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Social Media Cracked the Case of MH17
- jacquesm 11y ago"Meanwhile, Russian officials denied the allegation. Officials of the producer of the Buk missile, Almaz-Antey, told a news conference on Tuesday that they had carried out their own analysis of traces found on the aircraft. They said even if the jet was shot down by a Buk, it was an old type that is no longer used by the Russian military. The official also hinted that the missile was fired from a village in the Donetsk region, where Ukrainian forces were said to have been stationed at the time of the crash. Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov called the report an attempt to make a biased conclusion. He argued that the report had failed to take account of the Russian investigations." From: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20151014_06.html http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20151014_06.html So, even if the truth is out in the open (and given the tweets right after hitting the plane there wasn't much doubt) there is apparently no way Russia is going to own up to this.
- 07d046 11y agoThe report that this article is based on discusses this and concludes: "Alternative scenarios presented by the Russian Ministry of Defense and Almaz-Antey are at best deeply flawed, and at worst show a deliberate attempt to mislead using fabricated evidence." https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2015/10/08/mh17-the-open-source-evidence/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2015/10/08/mh1...
- psykovsky 11y agoThe Bellingcat guy must like polonium tea. Brave dude.
- captn3m0 11y agoFor those who didn't get the reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvine...
- TeMPOraL 11y agoWe have a joke in Poland, about Russia's head of intelligence getting scolded by Putin for creating a mess. - "Mówiłem, żeby mu dać tylko parę 'rad'!" ("I told you to only give him some 'advice'!") - "Rad, polon, co za różnica towarzyszu?" ("Radium, polonium, what's the difference comrade?")
- cema 11y agoA good one, but it only works in Polish.
- JulianMorrison 11y agoI think Russia is aiming its obvious bullshit at Russians, where the media is entirely propaganda. Provided they don't actually admit it, they can spin it.
- dimitar 11y agoThe message is different by channel. The propaganda is much more extreme on Russian-language media. In English, Spanish, Arabic, etc. RT and other propaganda media channels are trying to appear neutral and are mostly used to exploit anti-Americanism (anti-establishment sentiment in America).
- tptacek 11y agoThe claim that that the missile was fired from near Donetsk was debunked not by Bellingcat, but by the Dutch report. The 9M38M1 is not a long-range missile; there's a roughly 10x10km area from which it plausibly could have been fired, and that area is nowhere near Donetsk.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- 1stop 11y ago... I'm confused about the implications of your statement. It would imply Detectives don't solve crimes, incompetent criminals do. That's a pretty big stretch of the meaning of words.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- kitd 11y agoOne crucial point made in this article which had somehow passed me by is how devoid of credibility the West's intelligence agencies have become. I know it has been known for a while since Snowden, but the implications are far-reaching. It has come to something when social media can point the same spotlight on whole armies doing things they would rather keep secret as it has done on politicians doing the same.
- FreakyT 11y agoWait, what? Western intelligence came to the conclusion pretty early on that Russian separatists were to blame -- only Russia's intelligence still contradicts the content of this article, insisting that Ukraine was at fault.
- jacquesm 11y agoAnd Russia's politicians and the so-called rebels. In NL there is a ton of activity on various newspaper and news websites trying to discredit the report. Makes you wonder how much of that activity is due to organizations such as this: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-professional-trolls-help-russia-with-online-propaganda http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-professional-trolls-hel...
- r721 11y agoHere's an article on this particular topic trolls: http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/13/russias-reality-trolls-and-the-mh17-war-of-misinformation-buk-missile/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/13/russias-reality-trolls-a...
- olau 11y agoFrom the article: "Such groups can be more nimble than government bureaucracies. They also have more credibility -- something that the intelligence agencies of some Western democracies have squandered with skewed findings, serial violations of privacy and repeated evasions of oversight. For one thing, because the material Higgins and others draw on is publicly available, anyone can check their findings."
- r721 11y agoThis all also shows how important (neutral) web-archiving services like archive.org or archive.is are - they work like a free equivalent of a notarized screenshot, as usual .png screenshots can be forged with simple browser tricks.
- panamafrank 11y agoThere's good on book on MH17 that was published a while ago: http://www.amazon.co.uk/MH17-story-shooting-Malaysian-airliner/dp/151238660X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8 http://www.amazon.co.uk/MH17-story-shooting-Malaysian-airlin... It came to a similar conclusion as the dutch report, the main issue with the dutch report is it's too little to late and the government had repeatedly delayed publishing it while they searched for a way to indirectly accuse Russia. The dutch report is quite weak in that it won't take the next logical step given the evidence available and accuse Russia of ordering the downing of MH17.
- TeeWEE 11y agoThe problem here is that the politics don"t want to have issues with Russia, the researches even say: 'We don"t have the mandate make accusations'... Basically the dutch goverment prevented them from accusing russia, because thats politically dangerous.
- jevgeni 11y agoWell, I think their priority was producing a watertight conclusion. The next logical step will be taken by the Dutch criminal investigation due to be completed at the end of the year and published in the beginning of 2016.
- maxerickson 11y agoICAO investigations explicitly avoid casting blame. I guess the idea is that it is important to be able to do safety investigations even in intransigent jurisdictions: http://www.icao.int/secretariat/postalhistory/annex_13_aircraft_accident_and_incident_investigation.htm http://www.icao.int/secretariat/postalhistory/annex_13_aircr...
- bkor 11y agoThe organization performing the investigation is responsible for investigating air crashes. It has to do that in an unbiased way. Now that they made their conclusions, it is up to another organization to actually find who is responsible. It's actually quite logical to split these two types out. One is about who is responsible, another is pure about what happened.
- TeeWEE 11y agoI"m from the netherlands, and i can say that the dutch report, didnt blame anybody, because the researchers didnt have the 'mandate'. Basically they didnt have the right the blame russia. Its clear from all the facts that this is from russian-sepepratist.
- Kristine1975 11y agoThis makes me question Bellingcat's work somewhat: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/expert-criticizes-allegations-of-russian-mh17-manipulation-a-1037125.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/expert-criticizes-...
- yc1010 11y agoWell it is not like Russian state is not known for hiring paid trolls and having a well oiled propaganda machine + control of media whose main duties include seeding doubt, spreading fud, and fueling conspiracy.
- Kristine1975 11y agoI don't quite understand. Are you saying that the interview in Der Spiegel is Russian propaganda?
- yc1010 11y agoWe do not know if "German image forensics expert Jens Kriese" who is interviewed by Spiegel was paid off or threatened in one form or another, especially if he happened to come from East Germany where the Soviet backed regime had files on everyone back before reunification. Spiegel.de != Jens Kriese
- Kristine1975 11y agoNow who's spreading FUD?
- tptacek 11y agoWell, you, right? You started this comment thread by pointing out a source that nitpicks one non-critical bit out of a whole mess of open source evidence Bellingcat came up with, and then suggested we shouldn't trust the site because of that.
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- korisnik 11y agoRussian/rebel social media also played a role in all this, in a way that's not mentioned in this article. There are some official and close-to-official social media accounts that are used by the Russian rebels to announce progress (Twitter, Facebook, VK) usually straight from the mouths of commanders and higher ups. When MH-17 was downed they boasted about shooting down a Ukrainian plane only to find themselves quickly deleting all mention of it several hours later. Those same accounts also boasted about acquiring a Buk missile launcher weeks earlier, but those status updates were also deleted.
- anc84 11y agoAre there any reputable sources or archives for this claim?
- kbart 11y agohttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2696389/That-blast-look-smoke-Sick-boast-laughing-rebels-saw-MH17-hit-missile-hours-leader-boasted-We-warned-not-fly-sky.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2696389/That-blast-l... http://www.interpretermag.com/was-col-strelkovs-dispatch-about-a-downed-ukrainian-plane-authentic/ http://www.interpretermag.com/was-col-strelkovs-dispatch-abo... ..and many others
- 07d046 11y agoThere's this tweet by a rebel commander: "Message from the militia. / / In the area Torrez just downed aircraft, like the An-26" From http://blog.storyful.com/2014/07/19/how-social-sleuthing-uncovered-evidence-of-anti-aircraft-missile-system-in-eastern-ukraine/ http://blog.storyful.com/2014/07/19/how-social-sleuthing-unc...
- korisnik 11y agoYes. Many news sources reported on it. As for the actual content in question - here's an archive of a tweet of them boasting about having Buk missile launcher, the tweet was later deleted: http://web.archive.org/web/20140707150151/https://twitter.com/dnrpress/status/483248037629018112 http://web.archive.org/web/20140707150151/https://twitter.co... Here's a screenshot of the VK account where their (now former) commander and defense minister (and allegedly "ex" FSB member) claimed the downing of a Ukrainian plane, later the content was deleted: http://i.imgur.com/fi4Zkx6.png http://i.imgur.com/fi4Zkx6.png The Wikipedia article covers all that in depth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
- dmichulke 11y agoHow does this: Higgins had played an important role in surfacing the use of chemical weapons in Syria by the regime of Bashar al-Assad relate to this? "Serious Questions about the Integrity of the UN Report" http://web.mit.edu/sts/Analysis%20of%20the%20UN%20Report%20on%20Syria%20CW.pdf http://web.mit.edu/sts/Analysis%20of%20the%20UN%20Report%20o...
- pp19dd 11y agoIt establishes him as a reliable source for verification of civilian casualties, even relied on and confirmed by the U.N. From the director of strategic communications, UNAMA: "Verification of civilian casualties is a painstaking, long and often extremely difficult and sensitive process, involving multiple sources and sometimes conflicting data and reports." What he said is an understatement. The 2011 casualty numbers for aerial strikes in Afghanistan started at 305 at end of 2011, rose to 353 by end of 2012 and then rose to 415 by end of 2014. It took four years to get to that "415" number and this highlights that it can take years to get accurate counts. This year's UNAMA report, due soon, is bound to raise this number.
- ethbro 11y agoFour years and how many person-hours. Is an accurate count really that important? Couldn't 300 with some statistical bounds be used? Don't get me wrong. I think every life is sacred and a single loss is an incredible tradgedy. But I tend to think spending effort on the living is more useful.
- pp19dd 11y agoYes, it really is important. I don't mean that in the sense that it's dehumanizing to replace a human being with a number and then round up or down, but in the sense of determining things like: are civilian casualties caused by Allied Forces' aerial strikes rising or falling over the years? I'll argue that this IS spending effort on the living. UN report is a credible figure, which CENTCOM can't ignore, and that hopefully will result in strategy or tactics change that result in fewer civilian casualties. Take a look at this infographic, and you'll hopefully spot 2011 in it at once on the top/bottom graphs: http://projects.voanews.com/aircraft-weapons-released-in-afghanistan-2010-to-2015/ http://projects.voanews.com/aircraft-weapons-released-in-afg... It's 2010 that appears like it has greater number of aerial strikes, but that's not the case. Yes, it has some big spikes, but it's actually 2011 that cumulatively has more strikes. Below is the corresponding number of civilian victims of aerial strikes as determined by the UN. The bottom numbers, the casualty numbers, are going down after 2011. Note that the last "15" number came from a preliminary UN report and will be updated soon. Back to the person-hours you mentioned. Was it worth it to keep counting 2011 statistics, four-five years later? I think yes, because otherwise it's really easy for CENTCOM or anyone else to either miss the correct numbers, or cherry-pick them. If anyone had only cited the 2011 UNAMA report (which was initially reported as 305), it would imply that number of casualties remained the same instead of rising sharply like it did.