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I live in Finland and have not seen any headlines making this claim this definitively in local news outlets. But on Reddit I've seen article after article from

I live in Finland and have not seen any headlines making this claim this definitively in local news outlets. But on Reddit I've seen article after article from foreign sources stating that Finnish NATO membership is imminent. Edit: There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about what I am saying. The headline (as of this writing: "Finland and Sweden set to join Nato as soon as summer") is not true. Lots of people wish it were true. It may even become true in the future. But as of today, it is not true, and I take issue with that.

tomComb 5y ago
I acknowledge the point you are making, but your Canadian ambassador seems to be jumping the gun too... https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-finland-nato-membership-ukraine/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-finland-nat...
ShivShankaran 5y ago
- ardit33 5y ago
  - ShivShankaran 5y ago
- mmastrac 5y ago
  > Reddit is 100x worse than facebook and 100x more gamed than facebook. we will see once the war ends and the truth is revealed. Let's just say that the traffic to certain subreddits stirring up the west dropped off a cliff when the Russian invasion started. It _was_ worse than Facebook, but the troll farms are no longer pumping nearly as much division. If Russia had been in the middle of a war during the Brexit vote, there's no way they could have swung the influence they did.
StreamBright 5y ago
There is no propaganda on the other side.
freddybobs 5y ago
This is an article from newspaper The Times in the UK. The origin isn't a rumor on reddit. I don't know if it's true or not - but if it's false, the real issue would be a credible news source, The Times, got it wrong, not reddit.
- stingraycharles 5y ago
  I believe that the parent tried to emphasize that there were many different (international) news articles about this. I don’t think they were questioning Reddit’s credibility.
  - hajhatten 5y ago
    I believe the reddit post linked to Reuters. Edit: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/finland-sweden-set-join-nato-soon-summer-times-2022-04-10/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/finland-sweden-set-join...
- pembrook 5y ago
  Reddit is basically a proxy for mainstream US/UK media narratives. If you google "Finland NATO," you'll see almost every US/UK news outlet has published an article with this same definitive-sounding BS headline in the past 2 days. The real question is why? There have been no definitive announcements from Finland and Sweden, nor even rumors of upcoming announcements. It's all speculation. So either someone is coordinating to feed this story to US/UK outlets, OR some idiot published this incorrectly and all the copycat content factories are playing a deadly game of telephone seeing who can re-write this headline in the most inflammatory way to get clicks. My guess is the latter.
  - Tepix 5y ago
    Is it because finnish newspapers are written in finnish?
    - ThePowerOfFuet 5y ago
hpaavola 5y ago
True, there hasn't been any headlines about dates or even that we would be joining Nato for sure. But party after party have come out as pro-Nato or the very least changed their stance to not be against joining Nato. I would not be surprised if this headline turns out the be true.
- jeltz 5y ago
  As a Swede I would be very surprised if this article turns out to be true. The current ruling party is anti-NATO and has changed stance from strongly anti-NATO to "we need to re-evaluate our position on NATO". Does this mean we will join NATO? I think so, but it is far from as clear cut as this article makes it seem.
  - formerly_proven 5y ago
    Someone seemed to have played a game of telephone where "Finland and Sweden could join NATO by summer if they start now and do it as quickly as possible" got turned into "Finland and Sweden want to join NATO by summer". Or perhaps "Finland and Sweden want to decide by summer" got turned into "... join by summer".
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      NATO has been pretty clear that should Finland and/or Sweden decide to join, they are in a state where there would be basically zero on-ramp needed.
- AniseAbyss 5y ago
dragonwriter 5y ago
This is also the strongest headline I’ve seen in Anglo-American media, though there are a lot on the recent policy statements and movements, which have been quite strong but not definitive (and are at least in part intended to put pressure on Russia wrt Ukraine, so in the unlikely event that that situation resolves itself in the interim could easily be backed away from.)
celticninja 5y ago
I have heard a lot about Finnish appetite for joining NATO via https://mobile.twitter.com/alexstubb https://mobile.twitter.com/alexstubb. How is he thought of in Finland? I have assumed as ex-prime minister and foreign minister, he has quite good knowledge of the inner machinations and public sentiment toward such a move.
- Aachen 5y ago
  User-friendly link https://nitter.net/alexstubb https://nitter.net/alexstubb
- fsloth 5y ago
  As a Finn I agree with everything he posts in twitter. As a prime minister he was perhaps a bit too young and inexperienced, but I agree with his current analysis completely.
- dry_soup 5y ago
  NATO membership has been a hobby horse of Stubb's party (the Coalition party) for a very long time. Now that the political winds have shifted in favor of NATO, the Coalition party is trying to capitalize on that shift in public opinion. So while it's true that public opinion is going that way, it is very much in Stubb's interest to frame it as favorably as possible, domestically and abroad. I happen to disagree with the Coalition party (on many things), but I can't fault their methods in this case-- It's good politicking.
mzs 5y ago
There are a lot of steps certainly but public opinion is trending that way: https://www.mtvuutiset.fi/artikkeli/mtv-n-kysely-nato-jasenyytta-kannattaa-68-prosenttia-suomalaisista/8400808 https://www.mtvuutiset.fi/artikkeli/mtv-n-kysely-nato-jaseny... now: 68% in favor, 12% against if gov were to recommend: 77% in favor, 11% against
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tmp4334 5y ago
Main political parties in Finland are now supporting NATO. Public is supporting it as well. Top officials are busy travelling to meet heads of other member countries to make sure there’s support for membership. Likely they are also discussing about getting security guarantees during the membership process as Russia has put out certain threats. We finns are in general quite confident with our military, but war in Ukraine has shown that potential conflict may not be ”a fair fight” between armies. In Ukraine there has been attacks against civilians and soft targets with missiles. This is not something you can easily defend yourself against. There’s strong feeling that we need some backup to reduce the likelihood of such attacks.
mzs 4y ago
Sweden and Finland PMs held joint press conference outlining plans to join NATO https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31015962 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31015962

tomComb 5y ago

I acknowledge the point you are making, but your Canadian ambassador seems to be jumping the gun too... https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-finland-nato-membership-ukraine/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-finland-nat...

ShivShankaran 5y ago

ardit33 5y ago
- ShivShankaran 5y ago
mmastrac 5y ago
> Reddit is 100x worse than facebook and 100x more gamed than facebook. we will see once the war ends and the truth is revealed. Let's just say that the traffic to certain subreddits stirring up the west dropped off a cliff when the Russian invasion started. It _was_ worse than Facebook, but the troll farms are no longer pumping nearly as much division. If Russia had been in the middle of a war during the Brexit vote, there's no way they could have swung the influence they did.

StreamBright 5y ago

There is no propaganda on the other side.

freddybobs 5y ago

This is an article from newspaper The Times in the UK. The origin isn't a rumor on reddit. I don't know if it's true or not - but if it's false, the real issue would be a credible news source, The Times, got it wrong, not reddit.

stingraycharles 5y ago
I believe that the parent tried to emphasize that there were many different (international) news articles about this. I don’t think they were questioning Reddit’s credibility.
- hajhatten 5y ago
  I believe the reddit post linked to Reuters. Edit: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/finland-sweden-set-join-nato-soon-summer-times-2022-04-10/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/finland-sweden-set-join...
pembrook 5y ago
Reddit is basically a proxy for mainstream US/UK media narratives. If you google "Finland NATO," you'll see almost every US/UK news outlet has published an article with this same definitive-sounding BS headline in the past 2 days. The real question is why? There have been no definitive announcements from Finland and Sweden, nor even rumors of upcoming announcements. It's all speculation. So either someone is coordinating to feed this story to US/UK outlets, OR some idiot published this incorrectly and all the copycat content factories are playing a deadly game of telephone seeing who can re-write this headline in the most inflammatory way to get clicks. My guess is the latter.
- Tepix 5y ago
  Is it because finnish newspapers are written in finnish?
  - ThePowerOfFuet 5y ago

hpaavola 5y ago

True, there hasn't been any headlines about dates or even that we would be joining Nato for sure. But party after party have come out as pro-Nato or the very least changed their stance to not be against joining Nato. I would not be surprised if this headline turns out the be true.

jeltz 5y ago
As a Swede I would be very surprised if this article turns out to be true. The current ruling party is anti-NATO and has changed stance from strongly anti-NATO to "we need to re-evaluate our position on NATO". Does this mean we will join NATO? I think so, but it is far from as clear cut as this article makes it seem.
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  Someone seemed to have played a game of telephone where "Finland and Sweden could join NATO by summer if they start now and do it as quickly as possible" got turned into "Finland and Sweden want to join NATO by summer". Or perhaps "Finland and Sweden want to decide by summer" got turned into "... join by summer".
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    NATO has been pretty clear that should Finland and/or Sweden decide to join, they are in a state where there would be basically zero on-ramp needed.
AniseAbyss 5y ago

dragonwriter 5y ago

This is also the strongest headline I’ve seen in Anglo-American media, though there are a lot on the recent policy statements and movements, which have been quite strong but not definitive (and are at least in part intended to put pressure on Russia wrt Ukraine, so in the unlikely event that that situation resolves itself in the interim could easily be backed away from.)

celticninja 5y ago

I have heard a lot about Finnish appetite for joining NATO via https://mobile.twitter.com/alexstubb https://mobile.twitter.com/alexstubb. How is he thought of in Finland? I have assumed as ex-prime minister and foreign minister, he has quite good knowledge of the inner machinations and public sentiment toward such a move.

Aachen 5y ago
User-friendly link https://nitter.net/alexstubb https://nitter.net/alexstubb
fsloth 5y ago
As a Finn I agree with everything he posts in twitter. As a prime minister he was perhaps a bit too young and inexperienced, but I agree with his current analysis completely.
dry_soup 5y ago
NATO membership has been a hobby horse of Stubb's party (the Coalition party) for a very long time. Now that the political winds have shifted in favor of NATO, the Coalition party is trying to capitalize on that shift in public opinion. So while it's true that public opinion is going that way, it is very much in Stubb's interest to frame it as favorably as possible, domestically and abroad. I happen to disagree with the Coalition party (on many things), but I can't fault their methods in this case-- It's good politicking.

mzs 5y ago

There are a lot of steps certainly but public opinion is trending that way: https://www.mtvuutiset.fi/artikkeli/mtv-n-kysely-nato-jasenyytta-kannattaa-68-prosenttia-suomalaisista/8400808 https://www.mtvuutiset.fi/artikkeli/mtv-n-kysely-nato-jaseny... now: 68% in favor, 12% against if gov were to recommend: 77% in favor, 11% against

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

tmp4334 5y ago

Main political parties in Finland are now supporting NATO. Public is supporting it as well. Top officials are busy travelling to meet heads of other member countries to make sure there’s support for membership. Likely they are also discussing about getting security guarantees during the membership process as Russia has put out certain threats. We finns are in general quite confident with our military, but war in Ukraine has shown that potential conflict may not be ”a fair fight” between armies. In Ukraine there has been attacks against civilians and soft targets with missiles. This is not something you can easily defend yourself against. There’s strong feeling that we need some backup to reduce the likelihood of such attacks.

mzs 4y ago

Sweden and Finland PMs held joint press conference outlining plans to join NATO https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31015962 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31015962