I don’t think I’m saying that at all, just that this is where it stems from and that Republicans and their supporters have glommed onto it. Obviously I’m saying it’s multifaceted.
Re the shampoo and other crunchy shit, this is stuff my weaponized disinformation expert friend Brooke Binkowski and I have talked about extensively because we both used the site. Her professional opinion is that this was the early thought experiment stuff the Russians did to see what westerners would buy into, they dipped their toes into it with the crunchy mom stuff, and it really took off. This was later well documented. So some of this is just a professional’s opinion, but if you were there and saw it, you’d know is all I can say. I realize this isn’t the most satisfying answer, but see this article because Russian weaponized disinformation for vaccines is well documented.
OK, so if it’s well documented, then where is the documentation?
I don’t really want to listen to a 25 minute podcast and I read your BBC source and it only talked about vaccines, there wasn’t a single word about things like shampoo.
I’d be curious to know exactly how deep this goes, since science skepticism and anti-intellectualism goes way back. Was Russia behind the controversy over evolution, going back to the Scopes trial? Were they behind the Satanic Panic? Maybe Russia funded Jack Chick to talk about how Dungeons and Dragons is teaching children to practice real magic. I know, let’s go even further back, the Catholic Church only took issue with Galileo because Russia paid them to.
Or maybe, there’s a long history of anti-science sentiment, particularly in the US, and Americans have autonomy and can use to believe stupid things and do so all the time and have always done so.
I stg, it’s bad enough blaming Trump on Russia but this is seriously taking it to the next level. How did Russia even manage to acquire the power to influence American culture to such a degree? And if they can do that while having significantly less money and being significantly more distant, then surely our own intelligence agencies can do the same, right? Please help me make sense of this.
Ok, I don’t want to argue, and I’m sorry I don’t have more links. I really do recommend the podcast as it’s excellent in general. I trust Brooke with my life and everything disinformation related and I believe her. I was on Livejournal in those days and I can say that scary things happened because of the crunchy mom shit that seemed to originate from there. I don’t want to fight with you, and if you think differently that’s fine, I’m not against changing my mind or anything. This is a pretty good study though on the phenomenon of Russian trolls as well on vaccine disinformation that does prove the point that they do this.
Regarding Russian funding these things, dark money is a powerful thing. Honestly it’s so crazy to read about. The country being poor doesn’t mean that Russian wealthy people don’t fund disinformation. This is an article on Russian oligarchs and their dark money, about 1 trillion, hidden abroad.
I don’t think I’m saying that at all, just that this is where it stems from and that Republicans and their supporters have glommed onto it. Obviously I’m saying it’s multifaceted.
Do you have any sort of evidence that connects the Russian government to things like not using shampoo?
The best place to learn more about the early days of Russian weaponized disinformation on Livejournal is this podcast: https://soundcloud.com/replyall/100-friends-and-blasphemers
Re the shampoo and other crunchy shit, this is stuff my weaponized disinformation expert friend Brooke Binkowski and I have talked about extensively because we both used the site. Her professional opinion is that this was the early thought experiment stuff the Russians did to see what westerners would buy into, they dipped their toes into it with the crunchy mom stuff, and it really took off. This was later well documented. So some of this is just a professional’s opinion, but if you were there and saw it, you’d know is all I can say. I realize this isn’t the most satisfying answer, but see this article because Russian weaponized disinformation for vaccines is well documented.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45294192
OK, so if it’s well documented, then where is the documentation?
I don’t really want to listen to a 25 minute podcast and I read your BBC source and it only talked about vaccines, there wasn’t a single word about things like shampoo.
I’d be curious to know exactly how deep this goes, since science skepticism and anti-intellectualism goes way back. Was Russia behind the controversy over evolution, going back to the Scopes trial? Were they behind the Satanic Panic? Maybe Russia funded Jack Chick to talk about how Dungeons and Dragons is teaching children to practice real magic. I know, let’s go even further back, the Catholic Church only took issue with Galileo because Russia paid them to.
Or maybe, there’s a long history of anti-science sentiment, particularly in the US, and Americans have autonomy and can use to believe stupid things and do so all the time and have always done so.
I stg, it’s bad enough blaming Trump on Russia but this is seriously taking it to the next level. How did Russia even manage to acquire the power to influence American culture to such a degree? And if they can do that while having significantly less money and being significantly more distant, then surely our own intelligence agencies can do the same, right? Please help me make sense of this.
Ok, I don’t want to argue, and I’m sorry I don’t have more links. I really do recommend the podcast as it’s excellent in general. I trust Brooke with my life and everything disinformation related and I believe her. I was on Livejournal in those days and I can say that scary things happened because of the crunchy mom shit that seemed to originate from there. I don’t want to fight with you, and if you think differently that’s fine, I’m not against changing my mind or anything. This is a pretty good study though on the phenomenon of Russian trolls as well on vaccine disinformation that does prove the point that they do this.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6137759/?ref=quillette.com
Regarding Russian funding these things, dark money is a powerful thing. Honestly it’s so crazy to read about. The country being poor doesn’t mean that Russian wealthy people don’t fund disinformation. This is an article on Russian oligarchs and their dark money, about 1 trillion, hidden abroad.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60608282