6 ms·

I'm so glad my government, the United States Government, has definitely never spread propaganda in foreign countries with the express interest of creating a mor

I'm so glad my government, the United States Government, has definitely never spread propaganda in foreign countries with the express interest of creating a more favorable political climate there for their interests.

jdoliner 9y ago
Yeah, even if they completely corrupt our political systems we can sleep well at night knowing that we've always taken the high ground on things like this.
- deusofnull 9y ago
  Yeah, and it sure is a good thing we always pick the "moderate rebels" to provide material aid to, and i am so grateful that those "moderate rebels" we give weapons to never morph into horrific radical insurgencies that end up subsequently haunting us for decades.
nscalf 9y ago
I think this opinion is very narrow minded. Who is the person you're trying to convince with this thought? No one is doubting that we are doing this overseas, that doesn't make it any less concerning that it is happening here. It is a weapon that doesn't result in war, I hope my government, the United States Government, uses this more as an early option instead of going to war. If anything, I'm upset they are not more effective at this. When a foreign government disrupts my free elections though, I'm going to be troubled by it. What you're saying is effectively belittling the importance of hardening our own systems from this foreign influence.
- milcron 9y ago
  > No one is doubting that we are doing this overseas The 2nd highest comment is "honestly curious" whether the US participates in propaganda campaigns.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    The US established an entire Twitter clone in Cuba with the aim of fomenting a revolution.
    - nl 9y ago
      Reference for that?
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        http://www.adweek.com/digital/us-secretly-built-cubas-twitter-clone-spark-unrest-ap-reports-156742/ http://www.adweek.com/digital/us-secretly-built-cubas-twitte...
    - deusofnull 9y ago
      That brings the count for number of times the US has attempted to foment a revolution in Cuba to at least 2.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        Uh, yeah, I'd say definitely more than that
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  > Who is the person you're trying to convince with this thought? Anyone who reads the article, and thinks "this is outrageous!" instead of treating it as a chess move by an opponent.
  - altcognito 9y ago
    Chess moves that have implications, and the OP might have a vested interest in an outcome that is favorable to his human rights and the economic stability of his country.
  - jbooth 9y ago
    It's outrageous to the extent we're completely unprepared and maybe unwilling to deal with it. Radio Free Europe was at least just using the airwaves. These efforts are using US corporations against the US.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      European airwaves, on European radios.
      - jbooth 9y ago
        So, is that confirmation on 'unwilling'?
    - pavel_lishin 9y ago
      Don't put a knight on the board if you don't know how it moves.
      - jbooth 9y ago
        I'm not sure what that even means, knights have moved the same way for thousands of years and we're just discovering how internet society works in real time. Having the hyper-free-speech internet that we created turned against us in ways that more authoritarian countries are immune to is a huge slap in the face. We need to figure out a way to handle this.
- guaka 9y ago
  Ha! I'm pretty sure deusofnull was being sarcastic here.
- deusofnull 9y ago
  I definitely dont want to belittle the importance of this kind of activity. But I very much want to shift the dialog about such machinations on the part of foreign powers towards a conversation where we acknowledge or own systemic failures in democracy at home and our rampant interventionism abroad. I really only see the outcome of this outrage over foreign interference in our democracy resulting in a spectrum of terrible to shameful. In the terrible case, we are hyping up defensive nationalism and disregarding our own actions and history, which may very well lead to all kinds of barbaric, jingoistic policies moving forward. In the shameful case, we are taking advantage of these stories on foreign manipulation as a means to ignore what is wrong with our society, passing the blame solely onto a non american third party. In neither case are we reviewing our history as a nation. I fear we will ignore all the possible lessons we might learn from honestly reviewing the times where we have disenfranchised our own people, overthrew foreign governments for adhering to a different socio-economic ideology, or were so blinded by our own propaganda and fear that we were convinced of conveniently simple narratives about who was bad and who was good and who we had to kill and who had to do the killing. I feel like there is a common aphorism about how you need to fail 10 times to have a decent chance to succeed once. It seems like we have an opportunity to review our history at this moment. We didn't do any such examination after the fall of the USSR in the 90s. Nope, we were vindicated and there was no longer a reason to pen-test neoliberal-capitalism as either an economic system or a larger ideology. It took 2 inane wars, a massive recession, and the election of idiot-nationalist reality tv show star / shitty condo developer to provide us with an opportunity to introspect, and I'll be damned if I dont make the strongest appeal my young perspective can muster for us to do that introspection.
empath75 9y ago
All countries do this or attempt to do this, as much as they are able. All countries also need to defend themselves against this. Sovereignty isn’t just about borders.
- deusofnull 9y ago
  I think a good place to start is principles. Y'know, like if you're a nation who is always going on about democracy and freedom (who even starts wars that kills 100,000s of people for these ideals), maybe don't subjugate the majority and centralize socio-economic power into the hands of a tiny minority.
r00fus 9y ago
Clearly Voice of America should not be considered propaganda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Well, that's arguable, but that's hardly the extent of US psyops. http://www.adweek.com/digital/us-secretly-built-cubas-twitter-clone-spark-unrest-ap-reports-156742/ http://www.adweek.com/digital/us-secretly-built-cubas-twitte...
superkuh 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
- deusofnull 9y ago
  Ok. I think it is generally improper, or not preferable, to use coercive or manipulative force to alter the autonomous decision making process of a population you yourself (or your cadre) have lite or no direct stake in, accountability to, or reliance on. When the US interferes in foreign politics in a duplicitous way, we betray most of the principles of democracy. When any government or corporation or religion does this, they stomp on the idea that people should be able to make decisions for themselves. And when you live in a world dominated by the influence of immaterial third-parties, you become deeply frustrated, and this is one of the reasons things are so volatile right now. I dunno, all you did was link to a logical fallacy article on wikipedia, so like maybe you didnt ask for me to write a missive on this notion of mine, but if I am being honest, I am honestly so frustrated by the prevalence of people thinking that pointing out a logical fallacy (aka rhetorical technique) functions as anything other than tepid dismissal.
- penistives 9y ago
  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/context https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/context
- est 9y ago
  typical "what about whataboutism?" reply.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
jjawssd 9y ago
A former president of the United States led successful efforts to overturn the Smith-Mundt Act, a long-standing piece of legislation that has been amended numerous times over the years, perhaps most consequentially by Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright. In the 1970s, Fulbright was no friend of VOA and Radio Free Europe, and moved to restrict them from domestic distribution, saying they "should be given the opportunity to take their rightful place in the graveyard of Cold War relics." Fulbright’s amendment to Smith-Mundt was bolstered in 1985 by Nebraska Senator Edward Zorinsky, who argued that such "propaganda" should be kept out of America as to distinguish the U.S. "from the Soviet Union where domestic propaganda is a principal government activity."
stuffedBelly 9y ago
wow, I totally overestimated people's ability to get sarcasm.
- deusofnull 9y ago
  are people really missing the beat here? that makes me feel genuine sadness.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
The USA didn’t ban wechat, if that’s what you are getting at. And aren’t you just exercising a black or white binary fallacy when we are really comparing a light shade of grey to a much darker one?
- user982 9y ago
  > And aren’t you just exercising a black or white binary fallacy when we are really comparing a light shade of grey to a much darker one? And which are you saying is which?
- BeetleB 9y ago
  The lighter being China? https://www.npr.org/2016/12/22/506625913/database-tracks-history-of-u-s-meddling-in-foreign-elections https://www.npr.org/2016/12/22/506625913/database-tracks-his...
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    The one that feels the need to block Facebook of course is worse. I’ll let you figure out what country is that.
    - BeetleB 9y ago
      And I'll let you figure out which country is more guilty in manipulating elections.
      - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        China doesn’t have elections (well, meaningful ones at least), so you are probably right there.
    - mmel 9y ago
      Why is blocking Facebook bad? I do not think the existence of Facebook has been a net-positive for society.
chrischen 9y ago
US is worde. We send physical assassins and covert military operations.
vkou 9y ago
Or domestically. White House Press Releases serve to inform, not propagandize.

jdoliner 9y ago

Yeah, even if they completely corrupt our political systems we can sleep well at night knowing that we've always taken the high ground on things like this.

deusofnull 9y ago
Yeah, and it sure is a good thing we always pick the "moderate rebels" to provide material aid to, and i am so grateful that those "moderate rebels" we give weapons to never morph into horrific radical insurgencies that end up subsequently haunting us for decades.

nscalf 9y ago

I think this opinion is very narrow minded. Who is the person you're trying to convince with this thought? No one is doubting that we are doing this overseas, that doesn't make it any less concerning that it is happening here. It is a weapon that doesn't result in war, I hope my government, the United States Government, uses this more as an early option instead of going to war. If anything, I'm upset they are not more effective at this. When a foreign government disrupts my free elections though, I'm going to be troubled by it. What you're saying is effectively belittling the importance of hardening our own systems from this foreign influence.

milcron 9y ago
> No one is doubting that we are doing this overseas The 2nd highest comment is "honestly curious" whether the US participates in propaganda campaigns.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  The US established an entire Twitter clone in Cuba with the aim of fomenting a revolution.
  - nl 9y ago
    Reference for that?
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      http://www.adweek.com/digital/us-secretly-built-cubas-twitter-clone-spark-unrest-ap-reports-156742/ http://www.adweek.com/digital/us-secretly-built-cubas-twitte...
  - deusofnull 9y ago
    That brings the count for number of times the US has attempted to foment a revolution in Cuba to at least 2.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      Uh, yeah, I'd say definitely more than that
pavel_lishin 9y ago
> Who is the person you're trying to convince with this thought? Anyone who reads the article, and thinks "this is outrageous!" instead of treating it as a chess move by an opponent.
- altcognito 9y ago
  Chess moves that have implications, and the OP might have a vested interest in an outcome that is favorable to his human rights and the economic stability of his country.
- jbooth 9y ago
  It's outrageous to the extent we're completely unprepared and maybe unwilling to deal with it. Radio Free Europe was at least just using the airwaves. These efforts are using US corporations against the US.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    European airwaves, on European radios.
    - jbooth 9y ago
      So, is that confirmation on 'unwilling'?
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    Don't put a knight on the board if you don't know how it moves.
    - jbooth 9y ago
      I'm not sure what that even means, knights have moved the same way for thousands of years and we're just discovering how internet society works in real time. Having the hyper-free-speech internet that we created turned against us in ways that more authoritarian countries are immune to is a huge slap in the face. We need to figure out a way to handle this.
guaka 9y ago
Ha! I'm pretty sure deusofnull was being sarcastic here.
deusofnull 9y ago
I definitely dont want to belittle the importance of this kind of activity. But I very much want to shift the dialog about such machinations on the part of foreign powers towards a conversation where we acknowledge or own systemic failures in democracy at home and our rampant interventionism abroad. I really only see the outcome of this outrage over foreign interference in our democracy resulting in a spectrum of terrible to shameful. In the terrible case, we are hyping up defensive nationalism and disregarding our own actions and history, which may very well lead to all kinds of barbaric, jingoistic policies moving forward. In the shameful case, we are taking advantage of these stories on foreign manipulation as a means to ignore what is wrong with our society, passing the blame solely onto a non american third party. In neither case are we reviewing our history as a nation. I fear we will ignore all the possible lessons we might learn from honestly reviewing the times where we have disenfranchised our own people, overthrew foreign governments for adhering to a different socio-economic ideology, or were so blinded by our own propaganda and fear that we were convinced of conveniently simple narratives about who was bad and who was good and who we had to kill and who had to do the killing. I feel like there is a common aphorism about how you need to fail 10 times to have a decent chance to succeed once. It seems like we have an opportunity to review our history at this moment. We didn't do any such examination after the fall of the USSR in the 90s. Nope, we were vindicated and there was no longer a reason to pen-test neoliberal-capitalism as either an economic system or a larger ideology. It took 2 inane wars, a massive recession, and the election of idiot-nationalist reality tv show star / shitty condo developer to provide us with an opportunity to introspect, and I'll be damned if I dont make the strongest appeal my young perspective can muster for us to do that introspection.

empath75 9y ago

All countries do this or attempt to do this, as much as they are able. All countries also need to defend themselves against this. Sovereignty isn’t just about borders.

deusofnull 9y ago
I think a good place to start is principles. Y'know, like if you're a nation who is always going on about democracy and freedom (who even starts wars that kills 100,000s of people for these ideals), maybe don't subjugate the majority and centralize socio-economic power into the hands of a tiny minority.

r00fus 9y ago

Clearly Voice of America should not be considered propaganda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America

emodendroket 9y ago
Well, that's arguable, but that's hardly the extent of US psyops. http://www.adweek.com/digital/us-secretly-built-cubas-twitter-clone-spark-unrest-ap-reports-156742/ http://www.adweek.com/digital/us-secretly-built-cubas-twitte...

superkuh 9y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

deusofnull 9y ago
Ok. I think it is generally improper, or not preferable, to use coercive or manipulative force to alter the autonomous decision making process of a population you yourself (or your cadre) have lite or no direct stake in, accountability to, or reliance on. When the US interferes in foreign politics in a duplicitous way, we betray most of the principles of democracy. When any government or corporation or religion does this, they stomp on the idea that people should be able to make decisions for themselves. And when you live in a world dominated by the influence of immaterial third-parties, you become deeply frustrated, and this is one of the reasons things are so volatile right now. I dunno, all you did was link to a logical fallacy article on wikipedia, so like maybe you didnt ask for me to write a missive on this notion of mine, but if I am being honest, I am honestly so frustrated by the prevalence of people thinking that pointing out a logical fallacy (aka rhetorical technique) functions as anything other than tepid dismissal.
penistives 9y ago
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/context https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/context
est 9y ago
typical "what about whataboutism?" reply.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

jjawssd 9y ago

A former president of the United States led successful efforts to overturn the Smith-Mundt Act, a long-standing piece of legislation that has been amended numerous times over the years, perhaps most consequentially by Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright. In the 1970s, Fulbright was no friend of VOA and Radio Free Europe, and moved to restrict them from domestic distribution, saying they "should be given the opportunity to take their rightful place in the graveyard of Cold War relics." Fulbright’s amendment to Smith-Mundt was bolstered in 1985 by Nebraska Senator Edward Zorinsky, who argued that such "propaganda" should be kept out of America as to distinguish the U.S. "from the Soviet Union where domestic propaganda is a principal government activity."

stuffedBelly 9y ago

wow, I totally overestimated people's ability to get sarcasm.

deusofnull 9y ago
are people really missing the beat here? that makes me feel genuine sadness.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

The USA didn’t ban wechat, if that’s what you are getting at. And aren’t you just exercising a black or white binary fallacy when we are really comparing a light shade of grey to a much darker one?

user982 9y ago
> And aren’t you just exercising a black or white binary fallacy when we are really comparing a light shade of grey to a much darker one? And which are you saying is which?
BeetleB 9y ago
The lighter being China? https://www.npr.org/2016/12/22/506625913/database-tracks-history-of-u-s-meddling-in-foreign-elections https://www.npr.org/2016/12/22/506625913/database-tracks-his...
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  The one that feels the need to block Facebook of course is worse. I’ll let you figure out what country is that.
  - BeetleB 9y ago
    And I'll let you figure out which country is more guilty in manipulating elections.
    - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
      China doesn’t have elections (well, meaningful ones at least), so you are probably right there.
  - mmel 9y ago
    Why is blocking Facebook bad? I do not think the existence of Facebook has been a net-positive for society.

chrischen 9y ago

US is worde. We send physical assassins and covert military operations.

vkou 9y ago

Or domestically. White House Press Releases serve to inform, not propagandize.