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.
This isn’t the place for whataboutism.
The US has done countless shitty things over the years, and more than its fair share during the Cold War, but it is not (currently) an authoritarian country that is making a broad and global propaganda and covert services push towards populist authoritarians and away from democratic norms in as many countries as possible. Russia is doing that now, and has been doing that since they got their feet back under themselves a bit in the late 90s.
The US is absolutely making global propaganda. What do you think CNN, FOX, and MSNBC are? The fake news media is actively trying to kill democracy, 8n service of their oligarch owners.
Who in their right mind is watching CNN, Fox or MSNBC outside of Americans?
Nobody, that is who.
It doesn’t matter, America’s media reach is massive, and Americans uncritically parrot the BS they hear on them. Joe Biden uncritically parrots it, as did trump. And a shit ton of people are listening to both those guys.
I’m not doing a whataboutism, I’m just saying that when a state big enough wants to exert it’s influence all over the world, it’s hard to curb that.
Uh, yes it fucking iswhataboutism because this thread is about Russian political intervention against democracy worldwide whereas the US would subvert governments to prop up democracies that would benefit them
Big difference
(Btw you used “it’s” which is “it is”, not “it’s” as in indicating ownership)
This is simply MORE whataboutism, again we’re talking about Russian disinformation campaigns eroding public trust in democratic institutions and you’re over here telling people that it’s hard to change a big countries mind???
Come on bud, you can do better than this
The United States subverts governments to prop up whatever would net the people in charge the most money in the long run and it usually ends up being a dictator.
It’s not whataboutism when you compared the accused and the one accusing. It’s farcical and hypocritical to see the US pointing the finger when it has done worse and is still actively doing it.
The article itself is “whataboutism.” The article fails to address the fact that America interferes in foreign elections. Article— what about Russia?
“That would benefit them”
Haiti has entered the chat.
Name a country in central and South America that the United States has not installed a dictator lol
The Cold War called and wants its foreign policy back!
The US hasn’t been actively involved in subverting Latin American democracies for nearly 40 years.
You will say that’s nothing to be proud of, which is true, but if we can’t give credit where it’s due, there’s no incentive to change.
Lol. The same people are in charge
Iraq, Afghanistan, maiden coup, Palestine, Philippines, Syria, Libya and probably more that I don’t know off the top of my head.
Weird you had to specify Latin American democracies
Edit: saw someone linked about a US backed coup in Latin America in 2020 so the 40 years without meddling in Latin America isn’t even true 🤣 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/18/silence-us-backed-coup-evo-morales-bolivia-american-states
Lmao that opinion article you linked is not talking about the US, but about the international, heavily central-and-south American OAS.
“America” is a pair of continents, not just a country.
https://www.oas.org/en/about/who_we_are.asp
Also here is the actual US involvement, from the article
So an organisation the US is a member of, contributes to financially and has a large amount of influence in has blocked the democratic election of a Latin American leader. Allowed the installment of a temporary leader that they like. The current US president at the time vocally backing the organisation mentioned above and regurgitating the misinformation pushed by that organisation.
The only involvement you saw was a couple of congress members calling for the US to investigate and calling for the US to promise not do what they have always done, starting now.
Did you even read the article?
Also nice of you to ignore the first half of my original comment.
Your comment wasn’t very good so I didn’t feel the need to address it.
Yeah we didn’t try to take over Bolivia in 2019. Not at all.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/18/silence-us-backed-coup-evo-morales-bolivia-american-states
Please don’t ask Elon Musk either.
https://www.salon.com/2020/10/20/elon-musk-becomes-twitter-laughingstock-after-bolivian-socialist-movement-returns-to-power/
Where is the place for whataboutism then? Never? When a narrative is being pushed in the media that is hypocritical, should we just accept it? People seem to think anyone critical of America is defending Russia/China or another country. I think it’s downright UN-American and negligent to never try to make the country you reside in live up to the standards it puts forth.
Well, you could start your own Lemmy post speaking specifically about the United States, instead of derailing this post talking about Russia.
I can do both, and do.
Do you understand the concept of derailing a conversation?
They probably do, as evidenced by the fact that they’re attempting to do so.
Russia interfered. What’s the conversation to be derailed? No one is saying it didn’t happen. They are just pointing out the hypocrisy because America does it too. Claiming “whataboutism” suppresses dissent and promotes the state department narrative.
They can point out that hypocrisy in their own post, instead of derailing this one.
Nah, this is just how a conversation works IRL. Points, counterpoints.
All parties just agreeing with each other staying on the same point is not a conversation.
Making a counterpoint can hardly be considered derailing the conversation .
Whataboutism is not a counterpoint. A counterpoint would be disagreeing with the original point being made, not bringing up a new point.
One point at a time is what’s being advocated.
Might want to edit your comments to use the correct word.
Fine. Carry on with the foreign hate, while ignoring America’s problems. Can you at least acknowledge that the US has interfered in foreign elections? Lol
I have no problem discussing that, at all. Create a topic I’ll be glad to add my opinion to it.
The only point I’m making is that you shouldn’t be discussing two distinct points simultaneously, take them one at a time.
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The place is indeed “never”. Every action should be addressed in the vacuum of its own context. Whatabousims detract from the argument at hand and prevent a Socratic exchange from narrowing its scope sufficiently enough to reach a consensus of understanding.
It’s not about deflecting hypocrisy, it’s about being able to have sane arguments in good faith.
Maybe have a Big Think?
Thank you. This is far more coherent than what i wrote. I’m tired of seeing conversations shutdown or railroaded by people crying whataboutism.
Whataboutism is like false choice and straw man combined. Not only is the suggestion that one needs to choose between being critical of Russia or US, that it’s either/or, but you’re also then implying that the person you’re replying to is making an argument in support of one of the things. That they can’t possibly believe both things to be bad.
They are only talking about one BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT THE DISCUSSION IS ABOUT.
It’s fallacious, so yes, its time is never.
It is called a false dichotomy:
I am aware of what a false dichotomy is. Some people use it interchangeably with “false choice/dilemma”.
Been years since I took a logic course, but here’s a link that talks about the differences:
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/false-dilemma-fallacy/
Oh, yeah no I just dropped that as a general FYI for anyone passing by not as engaging with the argument, I find a lot of people don’t know.
Is the whataboutism in the room with us now?
Lol, caring about being rational is lame
If this were rational you wouldn’t be giving it so much energy. The whataboutism would have been dismissed and people would have moved on and focused on the article. The fact that the whataboutism worked shows just how irrational this is. It proves that the whataboutism is a valid point.
How did it work. Do you think typing this comment takes a lot of energy? I’m not really invested in this at all.
Then stop 🛑
Show me where the whataboutism poked you.
Yes, never is the correct answer. It’s cheap, obvious and condescending as fuck as well as being a total waste of time. The correct thing to do with whataboutism is to call it out and then ignore. Like what I am doing with you right now.
You have a different definition of ignore than I do.
I’d rather live in the US if I were forced go choose. But the US is essentially a police state. Also, you may want to rethink what the us gov and their shadow entities actually do:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change
Lol if you think the US is a true police state, then you have no clue what an actual police state is. In a real police state, you are disappeared almost immediately for critical statements about your government. While that can and does happen in the US on occasion, try that shit in North Korea or Myanmar or China. Be thankful you are allowed to have a dissenting opinion of the government, because there are actual police states in the world that will scoop you up if there’s even a hint of dissent.
We don’t have secret police, we call them undercover agents.
Please tell the Black Lives Matters protestors who were routinely beaten to the curb and tear gassed for expressing a first amendment “right” that they aren’t under surveillance.
Please tell the Portland protestors who were kidnapped by Trump-led federal agents they are living in a normal country.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/aug/04/bob-casey/sen-bob-casey-said-federal-agents-kidnapped-protes/
I’m sure Snowden is thankful he’s able to live freely after exposing that an international spying agreement was gone, and didn’t have to go into hiding. Same for Chelsea Manning who 100% wasn’t put into solitary confinement and forbidden to talk to the public.
If revealing the truth that your government is committing crimes is punished, you are being ruled by criminals.
Dude I’m not denying any of those are fucked up and outside of what our constitution provides for under freedom of speech, assembly, and press (many reporters were also arrested and had their footage destroyed). My point is that, despite these absolute abominations by the ruling class, the average person does not live under a constant state of surveillance and oppression in the same way that those in N Korea, Myanmar, Russia, China, etc do. Sure all of our online activity, communications, and movements are monitored, at least passively in a database, but unless we are actively causing major amounts of trouble we likely won’t have the good squad breaking down our doors and hauling us off for saying “fuck the government” online. It could be so, so much worse (and quite possibly could get there in our lifetimes, if we keep being apathetic about the state of our country).
There is no such thing as passive surveillance if all surveillance data can be automatically flagged or you have an army of agents trawling through it all. Both things America is doing.
Saying fuck the US government online probably puts US citizens as well as global citizens on lists.
America is notorious for embedding into and destroying movements. This happens to this day.
Also hate to break it to you, if you’re in the US you’re physical movements are also most likely tracked.
It’s pure cope to say you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide as you just did.
You both agree on the fundamentals, you just draw the line at what you’re calling a “true” police state. This argument is unproductive.
This comment is unproductive.
We do disagree on a fundamental fact, that America is a police state.
bobs_monkey hypocritically excuses american actions when they would use the same actions committed by non aligned states as evidence that they are police states.
Countering this narrative is productive to my goal, even if I don’t convince bobs_monkey. It doesn’t let what is essentially american propaganda go unchallenged for future readers.
You really need to work on your reading comprehension and probably go outside, paranoia is not a healthy way of life.
God I wish I was the person selling you the tinfoil for your hats.
My guy what are you doing in your comment exactly? You’re pointing out illegal acts by the government. Do you expect punishment to come soon? Consider how often you’ve criticized the US, and how often you’ve been arrested or fined or disappeared for that criticism.
The examples you mentioned aren’t the norm – and that’s precisely why we discuss them. If it were the norm we wouldn’t pay any attention to them. They’re only newsworthy because government suppression of our speech is news. It isn’t a common occurrence.
To compare authoritarianism in the US to the rest of the world is absolute peanuts. People constantly complain about the government and make fun of officials. We could insult Trump to our heart’s content in 2016-2020, but are you aware of a single Chinese person who joked about Xi being Winnie the Pooh in that time period?
Let’s put it this way, if you can complain about how bad your government is without worries of reprisal, your country isn’t as bad as you may think.
I just want to say that you are laying out the facts perfectly. Like yeah of course the US has problems, but I can publicly walk around Washington DC saying “Fuck Joe Biden, He looks like an old emaciated Piglet” and have no fear of political retribution.
Freedom of speech is something we still generally have.
Thanks! I appreciate it
Being allowed to complain about your country doesn’t make it not authoritarian. What exactly is “free” about being charged with treason over releasing proof your country committed war crimes?
You have no idea whether Chinese people can openly complain about Xi, you are literally just repeating propaganda you heard uncritically. If not, provide a source.
As an American, you have been a victim of our countries propaganda your entire life, even more so since 9/11. Go research literally any bad thing america did in the last 70 years, the hard and fast truth, and look at it as though a country in the middle east had done them. Then compare that to both contemporary and recent coverage of the event, as well as contemporary and recent coverage of a similar event that did happen in the middle east or Russia or China or wherever. Try to explain why the media doesn’t care when America does it, but goes ballistic when a socialist country or a country with oil does it.
The part where you leak US intelligence secrets to the world.
Hypothetically, if a German had leaked info about the concentration camps to the press in 1941,that would have been a good thing, right? So why are you presuppossing that it is wrong for an American to leak info about bad shit our country is doing? The reality of what they’re doing doesn’t need to be as bad as genocide for it to be wrong not to report it.
Concentration camps and espionage methodology are two extremely different things.
Crying whataboutism is just a lame attempt to deflect attention from hypocrisy and bullshit.