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> Be careful, Russia invests a lot in disinformation campaigns and spreading (conflicting, but that is part of their doctrine) narratives.

You may also want to be careful (or not):

- all countries engage in these things

- how things are seem like how they seem, but this is very often not the case...and rather than consciousness raising warnings for such situations, it very often does the opposite

As always, I recommend a meta-perspective on geopolitical stories, it is much more fun than being a Normative, poorly constrained imagination actor like the vast majority of people.

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exceptione 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I certainly welcome critical thinking. How GOP got of the rails with the adventures of Bush Jr (War on Terror) is worthy of deep analysis. Backed by Russia, which might give you a pause.

Geopolitical affairs are indeed difficult to follow. It requires deep internal domain(s!) knowledge, which does not fit your average corporate media business model. The niche outlets that do have a capable editorial board are threatened by takeovers [1, 2] from the likes of Axel Springer [3]. 1 Billion USD for Politico. An idiotic sum for a buyer that small, Wikipedia might pique your interest [3]. That is not to say that Politico is useless now, but you can count on journalistic degradation over time.

But sweeping statements are not of help to get a sharper picture. Instead they risk promoting false equivalence and may turn participants(!) of democracies into passive nihilists. Which is precisely the aim of the foreign influence we are talking about.

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1. https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/06/axel-springer-politico-...

2. https://countercurrents.org/2021/09/a-right-wing-german-news...

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axel_Springer_SE#Criticism

	▲	mistermann 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Do you ever wonder why mainstream school curriculum doesn't include the discipline most suitable for navigating these waters: philosophy? And if you do now: do you wonder if this is 100% coincidence, or oversight? How often do you hear the idea even discussed, as compared to, say, how often we hear about "misinformation", and the need for more "critical thinking"? I am glad this situation has a substantial humorous aspect to it, otherwise I'd probably get stressed out about it.

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ImPostingOnHN 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> all countries engage in these things

The post you're responding to, already predicted and addressed this claim:

> Bothsidisms and False Equivalency are some of the common tools in muddying the information sphere.

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snapcaster 5 days ago | parent [-]

Right, but that quote is kind of dumb. It implies that disagreements or criticism of the US are coming from russian disinformation agents. You can see how that framing (even if true sometimes!) isn't productive to any kind of actual discussion right?

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ImPostingOnHN 4 days ago | parent [-]

> It implies that disagreements or criticism of the US are coming from russian disinformation agents

Does it? The post in question observed 2 things:

1. Russia invests a lot in disinformation campaigns and spreading (conflicting, but that is part of their doctrine) narratives.

2. Bothsidisms and False Equivalency are some of the common tools in muddying the information sphere.

Is your point of contention with the truthfulness of either of these observations, or with their proximity to each other?

	▲	snapcaster 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes obviously. it doesn't take much in the way of literacy to understand the point being made by putting those statements next to eachother. The point is to invalidate whatever criticism is being made of the imperium

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coupdejarnac 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]