Russia Accused of Deploying Coronavirus Disinformation to Sow Distrust (reuters.com) 197
AmiMoJo quotes Reuters:
Russian media have deployed a "significant disinformation campaign" against the West to worsen the impact of the coronavirus, generate panic and sow distrust, according to a European Union document seen by Reuters... The EU document said the Russian campaign, pushing fake news online in English, Spanish, Italian, German and French, uses contradictory, confusing and malicious reports to make it harder for the EU to communicate its response to the pandemic.
"A significant disinformation campaign by Russian state media and pro-Kremlin outlets regarding COVID-19 is ongoing," said the nine-page internal document, dated March 16, using the name of the disease that can be caused by the coronavirus. "The overarching aim of Kremlin disinformation is to aggravate the public health crisis in Western countries...in line with the Kremlin's broader strategy of attempting to subvert European societies," the document produced by the EU's foreign policy arm, the European External Action Service, said.
The article notes that while Russia calls the accusations "unfounded," the EU has recorded nearly 80 cases of coronavirus disinformation since January 22nd. Responding to the report, America's Secretary of State also criticized disinformation efforts coming from China and Iran, according to U.S. News and World Report. He adds that the U.S. government has since contacted all three of the disinformation-spreading countries.
"They need to knock it off. We don't approve of it. The idea of transparency and accuracy in information is very important."
"A significant disinformation campaign by Russian state media and pro-Kremlin outlets regarding COVID-19 is ongoing," said the nine-page internal document, dated March 16, using the name of the disease that can be caused by the coronavirus. "The overarching aim of Kremlin disinformation is to aggravate the public health crisis in Western countries...in line with the Kremlin's broader strategy of attempting to subvert European societies," the document produced by the EU's foreign policy arm, the European External Action Service, said.
The article notes that while Russia calls the accusations "unfounded," the EU has recorded nearly 80 cases of coronavirus disinformation since January 22nd. Responding to the report, America's Secretary of State also criticized disinformation efforts coming from China and Iran, according to U.S. News and World Report. He adds that the U.S. government has since contacted all three of the disinformation-spreading countries.
"They need to knock it off. We don't approve of it. The idea of transparency and accuracy in information is very important."
EU, not US right? (Score:2)
Clearly it wasn't the US that said "The idea of transparency and accuracy in information is very important"
Re: EU, not US right? (Score:2)
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"Communist China" is not the actual name of the country, it's "The People's Republic of China". So they must be Republican.
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Democratic and Communist are not mutual exclusive ...
Re: EU, not US right? (Score:5, Informative)
Democratic and Communist are not mutual exclusive...
Yes, it's worked in small communes [wikipedia.org] but they only seem to function as long as they're driven by the same kind of like-minded individuals. Whenever things get adversarial they either fall apart, splinter off or turn into a small cult imposing rules on everyone and expelling those who don't comply. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" sounds like a big happy village where the baker bakes, the smith smiths, the farmer farms and they all work together to make like better for all.
But then you realize there's no reward for making any extra effort. There's no reward for learning hard skills. You're not just taking care of the young, the sick and the old. You're also breaking your back for the lazy, the entitled, the spoiled and the incompetent. So you start asking for kickbacks, either through the system or outside the system which leads to capitalism, oppression or corruption. A few idealists give 110% only to realize no matter how hard they try they're not seen as inspiration but self-sacrificing fools and burn out.
So yeah, it's absolutely possible. But about as stable as nitroglycerin going downhill on a mountain bike.
Re: EU, not US right? (Score:4, Interesting)
No, democratic doesn't mean anything other than that there is a democratic functionality somewhere within the government.
In North Korea for example, there are indeed votes for representatives. It's just that vote is open, and government has full access to information on who voted for who. And so, if you vote wrong, you suffer the consequences.
The thing you're looking for is not "community size". It's liberalism. One of the cornerstones of liberal democracies is SECRET BALLOT for general elections. No one but the voter has any right or ability to see who the vote was cast for. In a liberal democracy, you strictly prohibit and typically straight up criminalize any actions that may serve to reveal who cast a vote for who.
In addition to preventing of tyrant from being able to persecute those that didn't vote for him/her, it also helps prevent other forms of voter intimidation and bribery, because no matter how hard you intimidate or how much your bribe a voter, there's no way to prove he voted a certain way. Doesn't matter if you gave voter a million to vote a certain way. He'll take your money, and you'll have no way to know if he voted the way you wanted or not.
It's why in most liberal Western nations, even voter taking a photograph of their own ballot in a voting booth is illegal and harshly prosecuted.
No! Truth!! I'm M-E-L-T-I-N-G!!! (Score:2)
"They need to knock it off. We don't approve of it. The idea of transparency and accuracy in information is very important."
Yeah. It's a lot harder to con and cheat people if they have a grasp of that idea.
Generation P by Victor Pelevin (Score:3)
~Jenny Holzer
1999 book https://www.goodreads.com/book... [goodreads.com]
From the adapted film of 2011: An aspiring copywriter (Vladimir Epifantsev) interviews with the owner of an ad agency (Igor Grigoriev).
Writer: It is a well known fact that in the countries of Eastern Europe, Coca-Cola is more of an ideological fetish than a refreshing soft drink. If, for instance, BBLz drinks are positioned as possessing the “taste of victory”, then Coco-Cola possesses the “taste of freedom”
Owner: Give it to me in fewer words.
Writer: Let us take a classic positioning slogan: “Sprite- the Uncola”. For the Russian consumer, therefore, the term “Uncola” has extensive anti-democratic and anti-liberal connotations, which makes it highly attractive in conditions of military dictatorship. Translated into Russian “Uncola” would become “Nye-Cola”. The sound of the word (similar to the old Russian name “Nikola”) and the associations aroused by it offer a perfect fit with the aesthetic required by the likely future scenario. A possible version of the slogan: SPRITE. THE NYE-COLA FOR NIKOLA. A possible text for an advertising clip: [sings] Deep in the sprint-time forest I drank my birch-bright Sprite.
Owner: The “Uncola” is Seven-Up’s slogan, not Sprite’s. But that’s Ok. We can use it. You’re hired. You’ve passed the interview. Now try another brand.
How telling (Score:2)
From TFA:
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Russian media have deployed a âoesignificant disinformation campaign"
[...]
The Kremlin denied the allegations
If that doesn't tell you the Kremlin controls the media in Russia, I don't know what does.
Having said that, megarich fucks in cahoots with the government control the media and manipulates public opinions in the US also...
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What the Kremlin (Peskov) did rather than deny is to point how russophobic and groundless those allegation where.
And no, that does not prove collusion (but does not disprove it either).
This inference of Yours is a fallacy.
Since people are calling it chinese flu... (Score:2, Funny)
This sh*t serious (Score:2)
Russian Empire uses social media to weaken anybody in their agenda.
Last two years I see new breed of trolls on both side of our country politics. They too sharp, too manuplative.
Just extra careful when you read something on the net.
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Same here. About the first of feb I posted a 2 month prediction of infection/death rate in China on a relevant reddit board (that actually ended up being pretty close I might add). Someone replied to me "thanks for doing our legwork". Then deleted the post (and trolled some other persons comment just above mine). The next few posts I made (on totally different subjects) where then trolled and downvoted into oblivion....so I took the message and haven't returned again.
I knew China had bought reddit and figur
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Considering the garbage quality of what "Russian trolls" actually did back in 2016, if it's "sharp and manipulative", it's probably not Russian.
Seriously look up what was presented as evidence of Russian manipulation. Difference between that and 4chan's acts is like a different between a firecracker and a strategic nuke.
so ... (Score:2)
... none of the articles cite any actual source beyond "a European Union document seen by Reuters", henceforth referred to as "the EU Document", which isn't any source at all. the second one is directly a bunch of baseless accusations by Mr. Pompeo, a dubious source to start with.
yes, the net is flooded with fakes. stop contributing, slashdot.
Re:so ... (Score:4, Informative)
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thanks for the links! i still don't find there any proof of a 'russian campaign', but at least their headlines don't assert as much, using the more subtle and speculative interrogative forms (another headline classic). yes, lots of drivel inventoried there, but collecting just the drivel from russian sources still doesn't prove a deliberate russian campaign. funnily, some of it was even spewed by trump himself almost verbatim barely a month ago (e.g. "this is less than a flu"), but didn't make it to the rep
What's the goal here for Russia? (Score:2)
Re:What's the goal here for Russia? - Domination! (Score:2)
Their guy locks down the US, Martial Law is declared, elections are suspended. End Game - we look like USSR style soviet Russia.
Think I'm crazy:
https://www.washingtonexaminer... [washingtonexaminer.com]
https://www.wsj.com/articles/m... [wsj.com]
https://www.politico.com/news/... [politico.com]
https://hillreporter.com/repor... [hillreporter.com]
https://www.rollingstone.com/p... [rollingstone.com]
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/... [rawstory.com]
https://www.thehour.com/news/a... [thehour.com]
Fake news (Score:2)
For two years the Left refused to accept the results of the 2016 elections by calling Trump "traitor". They demanded investigation, which concluded, that not only is Trump not a traitor, but no treason has taken place at all — that it was all a fevered conspiracy theory [theintercept.com] from the (very) sore losers.
Do they apologize? No, they continue calling him "Russian man"...
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For two years the Left refused to accept the results of the 2016 elections
Citation needed. Fox News and the like really love to make this claim, but I have yet to see any credible support for it. Who are you describing as "the Left" here that "refused to accept the results"? There is a huge chasm between being unhappy with the results and not accepting them.
calling Trump "traitor"
Trump openly - on national television - asked a foreign government to interfere in the elections. That is treason, period.
They demanded investigation, which concluded, that not only is Trump not a traitor
Trump's own actions demanded the investigation, once he fired the head of the FBI and fired his Attorney General as well.
That said, it seems pretty clear that you did not read even the summary of the investigation (as in, the summary that was released by Muller - a lifetime republican - himself). He very plainly stated that Trump was not exonerated. He very plainly stated that had he found reason to completely exonerate him, he would have said so.
conspiracy theory
How much demonstrable evidence do you need to show you that the Kremlin very strongly preferred the election to go to Trump, and that they took action to help that happen?
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If there are no elections, then either the outgoing House of Representatives chooses a President Elect, or else Senator Chuck Schumer would become President. (due to the number of Republican Senators up for re-election this year)
Don't let a crisis go to waste! (Score:3)
Of course! As Obama's trusted lieutenant once put it [brainyquote.com], "You never let a serious crisis go to waste".
Russian media aren't alone at that — the West's own Left (happily lapping from the Russian bowl since Vietnam War [medium.com]) have identified "healthcare cuts" [theguardian.com] as the reason, why we don't have X times more emergency ventilators and masks, than we do; and why there aren't X times more doctors and nurses now that those that do exist are largely in self-isolation already [aljazeera.com]. Because, yeah, a doctor attending a patient without wearing a mask [dnyuz.com] — and getting infected as a result — is all KKKon$ervatives' fault...
What is Maskirovka? (Score:2)
The little masquerade a strategy of russian geopolitical, diplomatic of military deception.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Putin's long history of disinformation (Score:2)
Some more examples
Russian interfere in the US 2016 Presidential election.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Russian interfere in the UK 2016 Brexit referendum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Russian interfere in the French 2017 Presidential Election
https://www.politico.eu/articl... [politico.eu]
Russian interfere in the Scottish Independence Referendum
https://www.theguardian.com/po... [theguardian.com]
Russian interfere in the 2019 Canadian election
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politi... [www.cbc.ca]
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politi... [www.cbc.ca]
Russian interfere in the 27 o
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They key to staying safe is eating lots of raw onion and garlic. Relax and don't be stressed out. It always works. Just look at me. Still around.
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Re: How about disinformation from the US? (Score:4, Funny)
That's a great way to make sure others practice social distancing around you at least.
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The funniest part is that in many East European and Asian cultures, that's the literal "folks wisdom". Eat lots of onion and garlic to be healthy.
Natural social distancing?
Re:How about disinformation from the US? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Lisa's rock (Score:2)
Good reference, but come on, that episode aired in 1996; you could have included a URL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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You forgot avocado and cumin.
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The goal is to create social distance, not to attract a crowd of millennials.
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But look at who the post was written by
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They key to staying safe is eating lots of raw onion and garlic. Relax and don't be stressed out. It always works. Just look at me. Still around.
You know I think you might be on to something. The key to staying safe is social distancing after all.
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There are many things you can eat that help preventing it, ginger, apples, parsley, ...
Cutting down on Alcohol and most important: smoking.
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Got some evidence for that?
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Got some evidence for that?
You never been in school? And on top you have no google fu?
https://lmgtfy.com/?q=alcohol+... [lmgtfy.com]
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Do we actually have any data on alcohol?
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You don't even have to eat it, just get some of those incense burners on the chain, like the Catholics swing around in church, fill those up with fresh chopped onion and hang them from your clothes.
Re: How about disinformation from the US? (Score:2)
Exactly. The US hardly has the higher ground here.
Predictable misdirection (Score:2)
This is just the sort of thing a Russian troll would say, throw out a bunch of unsupported claims without a shred of evidence, create noise for the useful idiots.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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And, as usual, "they" are horribly wrong. There are lot of things that are a helluva lot worse than doing nothing, as a few moments of rational thought will make plain.
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Re:How about disinformation from the US? (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the time, these kind of cures work on only a subset of all cases. But that may still be enough to bring Covid 19 into "serious flu" territory.
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I work with people that do this kind of a thing for a living, you are absolutely correct and we've known about these drugs for a few weeks now. The problem in this country is that there is a huge portion of the population that wants the current government to fail for political purposes.
You can see this in the messaging from both politicians and certain members of the media, Feinstein and other never-Trumpers selling stock to destabilize the legitimacy of the government, Cuomo and other governors claiming fo
Re:How about disinformation from the US? (Score:5, Informative)
I used to be a pharmacist ...
Chloroquine is toxic. Specifically, it causes retinopathy, that is, it can cause blindness. It is even banned in some countries where malaria developed resistance to it. Hydroxchloroquine is less toxic, but still toxic. In small doses, it should probably be OK, specially when it is a choice between death and a moderate risk of disability.
Furthermore the evidence for its use on Covid19 is based on a single study in Marseilles, France [newsweek.com], and, although submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, it is still a draft (i.e. has not been peer reviewed yet), nor is it blinded.
Double blinding means that neither the doctor nor the patient know if they are receiving the placebo (starch tablet with no active ingredient) or the real tablets with the medicine. This is to remove bias, or psychological effects form the equation, and make sure that any results are due only to the medicines.
Also, the Marseilles study used hydroxychloroquine in combination with azithromycin, which is an antibiotic. Antibiotics do not do anything to viruses, but help if there are secondary infections (the mucus in the lungs is like a Petri dish for bacteria, so they take hold, and cause more problems ending up in septic shock and death). Maybe all the improvement in the study is due to preventing bacteria from taking advantages? I don't know, but that is what peer review of scientific papers is needed, to weed out things like that. More tests are needed, e.g. antibiotic alone, vs. with HCQ, vs. nothing.
As a result of Trump latching on to chloroquine and hyping it up as the miracle cure, people started hoarding it and taking it. Now there are cases of toxicity ending up in hospital in Nigeria [bbc.com], where the drug is banned! In Egypt, there has been hoarding too, but I did not hear of any toxicity (maybe they just bought it, but did not ingest it yet).
But here is another glimmer of hope, at least for severe cases: there is a drug called Tocilizumab [wikipedia.org], which is an interleukin-6 (IL-6) suppresant. IL-6 is a cytokine which is the mechanism that the body uses to call the cavalry, but it can lead to a feedback loop where the cavalry kill friend and foe, causing more cytokines to be released, so more cavalry is called, kill indiscriminately, so more is called, and so on. In these cases breaking the bugle will help.
Here is the good news: both Roche and the WHO are conducting separate studies on this drug for use in severe Covid cases.
If the disease is made less lethal by this drug, or some other yet to be tested drug, and the local health system can cope, then it would not be as bad as we see in Italy, and now Spain. Better yet, a vaccine, but that is at least a year away.
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Making the possibly bad assumption that chloroquine is effective....
Can you comment on quinine vs. chloroquine? Should I be drinking tonic water? Or is the amount of quinine in tonic water not nearly enough to have any effect?
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Disclaimer: I have not been practicing pharmacy for ~ 35 years (switched careers early to the new fangled thing called computers. Long story ... ).
The study used an antibiotic, in addition to HCQ. My educated guess is that the antibiotic may be the one that made the difference due to p
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That would be odd, considering what we know about lethality of this virus. Apparently it largely comes from improper immune response, rather than opportunistic infection.
But that could be wrong, as one thing we generally do not have is good information. There's just not enough time to acquire it yet.
One thing I'll most certainly agree on is that you should not use drugs that have significant side effects without ok from your actual doctor. Not "doctors on the internet" whom you should expect to be quacks of
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Agreed.
It is still too early to definitively say anything about effective treatments, vaccines, ...etc.
Latching on this drug as if it is the miracle cure (like Trump did, to the detriment of some people in Nigeria) does more harm than good.
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Regarding tonic water, I found an answer.
The FDA limits quinine content to 83 mcg/liter [wikipedia.org] (that is microgram, and per 4 cups/glasses). The therapeutic does is from 500 mg to 1000 mg (that is milligram). You do the math!
So, drinking tonic water will do nothing, even if you drink 8 glasses a day, and assuming that it is indeed beneficial.
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Pretty much everything is lethal when taken in high doses.
This. The GP's source links to 3 cases of people whoffing down 30, 13 and 30 tablets at a time respectively. Taking 30 times the recommended dose of most drugs on the market isn't going to be very good for you.
Hell based on the recommendation that you should consume 2L of water a day I wish anyone luck at St Peter's gate if they chose to voluntarily drink 60L. There's no way that won't be classified as a suicide.
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"If you are claiming that it has, then the burden of proof is for the positive result."
If you're going to have a tantrum over burden of proof, at least have the decency to ask for the proof of the OP's claim, not your own. The OP didn't claim clinically proven effectiveness, he claimed that some countries were "having good results".
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The reason why it's considered "antiquated" is because most modern forms of malaria are resistant to it.
It's still perfectly fine against non-resistant strains.
P.S. Water is also lethal if you overdose on it. It's in fact a very painful way to die, as your brain basically tries to expand through your skull.
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They don't do comprehensive tests, just like the US didn't do them two weeks ago and like Italy didn't do them in mid-February.
Look forward to the total clampdown in two weeks' time.
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Unless you provide the numbers for the period under discussion, you're not contributing anything at all. How many tests did Italy perform in January and February compared to the countries that successfully clamped down on the epidemic like Korea and Japan?
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Iran is reporting numerous cases of alcohol poisoning because the rumor spread there that alcohol can kill the virus.
Medical v economic v propaganda priorities (Score:2)
How can a country of that size only have 306 cases of the virus?
Congratulations on attracting so many troll mods. Not an insightful comment, but NOT AT ALL deserving of any of the three kinds of negative mods that it's received so far. Therefore I've quoted it to restore some of your [Arthur, KBE's] visibility, and even though I think the answers are mostly obvious. (I removed the link because that might be trollage. Et tu, Brutus?)
Yes, suppressing bad news is probably part of it, but mostly Russia is a relatively closed society. I think that goes back to Czarist days,
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Same way they don't have a catastrophic hepatitis, HIV, tuberculosis and so on situations. If you don't test people, you don't have the numbers.
Transparency of authoritarian regimes (Score:2)
Excellent question, and I don't know why you have been modded down.
According to the numbers released by these respective jurisdictions,
-- 0.1% percent of the population of Italy has been infected
-- 0.2% of the population of Westchester County, NY has been infected
-- only 0.006% of the population of China has been infected
-- only 0.0003% of the population of Russia has been infected
Maybe Bernie Sanders believes the China/Russia numbers. I am extremely skeptical of them.
Re: Something's smelly in Denma^H^H^HRussia (Score:2, Informative)
You do realize that calling C19 the flu makes you look like an idiot, right?
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The EU stayed open to wuflu tourism for longer. ...
No it did not
Nations in Asia also got ready in time and tried to stop travel, tourism.
No they did not, most asian countries are still "open".
Also: it is not a flu, moron.
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Vast areas of Russia have been officially given to China for a 50 years "concession". Chinese move in and out of these areas unchecked, and Russians living there travel to the rest of the Motherland unobstructed too.
Had it really been only a few hundred infected, Gazprom wouldn't have closed their facilities, for example — and wouldn't have kept their workers on-sites [upstreamonline.com].
No, like USSR before them, Russia is simply lying
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-1 Gullible to propaganda
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Why would a racist idiot not want to look like himself?
Re:Something's smelly in Denma^H^H^HRussia (Score:4, Interesting)
In what way is that even remotely racist? I am Chinese and I don't find it racist. He's referring to the city where the virus originated.
If anyone sounds racist here, it's you. Don't you dare try to decide for me and my fellow Chinese what we should and shouldn't consider to be racist against us. And don't you dare try to white knight us because you think we are too weak to stand up for ourselves if we do encounter someone who actually is racist, you condescending, patronising prick.
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When scientists rename something, they do it in the vain hope that in a crisis they can make people just a little smarter.
When politicians rename something, they do it in the well-founded knowledge that in a crisis they can make [newsweek.com] people [go.com] dumber. [abc7ny.com]
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When scientists rename something, they do it in the vain hope that in a crisis they can make people just a little smarter.
I doubt they're actually that dumb.
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It's not a form of influenza at all. It's bad enough we have the colloquial "stomach flu" confusing things. At least pick a xenophobic name without "flu" in it.
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Yes, you should definitely highlight the control and censorship combined with state approved language in the old Nazi government when you're advocating to control and censor and advocate for approved language.
Re: Something's smelly in Denma^H^H^HRussia (Score:2, Insightful)
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The fuck? That's not what fascism means at all. Get a fucking dictionary kid, look it up, then read Arendt's Totalitarianism to see how wrong you are.
See https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
Definition of fascism:
often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
It has nothing to do with left or right, and everything to do with a centralized autocracy, a dictatorial leadership (of any politicial bent), severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition. Anyone, anywhere in the Left-to-Right spectrum can be responsible for this.
No
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Can't tell the trolls without a scorecard (Score:2)
Or maybe you [AmiNoJo] are the programmed troll? "He who smelt it dealt it?"
As a minimum anti-troll countermeasure, I think topics like this one need an option so that AC posting is entirely disabled.
My longer comment on propaganda priorities says more, but I can't remember if you [AmiNoJo] are a troll.
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That agency is publishing EU news or decrets in Russian and other eastern languages. No idea what you are talking about.
Re: Why is this "news" for us? (Score:2)
Whatâ(TM)s the alternative, not telling people what they are up to? I agree evidence would be nice but itâ(TM)s not like these messages come with Putinâ(TM)s autograph.
Ideally what they should do is show the chain of evidence, such as it is. But that would likely expose their info gathering techniques so donâ(TM)t hold your breath.
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Don't waste your time asking for Putina's autograph, ask for the pee tape.
Allegedly.
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the WHO and take China's word that the coronavirus can't be transmitted person to person.
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the WHO and take China's word that the coronavirus can't be transmitted person to person.
No one ever - aka WHO or China - claimed such nonsense.
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I don't care if you find a post where a troll claims it can not jump from human to human.
It is a corona virus, EVERYONE knows it can jump from human to human. Basically every virus that infects a human can also jump from one human to another one ... that is how viruses work.
So claiming nonsense like the GP that china and the WHO had "claimed it can not jump from human to human" is just silly or bluntly stupid.
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Stop defending China, they sure did and the WHO (which one of their largest contributors is China) went along with it for financial reasons.
Re:Why is this "news" for us? (Score:5, Funny)
For an example of how you can not help the Russians fuck up your country take a look at AHuxley's posts. They push conspiracies in every single one and use terms like "wuflu" just to piss people off. It's divisive and making it harder for countries to cope because everyone is arguing over this shit and half the information out there is false.
You can actually tell what AHuxley is talking about?
Re: Why is this "news" for us? (Score:2)
Conspiracy poetry can be deciphered but it takes more time than it is worth.
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Nobody engaged in any conspiracy to label people racist for saying Spanish Flu, but only now when the Chinese government is upset with anything about the virus being (accurately) named Chinese, there is this big push to ban geographic naming. Temporarily. While it is about China.
It is a little strange that this is people's priority during the Wuflu epidemic. Especially in the context where unsanitary, bronze-age market conditions caused the pandemic. It is absolutely caused by this aspect of Chinese culture
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Yeah, but the good thing is: you can easy google for "wuflu" and get a huge list of troll posts :P
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Well, he has a mouse and a target pointer on the screen ... I guess he is already out to get you :P
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The fake news that this is no more serious than the flu.
There was a guy, probably in his 60s, at the drug store the other day loudly proclaiming that he wasn't afraid of this virus, that it was "just another flu" and if he got it he'd "kick its ass in three days."
Alright tough guy, let's see how much ass kicking you can do when you can't breath -- not that that's even the point. The point is if you get it you'll spend weeks spreading the virus before you even get to the ass kicking stage.
These are the kin
Re: (Score:2)
He's probably right. According to the most recent numbers. For roughly 80% of _detected_ cases it's modest, no worse than the flu or a cold.
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Again, you're missing the point. Even if he does kick the thing's ass, he's going to spend weeks running around infecting other people.
Morons like that are going to delay getting people back to work for weeks.
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Mod parent up for Funny. (And no I still have no idea why my excellent karma never gets me any mod points to bestow.)
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I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to treat anyone involved in, say, the "Internet Research Agency" as a spy and a saboteur. Fair game for extraordinary rendition and, if necessary assassination. Normally you don't do that because of tit-for-tat, but Russia has never played by those rules.
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russia forced merkel and all other government-retards to lie to the populus?
go fuck yourself hitlary shill.
It isn't that they lied. It's that they just didn't do anything.
Early on, the decision was made that the best thing to do was not worry about the disease as it wasn't much different than a flu. It's looking like that wasn't a good approach.