On October 01 2015 23:27 Falling wrote: My goodness. Now that Russia has started bombing targets- in which they claim are ISIS targets, and US claims they are not- the Canadian Broadcast Corporation's comment section is flooded with pro-Putin comments, Americans are hypocrits comments, and with a heavy dose of either ISIS is US backed or US has been failing to fight ISIS for the last 12 years, but now Putin will get it done.
edut Actually, I guess Russia is now saying some targets are not ISIS. So realpolitik, then. Still doesn't change the unbelievable and abrupt support for Putin in the CBC comment section... or the fact that some are claiming we've been fighting ISIS for 12 years...
What a new and unexpected development. Putin starts fighting things, and suddenly a lot of people proclaim how glorious putin is. It is not like the exact same thing happens every single time.
I thought it was well known that he has a lot of rather effective trolls in his employment.
it stands to reason that when Putin does nothing, there's nothing to proclaim his gloriousness for. i would not make the mistake and call all of them trolls though.
On October 02 2015 01:15 xM(Z wrote: it stands to reason that when Putin does nothing, there's nothing to proclaim his gloriousness for. i would not make the mistake and call all of them trolls though.
I don't think they are all trolls, but Russia is a huge fan of using social media and comments in articles as propaganda. It is an easily manipulated and abuses system that doesn't take a lot of man power. This is the country that flat out denied it had troops in the Ukraine when news agencies were showing videos of them.
So it throws shade on any comments section reporting on the subject.
It's not new, but I was taken aback at how great their numbers were- it largely looked like the pro-Putin people were engaged in a conversation with themselves with few mainstream Canadian perspectives to be seen. It makes me wonder if they can turn every foreign website on the subject of Russia into their very own echo-chamber just due to hyper-nationalism (I think hyper nationalism is as likely an explanation as the 'they're paid trolls' explanation- that is, until I see a proper expose on the subject.)
And I say that Canadian perspectives on the comment boards were largely non-existent rather deliberately. If you think of the Venn diagrams of those that dislike American military interventionism, but like Russian interventionism, it's pretty small from my experience. The American dislike is largely due to a dislike of military interventionism for it's own sake, so whichever power is intervening, they would dislike it. The comments- are very anti-US, but pro-Putin- that excludes most of the NDP and Liberal support (and likely Green.) Harper has been talking up military interventionism for the West, but is staunchly anti-Putin. That cuts out a lot of Conservative support. So unless a lot of Quebecois separatists (who have been talking intervention) are pro-Putin, it points pretty clearly towards overseas commenters dominating Canadian discussion boards. (Or a very, very partan pro-Putin faction in the Canada, somewhere- the vocal, but nearly non-existent minority.)
Sorry, massive derail. But I got thinking about venn diagrams this morning...
i'd assume that the proPutin side is the reactionary one and that they would not pro-actively start topics then talk about their own achievements in there. you have dudes sittin' in their basements or in some shitty cubicles receiving alerts/popups when a topic about a certain subject appears and then they flock there.
Wasn't there a expose about how there is a building somewhere in Moscow where people who were hired to write positive comments for Russia work at? Then if I recall, the journalist who did so was set up to be a "nazi" or something and chucked out or Russia. Paid for trolls is a very real thing, just look at China.
On October 02 2015 04:21 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Wasn't there a expose about how there is a building somewhere in Moscow where people who were hired to write positive comments for Russia work at? Then if I recall, the journalist who did so was set up to be a "nazi" or something and chucked out or Russia. Paid for trolls is a very real thing, just look at China.
I haven't seen that report about Russia having paid trolls to promote the pro-Russian perspective on internet forums, but it seems likely that they would do that, just like pro-American right wingers probably troll forums too, but I don't think that all of the pro_Russian comments would be from paid trolls. I think that there is a fair amount of support for Putin and Russia from actual western citizens, who are just sick of seeing the self righteous, hypocritical pro-Western side of the story being spewed out. It is pretty hypocritical to support Russian intervention whilst at the same time condemning American intervention, but I can see why people would think that Putin is cool. Anyway it seems that at least Russia is doing something about ISIS
On October 04 2015 12:03 oldgregg wrote: I haven't seen that report about Russia having paid trolls to promote the pro-Russian perspective on internet forums, but it seems likely that they would do that, just like pro-American right wingers probably troll forums too, but I don't think that all of the pro_Russian comments would be from paid trolls. I think that there is a fair amount of support for Putin and Russia from actual western citizens, who are just sick of seeing the self righteous, hypocritical pro-Western side of the story being spewed out.
I also think paid trolls are a very small minoriry. Usually it is not average westerners though but Russian immigrants and also people from Russia. They have overall a beef with the west, partly because of unfair portayal of Russia, because of patriotism/nationalism and because of a significant inferiority complex after Russia having lost the cold war and going to shit in the 90ies.
On October 04 2015 12:03 oldgregg wrote: It is pretty hypocritical to support Russian intervention whilst at the same time condemning American intervention, but I can see why people would think that Putin is cool. Anyway it seems that at least Russia is doing something about ISIS
The west is the one that is attacking ISIS (although not to the amount it should imo), Russia's attacks are mainly against Nusra and FSA from what I understand. The Russia supporters are very much pro Assad. In that sense they are also not hypocritical, they are on different sides than the Americans here.
Russia is stepping up its bombing campaign against ISIS for PR reasons (effectively, I might add), but it won't focus on ISIS until the various FSA factions are destroyed. It's pretty obvious why when you look at a map.
It's hard not to admire Putin's brilliance with his Syrian intervention. In one fell swoop he has reestablished Russia as a player in the Middle East and made Obama look like a fool once again. The Syrian civil war has been a foreign policy disaster for the U.S. It is only going to get worse as the Arab states funnel even more resources into Syria to counter Russia and Iran.
russian jets violate turkish airspace, turkish army says "ten F-16 fighter jets were patrolling the turkey-syria border. during this mission, two of our F-16’s were harassed by an unidentified MIG-29, with a lock on for a total of five minutes and 40 seconds." nato condemns, kerry signals turks can hit russian jets, turkish pm says military to react if russia does it again.
Wasn't everybody saying last week that they didn't want this to escalate to a cold war situation? Now Russia is violating NATO airspace, and Kerry is approving shooting them out of the sky. So let's skip cold war and make it hot war is the thought behind this?!
On October 06 2015 08:31 Acrofales wrote: Wasn't everybody saying last week that they didn't want this to escalate to a cold war situation? Now Russia is violating NATO airspace, and Kerry is approving shooting them out of the sky. So let's skip cold war and make it hot war is the thought behind this?!
The problem is NATO countries have been insulting Russian pride ever since the fall of the USSR every chance they could get. Whether people like it or not they are a powerful country and theyve been licking their wounds all this time waiting for signs of weakness and there have been plenty of them in the last decade or so from the US in particular.
Its only natural. They arent doing anything the Western powers havent been doing for ages now. So yeah they are naturally annoyed that the Russians are a big deal again largely due to their own incompetence. So its doubly annoying.
About propaganda. Its not as simple as You guys think. Most of Poles heavily dislike Russian imperialist policy in general and Russian Ukraine involvment and Putin in particular. But on the other hands most of us also think that Putin aproach to Syria is the correct one. US poltics in ME lead only to total clusterfuck leading only to suffering and destabalizing the region. So a lot of poles think that supprting dictators in ME is in our best interests. I am sure the same is for many central european countries. So it might not be Russian trolls but just ordinary citizens expressing their honest opinions. You know a lot of people honestly think US deliberately support terrorists and Iran is much safer option than Suadi Arabia.
I just wonder what the media would be like if that US-Airstrike on the Hospital (which most likely was a sad accident, don't get me wrong) would have been executed by the Russians.
I have a feeling the story would have been handled "slightly" diffrent...
On October 06 2015 17:41 Velr wrote: I just wonder what the media would be like if that US-Airstrike on the Hospital (which most likely was a sad accident, don't get me wrong) would have been executed by the Russians.
I have a feeling the story would have been handled "slightly" diffrent...
Or imagine if Bush was still president, and it happened on his watch.
On October 06 2015 16:22 Silvanel wrote: About propaganda. Its not as simple as You guys think. Most of Poles heavily dislike Russian imperialist policy in general and Russian Ukraine involvment and Putin in particular. But on the other hands most of us also think that Putin aproach to Syria is the correct one. US poltics in ME lead only to total clusterfuck leading only to suffering and destabalizing the region. So a lot of poles think that supprting dictators in ME is in our best interests. I am sure the same is for many central european countries. So it might not be Russian trolls but just ordinary citizens expressing their honest opinions. You know a lot of people honestly think US deliberately support terrorists and Iran is much safer option than Suadi Arabia.
Well it's not only Europeans who say that. If you're interested listen to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Clark former NATO supreme allied commander in Europe here:
I think Russia has to be very careful or they might have another Afghanistan experience.
EPT
