Russian Fake News Ecosystem Targets Syrian Human Rights Workers (securityledger.com) 259
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.
Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
Fake news is propaganda, but not all propaganda is fake news. In fact, the best propaganda is truthful.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly :
https://consortiumnews.com/201... [consortiumnews.com] /beware-of-white-helmets-bearing-news/
Enough Already (Score:1)
Do we really have to have an anti-russia or anti-potus post every. single. fucking. day. on a tech news website?
You are not changing anybody's mind and you never will.
Re: (Score:2)
Long term poster, utterly sick of endless Russia articles here.
I get that we have some politics on the site, but this is getting ridiculous and almost every time the"evidence"is miniscule but the reaction is screeching.
No I'm not even in America, I didn't vote, but this endless ruining of a classic tech site news, needs to stop.
Not posting AC.
Re:Enough Already (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, it's no longer the Slashdot it once was when you first joined... today.
Hi Vlad!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Yup, I remember Ars Technica - when it stopped reporting gadgets and tech and started running lots of political articles.... I stopped reading it. I think many others did too, after a fair amount of complaining in the comments.
The trouble is, there were too many people shouting abuse at each other in the comments section that I support it made short-term financial sense for them, to do this. Gotta love that clickbait ad revenue!
Re: (Score:2)
Most people lurk as ACs for quite a while before joining, I know I was here for a good 3-4 years before making this account. He's got a point and your only rebuttal is to claim that he's a Russian agent. Lovely.
Wait, I thought Russia wanted to "destabilize" us? Isn't that what you're contributing to? So tell me, why are you trying to divide us again? Would you like to tell us why, even knowing the Russian plans, you decided to go and help them?
I don't know who decided that racism was a great rebuttal,
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it's not as if one could ever lie about that. You've persuaded me!
Re: (Score:3)
> 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 it
Re: (Score:2)
An empty threat. Sod off.
Re: (Score:2)
> by a nation that considers the U.S. to be its biggest enemy
I'll leave this here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bowhUWl6rxQ [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
BTW, links please... having searched my comment history I cannot find any references to "Ivan," much less remarks beyond the two made today concerning the quite trollish DejaBu account.
Re: (Score:2)
You seem to prefer to use Vlad and you have such a comment right here in this very story [slashdot.org].
Re: (Score:2)
So "completely full of racist remarks, like calling people 'Ivan'" is simply a lie.
Gotcha.
Re: (Score:2)
The original said Ivan or Vlad, looks like the wrong one got cut in editing, so you're not really helping in admitting the substance of the accusation.
Guess it's a lawyer thing?
Re: (Score:2)
Hard to admit to a comment history "completely full of racist remarks" when you can only identify two uses of "Vlad" in connection with one poster on one day, and "Vlad" is not a racist remark.
But take it as you like it... I tremble in anticipation of your complaint to the bar.
Re: (Score:2)
So using someone's alleged ancestry to mock someone isn't racist to you?
nationality != ancestry; nationality != race.
See above. Pretty easy task, actually.
Re: (Score:2)
The best part of all of this is that you haven't even considered that "Hi Vlad!" is a sarcastic greeting to the ultimate employer of all those Internet Research Agency hacks, Vladimir Putin.
But perhaps President Putin is a race to himself, which would again be racist. I'm so confused.
Hey that's insensitive! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, it's no longer the Slashdot it once was when you first joined... today.
Hi Vlad!
I didn't just join today and I gotta say /. has gone downhill by leagues, particularly Beau and Co arrived on scene.
Would someone explain to me how (Score:1)
the "Russian Fake News Ecosystem" differs from the media in the United States, specifically NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS, CNN, Washington Post, New York Times, Snapchat, Facebook, Yahoo, etc? Thanks.
because they ARE terrorists and crisis actors (Score:2, Informative)
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 Ir
Re: (Score:2)
There's also the Russian naval base there - Russia's only one on the Mediterranean coast, and I think that has a lot to do with Russia's involvement there, and possibly everyone else's involvement using any excuse to get their fingers in the pie.
Let people decide reliability of news (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Let people decide reliability of news (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Let people decide reliability of news (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
The old media machine will die. It must. The internet has killed its power to enforce consensus.
It never had such a power, as there have always been opposing views in the MSM.
They 'roiled' the -post- election (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
It's actually pretty easy to track this stuff down when we care because financial activity leaves signs. That's why Trump wants us to stop looking; there is evidence, and it will be found. Ultimately, someone has to pay a bunch of money to make this stuff happen, and there are records of those payments. This is why it's important to require that someone use identification when placing political advertisements. Then you can track the action back to its source, and account for the expenditure of money (about
Trump won by 100,000 votes (Score:2)
All that said, if Hilary hadn't been so damn arrogant and had just campaigned in the Rust belt none of
Re: (Score:2)
TFA says under the "more info" link that the ads were seen by over 11 million Americans.
https://democrats-intelligence... [house.gov]
Keep in mind that's just the ads, which were a very small part of their efforts. The latest stats I could find show they had 1000 people working on this stuff, much of it around fake social media accounts, memes and trolling.
Re: They 'roiled' the -post- election (Score:2)
How's that different from any tabloid media? Reader explotation for nefarious purposes. Practically any user content driven popular website without active and skillful moderation becomes a tabloid of fake news 0-60 in 3 sec.
insanity or troll ? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
the White Helmets are routinely at the scene immediately and seemingly active exclusively in islamist-controlled territory.
Only if you divide Syria in three: Assad, the Kurds and everyone else are Islamists. Now Assad has an army and medics, the Kurds has the Peshmerga and medics, the rest have... what? Not that I've ever seen any evidence that the White Helmets were allowed to work under ISIS, they didn't tolerate anybody. So they've worked in the areas controlled by "other" rebel groups, which is undoubtedly a mixed bunch but hardly proof of foul play. Are they neutral? Hell no, it's basically "Assad is killing us please help
Re: (Score:2)
Only if you divide Syria in three: Assad, the Kurds and everyone else are Islamists.
That is actually more or less the case, is it not? All of the two dozen or so named rebel groups have at various times allied with either Daesh or Al Qaida (Jabhat Fateh Al Sham).
Not that I've ever seen any evidence that the White Helmets were allowed to work under ISIS, they didn't tolerate anybody.
They do seem to stay away from ISIS territory. I do remember seing a video where POWs were executed by ISIS and then taken away by White Helmets, but I might misremember the details.
Re: (Score:2)
This is how Russia works. A mixture of truth and misinformation, sowing doubt and uncertainty everywhere. People start to distrust everything, especially the media that is the only source of information about these things (since most people can't go to Syria to verify for themselves).
That opens up opportunities for post-truth politics. That's where we are.
Re: (Score:3)
I repeat: This isn't news, it's olds. I've seen the White Helmets being doubted publicly for well over a year, maybe two. Sometimes even in mainstream media.
That they are part of the ISIS propaganda efforts is plain as day. The only question remaining is how strongly they are aligned with Daesh, if they are a pure propaganda tool created for this purpose or a humanitarian organisation being used additionally for propaganda, or somewhere inbetween.
Re: (Score:2)
And who funds them affects what, exactly?
I am from Germany. The government there also funds islamist mosques where Jihad is preached (oops, had to make a critical investigation after journalists went there with someone who actually speaks arabic and brought that to light). They also sell tanks to Turkey recently, knowing those will be used in the war against the Kurds. And the guy who drove that truck into the christmas market in Berlin? He was not only on the government watchlist of potential terrorists,
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry idiot, but I happen to know my country and you obviously don't. This is not right-wing newspapers, some of these things were brought to light by either mainstream press (some of it leaning more left than right) or by official parliamentary investigation panels.
They have killed at least 10x more people in the past year than fundamental muslims have in the past 20, easily.
Depends on when exactly you pick your timeline, namely if you include major events or not, but yes the right-wing extremists are responsible for deaths as well.
Something that amazes me to no end again and again is that people like you can't seem
Not surprising at all (Score:2)
These are the same organizations who, when Russia deliberately bombs hospitals or civilians standing in bread lines in Syria, claim "terrorists" were targeted. And then, when the white helmets show up to do their work, Russia bombs them again so pictures and news of the deliberate attacks will be suppressed.
These are the same organizations who reported on the killing of a 10-year old girl in Eastern Ukraine when the Ukrainian military and volunteers were fighting the Russian invasion in 2015. The claim wa
Re: (Score:2)
Oh geez. Why are you crying a river over a fake reporting on a one dead girl? Remember how the day before the Syrian finally expelled the Al-Queda affiliates ("moderate rebels" in the western-speak) from East Aleppo the entire western media exploded about how 83 charred and tortured bodies of the rebels were allegedly seen in East Aleppo. Respectable, established news outlets like BBC, CNN, etc all picked up this story and run with it. And then silence the next day. Nobody followed it up. Nobody retracted i
The source is obvious (Score:3)
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.
THE WHITE HEALENTS ARE SUPERHEROES (Score:2)
Given that they can walk through areas that have just been hit by a sarin gas, a lethal neural toxin, wearing nothing more than a cheap dusk mask and no gloves and not immediately be incapacitated or otherwise or die.
Yup, that makes perfect sense.
White Helmets are not "human rights workers" (Score:4)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
I think for a two sentence summary that's not too bad.
There is a two part article about the white helmets https://www.alternet.org/world... [alternet.org]
Al Qaeda likes them a lot. Not my opinion, theirs. The WH been very valuable in the propaganda war.
The topic article of course is entirely about discrediting any information which comes out about the White Helmets.
We've had a lot of this discrediting of dissent by linking it to Russian Trolls and there will be a lot more. It works very well.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see the link to part 2 in part one so here it is. This is where most of the WH stuff is discussed.
https://www.alternet.org/grayz... [alternet.org]
Silly Person (Score:4, Informative)
The Telegraph [telegraph.co.uk]
The Guardian [theguardian.com]
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.
Re: (Score:2)
In March, I met a lawyer named Anas Joudeh, who took part in some of the 2011 protests. Joudeh no longer considers himself a member of the opposition. I asked him why. “No one is 100 percent with the regime, but mostly these people are unified by their resistance to the opposition,” Joudeh told me. “They know what they don’t want, not what they want.” In December, he said, “Syrians abroad who believe in the revolution would call me and say, ‘We lost Aleppo.’ And I would say, ‘What do you mean?’ It was only a Turkish card guarded by jihadis.” For these exiled Syrians, he said, the specter of Assad’s crimes looms so large that they cannot see anything else. They refuse to acknowledge the realities of a rebellion that is corrupt, brutal and compromised by foreign sponsors. This is true. Eastern Aleppo may not have been Raqqa, where ISIS advertised its rigid Islamist dystopia and its mass beheadings. But as a symbol of Syria’s future, it was almost as bad: a chaotic wasteland full of feuding militias — some of them radical Islamists — who hoarded food and weapons while the people starved.
And, deliberately revealed that:
[PHOTO of a bombed hospital]
The roof of the Aleppo Eye Hospital, which rebels used as a military headquarters.
smugfunt: It is undeniable that the White Helmets and the Syrian American Medical Society are western funded yet operate only in jihadi held territory.
And one would wonder why there is no White Helmets in Yemen, why no Western funded "NGO" has ever operated in Yemen and/or is deliberately frequently promoted in MSM like White Helmets.
Everyone who question the role, motive, credibility of White Helmets, no mater who they are, they were/are/will be immediately labeled as problematic/propagandist/misinformed, as
what will trump do? (Score:2)
American fake news ecosystem targets Americans (Score:2)
Re:"roiled the U.S. election" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
wrong. stop at the 11.4 million seeing that nonsense. most americans didn't see it, that's what that means. and "exposed"? please, I see ads and get spam all day and don't buy or contact nigerian princes.
your "organic content" stats mean nothing, made up bullshit by people trying to get others worked up over *nothing*
Re:And it's the fault of the MSM (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be stupid.
Wow. Complaining about a lack of "trusted news authority" and then citing breitbart.com. That's stupid squared.
Re: And it's the fault of the MSM (Score:2)
There is nothing stupid in thinking that all news media is driven by greed/catering and/or ideology/propaganda.
Denying ideology IS ideology.
Perception is subjective. Its true that there are 50 shades of grey, but in general that's what it is.
There is science dealing objectively with simple systems, but we already know everything that is possible about these, what is left is irreducible systems like human society, where scientific method is limited. All we have is biased data collection.
Re: (Score:2)
No, the stupid part is believing that a news outlet driven by greed cannot be trusted, or that a propaganda site can.
There is no equivalence between real news sources and Breitbart. None. They exist in different realms, for different purposes. The notion that journalists can't be trusted is one that has been carefully curated by people who benefit from you believing that truth cannot exist if it
Re: And it's the fault of the MSM (Score:2)
The notion that journalists can't be trusted arose directly from the observation that the quality of their reporting has been in decline for a long time, and has declined massively since the advent of the "24 hour news cycle". This has been going on for a long time. Christopher Hitchens once said that he watches the news, not in order to know what's going on in the world, but rather in order to know what other people think is going on in the world. That's an accurate assessment of my take on it as well.
A
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
No, it didn't. That's just the legend, via the people who are threatened by an informed populace. The supposed "trusted media" of the past is really a re-imagining of what was really just a media invested in the status quo. There have always been people who would benefit from an all-out assault on truth. We watched it happen in other countries and now a consortium of foreign and corrupt domestic entities have unleashed i
Re: (Score:2)
>No, the stupid part is believing that a news outlet driven by greed cannot be trusted, or that a propaganda site can
I need an actual quote that says that.
Nobody "trusts" nothing. People who you think "trust" Breitbart are just brainwashing themselves. It's not "trust", it's ideological alignment.
From the other hand people who "trust" CNN, _are_ mostly brainwashed liberal imbeciles confused by CNN having a "mainstream" status. Breitbart does not have that, so nobody expects "trust".
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
truths are being suppressed.[breitbart.com]
I love how you complain about the lack of trust in the "MSM" and how they post factually incorrect statements by linking to a place which does that way more and has a way worse record on corrections.
If you're taking Breitbart's word on, well, anything then you are very much part of the problem.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
If you look at the links in Russian tweets, after RT.com you find that Brietbart is by far the most popular.
Brietbart, the site that re-publishes thinly veiled Infowars stories.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I have to think that the MSM is partly to blame here.
There is really no trusted news authority one can go to for verification or accurate information any more. I suppose there used to be only a *perception* of accurate reporting, but even that has vanished in the age of internet fact-checking.
You are blaming the MSM for not being all things to all people. There is no universally trusted news authority because people seek out sources that confirm their preconceptions. Also, a foreign power released propaganda using the "emotional engagement" that you decry below to make people trust the media less.
During the run-up to the presidential election, otherwise legitimate news sources spewed a torrent of contempt, insults, and partisan framing. After the election, those same news sources went absolutely ballistic over the results.
Donald Trump is unfit to be president. It isn't a partisan issue (see the many "never T
"The news" isn't really a business (Score:3)
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 [businessinsider.com]
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.
Re:"roiled the U.S. election" (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re: "roiled the U.S. election" (Score:2)
the poor getting poorer
If you're going to repeat this kind of nonsense you can't really expect to be taken seriously on anything else you say.
Re: "roiled the U.S. election" (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re: "roiled the U.S. election" (Score:2)
More horseshit. In 1990 the number of people globally living in extreme poverty was 1.9 billion. Today it is 836 million. This has induces some erosion of the middle class in "first world" nations, yeah, but a far bigger effect has been the increase in single parent households. Neither "the poor" nor the "the middle class" are earning less; people are getting compensated the same or more than they were a few decades ago, they're just making worse life choices. Meanwhile poverty on a global level is mas
Re: (Score:2)
"extreme poverty" [un.org] is defined as living on less than $1.90 per day. Or about $57 per month. Or $693.50 per year.
Yes, the amount of people living in that income bracket has been reduced dramatically, and that is one of the biggests successes in the history of mankind and an incredible progress made possible by all the things both left- and right-wing extremists hate so much.
Meanwhile, as the other comment shows in abundance, the majority of new wealth generated in most of the developed countries goes to the t
Re: (Score:2)
No, capitalism didn' invent competition - it merely announced that it is the magic bullet to solve all problems and should be holy and protected and most importantly: Unlimited.
But reality does not agree. Humans are social creatures and altruism evolved for equally good reasons. A total competition attitude might be appropriate for solitary predators - the self-image of many successful capitalists. But humans are not solitary predators. Social and altruistic traits benefit the survival of the group and whil
Re: (Score:2)
when you look at organisms from the slightly more sophisticated point of view as a carrier of genes, rather than just a selfish individual:
Err... there is any other sensible way to look at them from an evolutionary position? Of course the genes matter, not the individual. That's why we evolved to have a vigorous youth and old age is nothing but an afterthought. Once you've raised your kids, the genes don't give a shit what happens to you, and their attitude is clearly visible in how we age.
i.e every successful Communist leader in the last century.
Every leader everywhere always claims that he is making sacrifices for his country. It's part of the show. You could say the same thing for every dictatoria
Re:"roiled the U.S. election" (Score:5, Insightful)
Know them by their works (Score:2)
So if "destabilizing us" is the problem, doesn't that mean that #resist are unwitting (?) Russian agents?
I mean, here's an album of what the Russian trolls were posting [imgur.com].
Apparently the Russians were colluding with BLM, who knew? Is that why you guys always call out to your buddy Ivan?
Re: "roiled the U.S. election" (Score:2)
> And they were designed so that the people who saw them would be most likely to engage
You don't say.
Re: (Score:2)
wrong. none of the strife in america has anything to do with the Russians.
we have racial problems, without the Russians.
we have class struggle, without the Russians.
we have corporations with government in their pockets, without the Russians.
Your Russian bogeyman doesn't exist.
Re: "roiled the U.S. election" (Score:1, Funny)
who gave the software developers right to vote in the first place? It is like trusting a monkey to play with a hand grenade.
Re: (Score:3)
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?
Re: (Score:2)
I think the joke is the same as everyone who calls an AC they don't want to bother addressing the content of "Vlad" or "Ivan." The next comment down from here is DRJlaw doing just that [slashdot.org].
Funny how much you complain when the shoe is on the other foot.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, that is the argument. It's an attempt to paint all views left of Mussolini as part of some great conspiracy, and push the centre of politics to the far right.
Re: "roiled the U.S. election" (Score:2)
The reality is I like RT a lot because I get (real) news that is otherwise censored in Western media, and because there is a real diversity of opinion, something I do not see in Western media.
The kind of mental gymnastics one has to be capable of in order to reach this conclusion is just incredible. You can replace RT with InfoWars or DailyKos and it would sound no more absurd.
Re: Really? (Score:2)
I was amazed that they worked. The only explanation is that the people who were affected by those ads were so misinformed that they believed them. And not only misinformed but also unwilling to fact check making them doubly stupid.
That's how political propaganda works. There's very little benefit to targeting sophisticated, educated, thoughtful people, since they make up a relatively insignificant percentage of the populace and are much harder to convince. Instead you target the lowest common denominator, which massively increases your support with very little effort.
Re: (Score:2)
On corportations; screw the average citizen.
On corportations; screw the average citizen.
Because representing something other than yourself and keeping promises is for suckers -- the man never met an agreement that he wouldn't break the moment that it was to his personal advantage.
and never met a situation th
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Cue all the trumptard russian apologists (Score:5, Insightful)
"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.
Re: (Score:2)
That's what they all say.
Re: (Score:2)
Caution: The above link is neo-nazi shit. from one of the "European Identity" cuck groups that are mad because dark-skinned types are taking all their women and their moms are on their asses to get jobs..
Re: (Score:3)
I've been reading this site for years, writing as AC on and off for more than a decade.
Prove it.
Re: (Score:2)
First, prove you're not a Russian bot or a nazi homophobic misogynist,
Read my posting history.
You don't want to as the request is asinine or otherwise can't?
It's not a matter of wanting to; I don't have to do anything, because my long and hallowed posting history speaks for itself.
The request is not asinine; it proves a point. And that point is that nobody will ever believe that you lurked here for years before posting. Assuming you did, you were too cowardly to log in, and now you're paying for that. But it's safer to assume that you didn't.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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 o
Re: White Helmets funded by US State Dept. (Score:2)
lol 4million+ user id calling me a shill
Re: (Score:2)
Something about Assad and ISIS shooting everyone who isn't absolutely on their side.
You keep trotting this out like some kind of talisman. You're not Vlad, or a Russian bot. You're an idiot.
Re: (Score:2)
If the white helmets are so great, why does no one in the liberated cities ever have anything good to say?
Why is there headquarters in the same building as ISIS?
Keep up the lies. The people the white helmets rescue are very grateful because they know if it were Assad's army the people would be killed on the spot. Oh look, your lie about the white helmetsA being associate with terrorists is false. How odd. [snopes.com]
Oh look, an article describing how Russia deliberately bombs these rescuers [time.com] so they can't help the people being killed [theguardian.com].
Tell us again who the terrorists are? The ones who are trying to help people lead a better life or those who deliberately target civilians and
Re: (Score:2)
If they are neutral why aren't they rescuing people after the US bombs a hospital or civilians in bread lines?
Oh right, they aren't neutral, they support the terrorist side of the Syrian civil war.
Because the U.S. isn't bombing hospitals or bread lines in Syria so there's no need for the white helmets to do anything.
But keep up the lies. All you're doing is proving who you are. You Russians are as stupid as you are naive.
Re: (Score:2)
Technically there is a middle ground. So UK contractors working with corrupt elements in the UK government, came up with the scheme to create that charity fraud. No accountability, no real records and millions from UK tax payers syphoned off and then the big payoff US funds and millions more scammed. The governments funding it think it is real but they whole thing is a big ole scam, a video charade to scam money out of the tax payer purse. This being the real reason for the failure of performance on the gro
Re: WHITE HELMETS ARE PROVEN al Nusra/al Qaeda (Score:2, Informative)
An acquaintance here occasionally does some work for Uncle Sam in the deserts of the Middle East. In his exceptionally well-informed and thoughtful opinion, yes, the White Helmets are Al Qaeda.
Re: Don't be a cuck! (Score:3)
Nazi-obsessed Gulag-apologist trolls sure do have a lot of repressed homoerotic feelings for "right wing" celebrities.
Re: (Score:2)
The white helmets (brown bodies, white heads and one eye focused on raping a country) were only providing limited rescue efforts to terrorist groups as indicated by all interviews from the regions where they were, indicated they did nothing what so ever for the general public, except hoard any emergency rations supplied by external sources and selling them on the black market. It seems highly likely that most of the White Helmet funding was stolen by the contractor middle men, otherwise please fucking expla