[peoplewindow]

Russians have alledgedly been involved with the Catalonian independence movement

Lol, here we go ahead. And where's the evidence of that?

I mean damn, those darn Ruskies! Trump, Brexit and Catalonia too! Is there anything happening in western politics that isn't their fault?

Wait, I thought the reason Russia allegedly did something to support Leave in the Brexit referendum was because they wanted countries to leave the EU, but the Catalonian independence movement wants to remain in the EU. So what's the logic there?

[nl]

And where's the evidence of that?

https://medium.com/dfrlab/electionwatch-russia-and-referendu...

http://www.politico.eu/article/russia-catalonia-referendum-f...

Summary: there's been some attempts, but not as well organized or concentrated as the US, French or German election campaigns.

[peoplewindow]

For anyone who can't be bothered to click through, the "evidence" is a report from El Pais which says:

1. RT reported on Catalonia in ways which El Pais didn't like.

2. Julian Assange is guilty of tweeting "opinions" and "half truths". The idea that Assange has something to do with Russia is taken as given, although it's about as credible as the rest of it.

3. "Bots" which re-tweeted the famously Russian American Edward Snowden. No evidence that any such bots exist is provided, nor that anyone in Catalonia cares what Snowden thinks.

4. "Pro Kremlin websites" spread "biased news".

In other words, there's absolutely fuck all evidence of the Russian government doing anything in Catalonia. Rather, El Pais was disgusted to discover that there are people in the world - like Australians and Americans - who don't agree with what Spain is doing. And once more, instead of accepting that the world is full of people who disagree with them, they invented a Russian conspiracy!

This entire episode is truly pathetic.

[nl]

That's a weird response - the links basically support your position that Russian intervention was minimal.

But your response makes it seem like you didn't read it at all! For example, they provide links to some of the Russian twitter accounts:

For example, @DYGq72pblsGauqv (screen name Магаданец Р.Ф.) retweeted a post from Assange comparing events in Catalonia with those on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. This account posts almost exclusively in Russian, and focuses on propaganda accounts, including from the self-proclaimed territory of “Novorossiya” in Ukraine. The great majority of its posts are retweets, marking it as a probable bot.

They also point out these are minority of the amplification: It should be pointed out that these were a minority, compared with the many apparently Catalan and American accounts, both bot and human, which retweeted Assange.

Far from pathetic, I thought they were fairly balanced assessments of the claims.

[peoplewindow]

That's a weird response - the links basically support your position that Russian intervention was minimal.

They support my position that there was no such intervention at all: i.e. that your claims are false. It is not that "there have been some attempts but not well organised", as you said. It's that there's no actual evidence of any attempts by the Russian government to do anything in Catalonia at all.

Why would pointing that out be a weird response?

As for "omg tweets", who cares? They present no evidence that such an account is a bot, or Russian, even though the random username makes it a possibility (possibilities not being the same thing as evidence).

But more importantly, how many people speak Russian in Catalonia to begin with, do you think? Surely a plot to somehow influence Catalonia events would involve doing things in Catalan or Spanish, not Russian?

The entire hypothesis falls apart the moment anyone inspects it. That's why it's pathetic.

[dragonwriter]

The unifying motive in Russian propaganda efforts of the last several years is to destabilize other centers of power by exacerbating divisions between and within countries Russia considers less than friendly, particularly in NATO.

Their manipulation with regard to Brexit, Catalonia, and multiple and ideologically-opposed sides in the 2016 US Presidential campaign, among others, all fit this pattern.

[peoplewindow]

OK, so in the space of one post now a Russia-Catalonia connection has progressed from being "alleged" to being stated simply as fact, as if it doesn't even need substantiation at all.

Your post is kind of reminds me of this:

http://media.timeout.com/blogimages/wp-content/uploads/2012/...

A vast shadowy conspiracy which is connected to absolutely everything, even when there are obvious long term political trends that made all these outcomes predictable. Nope, not crazy at all!