[grabcocque]

The Kremlin is nothing if not reliably vindictive to those that it believes has crossed it.

Twitter better hope it has its story straight (and the paper shredders working overtime) because this looks to me like Putin's minions have been ordered to go right for Twitter's jugular.

I do hate to say this too, but maybe the Kremlin mouthpiece has a point here: many media organisations use ad spending to try to crowbar themselves into election narratives. The difference in the US is the sheer scale of it compared to most western nations that have strict limits on election spending, both domestic and especially foreign.

The US has limits of a sort but they're so huge and so porous this sort of thing was practically inevitable.

[kogepathic]

> Twitter better hope it has its story straight (and the paper shredders working overtime) because this looks to me like Putin's minions have been ordered to go right for Twitter's jugular.

But for what purpose/to what end?

Bringing Twitter down would remove Trump's favourite method of communication.

Or is this retribution for Trump not being the Manchurian candidate/lap dog Putin wanted? If that were the case, I would expect Russia to expose whatever they're holding over Trump (peepee tape?) to get him ousted.

Trump already won the election, so taking out Twitter would only serve to reduce their ability to influence future elections.

I'm not denying this looks fantastically bad for Twitter, but the aim of taking down Twitter isn't clear to me. There has to be a net positive to taking down Twitter, but what is it?

[pavlov]

But for what purpose/to what end?

Putin primarily wants to sow chaos in the American political class. It's not that he necessarily expected Trump to do his bidding -- the embarrassment and distraction created in Washington by a Trump presidency has been reward enough.

China and Russia have been telling their citizens for a decade that democracy is fickle and easily manipulated. With Trump, they have a textbook case in favor of their argument. Exposing Twitter fits in that narrative.

[cat199]

> Or is this retribution for Trump not being the Manchurian candidate/lap dog Putin wanted? If that were the case, I would expect Russia to expose whatever they're holding over Trump (peepee tape?) to get him ousted

seriously?

if anyone is taking that level of master/puppet game seriously they probably need to watch as many non-us media sources as they can..

news flash:

not everyone agrees with US global neoliberal policy! you don't necissarily need to have some shadowy organization behind those people deciding for themselves to express themselves, organize, etc.

[kogepathic]

> seriously?

Well, no, the peepee tape part is tongue and cheek.

However I doubt it would be difficult to dig up dirt on Trump. I don't think it's beyond Russia's ability to dig up incriminating financials on Trump/Trump Org. We are talking about a candidate who has steadfastly refused to release his tax returns.

[BerislavLopac]

They don't want to take it out -- they just want to show it that they can. Just like piggate.

[mavdi]

I can see Vladislav Surkov's fingerprints all over this.

[aldous]

I was pondering this too. In a general sense, the ol’ Kremlins digital savvy, often attributed to Mr Surkov, seems very impressive, horribly insidious as it is.

Troll army operations: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/th... Initiatives around cryptocurrencies, https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-is-the-kremlin-suddenly-ob... Reappropriating and leveraging web vernacular https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-kremlin-crafted-takeaknee-...

How does the West counter it? How do we, humble internet users sucked into the melee, keep our heads and distinguish fact from fiction? It’s a profoundly deflating landscape out there at times but equally utterly fascinating.

[cat199]

> How does the West counter it? How do we, humble internet users sucked into the melee, keep our heads and distinguish fact from fiction? It’s a profoundly deflating landscape out there at times but equally utterly fascinating.

How does the west counter a massive media campaign designed to discredit foreign news sources by making broad sweeping accusations and slanted reporting to mobilize large scale media and popular reaction in the online space?

Hmm, let me read the several articles from your media campaign designed to discredit foreign news sources by making broad sweeping accusations and slanted reporting to mobilize large scale media and popular reaction in the online space to find out...

perhaps by not thinking in us-vs-them terms but viewing all such organizations as somewhat suspect and determining a personal ethical/philosophical position and developing the ability to discern lies from truth based on the net-sum of available facts and historical understanding of reporting bias and self-interest of the various news sources involved, and using this discernment to evaluate such situations against the aforementioned ethical/philosophical position..

[aldous]

I’m not sure I completely follow the implications in your reply tbh, it seems a little reductionist. Are you disputing that RT is a propaganda arm of the Kremlin? As stated above the Kremlin are quite explicit that this is indeed the case. Your point about us vs them… yes, indeed, thinking like this is indeed unhelpful and perilous, and one would be prudent to avoid it. However, the framing of geopolitics as ‘us vs them’ is concept that people like Mr Putin and his ilk fully leverage, propagate and exploit, it’s a core part of his strategy for the retention of power; Putin very much thinks in terms of “us and them”. The ‘West’ is far far far from a perfect entity/system whatever you want to call it, but the autocratic systems in place in countries like Russia are really incomparable with the freedoms enjoyed in the west.

I don’t quite follow your last sentence, can you elaborate? How could this approach be practically adopted? What check and balances for example?

“perhaps by not thinking in us-vs-them terms but viewing all such organizations as somewhat suspect and determining a personal ethical/philosophical position and developing the ability to discern lies from truth based on the net-sum of available facts and historical understanding of reporting bias and self-interest of the various news sources involved, and using this discernment to evaluate such situations against the aforementioned ethical/philosophical position..”