I have a different perspective on "Russian propaganda". I was very involved in the Freedom Convoy protest that happened in Canada two years ago. Thousands of upset Canadians travelled in large...
Exemplary
I have a different perspective on "Russian propaganda". I was very involved in the Freedom Convoy protest that happened in Canada two years ago. Thousands of upset Canadians travelled in large convoys across Canada to converge in Ottawa to protest our gov's response to covid and the increasingly irrational restrictions being imposed. Whether people agreed or disagreed with that protest is not my point.
My point is that the movement was absolutely home grown, a grassroots movement from Canadians. Which is unusual, granted, as we tend to be deserving of our reputation for being overly polite. That often morphs into apathy or a sense of fatalistic inevitability. We just get taken for a ride on many things, particularly our cost of living and we just shrug and carry on (take a look at our incredibly expensive house prices, groceries and taxes compared to the US)
So this movement starts, largely organized by a couple of truckers and one very motivated grandmother from Alberta and the press can NOT believe that so many Canadians can actually be actively protesting something en masse. Surely there MUST be a foreign entity at play. This CAN'T just be Canadian?
And thats when we got to the point of Nil Koksal, a reporter with our national public broadcaster the CBC, conjecturing with absolutely zero proof that this must be a protest fostered and grown by Russia. Surely Canadians are incapable of mounting such a massive response? It must be the Russians.
Then they went further. Gov officials were shocked to realize that Canadians were also donating millions of dollars in support of the protest. That cant be right?! Canadians donating millions to a protest against gov policy? Obviously this too must be Russian or some entity other than Canadians doing this. There was more than one article talking about "dark money" and "foreign actors" promoting the protest.
And thus the propaganda machine kicked into overdrive as the media and gov worked overtime to try and find some explanation for the massive support for the protest. They even shut down the GoFundMe that had already raised 10M within a couple of weeks. Another one sprang up on GiveSendGo and THAT one got shut down after another 10M was raised. Much of that money has been seized by the gov and is in limbo awaiting court cases.
After the dust settled both fundraisers donation lists were analyzed and for the first one it was clear that 88% of donors were in fact ordinary Canadians. The second one had more American donors and a few other countries contributed as the protest got international support but the vast majority were still Canadian. The propaganda machine that had been pushing the "Russian interference" rhetoric was dead wrong.
My point is that our gov's and our legacy media cant be trusted when they cry "foreign interference" That seems to be the label slapped on things that they dont want to believe are true. Like the fact that our Liberal gov has become wildly unpopular and the swing back to conservativism is not only foreseeable, its what always happens in Canada. We go too far left then we go too far right and thats been our pattern for decades. But if you ask the media, it's "Russia's fault" Nope. Its just us.
I think this is a common misunderstanding on how Russian propaganda works. Russia doesn’t invent conflict in democracies but it does hone in on any conflict and try to make the wound bigger. RT...
I think this is a common misunderstanding on how Russian propaganda works. Russia doesn’t invent conflict in democracies but it does hone in on any conflict and try to make the wound bigger. RT State media covered the Canadian convoy protest more than any other international media outlet
I don’t know enough about this particular event to say how heavily Russia was involved but if Canadians are consuming Russian propaganda that fuels their engaging in a extremely disruptive protest it’s true that it’s “us doing it” but also Russia exerting influence to make such conflicts worse or more heated than they would otherwise be.
Which could be true, but in this case the event went from zero to 100 in such a short time that "Russia" wouldn't have had time to amplify it. Which is one of the reasons it was so obviously...
Which could be true, but in this case the event went from zero to 100 in such a short time that "Russia" wouldn't have had time to amplify it. Which is one of the reasons it was so obviously grassroots Canadian.
So Russia media showed 'interest' and covered the protest. So did MANY other countries - the protest made news around the world after it got rolling and had garnered significant support, not before. Why would that give Russia any more influence than any other country? RT isnt a common media source for Canadians.
Even this paper suggests Russia had a "strategic interest" in the convoy. That sounds like a fuzzy way to say nothing - there are gov's around the world that have "strategic interests" in anything disruptive in another country. That doesnt mean a thing.
More interestingly there WAS very direct interference from a foreign country in this protest. It was from the United States. The US barely noticed the protest until some people not directly related to the Ottawa protest, but sympathetic to its cause, decided to block the Canada-US border crossings in Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and BC. Even that didnt get the US' attention until auto makers in the US, who rely on just in time auto parts manufactured in Canada, started to complain to their Senators about their supplies not getting through. That made it all the way to the White House.
The gov of Canada was sitting on its hands while things were very slowly being cleared in Ottawa and then, in very direct influence, the President called our PM on Feb 11. That never happens. The US barely notices Canada exists UNTIL the money stops flowing. Biden told Trudeau to get his act together and get the borders back open because US businesses were losing business. Three days later, in a move that is highly controversial and later ruled to be unconstitutional and wrongly used, Trudeau enacted the Emergencies Measures Act and used a massive police presence plus freezing the bank accounts of protesters, seizing their vehicles and making mass arrests end the protest and force the borders open.
There are only hints about Russia's 'influence' or 'interest' but the US made a very direct and explicit complaint to our gov, and our PM jumped in response. Such is life as the US' lapdog. Russia isn't our worry.
Thanks for this detailed description. I have a bad feeling about the way 'Russian interference' and 'conspiracy theories' are often used against legitimate cases of civil society grassroots work....
Thanks for this detailed description. I have a bad feeling about the way 'Russian interference' and 'conspiracy theories' are often used against legitimate cases of civil society grassroots work. To be sure, both Russian interference and conspiracy theories exist and is harmful. But the fabric of trust in those societies who establish themselves as liberal democracies will be eroding fast if those two explanations are applied willy-nilly to anything that might shake up the transition from capitalism to digital feudalism.
Dismissing, for example, the lab leak theory of COVID19 and only later see it gain credibility as a possible explanation was a mildly red pill-like experience for me.
In addition to voting, encourage each other. Be a positive voice. Do not ever discourage someone from pursuing the goal of effecting positive change. If you can't or won't run for office in small...
In addition to voting, encourage each other. Be a positive voice. Do not ever discourage someone from pursuing the goal of effecting positive change. If you can't or won't run for office in small government, encourage someone who would. If you can't or won't go to PTSA meetings, encourage someone who would. If you can't or won't stand up for yourself, encourage someone who would. And close the door on negative voices in your life (insofar as that's possible).
Part of the feeling of helplessness is in feeling alone. You are not alone. You are not the only one suffering injustice, disenfranchisement, bias, financial pressure. Find positive voices around you and encourage them. Take strength from them and give strength in return. That is what communities are for.
Vote. But beyond voting, gather together in your community and organize to push for your priorities. People can push propaganda to Facebook from anywhere in the world, but building strong local...
Vote. But beyond voting, gather together in your community and organize to push for your priorities. People can push propaganda to Facebook from anywhere in the world, but building strong local networks that depend on human connection will provide resilience in the face of hostile memes.
Perhaps the thing that most makes it too late to make changes is the unwillingness to even try? I can think of no better way to never succeed than to tell yourself and everyone around you that...
Perhaps the thing that most makes it too late to make changes is the unwillingness to even try? I can think of no better way to never succeed than to tell yourself and everyone around you that there's nothing to be done about it.
Exactly - this nihilism is even discussed in the article. We cannot be complacent and apathetic in our critique of the situation. To stand by and say "look what they did to my boy" without doing...
Exactly - this nihilism is even discussed in the article. We cannot be complacent and apathetic in our critique of the situation. To stand by and say "look what they did to my boy" without doing anything is to support the opposition which aims to destroy democratic ideals.
The best defense is to elect a strong leadership. These leaders, emboldened by their voters, can create more programs to defend and counterattack the propaganda machines of the new eastern bloc.
Even if nobody changes their minds, turnout still matters. It all adds up. To be real, it’s also true that for an individual, it’s a drop in the bucket and it’s mostly other people doing the...
Even if nobody changes their minds, turnout still matters. It all adds up. To be real, it’s also true that for an individual, it’s a drop in the bucket and it’s mostly other people doing the adding. So don’t expect much, but for many of us, voting is also pretty easy and maybe kind of fun? You can get out and talk to people.
I will add that discouraging others from voting is not helping. And while there are bad memes, you don’t need to help spread them.
Also, memes only work on people who are susceptible to them; it’s possible to build up immunity and adopting a positive attitude is a big part of that.
Tacking on one more thought, I believe that bringing awareness of this propaganda war and attacks on western democracy by foreign agents is important as well. How do we fight an enemy we don't...
Tacking on one more thought, I believe that bringing awareness of this propaganda war and attacks on western democracy by foreign agents is important as well. How do we fight an enemy we don't even know is attacking?
I've been saying for years that democracy is under attack, ever since I became politically aware in middle school. Of course, most people just don't care, that they don't do politics.
Well politics sure as fuck does you, so play the game or reap the consequences regardless.
The attack on democracy and liberalism also comes from within the US establishment: Facebook/Cambridge Analytica-scandal, the many ways the US security apparatus is pointed towards the citizens...
I wouldn’t mind reading a deep dive on this, but my impression is that even eight years later, it’s unclear what effect Cambridge Analytica had on elections? Just because they did bad things...
I wouldn’t mind reading a deep dive on this, but my impression is that even eight years later, it’s unclear what effect Cambridge Analytica had on elections? Just because they did bad things doesn’t mean it paid off, and a lot of advertising dollars are wasted. The effectiveness of an ad campaign can be unclear even to the people running the ads.
Also, a lot of weird events happened in 2016 so it’s pretty hard to untangle.
My intention was to point toward the broader implications of the US nexus of government, Silicon Valley, and the military. The Cambridge Analytica is just an example of the things that are...
My intention was to point toward the broader implications of the US nexus of government, Silicon Valley, and the military. The Cambridge Analytica is just an example of the things that are possible whether or not its impact was measurable (I don't know). Consider the fact the it's the director of Twitter who decides if Trumpf has his account closed.
Thanks to the internet and whistleblowers it's possible to get close to the internal workings of US diplomacy by reading, for example, this book: Wikileaks and Empire.
This book, in tandem with your personal political framework, could form a basis for triangulating your own position as a citizen in the 'propaganda war'.
I have a different perspective on "Russian propaganda". I was very involved in the Freedom Convoy protest that happened in Canada two years ago. Thousands of upset Canadians travelled in large convoys across Canada to converge in Ottawa to protest our gov's response to covid and the increasingly irrational restrictions being imposed. Whether people agreed or disagreed with that protest is not my point.
My point is that the movement was absolutely home grown, a grassroots movement from Canadians. Which is unusual, granted, as we tend to be deserving of our reputation for being overly polite. That often morphs into apathy or a sense of fatalistic inevitability. We just get taken for a ride on many things, particularly our cost of living and we just shrug and carry on (take a look at our incredibly expensive house prices, groceries and taxes compared to the US)
So this movement starts, largely organized by a couple of truckers and one very motivated grandmother from Alberta and the press can NOT believe that so many Canadians can actually be actively protesting something en masse. Surely there MUST be a foreign entity at play. This CAN'T just be Canadian?
And thats when we got to the point of Nil Koksal, a reporter with our national public broadcaster the CBC, conjecturing with absolutely zero proof that this must be a protest fostered and grown by Russia. Surely Canadians are incapable of mounting such a massive response? It must be the Russians.
Then they went further. Gov officials were shocked to realize that Canadians were also donating millions of dollars in support of the protest. That cant be right?! Canadians donating millions to a protest against gov policy? Obviously this too must be Russian or some entity other than Canadians doing this. There was more than one article talking about "dark money" and "foreign actors" promoting the protest.
And thus the propaganda machine kicked into overdrive as the media and gov worked overtime to try and find some explanation for the massive support for the protest. They even shut down the GoFundMe that had already raised 10M within a couple of weeks. Another one sprang up on GiveSendGo and THAT one got shut down after another 10M was raised. Much of that money has been seized by the gov and is in limbo awaiting court cases.
After the dust settled both fundraisers donation lists were analyzed and for the first one it was clear that 88% of donors were in fact ordinary Canadians. The second one had more American donors and a few other countries contributed as the protest got international support but the vast majority were still Canadian. The propaganda machine that had been pushing the "Russian interference" rhetoric was dead wrong.
My point is that our gov's and our legacy media cant be trusted when they cry "foreign interference" That seems to be the label slapped on things that they dont want to believe are true. Like the fact that our Liberal gov has become wildly unpopular and the swing back to conservativism is not only foreseeable, its what always happens in Canada. We go too far left then we go too far right and thats been our pattern for decades. But if you ask the media, it's "Russia's fault" Nope. Its just us.
I think this is a common misunderstanding on how Russian propaganda works. Russia doesn’t invent conflict in democracies but it does hone in on any conflict and try to make the wound bigger. RT State media covered the Canadian convoy protest more than any other international media outlet
I don’t know enough about this particular event to say how heavily Russia was involved but if Canadians are consuming Russian propaganda that fuels their engaging in a extremely disruptive protest it’s true that it’s “us doing it” but also Russia exerting influence to make such conflicts worse or more heated than they would otherwise be.
Which could be true, but in this case the event went from zero to 100 in such a short time that "Russia" wouldn't have had time to amplify it. Which is one of the reasons it was so obviously grassroots Canadian.
So Russia media showed 'interest' and covered the protest. So did MANY other countries - the protest made news around the world after it got rolling and had garnered significant support, not before. Why would that give Russia any more influence than any other country? RT isnt a common media source for Canadians.
Even this paper suggests Russia had a "strategic interest" in the convoy. That sounds like a fuzzy way to say nothing - there are gov's around the world that have "strategic interests" in anything disruptive in another country. That doesnt mean a thing.
More interestingly there WAS very direct interference from a foreign country in this protest. It was from the United States. The US barely noticed the protest until some people not directly related to the Ottawa protest, but sympathetic to its cause, decided to block the Canada-US border crossings in Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and BC. Even that didnt get the US' attention until auto makers in the US, who rely on just in time auto parts manufactured in Canada, started to complain to their Senators about their supplies not getting through. That made it all the way to the White House.
The gov of Canada was sitting on its hands while things were very slowly being cleared in Ottawa and then, in very direct influence, the President called our PM on Feb 11. That never happens. The US barely notices Canada exists UNTIL the money stops flowing. Biden told Trudeau to get his act together and get the borders back open because US businesses were losing business. Three days later, in a move that is highly controversial and later ruled to be unconstitutional and wrongly used, Trudeau enacted the Emergencies Measures Act and used a massive police presence plus freezing the bank accounts of protesters, seizing their vehicles and making mass arrests end the protest and force the borders open.
There are only hints about Russia's 'influence' or 'interest' but the US made a very direct and explicit complaint to our gov, and our PM jumped in response. Such is life as the US' lapdog. Russia isn't our worry.
Thanks for this detailed description. I have a bad feeling about the way 'Russian interference' and 'conspiracy theories' are often used against legitimate cases of civil society grassroots work. To be sure, both Russian interference and conspiracy theories exist and is harmful. But the fabric of trust in those societies who establish themselves as liberal democracies will be eroding fast if those two explanations are applied willy-nilly to anything that might shake up the transition from capitalism to digital feudalism.
Dismissing, for example, the lab leak theory of COVID19 and only later see it gain credibility as a possible explanation was a mildly red pill-like experience for me.
This is the kind of article that really makes me feel helpless. What do we do in response to stuff like this?
In addition to voting, encourage each other. Be a positive voice. Do not ever discourage someone from pursuing the goal of effecting positive change. If you can't or won't run for office in small government, encourage someone who would. If you can't or won't go to PTSA meetings, encourage someone who would. If you can't or won't stand up for yourself, encourage someone who would. And close the door on negative voices in your life (insofar as that's possible).
Part of the feeling of helplessness is in feeling alone. You are not alone. You are not the only one suffering injustice, disenfranchisement, bias, financial pressure. Find positive voices around you and encourage them. Take strength from them and give strength in return. That is what communities are for.
Vote. But beyond voting, gather together in your community and organize to push for your priorities. People can push propaganda to Facebook from anywhere in the world, but building strong local networks that depend on human connection will provide resilience in the face of hostile memes.
Perhaps the thing that most makes it too late to make changes is the unwillingness to even try? I can think of no better way to never succeed than to tell yourself and everyone around you that there's nothing to be done about it.
Exactly - this nihilism is even discussed in the article. We cannot be complacent and apathetic in our critique of the situation. To stand by and say "look what they did to my boy" without doing anything is to support the opposition which aims to destroy democratic ideals.
The best defense is to elect a strong leadership. These leaders, emboldened by their voters, can create more programs to defend and counterattack the propaganda machines of the new eastern bloc.
Even if nobody changes their minds, turnout still matters. It all adds up. To be real, it’s also true that for an individual, it’s a drop in the bucket and it’s mostly other people doing the adding. So don’t expect much, but for many of us, voting is also pretty easy and maybe kind of fun? You can get out and talk to people.
I will add that discouraging others from voting is not helping. And while there are bad memes, you don’t need to help spread them.
Also, memes only work on people who are susceptible to them; it’s possible to build up immunity and adopting a positive attitude is a big part of that.
Tacking on one more thought, I believe that bringing awareness of this propaganda war and attacks on western democracy by foreign agents is important as well. How do we fight an enemy we don't even know is attacking?
I've been saying for years that democracy is under attack, ever since I became politically aware in middle school. Of course, most people just don't care, that they don't do politics.
Well politics sure as fuck does you, so play the game or reap the consequences regardless.
The attack on democracy and liberalism also comes from within the US establishment: Facebook/Cambridge Analytica-scandal, the many ways the US security apparatus is pointed towards the citizens (as proved by the Snowden leaks), the dubious nature of the 'disinformation' doctrine: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/guide-understanding-hoax-century-thirteen-ways-looking-disinformation
I wouldn’t mind reading a deep dive on this, but my impression is that even eight years later, it’s unclear what effect Cambridge Analytica had on elections? Just because they did bad things doesn’t mean it paid off, and a lot of advertising dollars are wasted. The effectiveness of an ad campaign can be unclear even to the people running the ads.
Also, a lot of weird events happened in 2016 so it’s pretty hard to untangle.
My intention was to point toward the broader implications of the US nexus of government, Silicon Valley, and the military. The Cambridge Analytica is just an example of the things that are possible whether or not its impact was measurable (I don't know). Consider the fact the it's the director of Twitter who decides if Trumpf has his account closed.
Thanks to the internet and whistleblowers it's possible to get close to the internal workings of US diplomacy by reading, for example, this book: Wikileaks and Empire.
This book, in tandem with your personal political framework, could form a basis for triangulating your own position as a citizen in the 'propaganda war'.
Mirror, for those hit by the paywall:
https://archive.ph/wkPrM