8 years ago
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Czech Republic claims propaganda war by Russia and sets up counter-effort
The Czech government has accused Russia of conducting a propaganda war on its soil and is setting up a unit to counter what it says are networks of pro-Moscow puppet groups. “We want to get into every smartphone” to counter Russian disinformation, said Milan Chovanec, the Czech interior minister. The Czech counter-intelligence service said in September that Russia was conducting “an information war” in the Czech Republic, putting in place propaganda agents to destabilise the country.
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https://www.theguardian.com
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Well, it worked in the US, so why not?
Wait. Do you mean scaring people there was a Russian under every bed worked in the U.S. or that pro-Russian puppet groups stole our perfect and flawless elections?
No, the article accuses them pretty much of the same thing they've been doing here, which is spreading disinformation. This isn't as sinister but still has an impact on politics, given how much people seem to fall for confirmation bias.
Speaking of confirmation bias, what disinformation would that be, exactly?
for example, rt.com, whose stories get picked up pretty quickly by conservative news outlets like Breitbart, realclearpolitics.com, informationliberation.com, etc. I'm going to be lazy and let you find out about them by browsing voat.
Let me clarify that I'm very, very much not a fan of HRC or the Democratic Party (or almost anyone on the US government, with very few exceptions). I think Hillary blaming Russia for losing the election is blind and stupid (but understandable given their massive arrogance). But Putin is also not a saint, and he knows better than nearly anyone else in the world how to use propaganda to his advantage and to manipulate politics everywhere. Russians are good at more than one kind of chess.
No source can be taken as absolute truth. Russia Today is not a great source of news about Russia, but they may have a perspective on Tennessee that you may not get from the major newspapers in that state, all of whom are owned by the same company. Much the way Al Jazeera is owned by the Saudi monarchy, so you probably ought to ignore what they have to tell you about Saudi Arabian proxies like ISIS/Daesh and Al Qaeda, but if they’ve got a story out of Knoxville, you might take a look. Ditto for the BBC, NPR, Xinhua, and all semi- and quasi-governmental news agencies right down through history.
You suggest that Breitbart picks up disinformation from Russia Today, to which I can only respond that you’ve vastly underestimated the bubbling pits of bile and invective from which Breitbart can summon their own disinformation easily. RealClearPolitics is, while conservative, a professional news outfit and really ought not to be mixed up with straight up disinformation operations like Breitbart, The Daily Caller, and BeforeItsNews. If you see something in any of those three, you can assume it’s bunk. I’d say “until you can establish it’s not,” but it always is.
All of which is somewhat beside the point. You’re no Clinton fan, I’m no Putin fan. I mean, there could easily be worse than Putin, but regardless… I’d like to suggest that in allowing a politicized caricature of Putin as an enemy trickster to cancel out their understanding of Russia as a country, many people have been manipulated in the very way they are seemingly so concerned about. McCarthyist witch hunts in the U.S., whether back during the Cold War or now as the sour grapes of Clinton’s New Democrats, are about suppressing dissent at home, not guarding against foreign enemies.
That part about confirmation bias is for real, right? I go to dog parks fairly often. People talk there, you can’t help but hear things. If what I hear there is any fair indication, there are plenty of people far too busy lying to themselves about who Clinton was to think twice about whether their real enemies are who she said they were. Honestly, her campaign’s easy recourse to reflexive McCarthyism and what they called ‘muscular diplomacy’ cemented my conviction she was the more effective evil. I would never have voted for either of those candidates, but I’m not going to pretend I’m disappointed Clinton lost. Making an enemy of Russia is insane.
I agree. I actually know that those news sources exist because I look at them too. I don't pretend that the truth is in only one place or believe that people are one-dimensional caricatures. Also I didn't mean that Breitbart only picks their info from RT, there's also plenty of homegrown crap going around to choose from.
All I said is that Russia is very good at playing the information wars, and Putin had an axe to grind with Clinton. A lot of things that came to light during the election about her were likely coming from him. But I agree the Democrats are being extra stupid not recognizing that they only have themselves to blame for what happened in the election. BTW I don't vote, but if I did I would've probably voted third party, certainly not for her.