The United States on Friday released a U.S. intelligence assessment sent to more than 100 countries that found Moscow is using spies, social media and Russian state-run media to erode public faith in the integrity of democratic elections worldwide.
“This is a global phenomenon,” said the assessment. “Our information indicates that senior Russian government officials, including the Kremlin, see value in this type of influence operation and perceive it to be effective.”
A senior State Department official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said that Russia was encouraged to intensify its election influence operations by its success in amplifying disinformation about the 2020 U.S. election and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Imagine they would put the same effort into making their own country a decent place to live
It is a decent place to live for the rich oligarchs, and they intend to keep it that way.
It is a decent place to live for the rich oligarch
Dude, are we still talking about Russia or we switched to America?
Just because America has those in spades doesn’t mean Russia has none.
Fair enough, mine was harmless irony.
The US is not an oligarchy, and that you say this is just a sign of you not recognizing your privilege of not living under an actual oligarchy
I feel like most of the world is an oligarchy, really.
Or you could make the rest of the world a worse place to live
America is a wonderful place to live. It is not free to live here, but we do have freedom.
I wouldn’t trade my life in the USA to move anywhere else, unless it was an offer that came with a substantial financial incentive that would pay for me to live comfortably without needing a job.
Have you actually been anywhere else??? Lol
The famous American freedom!
Name any freedom that I don’t have as an American that anyone else has elsewhere.
Sure. Drive as fast as you want on the Autobahn. Checkmate, buddy!
Americans can drive as fast as they want on racetracks. I break the speed limit on highways all the time with no consequences. Therefore we have the freedom which you have claimed we do not.
“We can just ignore all the laws which is why we have ultimate freedom.”
Keep it coming. I still haven’t heard anyone legitimately name a freedom that Americans don’t have.
To be more specific about the Autobahn, yes that is a form of freedom, but it’s more like a privilege as you must have licensing etc, and it’s only applicable to one road network or system of highways. We have racetracks all over America with no speed limits, possibly even more miles of track than miles of Autobahn but that is just a wild guess.
I can enter any shop, any shop, buy a beer, go sit on a bench, and just drink it.
I too have the freedom to drink beer. We have already covered this one.
Good for you!
But you know it’s not common in the US to have this right, you live in those 24 States that give you this freedom. I’ll tell you more, it’s baffling to me that I cannot drink in America (again, in most States, not the whole country, happy now?) if I’m the passenger in a car and you’re driving.
Alcohol is legal in all 50 states, and people drink it as they please in general. Some states do allow passengers to drink in cars, and some even allow a driver to drink if they are below the DUI limit.
So you have a limited case for your point on that one, that some Americans can’t drink alcohol as freely as others wherever they want to. I can concede that European countries have more freedom to drink alcohol than Americans have. We have a similar situation with cannabis laws, where some Americans have more freedom than others.
I have to say, is that all you’ve got? Some countries have more freedom to get drunk and high. That hasn’t been much of an obstacle for the people I know that get drunk and high all the time though.
Public drinking.
We can drink in public in the USA, people do it all the time.
And drive at the same time a lot, because they are a fun loving people, but also always in a hurry.
You can walk around in my city in the US with open drinks whenever you want. I live in Ohio, so not even some kinda tourist place
When are the countries doing something about this meddling of Russia
Why would they? They welcome it with open arms.
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Divide et impera.
Whenever the US loses enough power to make it possible to prosecute this stuff globally.
Well this thread sure is depressing. It’s full of either tankies or people from Russian troll farms. Only one person actually trying to discuss the article, everyone else seems to be “whatabout America”-ing?
It’s horribly ironic that the people accusing everyone of falling for Western propaganda and pointing out the US’ dark past, are completely falling for Russian propaganda and excusing their current behavior.
It is depressing. People taking this “report”, which cannot even be found in this article, at face value and spamming downvotes on anyone with a hint of critical thinking skills seeing these issues, and upvotes on people parroting the RUSSIA BAD line. It’s not “whatabout” when the post is literally about “US intelligence” i.e. American propaganda arm. Apparently pointing out these flagrant issues with the post is just “tankies” and “Russian troll farms”. This reminds me of when failed Russian agricultural practices would be blamed on “American pests”. Where supposedly the US introduced pests just to destroy crops in Russia. Keep blaming all your problems on a foreign country while your empire languishes.
Does anyone have a link to the report? I want to be informed about this matter. A link to the report should be in the article, but it isn’t. Did they refuse to share the report with the United Kingdom?
Here you go everyone, here you are, Finland, here you go, Germany, one for you Suriname, and Djibouti, and Micronesia of course, NO NOT YOU UK, Mongolia, Chad…
Ask the Canadians, they’ll probably give you a copy
Copying is a grey area still in our country. As long as you don’t upload it, you can download a copy from us
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The assessment was sent in a State Department cable dated Wednesday to more than 100 U.S. embassies in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa for distribution to their host governments, he said.
The report represents Washington’s latest move to combat what it says are Moscow’s efforts “to sow instability” in democratic countries by portraying elections as “dysfunctional, and resulting governments as illegitimate.”
Washington “recognizes its own vulnerability to this threat,” said the report, noting that U.S. intelligence agencies found that “Russian actors spread and amplified information to undermine public confidence in the U.S. 2020 election.”
U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in 2020 beat his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, who refuses to accept the results, falsely claiming that he lost due to fraud.
Concerted Russian operations between 2020 and 2022 sought to “undermine public confidence in at least 11 elections across nine democracies, including the United States,” the report said, adding 17 others were targeted by “less pronounced” efforts.
Russia “utilizes both overt and covert mechanisms, including influence networks and proxies managed” by Russian spy services, the report said.
The original article contains 531 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 66%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Would anyone be shocked to find out every country tries to interfere with the elections of every country? Specially of countries that affect them a lot?
Or do you guys not think the US interferes with say, Japanese elections? Or the Australians don’t interfere with New Zealand elections?
People think all countries are just nice and honest good friends? Only the “evil” ones do shit like this?
C’mon…
Yes, I would be. If, say, Germany tried to mess with French elections or the other way around the EU would implode. Commenting on things? No problem, journalists can do that why shouldn’t politicians be allowed to. But not actual interference much less state-orchestrated or by covert means.
That’s bold since most European countries intelligence confirmed USA interfered in all their elections during and after the Cold war.
Thanks for your whataboutism. Now go troll somewhere offline.
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erode public faith in the integrity of democratic elections worldwide.
And I thought it was corrupt and criminal politicians running a farcical democracy that did it… When in doubt, blame russia I guess.
More than one thing can be true at once.
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Destabilizing Iran’s dictatorship is absolutely a good thing that should be done.
Interfering in democracies is the bad thing.
See there’s this concept of good and bad things, and that’s what you’re missing.
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Oh, you mean like the US has done for a century?
They spam this report like how they spam articles about it to pretend like what Russia is doing is any different from what the US does.
Remember when Russia invented election interference in 2016? Well the US was doing it before it was cool: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa
That is but one example of many dating back throughout the decades. In fact, Russia is the way it is in large part thanks to US interference. Make sure to scream “whataboutism” like a good little parrot and smash that downvote button to show how immune you are to propaganda.
Wrong, dezinformacija is an integral part of communism, Russia is using it since early ‘900. There are many interesting books about it
dEzInFoRmAcIjA You could’ve just written it as “disinformation” but I suppose writing it in a different language helps with the fearmongering for idiots. Take your cold war era bullshit and stuff it.
That is the original term you find in literature. Russian basically invented and made it into a system. Disinformation is a more recent term which is more connected to social networks and stuff, so not entirely correct to use.
Regardless of who supposedly invented lying, the US perfected it.
Heh, maybe, but I feel Russia is still king
All major powers are deep in this mire, African countries, Brazil in its previous election, China, N. Korea, Russia, Saudis, U.S. and others are in various stages of being under attack, by the others, as well as attacking others. This warfare has a low barrier of entry, is cheap, and when it works, works amazingly well.
The cluster f*** that the world is in, now, is the result.
Whaddaboutism is playing some pretend moral ground game where the imaginary points don’t matter. If you are playing this game, you are missing what is actually happening.
Full disclosure, I am against fascism and oligarchies in all forms. They are all corrupt.
“Whataboutism” is supposed to be saying “what about [irrelevant thing]” not “what about [the exact same thing]”. People who parrot the term don’t even know how to use it correctly. They’re using it to defend from any criticism against the US.
Says the person defending a country with a leader straight out Stalin fan fiction novel.
Criticizing the US doesn’t mean I’m defending Russia.
Says the person falling completely for Russian propaganda.
Do you think propaganda is one sided? That only one viewpoint has a government backing it? It is not enough to recognize propaganda and then support the opposite. You have to critically evaluate what’s going on.
With Ukraine, it’s pretty fucking clear that Ukrainians wanted closer relations to the West, not to Russia. Was it a “color revolution” then, funded by the West to overthrow Russian order? Or was it an uprising of the people to take back their government and make it represent their wishes, and the US provided support to them? Was the Ukrainian president’s sudden reversal on enacting a pro Western referendum after meeting with Putin a totally organic, sensible realization by him? Or, did Putin threaten him?
Given how the country has voted and responded to Putin’s invasion, I’m inclined to think that reality is closer to an actual uprising of the people, versus a Western funded color revolution to put a Western friendly figure in power. I think the evidence strongly suggests this, in fact.
So have I fallen for Western propaganda in my analysis of Ukraine? Or have you fallen for Russian propaganda in your analysis? More importantly, if you do recognize that the reality of an “American coup to install a pro Western leader” doesn’t match up at all with the war in Ukraine, will you admit that you have been duped?
If so, I genuinely applaud you. A wise person will freely admit they’ve been tricked and endeavor to not let that happen again.
No, I don’t think propaganda is one sided, which is why I’m bringing up the US. Duh. Talking about “what the people want” is tricky because it can appear strongly one way or another depending on how it’s portrayed. I’m sure quite a few thought that Jan 6th was “an uprising of the people” too. With enough media power, foreign countries could’ve been told a tale of the US government crushing “what the people want”. In the link I posted, it shows an active effort by the US to fund and support groups pushing for policies that are favorable to the US and the west in general. Does this count as election interference or is it only election interference when Russia does it?
It’s election interference either way. The question is how they’re doing so.
That’s a lot of words to describe whataboutism and blind support of a bloody thirsty tyrant.
Clearly a paragraph is too many words for you, which is why you’re accusing me of supporting a “bloody thirsty tyrant” when I’m not. You should stay true to your username and lurk instead.
