Should we also start spamming US phones about Yemeni kids? Perhaps send a picture titled: "Here's the kid we killed today"?
Snark aside, I don't understand what purpose this kind of spamming serves. From reports, most Russians seem to be against this war already. What are you trying to achieve then?
Should we also start spamming US phones about Yemeni kids? : yes
I don't understand what purpose this kind of spamming serves : there is a crackdown on information in Russia, to take back your example, you know about the Yemeni kids because you are free to access this information
All those random messages would do is convince a lot of those who have doubts about the war that the West is indeed waging an information war and make the official Russian sources seem more trustworthy. Honestly, I don't think you can do much in terms of changing peoples' opinions. Those with at least half a brain understand what's really going on. Those without are never going to be dissuaded from believing in whatever nonsense they believe. Saying this from within the country.
Please note that according to the article, 70% rating was before the war (which, by the way, Russian mass media are not allowed to call a "war"; it is a "special military operation"). It is unclear how the war could change people's mind.
Don't waste your sms bandwidth. Americans will just treat it as spam. They can access Internet and look up for information. Yet the way they voted in the past especially Cali shows Thanos might be right.
While we’re at that, let’s also start spamming Ukranians on the false promises by the NATO countries and how those countries played a part in escalating the situation to this event. Ok, I’m being sarcastic, but I agree that spamming Russians isn’t going to help. People might as well start a petition addressed to Putin on change.org, sign it with their email address and feel good about their contribution.
> Should we also start spamming US phones about Yemeni kids?
In the US you could legally do all of these things if you wanted to comment on what is going on in Yemen and advocate for positions contrary to the US government position: blog, publish articles in magazines and newspapers, talk about it on radio and TV, hold public rallies, bulk mail newsletters, place ads in most ad supported media, print it on shirts and wear them in public, bring it up on social media, skywrite it, put it in the name of a new species you have discovered, and many more.
In most cases in the US the only legal restrictions on how you could spread you message about Yemen would be content-neutral restrictions that would apply even if you were trying to spread a message that the US government agrees with.
In the US the mechanism is privatized now. Corporations act as gate keepers. We are used to it (just like they are) to the extend that if it was allowed here on HN [for example] to discuss the [ehm] truth and speculate upon it most of us would leave. There is a good number of frustrated people who would be attracted to it who would turn a platform into a sewer. It would totally disrupt our cosy discussion about the implications of the modular sophistication of virtual sub widgets for unobtainium memristor matrixci in the ad industry.
The speech restriction could be lifted on all platforms simultaneously to spread out the toxicity and perhaps there are positive results to be had if the angry mob unleashes its wrath.
If you don't believe me go watch a video of the slaughter house or compare some of our war entertainment with real war footage. If you can find it of course. Its not easy to find videos of real people getting ripped apart by the advanced tools we've created for that purpose. It is one of the biggest industries in the world? Why cant we see its products in action?
The goal is to make someone in Russia assassinate Putin, it has become obvious by now that this is the propaganda goal of "the west". Some even open compare it to the assassination attempt(s) against Hitler.
I have no clue how protected Putin actually is and whether his assassination would put someone in power who could/would end the war.
I think that's a great idea, I'll send some. Apparently the message invites to find information on telegram channels, so should it contain a link to a channel?
"Due to extensive operator-level filtering in Russia, all messages with URLs will be subject to filtering. It is recommended that if you do not have a registered Sender ID and your messages contain URLs, then you must reach out to us to get the message content whitelisted to ensure better deliverability. "
"Уважаемые россияне, ваши СМИ подвергаются цензуре. Кремль лжет. Тысячи ваших солдат и украинских братьев гибнут на Украине. Узнайте правду в свободном Интернете и в приложении Telegram. Время свергнуть диктатора Путина!"
"Dear Russians, your media is being censored. The Kremlin is lying. Thousands of your soldiers and Ukrainian brothers are dying in Ukraine. Find out the truth on the free web and on the Telegram app. Time to overthrow dictator Putin!"
I think it is a great idea, but maybe we could all host independent proxies on out own dime and add the details to the text to let them bypass censorship, then they can select their news source as they see fit?
Just the translation of the text seems like a 3 year prison sentence for anyone that would act on it...
I would try : here is the "citizen of the world uncensored internet initiative"... then there is the risk the russian send similar messages and jail the people that act on it. anyone with an idea to overcome this is welcome.
EDIT : just read in another comment that links will trigger filtering. extra challenge :|
Dear Russians, your media is being censored. The Kremlin is lying. Thousands of your soldiers and Ukrainian brothers are dying in Ukraine. Find out the truth on the free web and on the Telegram app. Time to overthrow dictator Putin!
My DYOR is: Russia invaded for no good reason its neighbour, is murdering civilians like there’s no tomorrow, and uses poor propaganda to try and pretend it’s otherwise.
Please be honest with yourself, do you really think they invaded for no good reason and murdering civilians like there's no tomorrow. Do you really think that is the case? Why would anyone do that? Please be rational, we need to be rational now.
OK but history shows us many occasions when countries have done both these things - so it's not exactly stretching one's credulity.
I think GP's ever so slightly overstated things. There is a reason (albeit one that is unjustifiable) and "slaughtering civilians" isn't currently the main activity (which is not to say the current civilian death toll isn't awful).
However - Putin's actions are almost completely indefensible on both moral and long-term strategic grounds.
Absolutely we need to resolve things differently in 21st century. World where ordinary people would not be treated like a cattle essentially by any government sounds like utopia. Maybe Mars :D
In 2012 new gas deposits were discovered in Ukraine. On the coast in Crimea territorial waters, in Donbass and in Carpathian mountains next to Transnistria.
Tension spots popped up suspiciously near those deposits in recent years, could be a coincidence of course. Developing those deposits would make Ukraine more independent from Russia.
Omg - I just said check alternative sources and think for yourself, I am not saying believe them, but as Elon Musk said understand that propaganda is everywhere.
A charitable reading of that is "Every country has propaganda in it", which is almost a truism, but I suspect that many people (possibly including you) want to spread the perspective that:
Your last link is propaganda straight from Putin. Here’s a contextualized summary of that message:
>How is Russia trying to sell its invasion?
Essentially, Nazis and NATO. Ever since Russia seized Crimea and backed separatist enclaves in the Donbas region in 2014, Putin has claimed that Ukraine is led by a Western puppet government of Nazis committing "genocide" against Russian-speaking Ukrainians. When he announced his "special military operation," Putin said the goal was the "demilitarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine."
Pretending that geopolitics doesn't exists is not rational in my opinion. How we came to this place now? There were warning signs this will happen and we just stirred the fire... Ordinary people should not suffer because of propaganda gains...
The links I provided deliver geopolitical context.
You can decide which side you want to win: democracies or dictatorship. Putin takes the cynical position that democracy is a sham and consent should be manufactured. What kind of world would you like to live in?
In the world where might makes right, it’s justifiable for the head of a state to literally threaten everyone with nuclear weapons. I don’t know about you, but that’s not a precedent I’m willing to accept.
> In the world where might makes right, it’s justifiable for the head of a state to literally threaten everyone with nuclear weapons.
He was warning about nato expansion to the russian borders being unacceptable for mane years. Did the west understand that? No! I guess he's signaling the importance of the issue.
>He was warning about nato expansion to the russian borders being unacceptable for mane years.
That’s a mischaracterization of the threat. The threat was to prevent any interference in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is sovereign country. Putin’s threat of nuclear war was not made in the context of NATO expansion nor the deployment of nuclear arms near Russia’s borders, etc. Nuclear weapons were in fact removed from Ukraine at Russia’s behest.
We the ordinary people, we don't care about nukes and geopolitical issues so much, why we are in this now? I will not lay my life for geopolitical issues nor Ukrainian people should be forced now to lay theirs. Lets invest hugely in fusion and move away from damn oil so all of this goes away...
Geopolitical issues can have a huge effect on the daily lives of citizens, as we’ve seen from the sanctions so far. All citizens should have the power of collective self-determination, and this includes the foreign policy of their nation.
In a democracy, governments are accountable to their citizens. So if the war against Ukraine bothers you, you should contact your representatives within your government to do something about it.
The people would always choose the true democracy, without the corruption, without the people in government performing state capture and thus enriching themselves and their friends. Place where everybody's human rights are respected. Maybe Nordics are the closest to this. I am not willing to accept war in 21st century, I cannot understand why they just don't bring up military resources and perform a computer simulation, who ever wins in simulation takes peacefully over, it will be best for the ordinary people. From Putins perspective I think he sees possible nukes in Ukraine with 5min flying time to Moscow as incredible threat.
After watching the whole Gonzalo Lira stream from Ukraine I concluded that indeed there is some stronger propaganda vector there so I have removed it now... Just trying to build up a proper picture of what's going on. It is crazy how that is hard today.
You can come up with all sorts of counter points and what ifs to balance the conversation on something like pedophilia, but at the end of the day it is disingenuous to give the dissenting viewpoint a voice.
Just in case anyone takes this seriously: Ray McGovern is paid a contributor for RT and Sputnik, both Russian state owned media outlets. Douglas Macgregor is a former Trump official that also frequents Russian state owned media like RIAN and RT. Most of John Mearsheimer's policy views are rooted in anti-semitism.
Your YouTube steamer "Coach Red Pill" (Gonzalo Lira Lopez) gained most of his popularity after an appearance on Russia Channel 1 and has been repeatedly called out for not having any talking points except what is plucked from Russian domestic media.
Ordinary people are now suffering immensely, and it seems like every government just doesn't care, they just stir the fire, like we are all just some expendable resource they control, they do not care... So why was neutrality for Ukraine a bad idea? Seems like a good idea in the current situation, the one based on the reality. The fact that every media is funded by someone doesn't mean you should not take it into account. As Musk said free speech till the bitter end ;)
Many Russians, especially younger generation are against this, but 2 days ago a new law was passed that first time you get arrested and second time you go to jail.
Still even after this law there are protests. Those who protest are brave people, they risk to end up 15 years in jail.
You will likely get people who have no say in this in trouble or in jail.
"To hide the truth from its own citizens, Russia’s censorship agency has shuttered independent Russian media outlets, blocked social media, and restricted access in Russia to international news outlets. We condemn the move by the Russian Federation Council to approve a law threatening prison sentences of up to 15 years for journalists and ordinary citizens that would spread so-called “false” information about Putin’s unconscionable war in Ukraine."
Will simply receiving the message unsolicited have a likelihood of getting people into trouble? Then I do see your point. But if the trouble you are worried about is more because average Russians might get it into their mind to take action and start protesting against their government despite the dangers, well, that's the point, isn't it? An analogy comes to mind. Was it wrong for the West to broadcast radio and television signals into the Eastern bloc during the Communist era? Learning things about their repressive governments absolutely inspired people to take action and get into serious trouble for it.
Yesterday, I have read in russian independent newspaper in a live feed that woman was arrested and charged with organizing a protest, after posting on Twitter "Let's go and take a walk on the main square".
This can of course be fake, but if true, then having SMS like that could lead to being questioned in the very least.
If you want to encourage the protesters and give them words of support then text of the message is wrong, those people already know that press is twisting the facts. They do read foreign media, while they still can, but Russia has been conducting exercises on cutting their internet segment from the rest of the internet since 2018, so at any moment they can just flip the switch.
You are correct the broadcasts were not wrong, people were eager for that information, but it was discussed mostly in private and with close friends only.
Other issue is that SMS spam is really bad in Russia so likelihood of that message being taken seriously is quite small, especially with official media saying that West is waging information war. So message with content about mainstream media lying received by a supporter would probably not have the impact you would imagine. Bringing some facts that would cause people to investigate further would go a lot better in my opinion.
Abusing tightly regulated communications infrastructure to incite foreigners to overthrow their heads of state sounds like a quick way to get in a lot of trouble. I would not recommend it.
Dear Russians Your media is censored The Kremlin is lying Find out the truth about Ukraine on the free Internet and in the app Time to overthrow the dictator Putin
There are spammers weaponizing SMS again, doing EXACTLY THIS and asking to donate money to refugees, etc (fake, of course). And not only in Russian Fed.
It may be true that you are not bad. But your leader is bad. Very bad. Putin made a grave error attacking Ukraine. The world is united in condemning his actions. You need to remove him.
you would think tat after two years with the world suffering from a covid nightmare , we could have a time of peace and love,instead we get war ,!!!Total madness
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 183 ms ] threadSnark aside, I don't understand what purpose this kind of spamming serves. From reports, most Russians seem to be against this war already. What are you trying to achieve then?
I don't understand what purpose this kind of spamming serves : there is a crackdown on information in Russia, to take back your example, you know about the Yemeni kids because you are free to access this information
Where did you get that from?
Putin has an 70% approval rating and the war about 50%.
The I don’t knows and againsts are a minority.
Half of Russians say it would be right to use military force to keep Ukraine out of NATO
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2022/02/europe/russia-uk...
It would be even more informative to single out crimea and donbass as separate entities in the survey - the views there are probably quite peculiar.
Haha, sure. He would give himself 101% approval but then it "could" look fake. Vladmir is a humble man.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_image_of_Vladimir_Put...
Or else!
In the US you could legally do all of these things if you wanted to comment on what is going on in Yemen and advocate for positions contrary to the US government position: blog, publish articles in magazines and newspapers, talk about it on radio and TV, hold public rallies, bulk mail newsletters, place ads in most ad supported media, print it on shirts and wear them in public, bring it up on social media, skywrite it, put it in the name of a new species you have discovered, and many more.
In most cases in the US the only legal restrictions on how you could spread you message about Yemen would be content-neutral restrictions that would apply even if you were trying to spread a message that the US government agrees with.
This is not the case in Russia.
The speech restriction could be lifted on all platforms simultaneously to spread out the toxicity and perhaps there are positive results to be had if the angry mob unleashes its wrath.
If you don't believe me go watch a video of the slaughter house or compare some of our war entertainment with real war footage. If you can find it of course. Its not easy to find videos of real people getting ripped apart by the advanced tools we've created for that purpose. It is one of the biggest industries in the world? Why cant we see its products in action?
What? The majority of Russians support the war. However many of them don't know the full extent of the war.
I have no clue how protected Putin actually is and whether his assassination would put someone in power who could/would end the war.
"Due to extensive operator-level filtering in Russia, all messages with URLs will be subject to filtering. It is recommended that if you do not have a registered Sender ID and your messages contain URLs, then you must reach out to us to get the message content whitelisted to ensure better deliverability. "
"Уважаемые россияне, ваши СМИ подвергаются цензуре. Кремль лжет. Тысячи ваших солдат и украинских братьев гибнут на Украине. Узнайте правду в свободном Интернете и в приложении Telegram. Время свергнуть диктатора Путина!"
"Dear Russians, your media is being censored. The Kremlin is lying. Thousands of your soldiers and Ukrainian brothers are dying in Ukraine. Find out the truth on the free web and on the Telegram app. Time to overthrow dictator Putin!"
According to Google Translate anyways...
Just the translation of the text seems like a 3 year prison sentence for anyone that would act on it...
I would try : here is the "citizen of the world uncensored internet initiative"... then there is the risk the russian send similar messages and jail the people that act on it. anyone with an idea to overcome this is welcome.
EDIT : just read in another comment that links will trigger filtering. extra challenge :|
Dear Russians, your media is being censored. The Kremlin is lying. Thousands of your soldiers and Ukrainian brothers are dying in Ukraine. Find out the truth on the free web and on the Telegram app. Time to overthrow dictator Putin!
Not bad, but I would put it differently myself.
We should all perform deep analysis of the conflict and behave rationally - the people of Ukraine suffer immensely now.
How can this conflict be brought to a halt ASAP so no more ordinary people suffer.
I think GP's ever so slightly overstated things. There is a reason (albeit one that is unjustifiable) and "slaughtering civilians" isn't currently the main activity (which is not to say the current civilian death toll isn't awful).
However - Putin's actions are almost completely indefensible on both moral and long-term strategic grounds.
Tension spots popped up suspiciously near those deposits in recent years, could be a coincidence of course. Developing those deposits would make Ukraine more independent from Russia.
A charitable reading of that is "Every country has propaganda in it", which is almost a truism, but I suspect that many people (possibly including you) want to spread the perspective that:
"Nothing is true and everything is possible."
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2014/11/24/the-true-russia-in...
>How is Russia trying to sell its invasion? Essentially, Nazis and NATO. Ever since Russia seized Crimea and backed separatist enclaves in the Donbas region in 2014, Putin has claimed that Ukraine is led by a Western puppet government of Nazis committing "genocide" against Russian-speaking Ukrainians. When he announced his "special military operation," Putin said the goal was the "demilitarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine."
https://theweek.com/news/1010919/the-russo-ukrainian-propaga...
It helps the oppressor to make people think that the issue is “too complex” to form an opinion on, so that they withdraw their energy and attention.
This information war is part of a military strategy for global power.
https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/149805668654801306...
You can decide which side you want to win: democracies or dictatorship. Putin takes the cynical position that democracy is a sham and consent should be manufactured. What kind of world would you like to live in?
In the world where might makes right, it’s justifiable for the head of a state to literally threaten everyone with nuclear weapons. I don’t know about you, but that’s not a precedent I’m willing to accept.
He was warning about nato expansion to the russian borders being unacceptable for mane years. Did the west understand that? No! I guess he's signaling the importance of the issue.
That’s a mischaracterization of the threat. The threat was to prevent any interference in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is sovereign country. Putin’s threat of nuclear war was not made in the context of NATO expansion nor the deployment of nuclear arms near Russia’s borders, etc. Nuclear weapons were in fact removed from Ukraine at Russia’s behest.
"Russia will use nukes once ukraine joins nato?" It doesn't make any sense.
The nukes were removed from ukraine like in 91. Usa wanted that no less than russia, it was a deal.
In a democracy, governments are accountable to their citizens. So if the war against Ukraine bothers you, you should contact your representatives within your government to do something about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ4hvLqNfqo
in terms of logical fallacies, after 4 minutes of watching, there was The use of Bandwagon Fallacy and The Non Sequitur
please provide better content, this is HN.
You can come up with all sorts of counter points and what ifs to balance the conversation on something like pedophilia, but at the end of the day it is disingenuous to give the dissenting viewpoint a voice.
I really liked this video from lemonde.fr that adds a bit of historical context : https://www.lemonde.fr/international/video/2019/12/08/que-ve... (in french, but you can see the nato expansion through the years etc)
Your YouTube steamer "Coach Red Pill" (Gonzalo Lira Lopez) gained most of his popularity after an appearance on Russia Channel 1 and has been repeatedly called out for not having any talking points except what is plucked from Russian domestic media.
Many Russians, especially younger generation are against this, but 2 days ago a new law was passed that first time you get arrested and second time you go to jail.
Still even after this law there are protests. Those who protest are brave people, they risk to end up 15 years in jail.
You will likely get people who have no say in this in trouble or in jail.
"To hide the truth from its own citizens, Russia’s censorship agency has shuttered independent Russian media outlets, blocked social media, and restricted access in Russia to international news outlets. We condemn the move by the Russian Federation Council to approve a law threatening prison sentences of up to 15 years for journalists and ordinary citizens that would spread so-called “false” information about Putin’s unconscionable war in Ukraine."
Source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
This can of course be fake, but if true, then having SMS like that could lead to being questioned in the very least.
If you want to encourage the protesters and give them words of support then text of the message is wrong, those people already know that press is twisting the facts. They do read foreign media, while they still can, but Russia has been conducting exercises on cutting their internet segment from the rest of the internet since 2018, so at any moment they can just flip the switch.
You are correct the broadcasts were not wrong, people were eager for that information, but it was discussed mostly in private and with close friends only.
Other issue is that SMS spam is really bad in Russia so likelihood of that message being taken seriously is quite small, especially with official media saying that West is waging information war. So message with content about mainstream media lying received by a supporter would probably not have the impact you would imagine. Bringing some facts that would cause people to investigate further would go a lot better in my opinion.
You can use “spintax” for this.
%D0%A3%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%B6%D0%B0%D0%B5%D0%BC%D1%8B%D0%B5%20%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D1%8F%D0%BD%D0%B5,%20%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%88%D0%B8%20%D0%A1%D0%9C%D0%98%20%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B3%D0%B0%D1%8E%D1%82%D1%81%D1%8F%20%D1%86%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B7%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B5.%20%20%D0%9A%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%BB%D1%8C%20%D0%BB%D0%B6%D0%B5%D1%82.%20%20%D0%A3%D0%B7%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%B9%D1%82%D0%B5%20%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B4%D1%83%20%D0%BE%D0%B1%20%D0%A3%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B5%20%D0%B2%20%D1%81%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%BC%20%D0%98%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%B5%20%D0%B8%20%D0%B2%20%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B8%20Telegram.%20%20%D0%92%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BC%D1%8F%20%D1%81%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B3%D0%BD%D1%83%D1%82%D1%8C%20%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BA%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B0%20%D0%9F%D1%83%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0!
Dear Russians Your media is censored The Kremlin is lying Find out the truth about Ukraine on the free Internet and in the app Time to overthrow the dictator Putin
So nothing suspicious.
PS: I'm not sure if HTML-encoded binary unicode will work.