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[smjjames]

Please tell me this is real.

That's a really clever thing they did there with naming it after Mike Pence. Maybe not that clever, but still funny.

[Rolepgeek]

Ban Conversion Therapy for minors or period?

[Shadowlord]

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/washington-post-disgracefully-promotes-a-mccarthyite-blacklist-from-a-new-hidden-and-very-shady-group/

[Reelya]

That article seems dodgy, since it's saying the entire WaPo article is citing a website called "PropOrNot" without citing any named experts, but that's completely untrue if you read the WaPo article.

The article by reporter Craig Timberg – headlined “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say” – cites a report by a new, anonymous website calling itself “PropOrNot,” which claims that millions of Americans have been deceived this year in a massive Russian “misinformation campaign.

”

“They want to essentially erode faith in the U.S. government or U.S. government interests,” said Clint Watts, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who along with two other researchers has tracked Russian propaganda since 2014. “This was their standard mode during the Cold War. The problem is that this was hard to do before social media.”

Watts’s report on this work, with colleagues Andrew Weisburd and J.M. Berger, appeared on the national security online magazine War on the Rocks this month under the headline “Trolling for Trump: How Russia Is Trying to Destroy Our Democracy.” Another group, called PropOrNot, a nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds, planned to release its own findings Friday showing the startling reach and effectiveness of Russian propaganda campaigns.

the problem with The Intercept's logic is that they conveniently ignore all the named experts with reputable organizations actually quoted by WaPo. The type of analysis done by PropOrNot sounds pretty good too: tracking connections between social media accounts and websites can give a very good idea who's pulling the strings. If the data is bogus then it'll be discredited soon enough.

[Shadowlord]

PropOrNot's list is on their website. The intercept article also mentions Clint Watts:

Timberg’s piece on the supposed ubiquity of Russian propaganda is misleading in several other ways. The other primary “expert” upon which the article relies is Clint Watts, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a pro-Western think tank whose board of advisors includes neoconservative figures like infamous orientalist scholar Bernard Lewis and pro-imperialist Robert D. Kaplan, the latter of whom served on the U.S. government’s Defense Policy Board.

[Reelya]

The Intercept are sounding like conspiracy nuts now however. I guess anyone with a background in intel or military can't be trusted on intel or military topics. Foreign Policy Research Institute also has a lot of members who aren't those two guys. Guilt by association is pretty weak here, especially when it's not quite clear why those two guys are supposedly suspect.

The Intercept's case here is very weak and you can tell that because of the types of argument they are using:

- Argument from Incredulity
- Guilt By Association
- Ad Hominem
- Vague Insinuations / Non-Sequiters

[Sergarr]

Obviously enough, Intercept is also a part of Russian disinformation campaign.

One has to wonder just how much money did Russian government spent on bribing or infiltrating all those various media organizations, and how much of them did that for free because of their twisted ideology making them accept Russian poison in their hearts and minds...I suspect that the number of the latter ones probably greatly outnumbers the first group.

[TheBiggerFish]

I am at least happy that a NY legislator has a sense of humor even in the face of darkness.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The only source we can trust anymore is Sergarr, who has spent twenty years building up an immunity to Russians. However, as Sergarr is actually Pathos and I am also actually Pathos, we can conclude that you should all actually listen to me.

OBEY, PEASANTS

OBEYthis post was originally a one line joke and it got a bit out of hand I didn't sleep tonight

[Harry Baldman]

The only source we can trust anymore is Sergarr, who has spent twenty years building up an immunity to Russians. However, as Sergarr is actually Pathos and I am also actually Pathos, we can conclude that you should all actually listen to me.

Your notions of identity are an artifact of the dezinformatsiya intended to sow chaos among the Amerihive. Submit yourself for mandatory recycling.

[Arx]

The only source we can trust anymore is Sergarr, who has spent twenty years building up an immunity to Russians. However, as Sergarr is actually Pathos and I am also actually Pathos, we can conclude that you should all actually listen to me.

OBEY, PEASANTS

OBEYthis post was originally a one line joke and it got a bit out of hand I didn't sleep tonight

This is like some twisted kind of syllogism.

1. Sergarr is trustworthy (?) ().
2. Sergarr is Pathos.
3. Therefore, Socrates is a mortal. MetalSlimeHunt is Pathos.
4. BOW DOWN BEFORE ME.

[Shadowlord]

4. BOW DOWN BEFORE ME.

Spoiler: kneel before your god (click to show/hide)

[Dorsidwarf]

Spoiler: kneel before your god (click to show/hide)

Kneel before your god

[Guardian G.I.]

Obviously enough, Intercept is also a part of Russian disinformation campaign.

One has to wonder just how much money did Russian government spent on bribing or infiltrating all those various media organizations, and how much of them did that for free because of their twisted ideology making them accept Russian poison in their hearts and minds...I suspect that the number of the latter ones probably greatly outnumbers the first group.

I really doubt the whole "Russia subverting our freedom!" narrative.

The Soviet Union with its power and resources couldn't sway the minds of many Westerners back in the Cold War, decade after decade. The Communist parties and organizations supported by Soviet secret services were weak and completely uninfluential.  And then in the early 21st century came Putin, who managed to:

• Create media tools like RT, that would be completely successful in influencing millions of people worldwide. Soviet propagandists never had such tremendous successes at any point during the Cold War.
• Turn a bunch of weak populist movements in the EU into a powerful political force. The worldwide Communist movement of the past are weaklings compared to them!
• Create an enormous net of paid agents that would successfully infiltrate thousands of websites and win the hearts and minds of many ordinary people.
• Fuel the European refugee crisis by supporting Assad in Syria, weakening the EU and strengthening the above-mentioned populist movements.
• Successfully use them to weaken the EU even further by making UK vote for Brexit, against overwhelming odds.
• Make the KGB look like complete amateurs again by funding a 'pro-Russian' candidate in the United States, a complete outsider with no experience in politics, and use him to successfully take over a dominantly anti-Russian Republican Party.
• Fund and organize a myriad of news sources supporting Trump and successfully counter the full force of the powerful and well-funded pro-Hillary media.
• Tarnish Hillary's campaign even further by using very obviously false and completely made-up information leaks (info is 100% true, I guarantee it!) that would still be extremely successful in influencing public opinion and discrediting the American democracy.
• Using all things mentioned above, bring said outsider pro-Russian candidate into the Oval Office, against overwhelming odds. Pavel Sudoplatov and Yuri Andropov would have died of envy after hearing that.

All of that with very scarce resources compared to what the KGB and GRU once had.
In less than 10 years, Putin managed to achieve things that the mighty giants of the Soviet intelligence, the people who were easily stealing nuclear secrets, couldn't even hope to do in 50. Under budget and ahead of schedule, as Trump would say. That's a completely superhuman (and impossible) competence jump for someone who couldn't prevent the advance of NATO to Russian borders or even foil anti-Russian coups in neighbouring countries (multiple times!).

As I see it, the rise of the so-called "alt-right" populists isn't some Russian evil plot, but a natural reaction to the weakness of the European and American political systems and the political elites. Instead of fixing their shortcomings, the elites try to sweep the dissent under the rug by drumming up anti-Russian hysteria, painting their opponents as Russian agents and trying to suppress the disloyal media. Russia in the meantime is simply flinging cash at anyone who would appear friendly to their interests, and occasionally breaking into poorly protected servers - Putin isn't competent enough for organizing incredibly widespread overarching conspiracies.

[Sergarr]

-snip-

Well, that's why I've said that the number of people voluntarily helping out Russian interests was greatly outnumbering the quantity of paid shills. USSR has tried to use brute force to push its interests through, flinging its financial and political capital without care, its own propaganda making it sure that it was always just on the cusp of winning the "worker class" and starting a world-wide revolution, while in reality, it couldn't be further away from truth, as USSR has crumbled first, shattered apart by its own weaknesses.

Modern Russia is significantly less stronger, and that, ironically enough, made it far more dangerous, after the initial shock of defeat wore off - since it has started to aim for the true weaknesses in the Western political structures, having no meaningful chances to win without such strategies. Sure, its influence may not be so large in absolute numbers - but it doesn't matter, when it serves as a seed to crystallize the unformed motions of general dissatisfaction with the existing world structure into a firm pro-Russian (or anti-globalist, for that matter) opposition, utilizing the great media force of these countries to deal an absolutely ironic defeat to the forces of liberty.

Putin is a judoist, remember? Judo being a martial art revolving around using the strength of the enemy against them, it makes sense that Putin and the better-skilled parts of his political apparatus would judo the hell out of their adversaries too strong to defeat conventionally.

And the best - or worst, depending on which side of the Russian border you're on - part is, it's working, and working rather well, since the usual anti-Russian media strategies that worked against USSR appear to no longer work to suppress modern Russia's influence.

Maybe it's because conventional censorship no longer works in the Internet age, or maybe it's because of something else, but Russia has, with GDP less than Italy's, managed to emerge in a dominant position over a significant portion of the Western world, with multiple pro-Russian/anti-globalist candidates and positions winning in the countries long thought to be secured by liberty.