The United States on Friday released a U.S. intelligence assessment sent to more than 100 countries that found Moscow is using spies, social media and Russian state-run media to erode public faith in the integrity of democratic elections worldwide.
“This is a global phenomenon,” said the assessment. “Our information indicates that senior Russian government officials, including the Kremlin, see value in this type of influence operation and perceive it to be effective.”
A senior State Department official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said that Russia was encouraged to intensify its election influence operations by its success in amplifying disinformation about the 2020 U.S. election and the COVID-19 pandemic.
When are the countries doing something about this meddling of Russia
Why would they? They welcome it with open arms.
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Divide et impera.
Whenever the US loses enough power to make it possible to prosecute this stuff globally.
Probably when they also do something about US meddling… which is never.
This isn’t the place for whataboutism.
The US has done countless shitty things over the years, and more than its fair share during the Cold War, but it is not (currently) an authoritarian country that is making a broad and global propaganda and covert services push towards populist authoritarians and away from democratic norms in as many countries as possible. Russia is doing that now, and has been doing that since they got their feet back under themselves a bit in the late 90s.
The US is absolutely making global propaganda. What do you think CNN, FOX, and MSNBC are? The fake news media is actively trying to kill democracy, 8n service of their oligarch owners.
Who in their right mind is watching CNN, Fox or MSNBC outside of Americans?
Nobody, that is who.
It doesn’t matter, America’s media reach is massive, and Americans uncritically parrot the BS they hear on them. Joe Biden uncritically parrots it, as did trump. And a shit ton of people are listening to both those guys.
I’d rather live in the US if I were forced go choose. But the US is essentially a police state. Also, you may want to rethink what the us gov and their shadow entities actually do:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change
Lol if you think the US is a true police state, then you have no clue what an actual police state is. In a real police state, you are disappeared almost immediately for critical statements about your government. While that can and does happen in the US on occasion, try that shit in North Korea or Myanmar or China. Be thankful you are allowed to have a dissenting opinion of the government, because there are actual police states in the world that will scoop you up if there’s even a hint of dissent.
We don’t have secret police, we call them undercover agents.
Please tell the Black Lives Matters protestors who were routinely beaten to the curb and tear gassed for expressing a first amendment “right” that they aren’t under surveillance.
Please tell the Portland protestors who were kidnapped by Trump-led federal agents they are living in a normal country.
I’m sure Snowden is thankful he’s able to live freely after exposing that an international spying agreement was gone, and didn’t have to go into hiding. Same for Chelsea Manning who 100% wasn’t put into solitary confinement and forbidden to talk to the public.
If revealing the truth that your government is committing crimes is punished, you are being ruled by criminals.
Dude I’m not denying any of those are fucked up and outside of what our constitution provides for under freedom of speech, assembly, and press (many reporters were also arrested and had their footage destroyed). My point is that, despite these absolute abominations by the ruling class, the average person does not live under a constant state of surveillance and oppression in the same way that those in N Korea, Myanmar, Russia, China, etc do. Sure all of our online activity, communications, and movements are monitored, at least passively in a database, but unless we are actively causing major amounts of trouble we likely won’t have the good squad breaking down our doors and hauling us off for saying “fuck the government” online. It could be so, so much worse (and quite possibly could get there in our lifetimes, if we keep being apathetic about the state of our country).
There is no such thing as passive surveillance if all surveillance data can be automatically flagged or you have an army of agents trawling through it all. Both things America is doing.
Saying fuck the US government online probably puts US citizens as well as global citizens on lists.
America is notorious for embedding into and destroying movements. This happens to this day.
Also hate to break it to you, if you’re in the US you’re physical movements are also most likely tracked.
It’s pure cope to say you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide as you just did.
If revealing the truth that your government is committing crimes is punished, you are being ruled by criminals.
My guy what are you doing in your comment exactly? You’re pointing out illegal acts by the government. Do you expect punishment to come soon? Consider how often you’ve criticized the US, and how often you’ve been arrested or fined or disappeared for that criticism.
The examples you mentioned aren’t the norm – and that’s precisely why we discuss them. If it were the norm we wouldn’t pay any attention to them. They’re only newsworthy because government suppression of our speech is news. It isn’t a common occurrence.
To compare authoritarianism in the US to the rest of the world is absolute peanuts. People constantly complain about the government and make fun of officials. We could insult Trump to our heart’s content in 2016-2020, but are you aware of a single Chinese person who joked about Xi being Winnie the Pooh in that time period?
Let’s put it this way, if you can complain about how bad your government is without worries of reprisal, your country isn’t as bad as you may think.
I just want to say that you are laying out the facts perfectly. Like yeah of course the US has problems, but I can publicly walk around Washington DC saying “Fuck Joe Biden, He looks like an old emaciated Piglet” and have no fear of political retribution.
Freedom of speech is something we still generally have.
Being allowed to complain about your country doesn’t make it not authoritarian. What exactly is “free” about being charged with treason over releasing proof your country committed war crimes?
You have no idea whether Chinese people can openly complain about Xi, you are literally just repeating propaganda you heard uncritically. If not, provide a source.
As an American, you have been a victim of our countries propaganda your entire life, even more so since 9/11. Go research literally any bad thing america did in the last 70 years, the hard and fast truth, and look at it as though a country in the middle east had done them. Then compare that to both contemporary and recent coverage of the event, as well as contemporary and recent coverage of a similar event that did happen in the middle east or Russia or China or wherever. Try to explain why the media doesn’t care when America does it, but goes ballistic when a socialist country or a country with oil does it.
I’m not doing a whataboutism, I’m just saying that when a state big enough wants to exert it’s influence all over the world, it’s hard to curb that.
Uh, yes it fucking iswhataboutism because this thread is about Russian political intervention against democracy worldwide whereas the US would subvert governments to prop up democracies that would benefit them
Big difference
when a state big enough wants to exert its influence all over the world, it’s hard to curb that
(Btw you used “it’s” which is “it is”, not “it’s” as in indicating ownership)
This is simply MORE whataboutism, again we’re talking about Russian disinformation campaigns eroding public trust in democratic institutions and you’re over here telling people that it’s hard to change a big countries mind???
Whataboutism or whataboutery denotes in a pejorative sense a procedure in which a critical question or argument is not answered or discussed, but retorted with a critical counter-question which expresses a counter-accusation.
Come on bud, you can do better than this
The United States subverts governments to prop up whatever would net the people in charge the most money in the long run and it usually ends up being a dictator.
It’s not whataboutism when you compared the accused and the one accusing. It’s farcical and hypocritical to see the US pointing the finger when it has done worse and is still actively doing it.
The article itself is “whataboutism.” The article fails to address the fact that America interferes in foreign elections. Article— what about Russia?
“That would benefit them”
Haiti has entered the chat.
Name a country in central and South America that the United States has not installed a dictator lol
The Cold War called and wants its foreign policy back!
The US hasn’t been actively involved in subverting Latin American democracies for nearly 40 years.
You will say that’s nothing to be proud of, which is true, but if we can’t give credit where it’s due, there’s no incentive to change.
Lol. The same people are in charge
Iraq, Afghanistan, maiden coup, Palestine, Philippines and probably more that I don’t know off the top of my head.
Weird you had to specify Latin American democracies
Yeah we didn’t try to take over Bolivia in 2019. Not at all.
Please don’t ask Elon Musk either.
Where is the place for whataboutism then? Never? When a narrative is being pushed in the media that is hypocritical, should we just accept it? People seem to think anyone critical of America is defending Russia/China or another country. I think it’s downright UN-American and negligent to never try to make the country you reside in live up to the standards it puts forth.
This isn’t the place for whataboutism.
Where is the place for whataboutism then? Never?
Well, you could start your own Lemmy post speaking specifically about the United States, instead of derailing this post talking about Russia.
I can do both, and do.
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The place is indeed “never”. Every action should be addressed in the vacuum of its own context. Whatabousims detract from the argument at hand and prevent a Socratic exchange from narrowing its scope sufficiently enough to reach a consensus of understanding.
It’s not about deflecting hypocrisy, it’s about being able to have sane arguments in good faith.
Maybe have a Big Think?
Protective mechanism
Gina Schad sees the characterization of counterarguments as “whataboutism” as a lack of communicative competence, insofar as discussions are cut off by this accusation. The accusation of others of whataboutism is also used as an ideological protective mechanism that leads to “closures and echo chambers”.[98] The reference to “whataboutism” is also perceived as a “discussion stopper” “to secure a certain hegemony of discourse and interpretation.” Source
Thank you. This is far more coherent than what i wrote. I’m tired of seeing conversations shutdown or railroaded by people crying whataboutism.
Whataboutism is like false choice and straw man combined. Not only is the suggestion that one needs to choose between being critical of Russia or US, that it’s either/or, but you’re also then implying that the person you’re replying to is making an argument in support of one of the things. That they can’t possibly believe both things to be bad.
They are only talking about one BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT THE DISCUSSION IS ABOUT.
It’s fallacious, so yes, its time is never.
It is called a false dichotomy:
False Dichotomy is a formal fallacy based on an “either-or” type of argument. Two choices are presented, when more might exist, and the claim is made that one is false and one is true - or one is acceptable and the other is not. Often, there are other alternatives which haven’t been considered, or both choices might be false or true
I am aware of what a false dichotomy is. Some people use it interchangeably with “false choice/dilemma”.
Been years since I took a logic course, but here’s a link that talks about the differences:
You might have heard the terms “false dichotomy” and “false analogy.” Both share similarities with the false dilemma fallacy. In fact, some people don’t make a distinction between a false dilemma and a false dichotomy. Those who make the distinction define a false dilemma as a fallacious argument that presents the two options as the only two options, while a false dichotomy is the misinformed belief that the two options presented are the only two options.
Oh, yeah no I just dropped that as a general FYI for anyone passing by not as engaging with the argument, I find a lot of people don’t know.
Yes, never is the correct answer. It’s cheap, obvious and condescending as fuck as well as being a total waste of time. The correct thing to do with whataboutism is to call it out and then ignore. Like what I am doing with you right now.
You have a different definition of ignore than I do.
Crying whataboutism is just a lame attempt to deflect attention from hypocrisy and bullshit.
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Imagine they would put the same effort into making their own country a decent place to live
It is a decent place to live for the rich oligarchs, and they intend to keep it that way.
It is a decent place to live for the rich oligarch
Dude, are we still talking about Russia or we switched to America?
Just because America has those in spades doesn’t mean Russia has none.
Fair enough, mine was harmless irony.
The US is not an oligarchy, and that you say this is just a sign of you not recognizing your privilege of not living under an actual oligarchy
I feel like most of the world is an oligarchy, really.
With the natural resources they have, they could have been a major member of the EU providing their people a lifestyle similar to Norway. But no, after the fall of the USSR they decided to go full speed towards a dictatorship. Such a shame.
Or you could make the rest of the world a worse place to live
America is a wonderful place to live. It is not free to live here, but we do have freedom.
I wouldn’t trade my life in the USA to move anywhere else, unless it was an offer that came with a substantial financial incentive that would pay for me to live comfortably without needing a job.
The famous American freedom!
Name any freedom that I don’t have as an American that anyone else has elsewhere.
Well this thread sure is depressing. It’s full of either tankies or people from Russian troll farms. Only one person actually trying to discuss the article, everyone else seems to be “whatabout America”-ing?
It’s horribly ironic that the people accusing everyone of falling for Western propaganda and pointing out the US’ dark past, are completely falling for Russian propaganda and excusing their current behavior.
It is depressing. People taking this “report”, which cannot even be found in this article, at face value and spamming downvotes on anyone with a hint of critical thinking skills seeing these issues, and upvotes on people parroting the RUSSIA BAD line. It’s not “whatabout” when the post is literally about “US intelligence” i.e. American propaganda arm. Apparently pointing out these flagrant issues with the post is just “tankies” and “Russian troll farms”. This reminds me of when failed Russian agricultural practices would be blamed on “American pests”. Where supposedly the US introduced pests just to destroy crops in Russia. Keep blaming all your problems on a foreign country while your empire languishes.
Does anyone have a link to the report? I want to be informed about this matter. A link to the report should be in the article, but it isn’t. Did they refuse to share the report with the United Kingdom?
Here you go everyone, here you are, Finland, here you go, Germany, one for you Suriname, and Djibouti, and Micronesia of course, NO NOT YOU UK, Mongolia, Chad…
Ask the Canadians, they’ll probably give you a copy
Copying is a grey area still in our country. As long as you don’t upload it, you can download a copy from us
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The assessment was sent in a State Department cable dated Wednesday to more than 100 U.S. embassies in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa for distribution to their host governments, he said.
The report represents Washington’s latest move to combat what it says are Moscow’s efforts “to sow instability” in democratic countries by portraying elections as “dysfunctional, and resulting governments as illegitimate.”
Washington “recognizes its own vulnerability to this threat,” said the report, noting that U.S. intelligence agencies found that “Russian actors spread and amplified information to undermine public confidence in the U.S. 2020 election.”
U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in 2020 beat his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, who refuses to accept the results, falsely claiming that he lost due to fraud.
Concerted Russian operations between 2020 and 2022 sought to “undermine public confidence in at least 11 elections across nine democracies, including the United States,” the report said, adding 17 others were targeted by “less pronounced” efforts.
Russia “utilizes both overt and covert mechanisms, including influence networks and proxies managed” by Russian spy services, the report said.
The original article contains 531 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 66%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
every cooker is a Russian troll or stupid stooge dumb enough to fall for them
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Would anyone be shocked to find out every country tries to interfere with the elections of every country? Specially of countries that affect them a lot?
Or do you guys not think the US interferes with say, Japanese elections? Or the Australians don’t interfere with New Zealand elections?
People think all countries are just nice and honest good friends? Only the “evil” ones do shit like this?
C’mon…
Yes, I would be. If, say, Germany tried to mess with French elections or the other way around the EU would implode.
Yeah, only we can do that! Like we did, since the 20th century:
- Nicaragua
- Haiti
- Dominican Republic
- Russia during the Civil War
- South Korea (Which we held the election and made it so only tax payers or city elders could vote)
- Greece
- Costa Rica
- Albania
- Syria
- China Giving them drugs to make them unwilling to fight
- Egypt
- Guatemala
- Iran To which we don’t know the extent as the CIA burned thousands of internal documents to prevent the public knowing about it
- Guatemala, again
- Syria, again
- Indonesia
- Iraq
- Vietnam Including the kidnapping and assassination of South Vietnam’s president
- Cuba with a failed invasion with a total of 634 known assassination attempts on Casto.
- Cambodia
- The Congo
- Laos
- Dominican Republic, again
- Iraq, again To which we don’t know the extent as the CIA burned thousands of internal documents to prevent the public knowing about it
- Brazil
- Indonesia, again
- Cambodia, again
- Chile
- Bolivia
- Ethiopia
- Angola
- East Timor
- Argentina
- Afghanistan
- Poland
- Chad
- Nicaragua, again
- Grenada
- Panama
- Iraq, a third time
- Haiti, again
- Iraq, a forth time
- Haiti, a third time
- Zaire
- Yugoslavia
- Afghanistan, again and ongoing for 20 years
- Iraq, for the fifth time
- Kyrgyzstan
- Palestinian
- Syria, a third time
- Libya
- Syria, a forth time
Not to mention:
That time we meddled with Ukraine’s elections The general plan to stop democratic elections in Latin America
The Banana Republics Where we got so off scot free, there’s a chain of stores named after it. It’s like if Iraq had a chain of stores called 9/11 Appeal. The Consistent and non-stop murdering of Filipinos who wanted freedom from Spain and America
And this isn’t even getting into pre-1990’s with Hawaii and the mass genocide of Native Americans, or the internal fucking with elections like COINTELPRO murdering Black Panthers and MLK, and the CIA secretly using network stations and the internet to spread propaganda.
But it’s good when we do it, so that makes it okay. Please don’t ask use to apologize or forgive debts. We can’t even keep a promise with any native american tribes, let alone foreign nations.
Still just whataboutism. Both things can be bad.
Whataboutism is the oldest trick in the troll’s handbook. It’s so obvious.
Correct, both are bad. It’s just the pot calling the kettle black.
That doesn’t change the fact that the report is true.
Any more recent or even current examples?
No, we do not have information on what the CIA is currently doing, aside from “bad shit”. For some reason, they aren’t telling us in advance.
I don’t know about you, but I think the Afghan invasion we pulled out of in 2021 is a current example.
How about the time our government tried to coup Bolivia in 2020? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/18/silence-us-backed-coup-evo-morales-bolivia-american-states
And let’s not forget our current backing of Israel bombing civilians of the Gaza strip and Palestine, no matter who’s in charge of the oval office.
Imagine being so drunk on bullshit that you think the Afghanistan invasion was
A) CIA-led
B) a bad idea
Yes, invading countries is bad. I guess that’s a hot take now.
That’s kind of an insane take, yes.
I only clicked one link but I strongly support shit like this so idk what your problem is
With President Truman’s approval and support from Thailand’s Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram, the CIA put together a secret air supply network that shipped weapons and supplies to General Li Mi’s forces in Mong Hsat from Thailand. The first shipments started in early 1951, when unmarked C-46 and C-47 aircraft were making at least five parachute drops a week. By late 1951, the KMT repaired the old airstrip at Mong Hsat constructed by the Allied forces during World War II. The enlarged airstrip could handle large four-engine aircraft and allowed the KMT troops to obtain newly manufactured American weapons from Taiwan. CIA advisers also accompanied the KMT army in the Yunnan invasion in May 1951, and some of them were killed during the offensive.[8]
Providing aid to those fighting communism is always a good thing
Yeah and that’s same idea as Russia invading Eastern Europe to stomp on anything they don’t want. “Invading to aid in my ideology is good and legal, invading for anything else is bad and a war crime.”
America invading to stop communism is bad, the soviets invading to stop capitalism is bad.
No invading to stop communism is good.
South Korea existing is a good thing.
This is the most thorough comment I’ve seen in quite sometime. Even broke out the East Timor. Saved.
erode public faith in the integrity of democratic elections worldwide.
And I thought it was corrupt and criminal politicians running a farcical democracy that did it… When in doubt, blame russia I guess.
More than one thing can be true at once.
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Destabilizing Iran’s dictatorship is absolutely a good thing that should be done.
Interfering in democracies is the bad thing.
See there’s this concept of good and bad things, and that’s what you’re missing.
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That’s bold since most European countries intelligence confirmed USA interfered in all their elections during and after the Cold war.
Thanks for your whataboutism. Now go troll somewhere offline.
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Oh, you mean like the US has done for a century?
They spam this report like how they spam articles about it to pretend like what Russia is doing is any different from what the US does.
Remember when Russia invented election interference in 2016? Well the US was doing it before it was cool: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa
That is but one example of many dating back throughout the decades. In fact, Russia is the way it is in large part thanks to US interference. Make sure to scream “whataboutism” like a good little parrot and smash that downvote button to show how immune you are to propaganda.
Wrong, dezinformacija is an integral part of communism, Russia is using it since early ‘900. There are many interesting books about it
dEzInFoRmAcIjA You could’ve just written it as “disinformation” but I suppose writing it in a different language helps with the fearmongering for idiots. Take your cold war era bullshit and stuff it.
That is the original term you find in literature. Russian basically invented and made it into a system. Disinformation is a more recent term which is more connected to social networks and stuff, so not entirely correct to use.
Regardless of who supposedly invented lying, the US perfected it.
All major powers are deep in this mire, African countries, Brazil in its previous election, China, N. Korea, Russia, Saudis, U.S. and others are in various stages of being under attack, by the others, as well as attacking others. This warfare has a low barrier of entry, is cheap, and when it works, works amazingly well.
The cluster f*** that the world is in, now, is the result.
Whaddaboutism is playing some pretend moral ground game where the imaginary points don’t matter. If you are playing this game, you are missing what is actually happening.
Full disclosure, I am against fascism and oligarchies in all forms. They are all corrupt.
Heh, maybe, but I feel Russia is still king
Says the person defending a country with a leader straight out Stalin fan fiction novel.
Criticizing the US doesn’t mean I’m defending Russia.
Says the person falling completely for Russian propaganda.
Do you think propaganda is one sided? That only one viewpoint has a government backing it? It is not enough to recognize propaganda and then support the opposite. You have to critically evaluate what’s going on.
With Ukraine, it’s pretty fucking clear that Ukrainians wanted closer relations to the West, not to Russia. Was it a “color revolution” then, funded by the West to overthrow Russian order? Or was it an uprising of the people to take back their government and make it represent their wishes, and the US provided support to them? Was the Ukrainian president’s sudden reversal on enacting a pro Western referendum after meeting with Putin a totally organic, sensible realization by him? Or, did Putin threaten him?
Given how the country has voted and responded to Putin’s invasion, I’m inclined to think that reality is closer to an actual uprising of the people, versus a Western funded color revolution to put a Western friendly figure in power. I think the evidence strongly suggests this, in fact.
So have I fallen for Western propaganda in my analysis of Ukraine? Or have you fallen for Russian propaganda in your analysis? More importantly, if you do recognize that the reality of an “American coup to install a pro Western leader” doesn’t match up at all with the war in Ukraine, will you admit that you have been duped?
If so, I genuinely applaud you. A wise person will freely admit they’ve been tricked and endeavor to not let that happen again.
No, I don’t think propaganda is one sided, which is why I’m bringing up the US. Duh. Talking about “what the people want” is tricky because it can appear strongly one way or another depending on how it’s portrayed. I’m sure quite a few thought that Jan 6th was “an uprising of the people” too. With enough media power, foreign countries could’ve been told a tale of the US government crushing “what the people want”. In the link I posted, it shows an active effort by the US to fund and support groups pushing for policies that are favorable to the US and the west in general. Does this count as election interference or is it only election interference when Russia does it?
It’s election interference either way. The question is how they’re doing so.
That’s a lot of words to describe whataboutism and blind support of a bloody thirsty tyrant.
Clearly a paragraph is too many words for you, which is why you’re accusing me of supporting a “bloody thirsty tyrant” when I’m not. You should stay true to your username and lurk instead.
