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I thought that’s Putin’s playbook. Since you can’t control the situation anyway, just push out a lot of disinformation so nobody believes anything anymore. You

I thought that’s Putin’s playbook. Since you can’t control the situation anyway, just push out a lot of disinformation so nobody believes anything anymore. You could argue that the current US president plays the same game by shouting “fake news” all the time.

jajag 7y ago
But isn't the whole "Russian disinformation" thing in turn a way of discrediting information? Orwell was writing about this 80 years ago, it's never seemed more relevant.
- Tagbert 7y ago
  That is how disinformation can be protected from exposure. If you fill the channels with enough disinformation, then even true information exposing disinformation is treated as disinformation. It’s very corrosive of society.
  - jajag 7y ago
    But it's also how perfectly valid discussions can be completely shut down - certainly very corrosive.
- wavefunction 7y ago
  >whole "Russian disinformation" That depends on how you define "whole." There must be examples of people either unknowingly and wrongly invoking "Russian disinformation" or intentionally invoking it for whatever purposes but there is definitely actual "Russian disinformation" occurring. Disinformation from all sorts of sources. It's imperative to be discerning now, and to be discerning about how to be discerning.
  - jajag 7y ago
    Very valid point.
rjsw 7y ago
The suggestion is that Vladislav Surkov [1] is behind this playbook. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Surkov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Surkov
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  Interesting guy. It just shows that we shouldn’t correlate high intelligence and talent with virtue.
  - turk73 7y ago
    One look at Elon Musk and you have the perfect counterexample. See also: Mark Zuckerberg. Also the twit Jack Dorsey who runs Twitter. Cosmically compromised ethics.
skocznymroczny 7y ago
It's funny considering "fake news" was invented by liberals in the US to shut down conservative media.

jajag 7y ago

But isn't the whole "Russian disinformation" thing in turn a way of discrediting information? Orwell was writing about this 80 years ago, it's never seemed more relevant.

Tagbert 7y ago
That is how disinformation can be protected from exposure. If you fill the channels with enough disinformation, then even true information exposing disinformation is treated as disinformation. It’s very corrosive of society.
- jajag 7y ago
  But it's also how perfectly valid discussions can be completely shut down - certainly very corrosive.
wavefunction 7y ago
>whole "Russian disinformation" That depends on how you define "whole." There must be examples of people either unknowingly and wrongly invoking "Russian disinformation" or intentionally invoking it for whatever purposes but there is definitely actual "Russian disinformation" occurring. Disinformation from all sorts of sources. It's imperative to be discerning now, and to be discerning about how to be discerning.
- jajag 7y ago
  Very valid point.

rjsw 7y ago

The suggestion is that Vladislav Surkov [1] is behind this playbook. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Surkov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Surkov

Ididntdothis 7y ago
Interesting guy. It just shows that we shouldn’t correlate high intelligence and talent with virtue.
- turk73 7y ago
  One look at Elon Musk and you have the perfect counterexample. See also: Mark Zuckerberg. Also the twit Jack Dorsey who runs Twitter. Cosmically compromised ethics.

skocznymroczny 7y ago

It's funny considering "fake news" was invented by liberals in the US to shut down conservative media.