Notices by kaniini (kaniini@mastodon.dereferenced.org), page 7

@Tlacaelel

and honestly, i do not have an obsession with Russia, i was just tired of hearing people explain Stein's behaviour even though she is clearly head deep in the shitshow

as for Congolese interference, that's mostly being done by Big Oil and mineral companies (incorporated in Canada to get around US legal situation) looking to keep the place unstable while they strip mine for all the conflict minerals they can get. there's actually a lot that can be done to stop that as many of these companies financed their mining operations through IPOs, meaning they are publicly traded firms. i intend to actually touch on the exploitation of the African continent in general through corporate and government puppet warlords in another thread soon :)

i don't really have much direct experience with the interference we have done in South America though, but have made a note to discuss that as well

@Tlacaelel

to be clear, my position is "fuck all of them"

and yes, absolutely, the US has done plenty of crooked things too

to be completely clear on this: my position is that all democracies everywhere should be protected against any kind of fuckery from any actor, that means no russian fuckery, that means no american fuckery, that means no fuckery from any other intelligence agency anywhere

in order to do this, we must analyze the fuckery that each player is bringing to the game though

@floatoverblow

while true that she may not have violated any law, it does not change the fact that she was using a media outlet that is owned by the russian government and housed in the same building as RIA Novosti (now calling themselves Rossiya Segodnya)

RIA Novosti / Rossiya Segodnya is the whitehat operation -- they are transparent about being the news service of the russian government. they are also particularly nasty, a lot of anti-LGBTQ messaging comes out of them

RT is the greyhat operation, which was directly operated as a part of RIA Novosti until 2009

so while she may not have broken any laws, she is still a shitty person for having made use of that platform and if it turns out that Mueller can throw charges at her, I hope they stick

at this point i think we should just agree to disagree

@floatoverblow

any post Jill Stein has written prior to November 2017 is a felony then, which is probably why Mueller is investigating her

but hey, like I said, you can block me if you do not like my content, you do not have to read it

russia today & sputnik are two publications that are part of the russian state cointelpro program.

cointel means counter intelligence; pro means propaganda.

counter intelligence: doing things to screw up adversarial intelligence leads (this is not what those publications do)

propaganda: creating content to convince a target population of a specific idea, regardless of the legitimacy of that idea (this, however, is what those publications do *some of the time*)

@floatoverblow

the whole point of 22 USC 611 is to give the public (and especially legislators) transparency into the seedy world of foreign lobbying: who is paying who, who is working for who, etc.

free access to a news platform has tangible value that would still have to be reported under 22 USC 611

@floatoverblow

by the way, the registered foreign agent law applies to anybody who is working on behalf of a foreign agent, not just retired military.

writing for Russia Today would certainly require registration under 22 USC 611.

chipotle run over

ok enough trolling mastodon, time to get some chipotle

@Siphonay

oh, i sarcastically said that both Russia Today and InfoWars are very legitimate news sources

a position i continue to stand behind in a strong yet sarcastic manner

i'm seriously over here laughing my ass off at the fact that Voice of America is covering something highly embarassing to the Trump family and not even putting spin on it

man somebody is getting fired for this one

we can finally get a discussion of her mole activities in a court that way, wouldn't it be grand?

seriously i *want* Jill Stein to sue me

@Siphonay

i was being sarcastic, don't worry, i have not turned into a russian mole (unlike Jill Stein)

except, funnily enough, they are going rogue over at Voice of America: https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-son-in-law-kushner-loses-access-to-coveted-intelligence-briefing-/4273141.html

somebody is gonna get fired for covering that one, I bet (as soon as Trump realizes we even *have* our own propaganda rag anyway)

actually the best comparison would be Voice of America, since you know, that's actually a propaganda outlet of the US

but definitely not USA Today, which is a 100% privately owned venture

i would say that the best comparison to RT would actually be PBS, except the republicans managed to kill all funding to that during the reagan administration, so nevermind

can i boost my last boost like 1000 times please

the trick to having a good mastodon experience is to troll nazis and tankies constantly while running mastodon hardened so that your instance blocks them back when they get mad and block you

which reminds me, i need to rebase on mastodon 2.3.0 soon