4 ms·

I don't think fake news is a useful term, it never has been. The media has been flooded with both outright fake news and more importantly missing news for years

I don't think fake news is a useful term, it never has been. The media has been flooded with both outright fake news and more importantly missing news for years, when it was supporting the Democrat world view. For instance, just go look at how often you can read the Russia "invaded" Ukraine or Russia "invaded" Crimea. The Russian army is huge and what's left of the Ukrainian army is made of fresh conscripts. If those events had actually happened then the Russian flag would have been waving over buildings in Kiev within 24 hours, there would have been videos of it all over the world. You can't hide an invasion of an entire country, that's not what the word means. Yet these conquered cities are mysteriously missing. What actually happened is a civil war in Ukraine with two opposing sides from the same country who hate each other, one side trying to break away by force. The west supports west Ukraine with materials and training, Russia probably supports east Ukraine/Donbass in a similar way, although the west admitted they were doing it and Russia never did. But let's put that to one side and assume both were at it. That's not an invasion, that is at most a proxy war. And what happened in Crimea was even simpler, they had a vote and voted to join Russia just like they did twice in the 1990's (but were ignored). Western/Ukrainian polling and journalists have visited since and didn't find any evidence that the vote was not representative of what people there actually think. Yet fake news stories that talk of invasion, literally fake as in "reporting on things that never happened", goes largely unremarked, especially by the kinds of people who hate Trump. They usually aren't even aware how thoroughly they've been fooled. If you want an example of how people are manipulated through missing news rather than fake news, the recent Greenwald article on a SEAL Team raid in Yemen and how CNN reported it is a good one. So "fake news" is the kind of thing that both sides can levy at the other, with some justification, but trying to claim one side or another is smarter than the rest is not going to work. People will just tune it out, exactly as you report.

cryoshon 10y ago
>just go look at how often you can read the Russia "invaded" Ukraine or Russia "invaded" Crimea. putting your soldiers onto someone else's turf without permission equals invasion...
- patrickk 10y ago
  Exactly, there were "rebels" driving around in Russian armoured vehicles, using modern Russian military equipment, just without insignias on their uniforms. This story[1] is one of many from a few years back about poorly-disguised Russian troops who were deployed in Ukraine. Vice News did an amusing piece of reporting where they tracked down a Russian soldier who was deployed in Ukraine based on his social media presence[2]. The idea that Russian troops weren't involved is laughable, obvious propaganda that was aimed mostly at the Russian population, not really meant to fool the rest of the world. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/defence-and-security-blog/2014/mar/06/ukraine-gross-violation-russian-troops https://www.theguardian.com/news/defence-and-security-blog/2... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zssIFN2mso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zssIFN2mso
  - zigzigzag 10y ago
    Please re-read my post. I say explicitly that both sides in the civil war were being supported by US/UK and Russia respectively, with soldiers and equipment. However, this does not mean the USA invaded Ukraine, nor did Russia invade Ukraine. Perhaps you guys are all using the word "invasion" to mean something different to what I'm using it to mean, but in my book a country can't quietly invade another. Especially not countries with wildly superior militaries. Invasions are kind of hard to miss. Nobody in Iraq or Afghanistan was in any doubt that their countries had been invaded by the USA.
    - cryoshon 10y ago
      > Invasions are kind of hard to miss and nobody missed that the russians invaded ukraine...
what013117 10y ago
I am speechless at this revisionist view of recent history. Two things: 1. If anyone is confused about the Crimea invasion simply go back and read the primary sources. Read newspapers from overseas, especially those in different languages. No one believed that the recent invasion of Crimea began as a civil war/proxy war. It had become that, sure, but let's keep the facts straight. 2. To the poster: how can you be so sure of global events? Your viewpoint is the accepted perspective of the Russian government. Does that not give you pause, to repeat the words of a clearly self-interested party?
- zigzigzag 10y ago
  I did read the sources, at the time it was happening. And I, too, am shocked at the total and successful rewrite of recent history the western media and government establishments have pulled off. It is stunningly Orwellian and extremely scary. Now. Please show me where a shot was fired during this so-called "invasion" of Crimea? Please explain to me why all the evidence suggests that the people who live there are happy to have been "invaded"? These are simply not normal uses of the word "invasion", which normally involve shooting rather than voting. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/03/20/one-year-after-russia-annexed-crimea-locals-prefer-moscow-to-kiev/#47c69bd95951 http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/03/20/one-year-af... 2. How can I be so sure? I remember what was reported at the time. There were plenty of news stories that covered what was happening. I remember fact checking and them often discovering blatant propaganda inside, but the whole "Russia invaded Ukraine and Crimea and you're crazy if you remember otherwise" line didn't start until long after the events in question. If you go back and read the stories in the press at the time they only talked about "pro Russian forces" or "pro Russian rebels". No invasion, no army. I remember noticing newspapers just starting to repeat one day that what had happened was not in fact a civil war between pro-EU and pro-Russian forces, it was an invasion, but that happened after Ukraine had dropped out of the daily news cycle. I remember at the time the sequence of events that led to the breakout of civil war there. The overthrow of the rather poor but still democratically elected government by people who wanted Ukraine to align with the EU, the outbreak of fighting, the supposedly free and fair "elections" that happened whilst the revolutionary government was busy shelling its own citizens. The flight of refugees from east Ukraine towards Russia instead of away from it. What actually happened is not a secret. You can go re-read original coverage, original sources, go do some research. Here, I'll help you. Here's a story from 2014 in the fanatically pro-EU and anti-Russian Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/10/donetsk-referendum-ukraine-civil-war https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/10/donetsk-refere... Read this article and observe the following things: 1. The fight is described as being between Kiev and separatists/pro-Russian forces, or in Kiev's term, "terrorists". Not the Russian army. 2. The only mention of Putin or the Russian government is in a paragraph saying the separatists had possibly wanted to delay the independence referendum they were trying to organise there, because Putin was signalling he was not willing to lend them military support or absorb the region. Where in this story is there discussion of a Russian invasion? It isn't there because no such invasion ever happened. At most, small groups of special forces were sent in to aid the rebels covertly in a proxy war, which is no more than what the west did (the US and UK sent soldiers and equipment to support the Ukrainian army). Talk of an actual invasion appeared much later. Now, saying my viewpoint is the accepted perspective of the Russian government is pure ad hominem. So what? By stating that my views are revisionism and that in fact there was an invasion, you are doing the same thing: repeating the words of clearly self interested parties, namely the western governments and the media who support them, who want Ukraine to have close relations with the EU instead of Russia. You can read an essay with a similar viewpoint by an American journalist here: https://consortiumnews.com/2015/02/09/wretched-us-journalism-on-ukraine/ https://consortiumnews.com/2015/02/09/wretched-us-journalism...

cryoshon 10y ago

>just go look at how often you can read the Russia "invaded" Ukraine or Russia "invaded" Crimea. putting your soldiers onto someone else's turf without permission equals invasion...

patrickk 10y ago
Exactly, there were "rebels" driving around in Russian armoured vehicles, using modern Russian military equipment, just without insignias on their uniforms. This story[1] is one of many from a few years back about poorly-disguised Russian troops who were deployed in Ukraine. Vice News did an amusing piece of reporting where they tracked down a Russian soldier who was deployed in Ukraine based on his social media presence[2]. The idea that Russian troops weren't involved is laughable, obvious propaganda that was aimed mostly at the Russian population, not really meant to fool the rest of the world. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/defence-and-security-blog/2014/mar/06/ukraine-gross-violation-russian-troops https://www.theguardian.com/news/defence-and-security-blog/2... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zssIFN2mso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zssIFN2mso
- zigzigzag 10y ago
  Please re-read my post. I say explicitly that both sides in the civil war were being supported by US/UK and Russia respectively, with soldiers and equipment. However, this does not mean the USA invaded Ukraine, nor did Russia invade Ukraine. Perhaps you guys are all using the word "invasion" to mean something different to what I'm using it to mean, but in my book a country can't quietly invade another. Especially not countries with wildly superior militaries. Invasions are kind of hard to miss. Nobody in Iraq or Afghanistan was in any doubt that their countries had been invaded by the USA.
  - cryoshon 10y ago
    > Invasions are kind of hard to miss and nobody missed that the russians invaded ukraine...

what013117 10y ago

I am speechless at this revisionist view of recent history. Two things: 1. If anyone is confused about the Crimea invasion simply go back and read the primary sources. Read newspapers from overseas, especially those in different languages. No one believed that the recent invasion of Crimea began as a civil war/proxy war. It had become that, sure, but let's keep the facts straight. 2. To the poster: how can you be so sure of global events? Your viewpoint is the accepted perspective of the Russian government. Does that not give you pause, to repeat the words of a clearly self-interested party?

zigzigzag 10y ago
I did read the sources, at the time it was happening. And I, too, am shocked at the total and successful rewrite of recent history the western media and government establishments have pulled off. It is stunningly Orwellian and extremely scary. Now. Please show me where a shot was fired during this so-called "invasion" of Crimea? Please explain to me why all the evidence suggests that the people who live there are happy to have been "invaded"? These are simply not normal uses of the word "invasion", which normally involve shooting rather than voting. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/03/20/one-year-after-russia-annexed-crimea-locals-prefer-moscow-to-kiev/#47c69bd95951 http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/03/20/one-year-af... 2. How can I be so sure? I remember what was reported at the time. There were plenty of news stories that covered what was happening. I remember fact checking and them often discovering blatant propaganda inside, but the whole "Russia invaded Ukraine and Crimea and you're crazy if you remember otherwise" line didn't start until long after the events in question. If you go back and read the stories in the press at the time they only talked about "pro Russian forces" or "pro Russian rebels". No invasion, no army. I remember noticing newspapers just starting to repeat one day that what had happened was not in fact a civil war between pro-EU and pro-Russian forces, it was an invasion, but that happened after Ukraine had dropped out of the daily news cycle. I remember at the time the sequence of events that led to the breakout of civil war there. The overthrow of the rather poor but still democratically elected government by people who wanted Ukraine to align with the EU, the outbreak of fighting, the supposedly free and fair "elections" that happened whilst the revolutionary government was busy shelling its own citizens. The flight of refugees from east Ukraine towards Russia instead of away from it. What actually happened is not a secret. You can go re-read original coverage, original sources, go do some research. Here, I'll help you. Here's a story from 2014 in the fanatically pro-EU and anti-Russian Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/10/donetsk-referendum-ukraine-civil-war https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/10/donetsk-refere... Read this article and observe the following things: 1. The fight is described as being between Kiev and separatists/pro-Russian forces, or in Kiev's term, "terrorists". Not the Russian army. 2. The only mention of Putin or the Russian government is in a paragraph saying the separatists had possibly wanted to delay the independence referendum they were trying to organise there, because Putin was signalling he was not willing to lend them military support or absorb the region. Where in this story is there discussion of a Russian invasion? It isn't there because no such invasion ever happened. At most, small groups of special forces were sent in to aid the rebels covertly in a proxy war, which is no more than what the west did (the US and UK sent soldiers and equipment to support the Ukrainian army). Talk of an actual invasion appeared much later. Now, saying my viewpoint is the accepted perspective of the Russian government is pure ad hominem. So what? By stating that my views are revisionism and that in fact there was an invasion, you are doing the same thing: repeating the words of clearly self interested parties, namely the western governments and the media who support them, who want Ukraine to have close relations with the EU instead of Russia. You can read an essay with a similar viewpoint by an American journalist here: https://consortiumnews.com/2015/02/09/wretched-us-journalism-on-ukraine/ https://consortiumnews.com/2015/02/09/wretched-us-journalism...