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UK 'playing catch up' against Russian interference

55 points by MindGods 6y ago

patrickaljord 6y ago
I find all these anti-Russia and China articles tiring. Not saying China and Russia aren't trying to spy and influence the US and UK, but the US and the UK are doing the same thing to them and many other countries and have a big documented history of doing so. So these relentless articles on how bad Russia and China are for doing what everybody is doing seems like they're trying to push a negative agenda on these two countries to prepare the population for a possible future more frontal conflict or war which I hope will never happen.
- swarnie_ 6y ago
  This is because the Russian interference report was published about an hour ago, its a relevant conversation today. If you can find evidence of the UK messing about with Russian or Chinese elections (if you can call them elections) We can get some Anti-GB articles going.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    I think its very difficult to do that. All media articles on snowden and assangle typically tall about their persona rather than illegal actions they've uncovered.
- trabant00 6y ago
  Ofc both sides are doing it, but typically in a conflict you want your side to win ;)
  - arethuza 6y ago
    Or at least try and stop the other side from winning, even if they do have loads of cash.
  - asplake 6y ago
    And the irony? They’re using our platforms to do it
  - luckylion 6y ago
    Can we start being honest about it then? "The Russians are doing it, and we need to stop them, because we should be the only ones doing it". That's honest. "The Russians are meddling with the divine nature of democratic elections" is fake and shit. And can we go back to not pretending that there's nationalism and national interests and just ignore the twitter mobs that form when it's suggested? It's obviously true, it's strongly hinted at in these kinds of things, it's evoked in Covid-19 responses, but it must not be said. It's not just not helpful, I believe that having things that are obviously actively done but forbidden to talk about is harmful to everybody's psyche.
- Juliate 6y ago
  Well, some are obviously more successful than others at influencing elections and politics... The USA are leaving their leadership position, if only thanks to the current administration, shaking things in disarray. Their structural weaknesses were certainly used to that end and put to profit by foreign countries interested getting into that position. Such a massive change (or tentative change) in geopolitics seldom develops quietly, on either end. Unless one side doesn't react at all.
- thefounder 6y ago
  >> seems like they're trying to push a negative agenda on these two countries to prepare the population for a possible future more frontal conflict or war which I hope will never happen. It's more about a restart of the cold war than a "frontal" war. I'm not sure if you can compare Russia's situation with the US or UK. I doubt the wealthy of the US/UK are actually inteligence officers. Of course UK/US tries to influence the elections in Russia but the warning here is that Russia is more successfull and seems to have more tools than us.
  - Synaesthesia 6y ago
    The US literally installed their puppet, who was a total dictator (Yeltsin) and even boasted about it! Talk about interference in elections. Who do you think installed the oligarchs in the first place? It was thanks to western consultants.
- nailer 6y ago
  > seems like they're trying to push a negative agenda on these two countries Ignoring media manipulation seems like a way to allow instability to be promoted. We've seen Russia stir up gun ownership and racial issues in the US, and Scottish independence in the UK. Regardless of your political stance it's important be be aware there are outside interests manipulating things to cause maximum chaos.
  - Spearchucker 6y ago
    Why chaos? There's benefit, but small fry. I'd push for Brexit, Scottish independence, and a rift amongst American democrats and Republicans to weaken these states, so that I might bring my power to bear on a now localised objective in a smaller thus weaker state. It appears to have worked very effectively in the UK. That anybody can be swayed to believe that one is more powerful than two is crazy hard. The Russians, and the move was so masterful that I believe it was the Russians, made it seem easy - Frame the whole thing as a servile UK being crushed by German industry. Masterful, and as the referendum shows, it worked.
    - nailer 6y ago
      I think we're probably on the same track - I'd consider creating rifts within democracies, and creating rifts between democracies, a kind of chaos.
- hyko 6y ago
  I find all these anti-Russia and China articles tiring. The articles will stop once the bad behaviour stops. Don’t hold your breath. but the US and the UK are doing the same thing to them Really? What elections are the West trying to undermine? This is pure false equivalence: it’s not like choosing between a Coke or Pepsi. If the authoritarians succeed in their aims, the future really will be “a boot stamping on a human face - forever”. If you truly believe in peace, all lovers of freedom must vigorously defend democracy now!
  - rossmohax 6y ago
    > Really? What elections are the West trying to undermine? Professor Dov H. Levin does a lot of research on this subject and collected accounts of many interventions by both sides. See his papers https://www.dovhlevin.com/research https://www.dovhlevin.com/research
  - icpmacdo 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention
- addicted 6y ago
  Your problem is with the article? So you have a problem with the fact that after an official UK investigation found deep and troubling Russian interference, newspapers decided to report it?
- eternalban 6y ago
  Actually we need at least one article on how deep UK secret services have been meedling in United States elections. Any more "dossiers" for us from ex-MI6, dear Beeb? There will be no war with near peer powers since the 'guvners' in City of London likely do no wish to glow in the dark. All these games are to extract even more concessions from the subject classes and play binary political games for plebe entertainment.
- rezeroed 6y ago
  I agree with you in the sense that the reporting is insular, holier than thou, faux shock, and silence about our own activities, turning a blind eye, pretense - the reports themselves interference in our perceptions, from our own side - "weapons of mass destruction". Also tedious the way it gets turned into a left vs right weapon - "they won - it was the russians!". Also, it's about as surprising and informative as chickens laying eggs. Actually, I was going to see your point of view, but then argue against it, claiming it's good to be kept up to date, but now I just agree with you.
roenxi 6y ago
Articles like this are woeful. Am I to believe that of ~200 countries in the world, only Russia has means and ability to interfere in foreign elections? It isn't even obvious why Russia especially would care about the UK electoral process. Germany, France, Spain and Italy have a lot more to gain and lose depending on the outcome. America has at least as much at stake as Russia and has a much more successful history of foreign meddling.
- djaychela 6y ago
  >It isn't even obvious why Russia especially would care about the UK electoral process The argument I've seen is that Putin wants a weaker (or even no) EU, and getting the UK to leave is an important part of this strategy. I'm no political expert, but on the face of it this makes sense to me.
  - roenxi 6y ago
    Every country outside Europe would like to see a weaker EU. China, India, America and a fair chunk of the middle east and Africa would all be unhappy to see a new unified superpower emerge with a united military. The idea that Russia has especial interests in this area is questionable. The US has more to gain from the EU breaking up than Russia. Current US president would love to be negotiating with smaller, weaker countries than the EU bureaucracy.
    - Juliate 6y ago
      That's looking at it only from an adversarial lens. There are other lenses.
- Juliate 6y ago
  Well, there's at least one obvious motive: getting the EU a little more busy with itself so it may not have enough energy for other matters. The mess it plunges the EU, having to deal with this one huge internal issue, rather than having more resources on other external topics (such as, what's happening on the border region with Russia, with the Middle East and with Africa).
makomk 6y ago
So if I'm understanding the article correctly, they didn't find much in the way of specific evidence that Russia was interfering in (say) the Brexit referendum and they're blaming it on the government and security services not looking hard enough? This feels like it's getting worryingly into conspiracy theory territory, especially given the quality of the publicly available claims of Russian interference which this appears to be referencing as proof there must be something there. Edit: OK, I'm reading through the actual report now and it doesn't reassure. They literally reference the Buzzfeed "From Russia With Blood" piece which relies on the idea that Russia are so good at disguising killings that any death of a Russian-linked person - anything from a heart attack to a suicide of someone showing signs of depression who had made previous attempts - is in fact probably an assasination. This is well into conspiracy theory territory; it's basically unfalsifiable. Also, it's clear from the report that they know the UK intelligence agencies had a lot of other work on their hands regarding the terrorist threat, and this consumed a substantial amount of the resources that would previously have been dedicated to Russia, so to attribute this to the intelligence services supposedly not wanting to know about Russian interference seems itself like an attempt to interfere with the UK political process.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  They didnt find because they avoided looking very hard. Because uk leave vote is such a sensitive issue politically.
  - cameronbrown 6y ago
    That's circular logic.
    - Traster 6y ago
      No it's not. "I didn't find my keys, because I didn't look" isn't circular logic, it's cause and effect. It doesn't mean you'll find your keys if you do look. Circular logic is when you tell me "I'm not going to look for my keys, because there's no evidence that I can find them" - of course you can't find them if you don't look. Which is the official government line: >The UK government rejected the committee's call for a full assessment by intelligence agencies of potential Russian meddling in the 2016 referendum, saying it had "seen no evidence of successful interference". They won't investigate, because there's no evidence, and there's no evidence because they chose to ignore the evidence at the time of the referendum - as found by this report. To bring us back to the key analogy - "I've been walking around with my eyes closed and haven't found my keys, so clearly I shouldn't look for my keys, because I haven't found my keys"
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
You miss the forest for thr trees Gentlemen. The article is about the fact that UK intelligence and government both know that Russia interfered in referendum on the side of Brexit. Obvious leave won, and if they were to find any concrete evidence of this interference, it would damage credebility of UK Leave even further, on top of existing breaches of electoral law and populism / trumpism. "There has been no assessment of Russian interference in the EU referendum and this goes back to nobody wanting to touch the issue with a 10-foot pole" This is hilarious.
- secondcoming 6y ago
  The original Brexit result was pretty much endorsed when the Tories were re-elected in the election after the referendum. MPs, largely Labour ones, who refused to accept the Brexit result were chucked out by their electorate. Unless you intend to argue that the Russians also swayed that too.
  - ed_elliott_asc 6y ago
    They certainly stoked the fireplace that is brexit and kept winding people up about it
    - cameronbrown 6y ago
      Are you saying the electorate are somehow unable to cope with an idea being mentioned online? Ridiculous.
    - secondcoming 6y ago
      Of course they did. They stoke issues that already exist, they're not invented. Just like how the Russians have been stoking race-issues in the US for decades. Are Antifa and BLM Russian plots to destabilise the US? They certainly have that signature [0], that doesn't mean they aren't valid movements. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1EA2ohrt5Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1EA2ohrt5Q
      - 6y ago
Synaesthesia 6y ago
More vague fearmongering which just serves to back the security state. Apparently the UK spy agencies had, up to now been too "coy" to get involved in anything political. Oh come on.
Tycho 6y ago
Similarly, the UK government has failed to investigate the possibility of lizard people secretly controlling our society.
newforms 6y ago
If the Russian state can merrily kill people on mainland UK in recent years (Alexander Litvinenko) and release nerve agent in Salisbury without recourse, then a sprinkling of election time cyber ops is the last of our worries.
moltar 6y ago
I always say this. If Russia is so amazing at manipulating opinion in western progressive countries, then how come they can’t achieve the same in the neighbouring countries. Why have a war in Ukraine, if you can just put your own president in charge? And manipulate everyone’s opinion? Why not fix issues in Belorussia? Why not win over all the other ex soviet states back?
- mantas 6y ago
  Coming from ex-soviet-state... Our BS meter for Russian meddling is much much higher than in West. We probably get a lot of false-positives too. But better safe than sorry... Looking from East, West seems terribly naive when it comes to Russian affairs. And it looks like there're a lot of people who hate their society so much that they blindly pick Russia as "greener on the other side" or "enemy of the enemy is my friend". Westerners seem to trust media and politicians much more too. Over here, the default is that politicians/activists/whatever (be it opposition or government) are lying and that media is supporting their lies. Everything is lies unless proved otherwise. Meanwhile West seems to be much less critical.
- rospaya 6y ago
  > Why have a war in Ukraine, if you can just put your own president in charge? And manipulate everyone’s opinion? They did and he got removed in a revolution in 2014. > Why not fix issues in Belorussia? Belorussia is a dictatorship with a firm grip on the media and public opinion. > Why not win over all the other ex soviet states back? Because they didn't forget the occupation, and some others had a war on their hands if they went a bit too much west (Georgia, Ukraine).
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
echaozh 6y ago
When you don't like the results of an election or a referendum, now you can blame Russia and China. Can you imagine the losing side easily accept the fact after the POTUS election this year without blaming Russia or China?

55 points by MindGods 6y ago

I find all these anti-Russia and China articles tiring. Not saying China and Russia aren't trying to spy and influence the US and UK, but the US and the UK are doing the same thing to them and many other countries and have a big documented history of doing so. So these relentless articles on how bad Russia and China are for doing what everybody is doing seems like they're trying to push a negative agenda on these two countries to prepare the population for a possible future more frontal conflict or war which I hope will never happen.

swarnie_ 6y ago
This is because the Russian interference report was published about an hour ago, its a relevant conversation today. If you can find evidence of the UK messing about with Russian or Chinese elections (if you can call them elections) We can get some Anti-GB articles going.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  I think its very difficult to do that. All media articles on snowden and assangle typically tall about their persona rather than illegal actions they've uncovered.
trabant00 6y ago
Ofc both sides are doing it, but typically in a conflict you want your side to win ;)
- arethuza 6y ago
  Or at least try and stop the other side from winning, even if they do have loads of cash.
- asplake 6y ago
  And the irony? They’re using our platforms to do it
- luckylion 6y ago
  Can we start being honest about it then? "The Russians are doing it, and we need to stop them, because we should be the only ones doing it". That's honest. "The Russians are meddling with the divine nature of democratic elections" is fake and shit. And can we go back to not pretending that there's nationalism and national interests and just ignore the twitter mobs that form when it's suggested? It's obviously true, it's strongly hinted at in these kinds of things, it's evoked in Covid-19 responses, but it must not be said. It's not just not helpful, I believe that having things that are obviously actively done but forbidden to talk about is harmful to everybody's psyche.
Juliate 6y ago
Well, some are obviously more successful than others at influencing elections and politics... The USA are leaving their leadership position, if only thanks to the current administration, shaking things in disarray. Their structural weaknesses were certainly used to that end and put to profit by foreign countries interested getting into that position. Such a massive change (or tentative change) in geopolitics seldom develops quietly, on either end. Unless one side doesn't react at all.
thefounder 6y ago
>> seems like they're trying to push a negative agenda on these two countries to prepare the population for a possible future more frontal conflict or war which I hope will never happen. It's more about a restart of the cold war than a "frontal" war. I'm not sure if you can compare Russia's situation with the US or UK. I doubt the wealthy of the US/UK are actually inteligence officers. Of course UK/US tries to influence the elections in Russia but the warning here is that Russia is more successfull and seems to have more tools than us.
- Synaesthesia 6y ago
  The US literally installed their puppet, who was a total dictator (Yeltsin) and even boasted about it! Talk about interference in elections. Who do you think installed the oligarchs in the first place? It was thanks to western consultants.
nailer 6y ago
> seems like they're trying to push a negative agenda on these two countries Ignoring media manipulation seems like a way to allow instability to be promoted. We've seen Russia stir up gun ownership and racial issues in the US, and Scottish independence in the UK. Regardless of your political stance it's important be be aware there are outside interests manipulating things to cause maximum chaos.
- Spearchucker 6y ago
  Why chaos? There's benefit, but small fry. I'd push for Brexit, Scottish independence, and a rift amongst American democrats and Republicans to weaken these states, so that I might bring my power to bear on a now localised objective in a smaller thus weaker state. It appears to have worked very effectively in the UK. That anybody can be swayed to believe that one is more powerful than two is crazy hard. The Russians, and the move was so masterful that I believe it was the Russians, made it seem easy - Frame the whole thing as a servile UK being crushed by German industry. Masterful, and as the referendum shows, it worked.
  - nailer 6y ago
    I think we're probably on the same track - I'd consider creating rifts within democracies, and creating rifts between democracies, a kind of chaos.
hyko 6y ago
I find all these anti-Russia and China articles tiring. The articles will stop once the bad behaviour stops. Don’t hold your breath. but the US and the UK are doing the same thing to them Really? What elections are the West trying to undermine? This is pure false equivalence: it’s not like choosing between a Coke or Pepsi. If the authoritarians succeed in their aims, the future really will be “a boot stamping on a human face - forever”. If you truly believe in peace, all lovers of freedom must vigorously defend democracy now!
- rossmohax 6y ago
  > Really? What elections are the West trying to undermine? Professor Dov H. Levin does a lot of research on this subject and collected accounts of many interventions by both sides. See his papers https://www.dovhlevin.com/research https://www.dovhlevin.com/research
- icpmacdo 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention
addicted 6y ago
Your problem is with the article? So you have a problem with the fact that after an official UK investigation found deep and troubling Russian interference, newspapers decided to report it?
eternalban 6y ago
Actually we need at least one article on how deep UK secret services have been meedling in United States elections. Any more "dossiers" for us from ex-MI6, dear Beeb? There will be no war with near peer powers since the 'guvners' in City of London likely do no wish to glow in the dark. All these games are to extract even more concessions from the subject classes and play binary political games for plebe entertainment.
rezeroed 6y ago
I agree with you in the sense that the reporting is insular, holier than thou, faux shock, and silence about our own activities, turning a blind eye, pretense - the reports themselves interference in our perceptions, from our own side - "weapons of mass destruction". Also tedious the way it gets turned into a left vs right weapon - "they won - it was the russians!". Also, it's about as surprising and informative as chickens laying eggs. Actually, I was going to see your point of view, but then argue against it, claiming it's good to be kept up to date, but now I just agree with you.

roenxi 6y ago

Articles like this are woeful. Am I to believe that of ~200 countries in the world, only Russia has means and ability to interfere in foreign elections? It isn't even obvious why Russia especially would care about the UK electoral process. Germany, France, Spain and Italy have a lot more to gain and lose depending on the outcome. America has at least as much at stake as Russia and has a much more successful history of foreign meddling.

djaychela 6y ago
>It isn't even obvious why Russia especially would care about the UK electoral process The argument I've seen is that Putin wants a weaker (or even no) EU, and getting the UK to leave is an important part of this strategy. I'm no political expert, but on the face of it this makes sense to me.
- roenxi 6y ago
  Every country outside Europe would like to see a weaker EU. China, India, America and a fair chunk of the middle east and Africa would all be unhappy to see a new unified superpower emerge with a united military. The idea that Russia has especial interests in this area is questionable. The US has more to gain from the EU breaking up than Russia. Current US president would love to be negotiating with smaller, weaker countries than the EU bureaucracy.
  - Juliate 6y ago
    That's looking at it only from an adversarial lens. There are other lenses.
Juliate 6y ago
Well, there's at least one obvious motive: getting the EU a little more busy with itself so it may not have enough energy for other matters. The mess it plunges the EU, having to deal with this one huge internal issue, rather than having more resources on other external topics (such as, what's happening on the border region with Russia, with the Middle East and with Africa).

makomk 6y ago

So if I'm understanding the article correctly, they didn't find much in the way of specific evidence that Russia was interfering in (say) the Brexit referendum and they're blaming it on the government and security services not looking hard enough? This feels like it's getting worryingly into conspiracy theory territory, especially given the quality of the publicly available claims of Russian interference which this appears to be referencing as proof there must be something there. Edit: OK, I'm reading through the actual report now and it doesn't reassure. They literally reference the Buzzfeed "From Russia With Blood" piece which relies on the idea that Russia are so good at disguising killings that any death of a Russian-linked person - anything from a heart attack to a suicide of someone showing signs of depression who had made previous attempts - is in fact probably an assasination. This is well into conspiracy theory territory; it's basically unfalsifiable. Also, it's clear from the report that they know the UK intelligence agencies had a lot of other work on their hands regarding the terrorist threat, and this consumed a substantial amount of the resources that would previously have been dedicated to Russia, so to attribute this to the intelligence services supposedly not wanting to know about Russian interference seems itself like an attempt to interfere with the UK political process.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
They didnt find because they avoided looking very hard. Because uk leave vote is such a sensitive issue politically.
- cameronbrown 6y ago
  That's circular logic.
  - Traster 6y ago
    No it's not. "I didn't find my keys, because I didn't look" isn't circular logic, it's cause and effect. It doesn't mean you'll find your keys if you do look. Circular logic is when you tell me "I'm not going to look for my keys, because there's no evidence that I can find them" - of course you can't find them if you don't look. Which is the official government line: >The UK government rejected the committee's call for a full assessment by intelligence agencies of potential Russian meddling in the 2016 referendum, saying it had "seen no evidence of successful interference". They won't investigate, because there's no evidence, and there's no evidence because they chose to ignore the evidence at the time of the referendum - as found by this report. To bring us back to the key analogy - "I've been walking around with my eyes closed and haven't found my keys, so clearly I shouldn't look for my keys, because I haven't found my keys"

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

You miss the forest for thr trees Gentlemen. The article is about the fact that UK intelligence and government both know that Russia interfered in referendum on the side of Brexit. Obvious leave won, and if they were to find any concrete evidence of this interference, it would damage credebility of UK Leave even further, on top of existing breaches of electoral law and populism / trumpism. "There has been no assessment of Russian interference in the EU referendum and this goes back to nobody wanting to touch the issue with a 10-foot pole" This is hilarious.

secondcoming 6y ago
The original Brexit result was pretty much endorsed when the Tories were re-elected in the election after the referendum. MPs, largely Labour ones, who refused to accept the Brexit result were chucked out by their electorate. Unless you intend to argue that the Russians also swayed that too.
- ed_elliott_asc 6y ago
  They certainly stoked the fireplace that is brexit and kept winding people up about it
  - cameronbrown 6y ago
    Are you saying the electorate are somehow unable to cope with an idea being mentioned online? Ridiculous.
  - secondcoming 6y ago
    Of course they did. They stoke issues that already exist, they're not invented. Just like how the Russians have been stoking race-issues in the US for decades. Are Antifa and BLM Russian plots to destabilise the US? They certainly have that signature [0], that doesn't mean they aren't valid movements. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1EA2ohrt5Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1EA2ohrt5Q
    - 6y ago

Synaesthesia 6y ago

More vague fearmongering which just serves to back the security state. Apparently the UK spy agencies had, up to now been too "coy" to get involved in anything political. Oh come on.

Tycho 6y ago

Similarly, the UK government has failed to investigate the possibility of lizard people secretly controlling our society.

newforms 6y ago

If the Russian state can merrily kill people on mainland UK in recent years (Alexander Litvinenko) and release nerve agent in Salisbury without recourse, then a sprinkling of election time cyber ops is the last of our worries.

moltar 6y ago

I always say this. If Russia is so amazing at manipulating opinion in western progressive countries, then how come they can’t achieve the same in the neighbouring countries. Why have a war in Ukraine, if you can just put your own president in charge? And manipulate everyone’s opinion? Why not fix issues in Belorussia? Why not win over all the other ex soviet states back?

mantas 6y ago
Coming from ex-soviet-state... Our BS meter for Russian meddling is much much higher than in West. We probably get a lot of false-positives too. But better safe than sorry... Looking from East, West seems terribly naive when it comes to Russian affairs. And it looks like there're a lot of people who hate their society so much that they blindly pick Russia as "greener on the other side" or "enemy of the enemy is my friend". Westerners seem to trust media and politicians much more too. Over here, the default is that politicians/activists/whatever (be it opposition or government) are lying and that media is supporting their lies. Everything is lies unless proved otherwise. Meanwhile West seems to be much less critical.
rospaya 6y ago
> Why have a war in Ukraine, if you can just put your own president in charge? And manipulate everyone’s opinion? They did and he got removed in a revolution in 2014. > Why not fix issues in Belorussia? Belorussia is a dictatorship with a firm grip on the media and public opinion. > Why not win over all the other ex soviet states back? Because they didn't forget the occupation, and some others had a war on their hands if they went a bit too much west (Georgia, Ukraine).

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

echaozh 6y ago

When you don't like the results of an election or a referendum, now you can blame Russia and China. Can you imagine the losing side easily accept the fact after the POTUS election this year without blaming Russia or China?