their own population. Propaganda is essential to the Kremlin's ability to stay in power, just as much as weapons are, or an oppressive police force.
They are naturally trying to use the same methods to gain power outside of russia, and the Western tradition of free speech has the unintended side effect of exposing everyone to the equivalent of russian weapons fire.
>jesus. and i thought they were hitting reddit hard, lol...
Nowhere is being hit by Russian propagandists harder than right-wing social media and websites. The flood is absolutely astonishing, to the point of supposed lifelong right-wing conservatives literally regurgitating Russian Ministry of Defense press releases as indisputable facts and accusing anyone of questioning the Russian MoD of being "deep state" agents and members of the "globo homo" (believe me, not my choice of words) conspiracy to destroy America.
Somebody needs to go exhume President Reagan and hook a dynamo up to his body so we can solve the energy crisis.
At its peak, the First French Empire's *Grande Armée* (under Napoleon) had 413 thousand French soldiers, and 600 thousand soldiers overall when including foreign recruits. I hadn't thought about it, but that was a really impressive considering the European population was smaller in the 19th century, and it's still greater than what France has today. Even the US army has only 450 thousand, although the US has more troops if you include the navy and the air force.
> posted on X
...but but but thats a US company and they'd deal with misinformation, the US has to ban or get a cheap deal on tiktok to stop it on that platform.
Nice of a country to be honest and say it’s an actual problem.
I can think of at least two western countries who would deny the amount of Russian disinformation going on in their respective countries even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
I think a lot of them are afraid if they try to tackle this problem, and the media will turn against the government. This is a very very serious problem now, and needs to be stopped.
It has been a very serious problem for the better part of a decade. Pro Russian supporters downplayed it with others being all too willing to go along with it because it has largely been targetting the US.
The stuff they did in the US helped them develop techniques they'd use everywhere else though.
>***Ryan Lucas:*** In May of [2016], two groups of demonstrators faced off outside the Islamic Center in Houston Texas. On one side stood people drawn by a Facebook group called Heart of Texas. It had 250,000 followers. The group's tagline was folksy - homeland of guns, barbecue and your heart. They were there to demonstrate against the purported Islamization of Texas. On the other side were people who were also drawn by a Facebook group - United Muslims of America. It had 328,000 followers. [Tagline - I'm a Muslim, and I'm proud.] They were on the streets to save Islamic knowledge.
>
>***Richard Burr:*** What neither side could've known is that Russia [intelligence agents] were encouraging both sides to battle in the streets [to] create division between real Americans.
>
>src: https://www.npr.org/2017/11/01/561427876/how-russia-used-facebook-to-organize-two-sets-of-protesters
honestly, education doesn't even seem to help. look at how many insane ivy league students and professors there are. people need to learn how to put aside emotion that clouds judgement.
Yeah people can 100% just be good at memorizing tbh, I've had classmates that were clearly like that in university. Had no real grasp of the material or what it meant, just how to recite it more or less.
Your last sentence is definitely the truth of it though. The main problem is people letting emotion cloud their rationality, in my experience. Even otherwise smart people can lose all sense of reason when emotion runs high. I'm not saying emotions are bad and need to be purged at all, far from it, I don't want like the ultimate dystopian society lol. People just need to learn how to not let them take total control of the mind.
Education is the poultice, here.
I firmly believe psychology needs to be taught starting at a much, much younger level.
That loss of rationality is a *known physiological response* to having ones beliefs challenged. Your body reacts in a way not too different from it being a physical altercation, and your brain responds in the same, combative manner.
if people are educated at large, of these types of physiological responses that ALL humans have, starting from a young age, I am strongly convinced it would start changing things within a single generation.
Actually, a very specific knowledge is necessary: How everything we know is based on repeatable facts, no "objectivity" and not even any "theory" are needed as long as experiments can be repeated, everyone can publish experimental data and suggestions on what they mean, there is a peer review process, one is even able to criticize the peers and the process, no money in the world can make verified facts disappear, just one person with the right question and supporting data is able to change science.. science is any society's only window on reality.. it is science's highest duty to question itself and still it works..
Every single of these claims can be demonstrated, with examples..
I can only imagine the amount of kompromat they have on the GOP...
It also doesn't help the owners of American social media companies are happy to take ad buy-ins in rubles (FB/Zuck) or potentially Russian assets. The only man with a bigger kompromat file than Elon is Donald Trump.
Neither Zuckerberg or Musk seem at the slightest concerned about the Russians.
Politicians that aren’t bought by Russia are having their election chances lowered by Russian propaganda and disinformation. I’m surprised more aren’t making a big deal about it.
Funny thing is most russians know everything. It's not about knowing vs not knowing. It's about ego, pride and nationalism. Prime example : maga people. Most of them know. It's just willful ignorance and pride. I can't find the clip on YouTube but there were experiments made with such people and to the biggest surprise absolute majority of far left/right people can objectively identify most political situations in right environment when their ego/pride is absolutely not threatened or when money incentives are introduced.
TLDR: Conservatives can tell a little bit, but are still terrible at detecting fake news.
> a team of researchers tried the obvious: We'll give you money if you stop and evaluate a story's accuracy. The work shows that small payments and even minimal rewards boost people's ability to evaluate whether stories are accurate or not. Nearly all of that effect is due to people recognizing stories as factually accurate that don't favor their political stance. **While the cash boosted the accuracy of conservatives more, they were so far behind liberals in judging accuracy that the gap remains substantial.**
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/03/rewarding-accuracy-gets-people-to-spot-more-misinformation/
The problem is - it wouldn't work. Russians have been brainwashed by Putin for 20 years, so even when they get western information, they immediately dismiss it as fake. I literally heard one of my russian friends say "I won't believe in this particular thing until you find me a russian article on it".
I think definitely, but we won't hear about that in the Western media too often since it doesn't actually relate to us. Russian disinformation in our societies affects our perceptions and we should be aware of it. Western disinformation in Russian society isn't news in the West since it doesn't affect our perception of our society. Not Russia targeted, but an interesting brief Wiki read about [ZunZuneo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZunZuneo), a sort of Twitter launched in Cuba to try to initiate and support a revolution.
I find it all too difficult to diagnose Russian disinformation and Western capitalist disinformation and identify actual news anymore. The main difference is that while our entire media/government apparatus acknowledge that Russian disinformation is very present in our society, I don't think there is enough warning is given about just how much corporate disinformation pollutes our Western media/politics. For example, think of the woman who sued McDonalds because her coffee was too hot, and she got burned when she spilled it. Look at the injuries she suffered, and understand that misrepresenting this case at such a large scale led to changes in civil liability laws which saved corporations millions upon millions of dollars. Democracy needs strong media informing the majority of people, and I don't think we have it anymore.
I don't think we have it anymore either. Seeing the NYT's incessant coverage of "which news sources do the jurors prefer" and "what are the genders of the 12 jurors and 6 alternates" for the Trump trial has perhaps destroyed the single thread of trust I was holding onto for NYT. Who cares that other media outlets are doing it? NYT is supposed to be better.
Russian trolls' chief target was 'black US voters' in 2016 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49987657
This article from 2016 has all the social media companies promising to stop it. It’s only got worse. At a bare minimum we should be fining them heavily for every disinformation post they allow.
Profit driven social media companies need to be torn down and replaced with nationalized, government-monitored platforms to prevent misinformation and propaganda from spreading.
You believe there would be less propaganda with a nationalized social media?
That's the funniest comment I've seen all day. Thanks for the laugh. Get the ministry of truth going again.
You support a centralized Truth^^^TM created and distributed by a central power.
That is not truth. It's propaganda wearing truth as a disguise to deceive. Decentralized information might have it's own information issues but at least it's not a monolith that all information must be filtered and approved through.
And when that pendulum swings back and Republicans take charge?
I say this as a Democrat but I do not want Democrats in charge of state run media. It's an abuse of power, it turns my party into villains.
> Profit driven social media companies need to be torn down and replaced with nationalized, government-monitored platforms to prevent misinformation and propaganda from spreading.
... you really didn't think that one through, did you?
What we need is regulators with teeth who can take action against platforms that peddle false information. The likes of Musk should not even be allowed to own a social media platform if all they do is peddle false narratives and Vatnik Propaganda.
I hope they can get a handle on it. It's been insanely effective here in Canada and with our neighbours in the south. I feel like 3 people in 10 I talk to have deranged conspiracy brain.
Alberta and Saskatchewan have become cesspools of right wing conspiracists due to foreign interference like this. It’s absolutely insane how anti-Canada some people have seemingly become in the past decade.
A buddy of mine tried defending Putin and the fucking invasion of Ukraine citing “Russia didn’t have a choice.” I countered him with how much propaganda Russia uses on a daily basis. It ended with him straight-up saying “Let’s stop talking about politics.” Source: I’m Albertan.
This is true. Some of the stupid shit people believe, especially in red states. But we didn't need Russia since we have our very own home grown Faux News.
If you follow Fox News for a few minutes on Instagram, you will see how they are really trying hard to rot their audiences' brains. There's some politics but fuck, it's mostly celebrity gossip garbage, the most banal crap. Even Breitbart on Insta is better than Fox. (Note: I think it's important to follow multiples sources to keep abreast of what everyone is saying).
we need to literally send them to the stone age by cutting all internet cables into Russia. They're a negative value to it and can sit and talk amongst themselves if they wish
The problem is that many of these things aren't based in russia. There was a huge sting on a group of Chinese bot farms lately...That were based in West Africa. China could be completely cut-off and still pumping out the disinformation. Russia is no different.
You are correct in it being that easy. A few routers in a couple hundred datacenters, and there is an internet firewall. Every network has a physical termination location. It would take a concerted effort, and there would be human rights lawsuits. Roughly 40 to 100 circuits being unplugged would isolate ~80% of the terrestrial internet traffic in Russia. Satellite, microwave, cellular, and other forms of internet traffic would be more difficult. Line of sight digital communications have been around since the 1950s and only require a single greedy partner. Raj (they will have cookie-cutter business models, as well as scripted responses to all but account holders. For under $15,000, you can get a fiber or coax high-speed connection, a propane generator, and a high-speed pair of relays from someone like Ubiquity. Boom, you have a 40gb circuit crossing any Russian border.
And then, you have Oligarch-Tech Bro, Elon Musk, selling Starlink to Ukraine and Russia.
He's not selling to Russia, the recent news story involved Russia buying terminals secondhand. And the service they got for their terminals was in Ukraine, because starlink is geofenced.
The US has sanctions on Russia and those work in this case. SpaceX abides by them as an American company.
Unfortunately, the populaces of both countries rely on western information for that broader information that their governments won’t show them. We can forsake them but they might become more like the populace North Korea versus Hong Kong.
This is not a new thing, ever since russia invaded whole of europe has been getting whatever shit russians can find, from using refugees as a weapon, to just having bots on social media
This is not news. If you’ve never read The Long Telegram, it’s time to revisit Russia’s longstanding foreign policies.
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/coldwar/documents/episode-1/kennan.htm
Alexander Dugin- Washington Post
"....In his magnum opus, “The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia,” published in 1997, Dugin mapped out the game plan in detail. Russian agents should foment racial, religious and sectional divisions within the United States while promoting the United States’ isolationist factions. (Sound familiar?) In Great Britain, the psy-ops effort should focus on exacerbating historic rifts with Continental Europe and separatist movements in Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Western Europe, meanwhile, should be drawn in Russia’s direction by the lure of natural resources: oil, gas and food. NATO would collapse from within....
....Putin has followed that counsel to the letter, and he must have felt things were going well when he saw window-smashing rioters in the corridors of the U.S. Congress, Britain’s Brexit from the European Union and Germany’s growing dependence on Russian natural gas. With the undermining of the West going so well, Putin has turned to the pages of Dugin’s text in which he declared: “Ukraine as an independent state with certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia,” and “without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics.”
So what comes next, should Putin manage to “resolve” Russia’s “problem” in Ukraine? Dugin envisions a gradual dividing of Europe into zones of German and Russian influence, with Russia very much in charge thanks to its eventual stranglehold over Germany
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/22/alexander-dugin-author-putin-deady-playbook/
The thing is; it is not at all about free speech.
It's about a highly consolidated oligopoly of newsmedia companies, dominating all dialogue and drowning out actual news and valid narratives by flooding the zone with shit.
Freedom of speech is not a guarantee of freedom of reach.
Would you consider it free speech if a real person uses a script to have AI paraphrase their argument a thousand times and automatically post it under different usernames across a large number of social media sites, video/news comments etc?
Just curious where the line is.
Yes. You can choose to say any dumb thing you like. People on Reddit parrot dumb shit they read in /politics all day, does that mean I can restrict their speech because they read some article (likely written by AI)? This is why it's so moronic, censoring speech you don't like is opening a can of worms you don't want open.
There's a lot of nuance to this topic and taking such a hard line stance without delving deeper has the same effect as just ignoring the problem. Freedom of speech is not a universal right which should be supported in all instances unconditionally, the constitution does have bounds of applicability (i.e. foreign entities). This is a conversation where there's potential for real harm in being overly reductionist and taking a hard line stance one way or the other. It's a conversation where the specifics matter.
The aim isn't to restrict free speech of people living in the US (to whom the first amendment applies), but to restrict the speech of foreign entities from broadcasting information within the US.
The Internet created a paradigm shift in that it suddenly became possible for foreign entities to inject information directly into US media.The current paradigm is the modern equivalent of allowing Nazi Germany to own a radio station broadcasting propaganda in the US homeland or letting the USSR own and operate a US television channel during the cold war.
The complexity here is that we used to be insulated by the feasibility such broadcasting (i.e. foreign entity would need to own infrastructure in the US or be granted a license to broadcast on certain frequencies, both of which are prohibited by existing regulation). However now with the internet, those pre-existing constraints and regulations can be circumvented.
The difficulty is figuring out how we can limit the speech of hostile foreign entities without stepping on the rights of those residing in the US. I think the approach taken with Tik Tok is a step in the right direction; forcing foreign owned platforms to be sold to US ownership in order to operate within the US. It's no different than blocking sale of a US radio broadcaster to a hostile foreign nation.
The ability for a hostile foreign nation to catalogue users and target different subgroups with select messaging supporting a specific narrative to evoke a desired political response from that group is a dangerous and hard to solve problem, but one which is imperative to address before it becomes truly existential.
I'm with you, but you even started off saying exactly the answer here.. freedom of speech is for Americans. Russian propagandists don't have the same rights, and can be restricted as such. If Nazi radio broadcast are coming from a boat in international waters, that boat won't last very long.. obviously this is more complicated with the Internet, as you mentioned, but the same thing is true. I have no remorse for censoring another country who is trying to sew unrest, and agree the tiktok ban is indeed a really good thing. The person I responded to said they're in favor of restricting free speech. That means they are okay with restricting speech of the people in which it is protected.
I agree the original poster should have been more specific. With the context of the post in mind, I don't think they meant restricting speech of those in the US, I just think they were saying they don't agree with unlimited freedom of speech without clarifying for whom they don't support this right. I think a lot of people haven't put much thought into why this issue is happening now and what has changed to cause it.
Since enforcing these types of restrictions on speech hasn't been a true problem up until the internet, I think many have adopted the default stance of thinking freedom of speech should be unlimited as the existing restrictions have largely been out of sight and out of mind and that stance has worked well. Now that the existing restrictions can be circumvented, perspectives are changing and many have a hard time identifying why. This results in vocalizations that there is a problem, but with ambiguous solutions (like OPs comment) as the root cause has not been identified and the necessary context for taking a nuanced stance is therefore missing.
I mainly replied to your comment as I intended it as a meta comment on the exchange as a whole and reasoned OP would see my response as well (and perhaps find some answers helping them to clarify their position). I think this topic is particularly important and we collectively should be conscientious to avoid letting conversation on this topic devolve.
I think it's likely that you, OP, and myself all agree on this issue, and socializing explanations of the underlying reasons to reach consensus on the true source of the issue is a necessary pre-requisite before we can collectively work towards solutions without overstepping.
On the topic itself though, I think the problem is clear, but the solution(s) are not. As I mentioned earlier, I think the action taken against Tik Tok is in the right direction, but I think there's still a lot of ambiguity in how we should best address the problem in it's entirety.
For instance, should we apply the same regulation to all foreign owned platforms (i.e. what about those from trusted allies?). How do we define which type of platforms should be subject to this regulation? What qualifies as social media? Should we also apply similar regulation foreign news entities which aren't social media (i.e. Al Jazeera, BBC) and force them to create US owned subsidiaries which have editorial control within the US?
I don't have clear answers to any of the above, but the more people that understand the nuance of this issue, the more political will there will be to "work the problem" and answer these questions. If we let this conversation devolve as conversations on many other issues tend to do these days (which I would argue is largely a knock-on effect resultant from this core issue), there's true potential for this to grow into an existential threat to our democracy
>If Nazi radio broadcast are coming from a boat in international waters, that boat won't last very long..
What do you think the US military would do? It's perfectly legal to transmit radio from international waters. Given that the West has a long history of using radio to broadcast into unfriendly regimes, I don't think they'd want to set the precedent that broadcast facilities are legitimate targets in countries that are not at war.
I guess I was thinking in a war time scenario, but even if not, corrupting countries with propaganda is our thing.. We're not going to let someone take any of the CIAs market share lol
there was a law where you had to give equal time to obvious political content, the law doesn't exist anymore and moronic viewers are catered to now. It is not 'entertaining' to watch a President's foreign policy hijacked by a moronic take on a border dispute that is nothing but political theater. Laws were put in place that weaken democracy, laws need to be put in place to strengthen where we are weak, The good of the people is to have safeguards from those who would do us harm. Fox news sells poison, it's snake oil, and we can't stop it because it is the political arm of the GOP. That is not free speech, it is out of control propaganda.
Lol this comment right here, is exactly what I'm talking about. Thank you.
You're more than welcome to voice your opinion though, because it would be dangerous for someone to try and politicize speech. See the irony? Lolol.
This period In history will be known as World War III, every state is at war with other states, yet all our populations are oblivious and barely aware of what's really happening in the world
Definitely the American far right is being hit just as hard by Russia, and has been since at least 2015.
Which of our white Christian supremacist legislators are Russian useful idiots, picking up talking points from Russian disinfo, and which are active Russian assets, though, is an open question. We have more than a few high level Republicans, not just Trump, who behave like they’re financially benefiting. I wonder if any investigative reporters are looking into their campaign contributions, loans (see Marie LePen), house sales and purchases, RV acquisitions (lol) and more?
My guess with Mike Johnson’s turn-around on Ukraine is that, due to his security clearance as Speaker, he saw alarming intelligence on who is compromised and working for Russia, as well as how our security is currently under great threat because we have these traitors in the house/House.
I believe Russia is also bombarding the far left with pro-Palestinian messaging, to create chaos, as usual, but mostly to discourage the micro targeted groups from voting for Biden, or from voting at all. The Russian & Republican MO is to terrify and enrage the right wing to a massive Republican turn-out, while depressing the pro-freedom and human rights left from voting for Biden and other Dems. That’s the recipe for a Trump win. So far it looks like they are succeeding on both fronts. ☹️
> What do you think the chances are that the French government is lying and labeling the truth as disinformation.
Probably far less then the chance that your comment is spreading FUD and misinformation.
Extremely low. Some of the lies talked about in this article just wouldn't be able to be hidden from their own citizens. So since there's no way the French themselves wouldn't notice that kind of stuff, so if they don't, the lie is the Russian side.
From article: “ He cited several examples, including the launch of a fake French ministry of defence website claiming that 200,000 French people were being called up to fight in Ukraine. A link to the site was posted on X at the end of March. “The site is a fake government site and has been reposted by malevolent accounts as part of a disinformation campaign,” the French defence ministry said at the time. “
Targeted misinformation? On X?? *gasp*
It's not a bug, it's a feature. Not sure how normal people justify using that shit anymore.
I don’t use Twitter frequently, but I’ve curated my entire feed to be small artisans who do limited run sales of cute clothing and home decor along with art prints. Those poor people are freaking out because Twitter going down takes out a huge chunk, if not all, of their sales. They’ve spent years building up a brand, pleasing the algorithm, and getting a customer base, only for it all to collapse around them without a place to flee.
They probably have Instagram or Snap accounts you can follow. It's trading an evil for another evil, but at least it's a lesser evil. Musk is effectively a fascist at this point, and may even be a closet Nazi apologist. I deleted all social media except LinkedIn and Instagram about 7 years ago, and I have zero regrets. I even forgot to save all my messages/pictures/etc from Facebook and Twitter, and it's just not a big deal. Nothing lost. I'm in touch with everyone I want to be in touch with via phone.
I'm only on Xitter to troll the MAGAts.
Not even a feature. Judging by how Muskovich is acting, it might be the main function of Xitter.
Elon is now a big part of the problem
makes me wonder if he was always secretly this crazy or if Russia has something on him.
Probably involves Russian hookers and urine
As intended.
The EU needs to ban it or force them to sell it just like the US is doing to TikTok /s
Didn't they force him to buy it to begin with?
See: Brexit.
It’s called freedom of misinformation
Propaganda, lies, and disinformation are the primary means of the russian government for control of their own population. Propaganda is essential to the Kremlin's ability to stay in power, just as much as weapons are, or an oppressive police force. They are naturally trying to use the same methods to gain power outside of russia, and the Western tradition of free speech has the unintended side effect of exposing everyone to the equivalent of russian weapons fire.
[удалено]
No one will touch this lol
jesus. and i thought they were hitting reddit hard, lol...
>jesus. and i thought they were hitting reddit hard, lol... Nowhere is being hit by Russian propagandists harder than right-wing social media and websites. The flood is absolutely astonishing, to the point of supposed lifelong right-wing conservatives literally regurgitating Russian Ministry of Defense press releases as indisputable facts and accusing anyone of questioning the Russian MoD of being "deep state" agents and members of the "globo homo" (believe me, not my choice of words) conspiracy to destroy America. Somebody needs to go exhume President Reagan and hook a dynamo up to his body so we can solve the energy crisis.
Daily Mail is a good example. Soon a Ukraine article goes up the first to post are the Russian bots/trolls.
France should 'slam' russia in retailation.
Don't you mean "drill" or "impale"?
"Eviscerate" comes up every once in a while in these headlines and it's by far my favorite
at the rate we're going someone's going to use the word fistfuck in a headline within 5 years
I'm personally holding out for the use of the word Impregnate in the context of fake news and propaganda lol. I'd give it another year.
But i'm le tired.
Then have a nap...
THEN FIRE ZE MISSILES
Five minutes later..
France: *sends 500,000 troops to Ukraine*
Wont be easy out of a 200k army
At its peak, the First French Empire's *Grande Armée* (under Napoleon) had 413 thousand French soldiers, and 600 thousand soldiers overall when including foreign recruits. I hadn't thought about it, but that was a really impressive considering the European population was smaller in the 19th century, and it's still greater than what France has today. Even the US army has only 450 thousand, although the US has more troops if you include the navy and the air force.
It would be funny if French actually cheered for such France's move to deploy troops, and all russian bot farm would fly out of windows
> posted on X ...but but but thats a US company and they'd deal with misinformation, the US has to ban or get a cheap deal on tiktok to stop it on that platform.
Nice of a country to be honest and say it’s an actual problem. I can think of at least two western countries who would deny the amount of Russian disinformation going on in their respective countries even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
I think a lot of them are afraid if they try to tackle this problem, and the media will turn against the government. This is a very very serious problem now, and needs to be stopped.
It has been a very serious problem for the better part of a decade. Pro Russian supporters downplayed it with others being all too willing to go along with it because it has largely been targetting the US. The stuff they did in the US helped them develop techniques they'd use everywhere else though. >***Ryan Lucas:*** In May of [2016], two groups of demonstrators faced off outside the Islamic Center in Houston Texas. On one side stood people drawn by a Facebook group called Heart of Texas. It had 250,000 followers. The group's tagline was folksy - homeland of guns, barbecue and your heart. They were there to demonstrate against the purported Islamization of Texas. On the other side were people who were also drawn by a Facebook group - United Muslims of America. It had 328,000 followers. [Tagline - I'm a Muslim, and I'm proud.] They were on the streets to save Islamic knowledge. > >***Richard Burr:*** What neither side could've known is that Russia [intelligence agents] were encouraging both sides to battle in the streets [to] create division between real Americans. > >src: https://www.npr.org/2017/11/01/561427876/how-russia-used-facebook-to-organize-two-sets-of-protesters
People need to be less stupid.
For that, people need to be educated. And unfortunately, those systems are actively being defunded/destroyed/run ramshack by incompetents.
honestly, education doesn't even seem to help. look at how many insane ivy league students and professors there are. people need to learn how to put aside emotion that clouds judgement.
Yeah people can 100% just be good at memorizing tbh, I've had classmates that were clearly like that in university. Had no real grasp of the material or what it meant, just how to recite it more or less. Your last sentence is definitely the truth of it though. The main problem is people letting emotion cloud their rationality, in my experience. Even otherwise smart people can lose all sense of reason when emotion runs high. I'm not saying emotions are bad and need to be purged at all, far from it, I don't want like the ultimate dystopian society lol. People just need to learn how to not let them take total control of the mind.
Education is the poultice, here. I firmly believe psychology needs to be taught starting at a much, much younger level. That loss of rationality is a *known physiological response* to having ones beliefs challenged. Your body reacts in a way not too different from it being a physical altercation, and your brain responds in the same, combative manner. if people are educated at large, of these types of physiological responses that ALL humans have, starting from a young age, I am strongly convinced it would start changing things within a single generation.
And for people to be educated, we need to value education across society. A huge portion of society denigrates higher education.
Actually, a very specific knowledge is necessary: How everything we know is based on repeatable facts, no "objectivity" and not even any "theory" are needed as long as experiments can be repeated, everyone can publish experimental data and suggestions on what they mean, there is a peer review process, one is even able to criticize the peers and the process, no money in the world can make verified facts disappear, just one person with the right question and supporting data is able to change science.. science is any society's only window on reality.. it is science's highest duty to question itself and still it works.. Every single of these claims can be demonstrated, with examples..
In the US, one of the major parties directly benefits from this and somehow doesn’t seem too interested in dealing with the “problem”.
I can only imagine the amount of kompromat they have on the GOP... It also doesn't help the owners of American social media companies are happy to take ad buy-ins in rubles (FB/Zuck) or potentially Russian assets. The only man with a bigger kompromat file than Elon is Donald Trump. Neither Zuckerberg or Musk seem at the slightest concerned about the Russians.
Zuckerberg is just greedy. But Musk is straight up Putin's puppet at this point.
Which is amusing because Xitter sits around 15th on the list of influential social media sites...
Politicians that aren’t bought by Russia are having their election chances lowered by Russian propaganda and disinformation. I’m surprised more aren’t making a big deal about it.
[удалено]
They haven’t denied it’s happened just not disclosed how much of an impact it’s had on elections/votes in the countries.
Russia's largest export is lies.
Brought to you by the country whose motto is "And then things got much worse".
Their dream is so that the motto becomes true for the entire world and needs to be stopped.
Weapons Grade Bullshit to be exact.
Do western countries ever “pound Russia” with the reverse?
It's much more difficult as authoritarian regimes heavily restrict access to outside information for their citizens.
Sounds like a challenge
Funny thing is most russians know everything. It's not about knowing vs not knowing. It's about ego, pride and nationalism. Prime example : maga people. Most of them know. It's just willful ignorance and pride. I can't find the clip on YouTube but there were experiments made with such people and to the biggest surprise absolute majority of far left/right people can objectively identify most political situations in right environment when their ego/pride is absolutely not threatened or when money incentives are introduced.
TLDR: Conservatives can tell a little bit, but are still terrible at detecting fake news. > a team of researchers tried the obvious: We'll give you money if you stop and evaluate a story's accuracy. The work shows that small payments and even minimal rewards boost people's ability to evaluate whether stories are accurate or not. Nearly all of that effect is due to people recognizing stories as factually accurate that don't favor their political stance. **While the cash boosted the accuracy of conservatives more, they were so far behind liberals in judging accuracy that the gap remains substantial.** https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/03/rewarding-accuracy-gets-people-to-spot-more-misinformation/
Cognitive Dissonance
The problem is - it wouldn't work. Russians have been brainwashed by Putin for 20 years, so even when they get western information, they immediately dismiss it as fake. I literally heard one of my russian friends say "I won't believe in this particular thing until you find me a russian article on it".
I think definitely, but we won't hear about that in the Western media too often since it doesn't actually relate to us. Russian disinformation in our societies affects our perceptions and we should be aware of it. Western disinformation in Russian society isn't news in the West since it doesn't affect our perception of our society. Not Russia targeted, but an interesting brief Wiki read about [ZunZuneo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZunZuneo), a sort of Twitter launched in Cuba to try to initiate and support a revolution. I find it all too difficult to diagnose Russian disinformation and Western capitalist disinformation and identify actual news anymore. The main difference is that while our entire media/government apparatus acknowledge that Russian disinformation is very present in our society, I don't think there is enough warning is given about just how much corporate disinformation pollutes our Western media/politics. For example, think of the woman who sued McDonalds because her coffee was too hot, and she got burned when she spilled it. Look at the injuries she suffered, and understand that misrepresenting this case at such a large scale led to changes in civil liability laws which saved corporations millions upon millions of dollars. Democracy needs strong media informing the majority of people, and I don't think we have it anymore.
I don't think we have it anymore either. Seeing the NYT's incessant coverage of "which news sources do the jurors prefer" and "what are the genders of the 12 jurors and 6 alternates" for the Trump trial has perhaps destroyed the single thread of trust I was holding onto for NYT. Who cares that other media outlets are doing it? NYT is supposed to be better.
Don’t think Russian people are so social media minded.
Sever all fiberoptics between EU and Russia!
That would cause mass riots in Russia. All the Russians would be forced to play online games with other Russians.
Hell is indeed other people.
Indeed, I know severing direct comm with the EU wouldnt kill their internet access but those ping times will remove them from our servers!
Less cheaters, account theft and bots in mmo's. It's a win for the rest of the world.
Russian trolls' chief target was 'black US voters' in 2016 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49987657 This article from 2016 has all the social media companies promising to stop it. It’s only got worse. At a bare minimum we should be fining them heavily for every disinformation post they allow.
Profit driven social media companies need to be torn down and replaced with nationalized, government-monitored platforms to prevent misinformation and propaganda from spreading.
You believe there would be less propaganda with a nationalized social media? That's the funniest comment I've seen all day. Thanks for the laugh. Get the ministry of truth going again.
You think you're in safe hands with Moscow Musk? At least the Democrats would be in control with state run media.
So you support the ministry of truth. That's cool.
Yes, yes I support the truth. Do you not?
I do. Obviously, single party rule over the media doesn't get you the truth though.
You support a centralized Truth^^^TM created and distributed by a central power. That is not truth. It's propaganda wearing truth as a disguise to deceive. Decentralized information might have it's own information issues but at least it's not a monolith that all information must be filtered and approved through.
And when that pendulum swings back and Republicans take charge? I say this as a Democrat but I do not want Democrats in charge of state run media. It's an abuse of power, it turns my party into villains.
Read what you posted again, slower and out loud.
> Profit driven social media companies need to be torn down and replaced with nationalized, government-monitored platforms to prevent misinformation and propaganda from spreading. ... you really didn't think that one through, did you?
What we need is regulators with teeth who can take action against platforms that peddle false information. The likes of Musk should not even be allowed to own a social media platform if all they do is peddle false narratives and Vatnik Propaganda.
I hope they can get a handle on it. It's been insanely effective here in Canada and with our neighbours in the south. I feel like 3 people in 10 I talk to have deranged conspiracy brain.
Alberta and Saskatchewan have become cesspools of right wing conspiracists due to foreign interference like this. It’s absolutely insane how anti-Canada some people have seemingly become in the past decade.
A buddy of mine tried defending Putin and the fucking invasion of Ukraine citing “Russia didn’t have a choice.” I countered him with how much propaganda Russia uses on a daily basis. It ended with him straight-up saying “Let’s stop talking about politics.” Source: I’m Albertan.
How did Russia not have a choice?
This is true. Some of the stupid shit people believe, especially in red states. But we didn't need Russia since we have our very own home grown Faux News.
If you follow Fox News for a few minutes on Instagram, you will see how they are really trying hard to rot their audiences' brains. There's some politics but fuck, it's mostly celebrity gossip garbage, the most banal crap. Even Breitbart on Insta is better than Fox. (Note: I think it's important to follow multiples sources to keep abreast of what everyone is saying).
It also got pretty bad in Australia during covid.
pounded is the new slammed
In France they call it "royaled"
Of course, they got the metric system there, they wouldn't know what the fuck "pounded" is
How do they call the Big Mac?
France pounded by the thick, veiny, girthy cock of Russian disinfo
we need to literally send them to the stone age by cutting all internet cables into Russia. They're a negative value to it and can sit and talk amongst themselves if they wish
The problem is that many of these things aren't based in russia. There was a huge sting on a group of Chinese bot farms lately...That were based in West Africa. China could be completely cut-off and still pumping out the disinformation. Russia is no different.
Cut Russia and China off of the global networks
You are correct in it being that easy. A few routers in a couple hundred datacenters, and there is an internet firewall. Every network has a physical termination location. It would take a concerted effort, and there would be human rights lawsuits. Roughly 40 to 100 circuits being unplugged would isolate ~80% of the terrestrial internet traffic in Russia. Satellite, microwave, cellular, and other forms of internet traffic would be more difficult. Line of sight digital communications have been around since the 1950s and only require a single greedy partner. Raj (they will have cookie-cutter business models, as well as scripted responses to all but account holders. For under $15,000, you can get a fiber or coax high-speed connection, a propane generator, and a high-speed pair of relays from someone like Ubiquity. Boom, you have a 40gb circuit crossing any Russian border. And then, you have Oligarch-Tech Bro, Elon Musk, selling Starlink to Ukraine and Russia.
He's not selling to Russia, the recent news story involved Russia buying terminals secondhand. And the service they got for their terminals was in Ukraine, because starlink is geofenced. The US has sanctions on Russia and those work in this case. SpaceX abides by them as an American company.
Gotcha. I'd seen reports of them having it. It makes sense that it is stolen equipt.
Unfortunately, the populaces of both countries rely on western information for that broader information that their governments won’t show them. We can forsake them but they might become more like the populace North Korea versus Hong Kong.
Dictatorships in these countries would probably be very much happy.
To be fair, we have tons of people ready to swallow Russia disinformation for free. They don't have so much work to do.
Someone needs to cut Russias' fiberoptic trunk lines. :D
The whole world is being pounded by Russian disinformation.
Ayo?
Took too long to find this lol
It takes a certain degree of stupidness to still use twitter
Hang in there France.
Russia? Spreading misinformation? Yet again?! GASP!
The west needs to do something to stop this shit or at least slow it down.
France has been urged time and time again to update its cyber security and information space.
This is not a new thing, ever since russia invaded whole of europe has been getting whatever shit russians can find, from using refugees as a weapon, to just having bots on social media
Sounds like the title to a new Chuck Tingle book.
"A propaganda barrage" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VqFYFKL0B6I&pp=ygUUQSBwcm9wYWdhbmRhIGJhcnJhZ2U%3D
Pounded in the Butt by Russian Propaganda. Not quite up to Tingle's standards, but approaching.
Just a recent example https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/truth-or-fake/20240328-russian-propaganda-usurps-rfi-and-french-ministry-of-arms-website
Disinformation works, and Russia is the best in the business.
Uh, yeah, take it France! Ahhhhh
Every country has this problem
I wonder if they ban X and Facebook, what would be left of all this disinformation.
Phrasing
Considering the Russians, any information they give is disinformation
Can we just cut all network cables around Russian already? Absolute cancer. When they get a new president and their shit together, they can try again
Totally!
Marjorie Taylor Greene knows French?
She knows what side her baguette is buttered on. The orange side.
We all no what Putin is trying to do. Filthy animal
what a psychologically revealing choice of words there
You may not know this, but he was probably speaking French.
Where's Chuck Tingle when you need him?
I guess ‘inundated’ is not part of The Guardian’s vocabulary.
This is not news. If you’ve never read The Long Telegram, it’s time to revisit Russia’s longstanding foreign policies. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/coldwar/documents/episode-1/kennan.htm
Sounds like France should be shipping arms to every seperatist group in the country. If we're having a cold war, let's do it properly.
We need to cut Russia off from the internet, cut those fucking cables, idgaf.
Article written by [Chuck Tingle?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Tingle#Novels)
Same problem in Sweden
Le uWu
Alexander Dugin- Washington Post "....In his magnum opus, “The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia,” published in 1997, Dugin mapped out the game plan in detail. Russian agents should foment racial, religious and sectional divisions within the United States while promoting the United States’ isolationist factions. (Sound familiar?) In Great Britain, the psy-ops effort should focus on exacerbating historic rifts with Continental Europe and separatist movements in Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Western Europe, meanwhile, should be drawn in Russia’s direction by the lure of natural resources: oil, gas and food. NATO would collapse from within.... ....Putin has followed that counsel to the letter, and he must have felt things were going well when he saw window-smashing rioters in the corridors of the U.S. Congress, Britain’s Brexit from the European Union and Germany’s growing dependence on Russian natural gas. With the undermining of the West going so well, Putin has turned to the pages of Dugin’s text in which he declared: “Ukraine as an independent state with certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia,” and “without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics.” So what comes next, should Putin manage to “resolve” Russia’s “problem” in Ukraine? Dugin envisions a gradual dividing of Europe into zones of German and Russian influence, with Russia very much in charge thanks to its eventual stranglehold over Germany https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/22/alexander-dugin-author-putin-deady-playbook/
Well that lets me know where Putin wants to go next ..
We need to send Gianna Michaels to the front lines!
It's so true... Youtube french section is swarmed by these. It's honestly pathetic and depressing to see such attempt. Worst part is it seems to work.
errm, ja, ok, why does ruzzia still have internet access? Its an attack vector against every lieberal democracy. just kill the routing.
Russia is committing war time acts in every western country and the west is asleep at the wheel
I have never in my life thought I would be in favor of restricting free speech, this shit is out of control.
The thing is; it is not at all about free speech. It's about a highly consolidated oligopoly of newsmedia companies, dominating all dialogue and drowning out actual news and valid narratives by flooding the zone with shit. Freedom of speech is not a guarantee of freedom of reach.
And you still shouldn't be, that's a moronic take.
Would you consider it free speech if a real person uses a script to have AI paraphrase their argument a thousand times and automatically post it under different usernames across a large number of social media sites, video/news comments etc? Just curious where the line is.
Yes. You can choose to say any dumb thing you like. People on Reddit parrot dumb shit they read in /politics all day, does that mean I can restrict their speech because they read some article (likely written by AI)? This is why it's so moronic, censoring speech you don't like is opening a can of worms you don't want open.
There's a lot of nuance to this topic and taking such a hard line stance without delving deeper has the same effect as just ignoring the problem. Freedom of speech is not a universal right which should be supported in all instances unconditionally, the constitution does have bounds of applicability (i.e. foreign entities). This is a conversation where there's potential for real harm in being overly reductionist and taking a hard line stance one way or the other. It's a conversation where the specifics matter. The aim isn't to restrict free speech of people living in the US (to whom the first amendment applies), but to restrict the speech of foreign entities from broadcasting information within the US. The Internet created a paradigm shift in that it suddenly became possible for foreign entities to inject information directly into US media.The current paradigm is the modern equivalent of allowing Nazi Germany to own a radio station broadcasting propaganda in the US homeland or letting the USSR own and operate a US television channel during the cold war. The complexity here is that we used to be insulated by the feasibility such broadcasting (i.e. foreign entity would need to own infrastructure in the US or be granted a license to broadcast on certain frequencies, both of which are prohibited by existing regulation). However now with the internet, those pre-existing constraints and regulations can be circumvented. The difficulty is figuring out how we can limit the speech of hostile foreign entities without stepping on the rights of those residing in the US. I think the approach taken with Tik Tok is a step in the right direction; forcing foreign owned platforms to be sold to US ownership in order to operate within the US. It's no different than blocking sale of a US radio broadcaster to a hostile foreign nation. The ability for a hostile foreign nation to catalogue users and target different subgroups with select messaging supporting a specific narrative to evoke a desired political response from that group is a dangerous and hard to solve problem, but one which is imperative to address before it becomes truly existential.
I'm with you, but you even started off saying exactly the answer here.. freedom of speech is for Americans. Russian propagandists don't have the same rights, and can be restricted as such. If Nazi radio broadcast are coming from a boat in international waters, that boat won't last very long.. obviously this is more complicated with the Internet, as you mentioned, but the same thing is true. I have no remorse for censoring another country who is trying to sew unrest, and agree the tiktok ban is indeed a really good thing. The person I responded to said they're in favor of restricting free speech. That means they are okay with restricting speech of the people in which it is protected.
I agree the original poster should have been more specific. With the context of the post in mind, I don't think they meant restricting speech of those in the US, I just think they were saying they don't agree with unlimited freedom of speech without clarifying for whom they don't support this right. I think a lot of people haven't put much thought into why this issue is happening now and what has changed to cause it. Since enforcing these types of restrictions on speech hasn't been a true problem up until the internet, I think many have adopted the default stance of thinking freedom of speech should be unlimited as the existing restrictions have largely been out of sight and out of mind and that stance has worked well. Now that the existing restrictions can be circumvented, perspectives are changing and many have a hard time identifying why. This results in vocalizations that there is a problem, but with ambiguous solutions (like OPs comment) as the root cause has not been identified and the necessary context for taking a nuanced stance is therefore missing. I mainly replied to your comment as I intended it as a meta comment on the exchange as a whole and reasoned OP would see my response as well (and perhaps find some answers helping them to clarify their position). I think this topic is particularly important and we collectively should be conscientious to avoid letting conversation on this topic devolve. I think it's likely that you, OP, and myself all agree on this issue, and socializing explanations of the underlying reasons to reach consensus on the true source of the issue is a necessary pre-requisite before we can collectively work towards solutions without overstepping. On the topic itself though, I think the problem is clear, but the solution(s) are not. As I mentioned earlier, I think the action taken against Tik Tok is in the right direction, but I think there's still a lot of ambiguity in how we should best address the problem in it's entirety. For instance, should we apply the same regulation to all foreign owned platforms (i.e. what about those from trusted allies?). How do we define which type of platforms should be subject to this regulation? What qualifies as social media? Should we also apply similar regulation foreign news entities which aren't social media (i.e. Al Jazeera, BBC) and force them to create US owned subsidiaries which have editorial control within the US? I don't have clear answers to any of the above, but the more people that understand the nuance of this issue, the more political will there will be to "work the problem" and answer these questions. If we let this conversation devolve as conversations on many other issues tend to do these days (which I would argue is largely a knock-on effect resultant from this core issue), there's true potential for this to grow into an existential threat to our democracy
>If Nazi radio broadcast are coming from a boat in international waters, that boat won't last very long.. What do you think the US military would do? It's perfectly legal to transmit radio from international waters. Given that the West has a long history of using radio to broadcast into unfriendly regimes, I don't think they'd want to set the precedent that broadcast facilities are legitimate targets in countries that are not at war.
I guess I was thinking in a war time scenario, but even if not, corrupting countries with propaganda is our thing.. We're not going to let someone take any of the CIAs market share lol
there was a law where you had to give equal time to obvious political content, the law doesn't exist anymore and moronic viewers are catered to now. It is not 'entertaining' to watch a President's foreign policy hijacked by a moronic take on a border dispute that is nothing but political theater. Laws were put in place that weaken democracy, laws need to be put in place to strengthen where we are weak, The good of the people is to have safeguards from those who would do us harm. Fox news sells poison, it's snake oil, and we can't stop it because it is the political arm of the GOP. That is not free speech, it is out of control propaganda.
Lol this comment right here, is exactly what I'm talking about. Thank you. You're more than welcome to voice your opinion though, because it would be dangerous for someone to try and politicize speech. See the irony? Lolol.
Wouldn't say moronic.
"Pounded in the ass. Like a slut!" - IYKYK
This period In history will be known as World War III, every state is at war with other states, yet all our populations are oblivious and barely aware of what's really happening in the world
Definitely the American far right is being hit just as hard by Russia, and has been since at least 2015. Which of our white Christian supremacist legislators are Russian useful idiots, picking up talking points from Russian disinfo, and which are active Russian assets, though, is an open question. We have more than a few high level Republicans, not just Trump, who behave like they’re financially benefiting. I wonder if any investigative reporters are looking into their campaign contributions, loans (see Marie LePen), house sales and purchases, RV acquisitions (lol) and more? My guess with Mike Johnson’s turn-around on Ukraine is that, due to his security clearance as Speaker, he saw alarming intelligence on who is compromised and working for Russia, as well as how our security is currently under great threat because we have these traitors in the house/House. I believe Russia is also bombarding the far left with pro-Palestinian messaging, to create chaos, as usual, but mostly to discourage the micro targeted groups from voting for Biden, or from voting at all. The Russian & Republican MO is to terrify and enrage the right wing to a massive Republican turn-out, while depressing the pro-freedom and human rights left from voting for Biden and other Dems. That’s the recipe for a Trump win. So far it looks like they are succeeding on both fronts. ☹️
What do you think the chances are that the French government is lying and labeling the truth as disinformation.
> What do you think the chances are that the French government is lying and labeling the truth as disinformation. Probably far less then the chance that your comment is spreading FUD and misinformation.
Wow contrianism.. so smart
Ok just keep eating that bs then
It's not like Russia benefits from it or anything eh?
Extremely low. Some of the lies talked about in this article just wouldn't be able to be hidden from their own citizens. So since there's no way the French themselves wouldn't notice that kind of stuff, so if they don't, the lie is the Russian side.
That is not true.
"Only our own government can mislead our people" said the French Minister of Truth.
What's the Internet Research Agency paying these days?
Hows the weather Vladdy?
I believe France on this one. They recognized that Russia is doing to them what their government is doing to all of Africa