Oh no Wikiwon't: Russians plan own version of 'distorted' Wikiland Following the country's short-lived ban on Wikipedia, Russian politicians have come up with another wheeze to divert traffic from the encyclopedia site. Moscow’s head of communication and culture, Yevgeny Gerasimov, set out plans (selfishly in Russian) on Tuesday (25 August) for a Russian version of the site. He told Russia's …
I, for one, can't wait to write the article about why Ivanova was the real hero of Babylon 5.
Ivanova is God. If you do not listen to Ivanova, Ivanova will tear your lungs out.
Having noted above, we agree that Ivanova is real hero of Babylon 5, yes?
So Russia has plans to set up its own version of Wikipedia.
One does wonder whether this plan is seriously stated ie. Yevgeny Gerasimov actually believes that this can be achieved, or whether it is purposeful disinformation, for consumption by the Russian public.
... and either way, do the public believe it?
We are led to believe that the majority of Russians only listen to Russian news...... apparently there were no Russian soldiers involved in attacking Ukraine....... and huge teams are employed to swamp forums and comment sites, with misinformation.
Is it the case, that everybody is aware of this......... but that they believe it anyway?
Are they deluding themselves, and getting away with?
:)
It's an interesting question. All the Russians I've spoken to were well aware of Soviet era media censorship/fabrication. And they had that joke about there being no News in Pravda and no Truth in Isvestia.
So are people fooled, too scared to say, or deliberately allowing themselves to believe stuff they'd know was propaganda if they bothered to think about it? People are perfectly capable of holding contradictory political beliefs simultaneously, just because so few people think too deeply about politics, given they're rather busy leading their own lives.
I remember having several online discussions with a Serbian guy. Said he was a political liberal (whatever that label meant in Serbia a decade ago). He was aware that their media and education systems had been distorted with propaganda for years. He now checked foreign and domestic news sources to get his information. He was glad Milosovic was out of power.
And yet still, Serbia were the poor, misunderstood victims of everyone in the Balkans. And it surely wasn't that Serbia had been aggressive to most of its neighbours in recent years.
It was very odd. Intellectually he knew he'd been fed a whole bunch of propaganda, but I guess it's hard to then go back through your assumptions and memories, and re-assess what's true and what isn't. And any time I might score a point in a debate, then it would obviously be because I'd fallen for the propaganda put out by my own government... Not that Western governments aren't above trying that, but they neither control the press in their own countries, or ban foreign media - so it's much harder to put lies out, without the facts also being avaible. Although there are always things that are kept secret. But if you're aware of the risks, you should be able to stay relatively well informed, and unspun.
Hmmmm! don't be so sure of 'the lack of control over the press'.
I have two examples.
One is easy to confirm or accept, the second was personally viewed..... I'll leave the second til last eh?
29th June Carcassonne, a soldier opened fire on the public, with live rounds.
Within 2 hours a retired military officer stated (when the accident question was asked) "this is an impossibility..... it cannot have been an accident".
Shortly after that, the only statements made, were "that this was an unfortunate accident".
Living in France, I can tell you that the French people (on the whole) bought this explanation.
Even people who you could have an intelligent conversation with.... educated.
Clearly not aware; because intelligence isn't necessarily linked to awareness
I can't speak for the whole of France, but from all the people around me...... I would say that 'they bought it'.
A successful mass deception, on a countrywide scale.
.... But how do we know it wasn't an accident?
The soldier had 10 years military experience (seeing action).
He'd had time to build up his cache of live rounds, that he'd saved from live fire exercises.
When he was issued with the blank rounds, for the 'open day display', we can only wonder at how he intended to replace them with his live rounds....... loading each into his magazine, each with its bullet projectile.
We know that this work had to be done, but no media outlet sparked that chain of thought.
Rather it was all an accident (and strangely, no explanation of how the accident occurred).
So he's now heading to his military show, with a rifle that is as heavy as the last time it had live rounds in it (but he knows why that is).
The first round that leaves the barrel, he feels the recoil into his shoulder (highlighting the effects of Newtonian physics).
He kept firing.
Thank God it was an unfortunate accident.... we can all sleep soundly :)
2nd story - global lockdown...... but I have no proof, as you'll see.
However, the premise is that: no photograph was released of the dead Bin Laden.
We were told that he'd been identified, and his body disposed of, but that no photo was, or would be released.
But that was a change of policy..... the photo had already been released.
I happened to be watching France 24, literally as the story broke.
They showed the photo.
A small bullet hole to the top right of his head (picture side).
It was clearly him.
There was no damage to the face (it will all have been at the back of the head).
It was shown once, and never again.
I later learned that no photo would be released (and the charade played out).
>>>>>>>>>
It's great when you see incidents like the two I've outlined.
These were just two that I interacted with..... others will have similar experiences.
However, the 'mass' effect, is one of 'a distortion of reality'
Sure... the two I mentioned are harmless..... nobody gets hurt....... it's all for the good.
... and maybe it is.
Maybe the press thought that too.
But we have satellites that can spot a Russian soldier lighting up.
Knowing the movement of a large column of soldiers and material is a given.
Yet didn't you find it strange that the Press heartily pushed the view that this was just a theory, and in the same breath always said that the Russians denied this.
Sure.... the reason was that we had no capability to confront the incursion... so politically, it was necessary to maintain a doubt in the minds of the people...... so again.... the mainstream press were just doing their duty.
Probably right again...... better not to fan the flames of war........ a well played hand, on the part of Putin.
But right or wrong is by the by.
The point is: that we need to maintain our awareness. of the ease in which the mass media can be controlled.
;)
Well, don't be too hard on the Russkies, La France, or more specifically, the DCRI attempted to have an article on wikipedia deleted, so they got the head of wikipedia France, some daft volunteer, actually, out of his cave and into custody - they forced him to "delete" an article on wikipedia ... although the poor bugger tried to explain why that was futile, he finally complied after hours of torture^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hinterrogation ... the site was restored by a Swiss, seconds later, and the poor bugger was freed. Site in question is about a radar station in France:
Station hertzienne militaire de Pierre-sur-Haute
Of course, this event caused a Streisand effect ...
Note that this is my homepage on one of my boxes... ;-)
I don't think I was being hard on them.
I genuinely do wonder, as to what extent they believe their own misinformation.
Perhaps the guy has just no comprehension of the scale of Wikipedia.
I certainly wouldn't blame him trying to set up an online Russian encyclopedia....... think of the possibilities!
Wikipedia is extremely biased and has some issues with citations and fact-checking, despite what they'd lead you to believe. It seems like users' reputations matter more than actual facts. Registered users who spend too much time on Wikipedia will be trusted over people who are actually knowledgeable about the topic an article covers.
apparently they're "discouraging" retailers from stocking washing chemicals and such manufactured by the western brands, all those palmolive soap, colgate toothpaste and such. Naturally it's because they suddenly found them a health hazard, lol.
Think of your health, think of your children, citizens!
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