The United States on September 13 said the Russian news outlet RT is taking orders directly from the Kremlin and working with Russian military intelligence to spread disinformation around the world to undermine democracies.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States has gathered new evidence that exposes cooperation between RT and four other subsidiaries of the Rossia Segodnya media group, and it intends to warn other countries of the threat of the disinformation.

In addition to RT, Rossia Segodnya operates RIA Novosti, TV-Novosti, Ruptly, and Sputnik, but the announcement on September 13 focused largely on RT. The outlet, formerly known as Russia Today, has previously been sanctioned for its work to allegedly spread Kremlin propaganda and disinformation.

    • @WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It’s like saying “Republican party working directly with Fox News, Breitbart, and OANN to spread disinformation”

      Yeah … No shit!

        • Bizzle
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          142 months ago

          Stuff on MSN and CNN is generally not just made up though

            • Bizzle
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              112 months ago

              I’d give you a source, but I feel like your critical thinking skills are approximately that of a goldfish and I would therefore just be wasting my time.

              • Maeve
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                42 months ago

                Yes because terms like “unemployment” and “criminal” have static definitions.

          • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            I’m old enough to remember when Glenn Beck and Eric Erikson had hour long programs on CNN.

            They were more than happy to mainline all sorts of bullshit, from “Iraq has WMDs” lies under Bush to Don Lemon’s insistence that a black hole from the LHC had eaten Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. MSNBC hyped “Lab Leak” theory around the COVID epidemic and has spent decades carrying water for the IDF.

            Don’t give these people a pass just because they’re not taking money directly from Rupert Murdoch. Cable News is full of reactionaries and nitwits.

      • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        22 months ago

        It’s like saying “Republican party working directly with Fox News, Breitbart, and OANN to spread disinformation”

        Can’t be true. That’s just liberals being partisan. Fox is Fair and Balanced. It says do right there on the Chyron.

    • Angry_Autist (he/him)
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      2 months ago

      Can we get a little deeper of a discussion as our top comment please? We used to be better than this…

      Most upvoted top 2/3rds of the thread are all repeats of the same ‘yeah no shit’.

      The remaining 1/3 is actual discussion…

      • @Jumi@lemmy.world
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        12 months ago

        What is there to discuss? The article is just stating the obvious: that a news site called “Russia Today” is in cahoots with the Kremlin, the goverment of a country with state-controlled media and well-known influence on Western media.

        • Angry_Autist (he/him)
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          12 months ago

          Tactics on how to spot propaganda

          shared stories of propaganda sources exposed

          Little know practices of the putinbots for study purposes

          there’s a fucktonne of stuff that’s better than 35 renditions of ‘no shit sherlok’.

  • @Joncash2@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    I’m genuinely confused as to what USA’s point is here. I mean they do this constantly. Are they saying it’s OK when USA does it but bad when anyone else does it?

    https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp90-00552r000201100005-4

    https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/house-passes-16-billion-to-deliver-anti-china-propaganda-overseas/ar-AA1qp59U#:~:text=This legislation authorizes more than %241.6 billion for,the world that counter Chinese “malign influence” globally.

    I mean it sounds to me like they just don’t want competitors.

    *Edit: I just want to add, I think Russia should get out of Ukraine and what they’re doing is awful. But USA complaining about propaganda from other countries is hilariously hypocritical.

    • @wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      No you see it’s different when RFA/RFE/RL/VOA, a CIA creation, under the wing of the State Department exist because…

      • Maeve
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        92 months ago

        Imo, it’s different. When your own government is heavily invested in your nation’s citizens believing lies to prop up your own nation’s financial elites, individual or corporate, it’s especially egregious.

    • @zante@lemmy.wtf
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      2 months ago

      You’re not supposed to talk about that.

      The BBC is, has always been, state apparatus. Parts of its , especially the World Service, was set up to promote Britain around the world. It’s been fantastically successful. The Brits are masters.

      For the US, this week they were fed the news that China has raised the retirement age by 1 year, in order to pour scorn on it.

      No mention of the fact that the Chinese have on average been retiring 5-7 years earlier than Americans for many years.

      • Maeve
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        62 months ago

        That’s why I talk about it, and ask questions. It’s not appreciated, and people dismiss these conversations as not worth talking about. The consequences of not talking about core issues and focusing on identity politics are about to become very real.

        ETA; I had to look that up. Retirement age for men is going from 60 to 63 over a period of 15 years. We recently raised our own retirement age to 70, and we still don’t have universal health.

    • @Carrolade@lemmy.world
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      62 months ago

      Yeah, we’re not new to information warfare, this stuff goes all the way back to the Cold War at least.

      The point is that its on, and since its on, it’s a question of do you want to win or lose.

      • @Joncash2@lemmy.ml
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        52 months ago

        Oh that’s some wild whataboutism. It’s OK for USA to do it because everyone else does. Man that’s some awful way to think.

          • @Joncash2@lemmy.ml
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            42 months ago

            So yeah the head of a crime organization probably shouldn’t be pointing their fingers at other crime organizations. Just because crime exists historically doesn’t mean you should head a mafia group.

            • @Carrolade@lemmy.world
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              92 months ago

              This is exactly what a whataboutism is. Let’s take an axe murderer who murders people’s families. If another axe murderer goes and murders that guy’s family, would it be smart to just ignore it?

              The question isn’t what has been done in the past or who deserves what. It’s what should be done now?

              • @Joncash2@lemmy.ml
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                52 months ago

                You clearly do not understand whataboutism. It’s when someone uses someone else doing the same thing as an excuse. If Russia does it it’s OK for USA to do it. That’s whataboutism.

                And yes. Let the criminals kill themselves. That’s why USA doesn’t really do anything about gang wars.

                • @Carrolade@lemmy.world
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                  72 months ago

                  No, that is not a whataboutism in general, perhaps it’s your personal definition to just reverse it like that. This is whataboutism:

                  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

                  Note, my example was not an axe murderer murdering another axe murderer. It was murdering the axe murder’s family. Not him, his family. Siblings, children, cousins, aunts and uncles, you know. People related to you that aren’t actually you.

      • Maeve
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        22 months ago

        Spanish American war, and some *say the revolutionary war. We all lose with lies, especially when it’s done to a propagandist’s own people (except the billionaires and corporations).

        • @Carrolade@lemmy.world
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          92 months ago

          Yeah I agree, I don’t like it when we push propaganda overseas. That does not mean, however, that we shouldn’t pay attention when its being done to us.

          Does that person want us to just shut up and take it? Let this happen to us without complaint or countermeasure? It’s a whataboutism, ultimately.

          • Maeve
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            32 months ago

            It’s a whataboutism, ultimately.

            Critical assessment of all information we have available to us isn’t whataboutery, imo, and often means breaking down large chunks of information into digestible bits. If it’s not acceptable for them to do it to us or their own, it’s not acceptable for us to do it to ours, or our own, full stop. From my obviously limited perspective, there are very few who benefit from regular people infighting or fighting regular citizens of other nations, about this. The people benefitting from this aren’t us regular people.

            • @Carrolade@lemmy.world
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              102 months ago

              When someone points out a wrong, and someone else points out a different wrong of the same sort with the intent of making an argument around hypocrisy, that’s a whataboutism.

              In this case it’s an article about Russia doing it, and a commenter essentially saying “what about when America did it?”

              I ask again, what decision do they want us to make right now, in the current moment? We can’t go back in time and undo what we did. So what is that commenter’s proposal, what do they think would be the best path forward concerning RT, today?

              • Maeve
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                32 months ago

                I ask again, what decision do they want us to make right now, in the current moment? We can’t go back in time and undo what we did.

                We can stop pretending we didn’t, and aren’t still doing that.

                So what is that commenter’s proposal, what do they think would be the best path forward concerning RT, today?

                I can’t speak for that person. I also can’t raise Ed Bernays from the dead and lock him up, but guess who he worked for?

                • @Carrolade@lemmy.world
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                  102 months ago

                  Nobody is pretending we didn’t. The articles linked were all in our news, right? And you and I are talking openly about it right now on the internet, yes? So, who is pretending it never happened?

                  It’s about what next? What should we do concerning RT in your opinion then? Because I haven’t personally had any good ideas asides avoid overseas propaganda efforts in the future. But that’s not an idea about RT, and it won’t make RT go away.

  • andrew_bidlaw
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    102 months ago

    If it’s set in stone now, does it mean they are on the course to further investigate russian and other foreign ties in american media and politics? I’ musking for a friend.