Russia propaganda infiltrating German websites...?

[German guy]

Okay, something here cannot be right.

The author of this commentary -- http://www.zeit.de/p...mh17-sanktionen -- on the website of the moderate-liberal weekly Die Zeit (usually writing for a more intellectual demographic) demands tough sanctions against Russia because Russia's connection to the incident is clear enough IHO.

The article is rather moderate, IMO. It basically just says truisms: That most likely, Russian seperatists shot down the plane, that even if it was a mistake, the West should not tolerate what Russia is doing in Ukraine, that Putin's propaganda claims that Kiev is run by a fascist regime and the seperatists are not influenced by Moscow, but a "spontanous anti-fascist uprising" are absurd. And that it's long overdue that the West starts tough sanctions.

Then I looked at the reader comments below the article. I read the first five pages. That is 50 reader comments.

Among them, NOT A SINGLE ONE agrees with the commentary. Instead, the author is called a "propagandist", "lyer", "warmonger", "Merkel-puppet" and so on. Here a few examples:


#4: "Black and white -- Mr. Luther apparently knows nothing else. (...) Grey would mess up his worldview. Rather a white in favor of freedom, God and Fatherland".

#6: "Sanctions hurt the people! Starting sanctions without any proof is manslaughter!"

#9: "This article is a punch in the face of objectivity. (...) It begs the question why such propaganda is allowed in print media."

#12: "Now they suddenly blame Russia for shooting down the plane? This is grotesque and outrageous. We must stop this anti-Russian agitation. We Germans must be more careful. We didn't just murder 6 million Jews, but 20 million Russians too."

#13: "This article is typical NATO-newspeak."

#16: "Of course one can shot down a private jet without sanctions. The US did that too in 1988. (...) When I look at stupid propaganda articles like that, it is only a matter of time until we start another war like in 1914."

#17: "The West in parroting mode. Something is wrong here".

#18: "Dear ZEIT, please no more warmongering! (...) It should be the job of the media to inform and investigate, not to instigate and poison the atmosphere and to prematurely blame people."



And so on and so on and so on ... not *a single* reader comment that even remotely agrees with the commentary.

This is not the first time. This happened *every single time* I have been reading an article on the Ukraine conflict in the past months, on different websites.

Are those Russians writing the comments? Are all the fringe nuts writing the comments and all others just don't bother? Or are Germans really so incredibly ***ed up in the mind? What is wrong here?!

 

[Rainman05]

They're on Romanian websites too.
Either they're russians or paid by russians or just pro-russian by their own will.

Why do I say russians or paid by russians? Because it is well known that Putin created something called the 50 ruble army.

Yesterday our president said the EU has to enact tougher sanctiosn on Russia and hit them where it hurt otherwise we embolden them and the conflict in ukraine will drag on. The websites were full of accusations of fascism and trying to annex moldavia against it's sovereign will and all that crap. I'm not saying that those were 50ruble army, a lot of people hate the president and would take any stance as long as it's against him, but you know, I won't be surprised if at some point we find that Russia has been paying people to do propaganda. Much like China pays people to do propaganda online too. And some other countries as well.

 

[iguanaman]

The Russians have also been "editing" WIKI listings about the shoot down. This is all standard KGB stuff, I don't know why we should be surprised. Only this time Putin and his friends are busy bleeding Russia of Billions of dollars with over $300 billion leaving the country so far this year. They are nothing but thugs and criminals who got control in the chaos of the fall of the USSR. Unfortunately it appears as he has Europe by the balls and it is not helping. France is even going ahead with selling Russia warships they are building. That needs to change even if the US buys them instead.

 

[MrFirst]

I think you should have any evidences and proofs that anyone pays money to anyone for propaganda. Without that it's just bla-bla-bla story.

 

[Montecresto]

They're on Romanian websites too.
Either they're russians or paid by russians or just pro-russian by their own will.

Why do I say russians or paid by russians? Because it is well known that Putin created something called the 50 ruble army.

Yesterday our president said the EU has to enact tougher sanctiosn on Russia and hit them where it hurt otherwise we embolden them and the conflict in ukraine will drag on. The websites were full of accusations of fascism and trying to annex moldavia against it's sovereign will and all that crap. I'm not saying that those were 50ruble army, a lot of people hate the president and would take any stance as long as it's against him, but you know, I won't be surprised if at some point we find that Russia has been paying people to do propaganda. Much like China pays people to do propaganda online too. And some other countries as well.

Like Israel, the US, the UK, India, Iran, never mind, it will take to long to list them out. Funny, how the "us" and "them" thing plays out. Propaganda is practiced by everybody silly.

 

[Montecresto]

The Russians have also been "editing" WIKI listings about the shoot down. This is all standard KGB stuff, I don't know why we should be surprised. Only this time Putin and his friends are busy bleeding Russia of Billions of dollars with over $300 billion leaving the country so far this year. They are nothing but thugs and criminals who got control in the chaos of the fall of the USSR. Unfortunately it appears as he has Europe by the balls and it is not helping. France is even going ahead with selling Russia warships they are building. That needs to change even if the US buys them instead.

For crying out loud, you didn't know its standard CIA stuff, too. CIA-KGB, KGB-CIA, the US puts a former CIA chief in the WH, Russia puts a former KGB chief in the Kremlin. What patronising drivel.

 

[Montecresto]

I think you should have any evidences and proofs that anyone pays money to anyone for propaganda. Without that it's just bla-bla-bla story.

Evidence?????? Who needs that

 

[Jack Fabulous]

Okay, something here cannot be right.

The author of this commentary -- http://www.zeit.de/p...mh17-sanktionen -- on the website of the moderate-liberal weekly Die Zeit (usually writing for a more intellectual demographic) demands tough sanctions against Russia because Russia's connection to the incident is clear enough IHO.

The article is rather moderate, IMO. It basically just says truisms: That most likely, Russian seperatists shot down the plane, that even if it was a mistake, the West should not tolerate what Russia is doing in Ukraine, that Putin's propaganda claims that Kiev is run by a fascist regime and the seperatists are not influenced by Moscow, but a "spontanous anti-fascist uprising" are absurd. And that it's long overdue that the West starts tough sanctions.

The only part of this I would disagree with is the bolded. Although "run by" might be a stretch, there are definitely some prominent fascist elements. Dmytro Yarosh isn't exactly the poster boy for tolerance.

 

[iguanaman]

Evidence?????? Who needs that

You sure don't. Where's your evidence that the CIA instigated the overthrow of Yankovitch? You need to stop being a pawn in the oligarchs chess game.

Interestingly, the message from authoritarian regimes in Moscow and Kiev was not so different from some of what was written during the uprising in the English-speaking world, especially in publications of the far left and the far right. From Lyndon LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review through Ron Paul’s newsletter through The Nation and The Guardian, the story was essentially the same: little of the factual history of the protests, but instead a play on the idea of a nationalist, fascist, or even Nazi coup d’état.

In fact, it was a classic popular revolution. It began with an unmistakably reactionary regime. A leader sought to gather all power, political as well as financial, in his own hands. This leader came to power in democratic elections, to be sure, but then altered the system from within. For example, the leader had been a common criminal: a rapist and a thief. He found a judge who was willing to misplace documents related to his case. That judge then became the chief justice of the Supreme Court. There were no constitutional objections, subsequently, when the leader asserted ever more power for his presidency.
In power, this leader, this president, remained a thief, but now on a grand, perhaps even unsurpassed, scale. Throughout his country millions of small businessmen and businesswomen found it impossible to keep their firms afloat, thanks to the arbitrary demands of tax authorities. Their profits were taken by the state, and the autonomy that those profits might have given them were denied. Workers in the factories and mines had no means whatsoever of expression their own distress, since any attempt at a strike or even at labor organization would simply have led to their dismissal.

The country, Ukraine, was in effect an oligarchy, where much of the wealth was in the hands of people who could fit in one elevator. But even this sort of pluralism, the presence of more than one very rich person, was too much for the leader, Viktor Yanukovych. He wanted to be not only the president but the oligarch-in-chief. His son, a dentist, was suddenly one of the wealthiest men in Europe. Tens of billions of dollars simply disappeared from the state budget. Yanukovych built for himself a series of extravagant homes, perhaps the ugliest in architectural history.

Ukraine: The Haze of Propaganda by Timothy Snyder | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books

 

[Reformedfindlay]

The Russians have also been "editing" WIKI listings about the shoot down. This is all standard KGB stuff, I don't know why we should be surprised. Only this time Putin and his friends are busy bleeding Russia of Billions of dollars with over $300 billion leaving the country so far this year. They are nothing but thugs and criminals who got control in the chaos of the fall of the USSR. Unfortunately it appears as he has Europe by the balls and it is not helping. France is even going ahead with selling Russia warships they are building. That needs to change even if the US buys them instead.

We can take some cheese but French warships don't strike me as anything the U.S. would want.

There's something about France and losing wars that just makes me want to do nothing with the French and warfare. In fact who knows maybe if they give em to Russia they indirectly sabotage the Russians...

 

[Montecresto]

You sure don't. Where's your evidence that the CIA instigated the overthrow of Yankovitch? You need to stop being a pawn in the oligarchs chess game.


Ukraine: The Haze of Propaganda by Timothy Snyder | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books

A blog opinion, nice.


Washington's Man Yatsenyuk Setting Ukraine Up For Ruin
Comment Now Follow Comments

Ukraine’s interim prime minister, Arseniy “Yats” Yatsenyuk, may prove to be arsenic to the beleaguered nation.

“Recall the phone exchange between the Ukraine ambassador and Victoria Nuland (Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs) that got leaked out, where she basically said ‘we want Yats in there.’ They like him because he’s pro Western,” says Vladimir Signorelli, president of boutique investment research firm Bretton Woods Research LLC in New Jersey. “Yatsenyuk is the the kind of technocrat you want if you want austerity, with the veneer of professionalism,” Signorelli said. “He’s the type of guy who can hobnob with the European elite. A Mario Monti type: unelected and willing to do the IMFs bidding,” he said.

Washington's Man Yatsenyuk Setting Ukraine Up For Ruin - Forbes

 

[iguanaman]

We can take some cheese but French warships don't strike me as anything the U.S. would want.

There's something about France and losing wars that just makes me want to do nothing with the French and warfare. In fact who knows maybe if they give em to Russia they indirectly sabotage the Russians...

They are Mistral class amphibious assault ships and appear pretty modern and potent to me... There is no way we should let the Russians have these. All sanctions start with arms purchases.

The Mistral class is a class of three amphibious assault ships, also known as a helicopter carrier, of the French Navy and Russian Navy. Referred to as "projection and command ships" (French: bâtiments de projection et de commandement or BPC), a Mistral-class ship is capable of transporting and deploying 16 NH90 or Tiger helicopters, four landing barges, up to 70 vehicles including 13 AMX-56 Leclerc tanks, or a 40-strong Leclerc tank battalion,[3] and 450 soldiers. The ships are equipped with a 69-bed hospital, and are capable of serving as part of a NATO Response Force, or with United Nations or European Union peace-keeping forces.

Three ships of the class are in service in the French Navy: Mistral, Tonnerre, and Dixmude. A deal for two ships for the Russian Navy was announced by French President Nicolas Sarkozy on 24 December 2010,[4] and signed by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin and French Defence Minister Alain Juppé in the presence of Sarkozy on 25 January 2011.[5]

Mistral-class amphibious assault ship - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Reformedfindlay]

They are Mistral class amphibious assault ships and appear pretty modern and potent to me... There is no way we should let the Russians have these. All sanctions start with arms purchases.



Mistral-class amphibious assault ship - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It was just a joke meant to poke fun at France's terrible military history.

 

[iguanaman]

A blog opinion, nice.


Washington's Man Yatsenyuk Setting Ukraine Up For Ruin
Comment Now Follow Comments

Ukraine’s interim prime minister, Arseniy “Yats” Yatsenyuk, may prove to be arsenic to the beleaguered nation.

“Recall the phone exchange between the Ukraine ambassador and Victoria Nuland (Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs) that got leaked out, where she basically said ‘we want Yats in there.’ They like him because he’s pro Western,” says Vladimir Signorelli, president of boutique investment research firm Bretton Woods Research LLC in New Jersey. “Yatsenyuk is the the kind of technocrat you want if you want austerity, with the veneer of professionalism,” Signorelli said. “He’s the type of guy who can hobnob with the European elite. A Mario Monti type: unelected and willing to do the IMFs bidding,” he said.

Washington's Man Yatsenyuk Setting Ukraine Up For Ruin - Forbes

So your opinion is that because someone in the State Dept. said they "like" him, that means the CIA had him installed as President all by themselves. Nice.

 

[Montecresto]

So your opinion is that because someone in the State Dept. said they "like" him, that means the CIA had him installed as President all by themselves. Nice.

It's usually not all by themselves, but you run good cover.



If the US State Department’s Victoria Nuland had not said “**** the EU,” few outsiders at the time would have heard of Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, the man on the other end of her famously bugged telephone call. But now Washington’s man in Kiev is gaining fame as the face of the CIA-style “destabilization campaign” that brought down Ukraine’s monumentally corrupt but legitimately elected President Viktor Yanukovych.

“Geoffrey Pyatt is one of these State Department high officials who does what he’s told and fancies himself as a kind of a CIA operator,” laughs Ray McGovern, who worked for 27 years as an intelligence analyst for the agency. “It used to be the CIA doing these things,” he tells Democracy Now. “I know that for a fact.” Now it’s the State Department, with its coat-and-tie diplomats, twitter and facebook accounts, and a trick bag of goodies to build support for American policy.

Despite these ominous signs, Ukraine Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt hailed the current crisis as “a day for the history books.” Most of the mainstream media have leaned decisively in the anti-Yanukovych camp.

Phantom Report » Meet the Americans Who Put Together the Coup in Kiev

Washington's Man Yatsenyuk Setting Ukraine Up For Ruin - Forbes

 

[Montecresto]

It's not Russia that's pushed Ukraine to the brink of war
The attempt to lever Kiev into the western camp by ousting an elected leader made conflict certain. It could be a threat to us all.


It's not Russia that's pushed Ukraine to the brink of war | Seumas Milne | Comment is free | The Guardian

 

[The German]

Are those Russians writing the comments? Are all the fringe nuts writing the comments and all others just don't bother? Or are Germans really so incredibly ***ed up in the mind? What is wrong here?!

I wouldnt be suprised if alot of these comments came from people close to the far left or your regular "Die Linke" voters within Germany.

 

[Coin]

So your opinion is that because someone in the State Dept. said they "like" him, that means the CIA had him installed as President all by themselves. Nice.

They were discussing regarding who to put in charge (even tho the govern on that time didn't fall yet), far away from the "like".
And I believe US like no one in Ukraine, no matter who.

 

[Infinite Chaos]

They're on Romanian websites too.
Either they're russians or paid by russians or just pro-russian by their own will.

Why do I say russians or paid by russians? Because it is well known that Putin created something called the 50 ruble army.

Yesterday our president said the EU has to enact tougher sanctiosn on Russia and hit them where it hurt otherwise we embolden them and the conflict in ukraine will drag on. The websites were full of accusations of fascism and trying to annex moldavia against it's sovereign will and all that crap. I'm not saying that those were 50ruble army, a lot of people hate the president and would take any stance as long as it's against him, but you know, I won't be surprised if at some point we find that Russia has been paying people to do propaganda. Much like China pays people to do propaganda online too. And some other countries as well.

Okay, something here cannot be right.

The author of this commentary -- http://www.zeit.de/p...mh17-sanktionen -- on the website of the moderate-liberal weekly Die Zeit (usually writing for a more intellectual demographic) demands tough sanctions against Russia because Russia's connection to the incident is clear enough IHO.

The article is rather moderate, IMO. It basically just says truisms: That most likely, Russian seperatists shot down the plane, that even if it was a mistake, the West should not tolerate what Russia is doing in Ukraine, that Putin's propaganda claims that Kiev is run by a fascist regime and the seperatists are not influenced by Moscow, but a "spontanous anti-fascist uprising" are absurd. And that it's long overdue that the West starts tough sanctions.

Then I looked at the reader comments below the article. I read the first five pages. That is 50 reader comments.

Among them, NOT A SINGLE ONE agrees with the commentary. Instead, the author is called a "propagandist", "lyer", "warmonger", "Merkel-puppet" and so on. Here a few examples:


#4: "Black and white -- Mr. Luther apparently knows nothing else. (...) Grey would mess up his worldview. Rather a white in favor of freedom, God and Fatherland".

#6: "Sanctions hurt the people! Starting sanctions without any proof is manslaughter!"

#9: "This article is a punch in the face of objectivity. (...) It begs the question why such propaganda is allowed in print media."

#12: "Now they suddenly blame Russia for shooting down the plane? This is grotesque and outrageous. We must stop this anti-Russian agitation. We Germans must be more careful. We didn't just murder 6 million Jews, but 20 million Russians too."

#13: "This article is typical NATO-newspeak."

#16: "Of course one can shot down a private jet without sanctions. The US did that too in 1988. (...) When I look at stupid propaganda articles like that, it is only a matter of time until we start another war like in 1914."

#17: "The West in parroting mode. Something is wrong here".

#18: "Dear ZEIT, please no more warmongering! (...) It should be the job of the media to inform and investigate, not to instigate and poison the atmosphere and to prematurely blame people."



And so on and so on and so on ... not *a single* reader comment that even remotely agrees with the commentary.

This is not the first time. This happened *every single time* I have been reading an article on the Ukraine conflict in the past months, on different websites.

Are those Russians writing the comments? Are all the fringe nuts writing the comments and all others just don't bother? Or are Germans really so incredibly ***ed up in the mind? What is wrong here?!

Same on the BBC, Daily Telegraph and other UK websites - I've taken a pasting from fellow posters there who pretty much seem to want Mr Putin to run UK foreign policy. A lot have English sounding names so you would otherwise think they are based here.

I used to notice the same thing whenever the subject of Tibet flared up - you'd get fellow posters talking about how violent and aggressive the Tibetan monks were against the peaceful Han chinese who "only wished to bring modernity to Tibet."

 

[Rainman05]

Same on the BBC, Daily Telegraph and other UK websites - I've taken a pasting from fellow posters there who pretty much seem to want Mr Putin to run UK foreign policy. A lot have English sounding names so you would otherwise think they are based here.

I used to notice the same thing whenever the subject of Tibet flared up - you'd get fellow posters talking about how violent and aggressive the Tibetan monks were against the peaceful Han chinese who "only wished to bring modernity to Tibet."

Yeah, that's the chinesse cheap spammer force.

China Propaganda Team Spread Good Energy - Business Insider

China's 50 Cent Party: Pro-China Online Commenters May Also Be Convicts

China

The chinese 50cent army as they are called is proven beyond doubt. Last year their numbers were about 2mil people. There are countries with fewer people than the number of chinese paid by the govt to spread misinformation.


These people, most of them are just men and women who got a govt job doing this but some are people who are taught how to take down websites by flooding the servers. LOIC and DDOS are common tools used by even above-average skilled people who are interested in attacking websites. You can take the BBC with sufficient attacks. There are very few companies and institutions in general whose servers can take such a pounding.
There are big ones, like google, microsoft.. the ones who deal with the online world.
Maybe some govt websites.
And then gaming companies who have massive online multiplayer games like world of tanks or WOW.

 

[MichaelW]

People asking for evidence of paid pro-Moscow shills. Posts several articles claiming a conspiracy theory that the "coup" was caused by the United States.

I think we have enough evidence. Certainly, I get lambasted on other forums and was called a "pig-headed ****er" from some Russian bloke because I didn't support his particular bend on things.

 

[Montecresto]

So your opinion is that because someone in the State Dept. said they "like" him, that means the CIA had him installed as President all by themselves. Nice.

Well, the CIA has a long history of overthrowing governments and installing puppets so yeah, they can and do do that. And Mrs. Nuland was not just someone in the State Department. She was working the coup from behind, and Yat's wasn't just somebody the State Department liked, he's the pro-Western man they installed.

Victoria Nuland. https://www.google.com/search?q=victoria+nuland&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari

 

[William Rea]

They're on Romanian websites too.
Either they're russians or paid by russians or just pro-russian by their own will.

Why do I say russians or paid by russians? Because it is well known that Putin created something called the 50 ruble army.

Yesterday our president said the EU has to enact tougher sanctiosn on Russia and hit them where it hurt otherwise we embolden them and the conflict in ukraine will drag on. The websites were full of accusations of fascism and trying to annex moldavia against it's sovereign will and all that crap. I'm not saying that those were 50ruble army, a lot of people hate the president and would take any stance as long as it's against him, but you know, I won't be surprised if at some point we find that Russia has been paying people to do propaganda. Much like China pays people to do propaganda online too. And some other countries as well.

Well gee, it's like it's only the Russians and Chinese that EVER thought that social media might be a means to propagate, in the meantime, dog bites man, people start believing everything that they read on the internet and every Western country has uniquely altruistic intelligence services. Seriously?

 

[William Rea]

Like Israel, the US, the UK, India, Iran, never mind, it will take to long to list them out. Funny, how the "us" and "them" thing plays out. Propaganda is practiced by everybody silly.

Beat me too it I see.

 

[William Rea]

We can take some cheese but French warships don't strike me as anything the U.S. would want.

There's something about France and losing wars that just makes me want to do nothing with the French and warfare. In fact who knows maybe if they give em to Russia they indirectly sabotage the Russians...

French military technology has improved significantly, I understand that they can raise a digital white flag in less than 0.003 seconds now.