The Russian Invasion of the Ukraine.

[psionl0]

It looks like RT has been banned/blocked by Google.

Not coming up on the first page of results.


Eta: this may have been mentioned. This thread moves fast and I've skipped a lot today.

I can still access RT on YouTube but no doubt, the Morrison government will try to have RT blocked on YouTube "for my own good".

 

[Olmstead]

We know that RT is putting out Russian propaganda. However, it's not as if RT is forced on anybody. You have to seek it out and that would only be done by Russian sympathizers and people who might want to gain an insight into the views of the average Russian citizen.

Why prevent people who want to access this source from doing so? It only makes it appear that we have something to hide.

The reasons have been listed in the official announcement:
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/...a-today-and-sputnik-s-broadcasting-in-the-eu/

The simple answer is that they think it will help, and that not doing it would be bad for Ukraine.

 

[Orphia Nay]

I can still access RT on YouTube but no doubt, the Morrison government will try to have RT blocked on YouTube "for my own good".

Google aren't letting them earn ad dollars. Good.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/...ssian-channels-generating-revenue-2022-02-26/

 

[Venom]

We know that RT is putting out Russian propaganda. However, it's not as if RT is forced on anybody. You have to seek it out and that would only be done by Russian sympathizers and people who might want to gain an insight into the views of the average Russian citizen.

Why prevent people who want to access this source from doing so? It only makes it appear that we have something to hide.

It's a problem when media has a wide reach and is creating misleading narratives. I mean media like RT is especially insidious because they are on offense all the damn time and have so many outlets. There is little effort to defend Putin. There's more than enough negativity in the liberal West to exploit.

The Russian "Firehose of Falsehood" Propaganda Model

 

[pzkpfw]

The Russians are blocking their own news organisations (let alone sources from outside) if they don't report the exact "correct" news. It would be asymmetric to allow their propaganda news to easily reach the West when their own people can't read the rebuttal.

 

[psionl0]

It's a problem when media has a wide reach and is creating misleading narratives. I mean media like RT is especially insidious because they are on offense all the damn time and have so many outlets. There is little effort to defend Putin. There's more than enough negativity in the liberal West to exploit.

So RT is forced onto people?

 

[shemp]

Some interesting speculation on Russian maintenance in this thread:

https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1499164245250002944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1499164245250002944%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2Fmediaembed%2Fliveupdate%2F18hnzysb1elcs%2FLiveUpdate_891df1d4-9a8c-11ec-ab5e-92be2145d5a0%2F0

Nobody in their right mind attacks during winter/mud season.

 

[Venom]

So RT is forced onto people?

Its presence is annoying ubiquitous online. You see what you think is news, political commentary, assorted quirky little short videos, videos for shock value, conspiracy theories, talk shows featuring familiar names. RT covers many genres. And their videos tend to get millions of views with a much higher like/dislike ratio than mainstream Western media channels, which are suspiciously disliked to death.

And I think people have far less control over what they believe than they think. RT does a masterful job with the Gish Gallop. It's something that's easy to dismiss by appealing to free will but I don't think that's the whole story.

 

[Aridas]

Maybe not? https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-new...s-03-02-22/h_94fb56edc8c774021fe635cda015d2fd

In short, part of the city has fallen, at least for the moment. Fighting still ongoing, though, so it's probably premature to say much.

This is the answer. This is why RT is Putin's masterpiece... it's a sophisticated con. The rest of his suite of propaganda organs are progressively more blunt. Scientology operates in much the same way.

As a side note, it's been noted in the past that Fox News is waaaaay more blatant, incidentally (and much of the rest of the far right propaganda is worse). A side effect of that is likely that a number of people get used to being able to see through the utter BS with ease and that can make them a bit more arrogant and vulnerable to more subtle manipulation.

It looks like RT has been banned/blocked by Google.

Not coming up on the first page of results.


Eta: this may have been mentioned. This thread moves fast and I've skipped a lot today.

Has been noted. Here's a link to a story about it.

Google drops RT, other Russian state media from its news features

 

[psionl0]

Its presence is annoying ubiquitous online.

Irrelevant and false in my case. I had to specifically search on YouTube for RT. It does not appear on any general search about a news item (although it may in the future now that I have viewed a few of their videos).

You see what you think is news, political commentary, assorted quirky little short videos, videos for shock value, conspiracy theories, talk shows featuring familiar names. RT covers many genres.

How is that an argument for their suppression? By your logic, the entire CT section in this forum should be banned.

And their videos tend to get millions of views with a much higher like/dislike ratio than mainstream Western media channels, which are suspiciously disliked to death.

So it should be suppressed because many people view it? What sort of logic is that?

And I think people have far less control over what they believe than they think. RT does a masterful job with the Gish Gallop. It's something that's easy to dismiss by appealing to free will but I don't think that's the whole story.

And there we have the "we must protect people from themselves" mentality.

 

[Aridas]

So it should be suppressed because many people view it? What sort of logic is that?

Because many people view it? That's an... odd takeaway. Because the magnitude of harm being done makes it worthy of pointedly dealing with would be a much more obvious takeaway, with a side of any background manipulation being done to misrepresent reality should be addressed.

 

[acbytesla]

Yes


And that is all the excuse you'll ever need to disregard the law yourself, right?

Yep. At least in regards to Russian oligarchs.

 

[Venom]

Irrelevant and false in my case. I had to specifically search on YouTube for RT. It does not appear on any general search about a news item (although it may in the future now that I have viewed a few of their videos).

I'm not sure what determines visibility on YouTube, but I remember during the Syrian conflict in particular RT was practically everywhere.

How is that an argument for their suppression? By your logic, the entire CT section in this forum should be banned.

LOL I mentioned all that to say RT covers a wide variety of subjects to get viewers hooked. Relatively benign topics at first before they press on to full Russian infallibility.

So it should be suppressed because many people view it? What sort of logic is that?

I'm emphasizing their reach.

And there we have the "we must protect people from themselves" mentality.

Kinda. I mean, it's always tough to draw the line between free speech and blocked speech. In societies where even hate speech is protected for example, I think it's perfectly reasonable to be suspicious of people always trying to push the boundaries as far as they can go, because without those boundaries they would likely be the first to jump into violent speech, which usually isn't protected.

In my opinion, RT has done enough damage to warrant kicking them out of the platforms they owe their success to. Others may feel differently and I'm open to their defense.

 

[Delvo]

he doesn't believe that we would do it.

Honestly, I don't think that's the case. I think he's fine with it.

As somebody who's done a degree in psych, I think he's possibly not crazy so much as impacted.

The most interesting thing I've heard (and had no proof of) during this war has been a particularly little bit of (alleged) Russian internal propaganda. In response to being asked about using nukes and thus supposedly "destroying the world", a pro-invasion and apparently pro-nuking official commentator/spokesperson apparently said "What's the point in having a world if it doesn't have Russia in it?".

That presents the alternative that Russia's avoiding by invading (and possibly nuking) as "Russia not existing". That could have a couple of different interpretations all by itself. Either:

1. A "Russia" without Ukraine isn't really Russia; it's like an "England" without London or an "Italy" without Rome...
   
   or...
   
   
2. Russia is under constant attack by outsiders and needs to forcefully push them back to defend its own continued existence.

...or both. And both are consistent with not only each other but also the translations I've seen of some parts of Putin's recent speech.

Either way, it would be quite revealing about the mentality of Putin and others who agree with him. The "everything is some kind of slight/attack against me/us" way of looking at the world, which I didn't previously know Putin had (and maybe he didn't before), is very reminiscent of Trump, which makes me now wonder if such debilitatingly all-encompassing paranoia is a standard meme among dictators in general. (If so, it might already be common knowledge, but I've never previously looked into the psychology of famous/historical figures.)

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

If our bear-riding hero is really willing to revenge-nuke, then he holds most of the cards, i'm sorry to say.

I don't think he has all the cards. Given the oligarchs are getting anxious, a few legislators (or whatever they are called) actually spoke out against Putin and the Russian public is protesting in the streets, I think firing off a nuke or two would sink Putin and he likely knows it.

I could be wrong of course, but that's how I read the cards.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Slatyne, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukrainian Territorial Defense fighters ride on a captured Russian T-80

video in link.

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1499033447414837250

Hilarious, isn't it.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Germany confiscated a $0.6 billion Yacht of an oligarchs.
I

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Because he doesn't believe that we would do it.

Being the craziest guy in the room does sometimes have its advantages.

Not only that but mutually assured destruction prevents countries from being the first to use nukes.

Maybe things have changed, military idiots in this country have talked about little nukes on the battlefront. But I don't think we need to threaten Putin for him to know there would be retaliatory nukes fired at Russia. And judging by the state of his military so far, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest Putin is all too aware that his kleptocracy has probably seriously degraded his side of the mutually assured destruction.

He'd have to believe he could use a tactical nuke and the rest of the world wouldn't fire back. And I'd bet he's not so sure now given those sanctions were not the milquetoast sanctions he was used to.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Call me a fearful fool, then, but speaking as somebody who spent the first decade of his life listening to the Saturday morning bomb shelter siren test, I take this pretty seriously.

There's no way to know for sure, but my personal model of what's happening is that Putin has ceased to be rational. I'm thinking something happened medically, like a stroke. That it's impacted his executive function, but not enough to be flagged in the superficial conversations he has with nonmedical subordinates.

This isn't advice to give Putin anything he wants, but rather, a preference to not provoke a nuclear exchange, because for the first time in 60 years, I think there's the highest possibility that it could happen.

NATO has several policies for dealing with nuclear exchanges, one of which is Proportionate Deterrence, or Flexible Response. It's not all MAD. But that's still just for attacks on member states, and *very* unpopular in Europe. Specifically, because that would be the most likely location of the detonations, and fallout would contaminate neighbours. I don't think retaliation is desirable in this Ukraine situation.

A 20kT Proportionate Deterrence against, say, a Russian battle group advancing on Kyiv from the North, would contaminate Kyiv and kill thousands of civilians. Worse: fallout would probably spread into Russia and it's possible they could consider it a Western escalation onto their own territory and retaliate in kind into Western Europe. I just don't see any value in threatening to use tacticals against the Russians on Ukrainian soil at this time, and advice against even threatening.

Sounds like a worse experience than "duck and cover".

Proportionate Deterrence, or Flexible Response sounds like the military discussion here about tactical nukes.

But see my above post as I point out why IMO, Putin is not likely to carry out the nuke bluff. Unless he really is crazy and stupid/senile or had that stroke you suggest that is.

 

[Lennart Hyland]

Russian will turn into North Korea after this...