Well then these terrorists, extremists, and criminals are already running to Signal, since they can chat securely amongst themselves in these groups with the added benefit of being able to donate and send untraceable, censorship resistant cryptocurrencies like MobileCoin to each other to fund their operations.
Best part is that it's all E2EE and the government will never know what is going on and how to stop all of it, unless they go after the services and servers Signal is deployed on (Google) and tell them to shut it all down.
When these extremists and terrorists discover the unlimited potential without consequences and little risks of getting caught by using Signal, it will just get worse.
The truckers are very much grass roots and not inherently political.
They are effectively 'working class' and leaderless, wary of years of suppressive measures (as we all are). Definitely 'vaxx misinformed' (a quick purview of their TikTok's reveals this), and definitely a bit crude and noisy with the horns ...
... but they are the furthest thing from 'extremist'.
MSNBC today also characterised the protests with terminology such as 'far right wing' trying to put it in American scare mongering tactics of those perennial 'far right nebulous forces'. While there may actually be such a thing in the US (that MSNBC no doubt also misrepresents), it's not remotely the case in Canada in general and certainly not the protestors who really are 'just a bunch of angry people'.
It's entirely understandable that leaders everywhere are wary of populist uprisings getting out of hand, especially at a time when we are not quite sure if we are done with the pandemic, and another wave may definitely require us to apply at least some measures, but this is ridiculous.
It's nauseating to have to read every, single, news source with such a hefty dose of cynicism, as if to be on guard for the constant editorial aggrandizations.
It's no wonder a lot of regular people are thumbing their noses at 'The Media' because after all, whatever issue they read about seems to be tinged in a manner that even regular people seem to be able to detect.
A better title would have been 'Foreign money fuelling protests in Canada'. That would have been perfectly reasonable and accurate.
The fact that this comment is being downvoted enough for it to have turned grey is why I never post about civil liberties on hacker news, who wants to lose karma? I guess I will do my part today and ask people to upvote reasonable posts like this so that perhaps chilling effects on speech will not increase through negative karma feedback loops.
On HN they don't like it when you 'talk about voting' because they feel it's kind of pointless, which is kind of true.
But at the same time, despite the fact that we like to think of ourselves as 'smart people' - the voting here has nary any rhyme or reason. It's just populism.
PG himself said it was fine to vote based on 'agreement' instead of 'quality' - which is an interesting thing, because agreement is essentially instinctive and it can bring out our worst impulses.
If you want to try to find answers or be fair in this world, you will be loathe by all - that's just the reality of it.
Since most of the 'misinformation' in this world is derived from people's ideologies and peculiar worldviews, people will tend to assume that you don't like them or their ideology - or worse - that you are 'one of the enemies' even for the mildest disagreement. I don't have the link handy but 'out group negativity' is one of the most common points of agreement among like minded people. Essentially, 'Hating on Conservatives/Liberals' is the primary activity of political groups, it engenders more attention that promoting own ideals.
Being 'agreeable' is the surest way to be charming and making friends, but being disagreeable and questioning is heresy and confrontation.
The other, peculiar issue, is that most bad arguments are founded upon a grain of truth. That grain of truth, which can sometimes be very visceral and potent (say for example, slavery in America, USSR/Communism in 20th century), tends to enable dramatised and aggrandised ideals in response.
The biases of all of the mainstream sources become clear after a while, and most people are going to respond by being angry and conspiratorial, instead of trying to do the heavy lifting of wading through the muddy bits, which is understandable.
The Prime Minster of Canada referred to people protesting against lockdowns as 'racist and misogynist' - which is brutally cynical and unethical, something which he was not held accountable for in most of the press.
He then referred to them as having 'unacceptable views' while discussing of using military force, and now he's using never before used 'emergency measures'. This is deeply disturbing authoritarianism, however much I disagree with the protestors is besides the point.
The CBC, the national broadcaster, openly supported by the current government (in financial terms) has also unfairly misrepresented the nature of the protestors. If you were to watch the protests live on various TikTok streams, and then see what was being reported on TV (I did this live), you'd think you're living in a kind of totalitarian state. I have no love for the protesters and they are definitely anti-vaxxers and needlessly rowdy ... but misrepresenting and arbitrarily slandering them on the supposedly 'objective news' is deeply unethical and a form of corruption.
FYI - on the same weekend that those protesting with 'unacceptable views', those 'unacceptable views' became policy in Denmark and mostly in England, and announced in Sweden as well. Not exactly forgone countries.
It's a sensitive time, and media bias is worth scrutinising, the Guardian is not above scrutiny.
Trudeau is working overtime to create a boogeyman so they can take more rights away from people.
It's all so predictable it's laughable. First they start off with Right Wing Extremists. Then they move on to foreign actors trying to disrupt Canadian lives. Meanwhile it Joe6Pack from down the street who is out there because they are trying to prevent him from being able to live, work, shop, or exist. These folks who don't want to take the Vaccine are being subjugated to Trudeau's (Doug Ford too) discriminatory policy and there should be an organized effort to drag their corrupt asses in front of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
A guy (YVR_Sex) checked out the email addresses in the donations leak. “just checked the data set for "85@" through "90@". You know, since it's common for people to end their email addresses with their birth year, or other numbers they are um, fans of. 200 hits across the board, except for one. "88@" had 350 hits. Were almost twice as many people born in 1988?” : https://www.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/ssj6t3/comm...
Surely by now your all aware that these protests were organized by white supremacists. And that one of them, Pat King, has stated “The only way this (the Freedom Convoy protest) is going to get solved is with bullets.” : https://mrsbrittanybested.com/2022/02/03/whats-wrong-with-pa...
This is a series of lies and smears, and regurgitation of some bad state propaganda.
What's 'tiring' is the debunking of this petty form of manipulation.
In fact, these misrepresentations represent a kind of 'Rainbow of Misrepresentations' almost like a case study in all the ways one can lie with a few facts.
If the 'trucker protest' is 'white supremacists' then BLM was organised by mass murderers intent on overthrowing the government, after all 25++ people died, and sections of cities were occupied by armed people who used violence against police and emergency services to keep them out and form their own government.
Now I don't believe that narrative to be true (and I don't support the trucker protest at all), but that's the implication of your misrepresentations.
Some of your stated bit of evidence are presented in this regard, completely out of context, effectively regurgitating state propaganda.
The first example illustrates this: "13 guns seized". Well guns are legal in Canada, and common in the West. That people had weapons in their trucker cabs isn't evidence of anything. 'Possible conspiracy to commit murder' is tantamount to someone saying something to their buddy in anger. There are no charges and probably won't be. Your misrepresentation is tantamount to taking a random thought by someone, and using that as though it's representative of anything.
The statements about foreign donations is largely irrelevant.
The characterisation of 'illegal militias' is a total fabrication on your part. You don't get to decide what is illegal and not. Taking an oath is likely not illegal. But more importantly, this is a pretty small group of people.
The characterisation of 'attacking school children' is a lie on your part (strong words) - you've attributed the actions of a completely random people to 'the protestors' - and, you've aggrandised the nature of the confrontation. In reality, someone, somewhere walked by a couple of people wearing masks and told them they shouldn't be wearing masks. First, that has nothing to do with the the protestors, and second, someone telling other people not to wear masks hardly qualifies as an 'attack' on 'schoolchildren'.
“The Ottawa trucker protest is rooted in extremism, a national security expert says” - this is an editorial characterisation, one rooted in an easily debunked falsehoods. Some protestors had upside down Canadian flags with swastikas - which is their crude attempt to denote that 'Trudeau is a Nazi'. Some of them wore gold stars, as if to empathise with the victims of the holocaust. While both of those actions are crude and frankly stupid, neither of them are fascist or antisemitic. Calling someone a Nazi does not make you a Nazi - just the opposite. Empathising with victims of the holocaust is probably offensive, but it's definitely not antisemitic - again, just the opposite.
Imagine calling the Prime Minister a Nazi, and then the next day in the press, they're telling people you support Nazism? How absurdly Orwellian is that?
Again your 'Pat King' statement is a canard. I'm 100% certain that among the millions of BLM protestors, probably one of them supported using violence against police! Would that be a stretch? Maybe not?
If you want to get a realistic picture of who the actual protesters are, get on TikTok and check into one of the many live streams. You'll see mostly regular, working class people, you'll probably hear a lot of anti-vaxx statements, some loud, boorish talk, but otherwise violence.
In fact, if we stop perpetuating lies and ideology, and have comprehensive look at the protests, you'll see that there were very, very few arrests due to any kind of violence, and that the more offensive activities involved urinating on a public monument, and putting signs, a flag, and hat on a monument.
Right there. Just a few paras up, where everyone can see.
What's the word we use to describe when someone lies or misrepresents in front of others, whereupon their lies are easily debunked by anyone, immediately so that everyone is aware of those lies right in the moment?
(Donald Trump does that, BTW)
Almost nobody actually likes the truckers, that's besides the point.
I provided quite a few links to video and audio evidence, reputable news media, and the Criminal Code. You provided weasel words and excuse-making. Quality debunking, friendo!
19 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 61.3 ms ] threadBest part is that it's all E2EE and the government will never know what is going on and how to stop all of it, unless they go after the services and servers Signal is deployed on (Google) and tell them to shut it all down.
When these extremists and terrorists discover the unlimited potential without consequences and little risks of getting caught by using Signal, it will just get worse.
The truckers are very much grass roots and not inherently political.
They are effectively 'working class' and leaderless, wary of years of suppressive measures (as we all are). Definitely 'vaxx misinformed' (a quick purview of their TikTok's reveals this), and definitely a bit crude and noisy with the horns ...
... but they are the furthest thing from 'extremist'.
MSNBC today also characterised the protests with terminology such as 'far right wing' trying to put it in American scare mongering tactics of those perennial 'far right nebulous forces'. While there may actually be such a thing in the US (that MSNBC no doubt also misrepresents), it's not remotely the case in Canada in general and certainly not the protestors who really are 'just a bunch of angry people'.
It's entirely understandable that leaders everywhere are wary of populist uprisings getting out of hand, especially at a time when we are not quite sure if we are done with the pandemic, and another wave may definitely require us to apply at least some measures, but this is ridiculous.
It's nauseating to have to read every, single, news source with such a hefty dose of cynicism, as if to be on guard for the constant editorial aggrandizations.
It's no wonder a lot of regular people are thumbing their noses at 'The Media' because after all, whatever issue they read about seems to be tinged in a manner that even regular people seem to be able to detect.
A better title would have been 'Foreign money fuelling protests in Canada'. That would have been perfectly reasonable and accurate.
Who cares about points on social media?
But at the same time, despite the fact that we like to think of ourselves as 'smart people' - the voting here has nary any rhyme or reason. It's just populism.
PG himself said it was fine to vote based on 'agreement' instead of 'quality' - which is an interesting thing, because agreement is essentially instinctive and it can bring out our worst impulses.
If you want to try to find answers or be fair in this world, you will be loathe by all - that's just the reality of it.
Since most of the 'misinformation' in this world is derived from people's ideologies and peculiar worldviews, people will tend to assume that you don't like them or their ideology - or worse - that you are 'one of the enemies' even for the mildest disagreement. I don't have the link handy but 'out group negativity' is one of the most common points of agreement among like minded people. Essentially, 'Hating on Conservatives/Liberals' is the primary activity of political groups, it engenders more attention that promoting own ideals.
Being 'agreeable' is the surest way to be charming and making friends, but being disagreeable and questioning is heresy and confrontation.
The other, peculiar issue, is that most bad arguments are founded upon a grain of truth. That grain of truth, which can sometimes be very visceral and potent (say for example, slavery in America, USSR/Communism in 20th century), tends to enable dramatised and aggrandised ideals in response.
The biases of all of the mainstream sources become clear after a while, and most people are going to respond by being angry and conspiratorial, instead of trying to do the heavy lifting of wading through the muddy bits, which is understandable.
The Prime Minster of Canada referred to people protesting against lockdowns as 'racist and misogynist' - which is brutally cynical and unethical, something which he was not held accountable for in most of the press.
He then referred to them as having 'unacceptable views' while discussing of using military force, and now he's using never before used 'emergency measures'. This is deeply disturbing authoritarianism, however much I disagree with the protestors is besides the point.
The CBC, the national broadcaster, openly supported by the current government (in financial terms) has also unfairly misrepresented the nature of the protestors. If you were to watch the protests live on various TikTok streams, and then see what was being reported on TV (I did this live), you'd think you're living in a kind of totalitarian state. I have no love for the protesters and they are definitely anti-vaxxers and needlessly rowdy ... but misrepresenting and arbitrarily slandering them on the supposedly 'objective news' is deeply unethical and a form of corruption.
FYI - on the same weekend that those protesting with 'unacceptable views', those 'unacceptable views' became policy in Denmark and mostly in England, and announced in Sweden as well. Not exactly forgone countries.
It's a sensitive time, and media bias is worth scrutinising, the Guardian is not above scrutiny.
It's all so predictable it's laughable. First they start off with Right Wing Extremists. Then they move on to foreign actors trying to disrupt Canadian lives. Meanwhile it Joe6Pack from down the street who is out there because they are trying to prevent him from being able to live, work, shop, or exist. These folks who don't want to take the Vaccine are being subjugated to Trudeau's (Doug Ford too) discriminatory policy and there should be an organized effort to drag their corrupt asses in front of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
Both can be true.
But…
“13 arrests, guns seized — and a possible ‘conspiracy’ to commit murder: RCMP swoop in on Coutts, Alta. border protest” : https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2022/02/14/rcmp-seize-ha...
This conversation on “Okanagan Freedom Convoy” Zello channel : https://www.reddit.com/r/kelowna/comments/ssoyfm/troublingsc...
A guy (YVR_Sex) checked out the email addresses in the donations leak. “just checked the data set for "85@" through "90@". You know, since it's common for people to end their email addresses with their birth year, or other numbers they are um, fans of. 200 hits across the board, except for one. "88@" had 350 hits. Were almost twice as many people born in 1988?” : https://www.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/ssj6t3/comm...
They “swore in” their own “peace officers”, aka an illegal militia (see Criminal Code section 130) : https://mobile.twitter.com/glen_mcgregor/status/149187293078...
They attack school children (this sort of thing has happened repeatedly) : https://www.castanet.net/news/Penticton/359896/Protesters-sh... https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/calgary-elementary-school-student... https://pressprogress.ca/ottawa-parents-harassed-by-pick-up-...
“The Ottawa trucker protest is rooted in extremism, a national security expert says” : https://www.npr.org/2022/02/10/1079842220/ottawa-trucker-con...
Surely by now your all aware that these protests were organized by white supremacists. And that one of them, Pat King, has stated “The only way this (the Freedom Convoy protest) is going to get solved is with bullets.” : https://mrsbrittanybested.com/2022/02/03/whats-wrong-with-pa...
But in case you’re not aware, “Who is who? A guide to the major players in the trucker convoy protest” : https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/who-is-who-a-guide-to-the-majo...
And of course there’s the absolutely batshit crazy MOU, in which they state their desire to overthrow the government : https://nationalpost.com/opinion/what-the-trucker...
What's 'tiring' is the debunking of this petty form of manipulation.
In fact, these misrepresentations represent a kind of 'Rainbow of Misrepresentations' almost like a case study in all the ways one can lie with a few facts.
If the 'trucker protest' is 'white supremacists' then BLM was organised by mass murderers intent on overthrowing the government, after all 25++ people died, and sections of cities were occupied by armed people who used violence against police and emergency services to keep them out and form their own government.
Now I don't believe that narrative to be true (and I don't support the trucker protest at all), but that's the implication of your misrepresentations.
Some of your stated bit of evidence are presented in this regard, completely out of context, effectively regurgitating state propaganda.
The first example illustrates this: "13 guns seized". Well guns are legal in Canada, and common in the West. That people had weapons in their trucker cabs isn't evidence of anything. 'Possible conspiracy to commit murder' is tantamount to someone saying something to their buddy in anger. There are no charges and probably won't be. Your misrepresentation is tantamount to taking a random thought by someone, and using that as though it's representative of anything.
The statements about foreign donations is largely irrelevant.
The characterisation of 'illegal militias' is a total fabrication on your part. You don't get to decide what is illegal and not. Taking an oath is likely not illegal. But more importantly, this is a pretty small group of people.
The characterisation of 'attacking school children' is a lie on your part (strong words) - you've attributed the actions of a completely random people to 'the protestors' - and, you've aggrandised the nature of the confrontation. In reality, someone, somewhere walked by a couple of people wearing masks and told them they shouldn't be wearing masks. First, that has nothing to do with the the protestors, and second, someone telling other people not to wear masks hardly qualifies as an 'attack' on 'schoolchildren'.
“The Ottawa trucker protest is rooted in extremism, a national security expert says” - this is an editorial characterisation, one rooted in an easily debunked falsehoods. Some protestors had upside down Canadian flags with swastikas - which is their crude attempt to denote that 'Trudeau is a Nazi'. Some of them wore gold stars, as if to empathise with the victims of the holocaust. While both of those actions are crude and frankly stupid, neither of them are fascist or antisemitic. Calling someone a Nazi does not make you a Nazi - just the opposite. Empathising with victims of the holocaust is probably offensive, but it's definitely not antisemitic - again, just the opposite.
Imagine calling the Prime Minister a Nazi, and then the next day in the press, they're telling people you support Nazism? How absurdly Orwellian is that?
Again your 'Pat King' statement is a canard. I'm 100% certain that among the millions of BLM protestors, probably one of them supported using violence against police! Would that be a stretch? Maybe not?
If you want to get a realistic picture of who the actual protesters are, get on TikTok and check into one of the many live streams. You'll see mostly regular, working class people, you'll probably hear a lot of anti-vaxx statements, some loud, boorish talk, but otherwise violence.
In fact, if we stop perpetuating lies and ideology, and have comprehensive look at the protests, you'll see that there were very, very few arrests due to any kind of violence, and that the more offensive activities involved urinating on a public monument, and putting signs, a flag, and hat on a monument.
Furthermore, we take a bre...
Right there. Just a few paras up, where everyone can see.
What's the word we use to describe when someone lies or misrepresents in front of others, whereupon their lies are easily debunked by anyone, immediately so that everyone is aware of those lies right in the moment?
(Donald Trump does that, BTW)
Almost nobody actually likes the truckers, that's besides the point.