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> Russia has been at the forefront of internet disinformation techniques at least since 2014, when it pioneered the use of bot farms to spread fake news about i
by pphysch 3y ago
> Russia has been at the forefront of internet disinformation techniques at least since 2014, when it pioneered the use of bot farms to spread fake news about its invasion of Crimea.
The idea that Russian or Soviet propaganda has ever (in the last 50 years) come close in potency to Western propaganda is itself a massive lie and propaganda campaign.
By the time the USSR collapsed, many Soviet citizens had positive/neutral views of Western culture if not politics. It was a total soft power defeat.
The meat of the article may be true, all countries and large orgs create propaganda, but this framing that we in the West are somehow playing "catch-up" is utterly false and misleading. Modern Russian propaganda is relatively pathetic and Putin himself admitted as much in his recent interview (which is itself a poor piece of propaganda for many reasons).
- 76444f 3y ago[flagged]
- doublerabbit 3y ago> The idea that Russian or Soviet propaganda has ever (in the last 50 years) come close in potency to Western propaganda is itself a massive lie and propaganda campaign. Brexit, I'd say one was pretty successful. In one of the largest to disrupting the EU trade between UK [0] Donald Trump, a scare for the almost part. [1] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/21/russian-meddling-brexit-referendum-tories-russia-report-government https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/21/russia... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_projects_of_Donald_Trump_in_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_projects_of_Donald_Tr...
- 76444f 3y ago[flagged]
- doublerabbit 3y agoWhat's that suppose to mean? He's just another political leader pushing an agenda as if not all countries do the same. But to falsely claim he's not pushing propaganda with an agenda is up there saying Adolf Hitler killing Jews was a right thing to do because of an potential future conflict of Israel attacking Palestine.
- gsich 3y agoOnly UK is to blame for brexit.
- doublerabbit 3y agoFrom the vote yes. From the propaganda leading up to the vote, no.
- gsich 3y agoThe biggest propaganda piece was probably the NHS bus with the 350 million.
- nerpderp82 3y agoNailed it. Articles like these only bolster the idea that we are fighting an advanced adversary, when we are the advanced adversary to all targets. Good propaganda changes the mix on the equalizer, you don't even have to lie, you distort the existing signal in ways that the receiver is unaware of. Look at race baiting in in markets with lots of racists as great example. That isn't to say that Russia is not doing this, but much of it we wouldn't see. It would be in short run targeted ads on facebook, reddit or truth social.
- lolinder 3y ago> By the time the USSR collapsed, many Soviet citizens had positive/neutral views of Western culture if not politics. It was a total soft power defeat. If by propaganda you mean "having a demonstrably better quality of life", then yeah, the West had a better propaganda machine which successfully persuaded many in the Soviet Union that maybe our system wasn't so bad after all. But if we take a more narrow definition of propaganda that doesn't include actually having a better lifestyle, the Soviet Union propaganda machine had a lot more work on their hands in order to persuade a substantial portion of the West that their system worked. Under that definition of propaganda I think it's no contest which propaganda machine was more effective—to this day we have people in the West who will insist to an Eastern European's face that life in the Soviet Union wasn't so bad.
- pphysch 3y ago[flagged]
- lolinder 3y agoYes, it does go much deeper than that. People only let their country dissolve when it completely and utterly fails them. I'm not saying it happened because we had a slightly better GDP, I'm saying it happened because their system legitimately sucked. To try to attribute it to western propaganda does a disservice to the people who actively worked to end communism in Eastern Europe because they were tired of the abuse.
- dralley 3y ago> Better lifestyle for whom? Racial minorities? For-profit prison slaves? Disenfranchised migrant laborers? "Commies"? Hollywood stars? If you are under the impression that communism didn't have "prison slaves" or gross mistreatment of ethnic minorities, then it seems pretty clear that their propaganda system was at least somewhat effective.
- khzw8yyy 3y ago[flagged]
- _kbh_ 3y ago[dead]
- legitster 3y agoThe kind of state propaganda you are talking about is a completely different thing. Russia is explicitly paying for trolls, hackers, and bot farms to muck around in other countries with the explicit intent of advancing their geopolitical agenda and sowing confusion in countries that could respond. Their ability is control news narratives is a different topic (although you also seem incredibly naïve as towards Putin's control over media within Russia).
- ebanez 3y ago[flagged]
- legitster 3y ago> OK, so in the US you've got Jeff Bezos and Rupert Murdoch controlling all the media Neither of these people have any stake in AP, Reuters, NYTimes, BBC, NPR, WSJ, or any of the other hundreds of independent news organizations. Furthermore, neither are heads of state. The equivalency you are trying to make is bonkers.
- nozzlegear 3y ago> and Putin himself admitted as much in his recent interview Why would he say anything else though? He’s never going to get on camera and be like “yeah bro, our propaganda is bussin and all you western schmucks keep falling for it, it’s great.” His statements on the efficacy of it should be taken with a grain of salt.
- khzw8yyy 3y ago[flagged]