Russian interference in EU elections
 

After Russia already did a "good job" with their disinformation and having their fingers in the US elections and the brexit "referendum", they now meddle with the upcoming EU elections.

"Russia is reportedly trying to give euroskeptic parties a boost ahead of the EU parliamentary vote in May. The EU's eastern neighbor has a track record of interfering in foreign elections."

"The goal here is bigger than any one election. It is to constantly divide, increase distrust and undermine faith in institutions and democracy itself"


Russia and far right spreading disinformation ahead of EU elections

Russia trying to meddle with in EU elections

EU versus disinformation

" ... a slow process of ideological subversion and psychological warfare that aims, over many years, to alter the target’s perception of reality and lead them to act in ways that benefit their opponent."

Good that they have so willing vicarious agents like Nigel Farage :yeah:

Well easier to blame us instead of fixing the issues that Eurosceptics live off.

^ Farage lives on disinformation and lies. Relying on badly informed voters he can influence.

Of course, never underestimate what the US does in this respect.. and in bringing down the EU i guess Russia and the US have similar goals this time :03:

But since you mention "fixing the issues Eurosceptics live off", how do you want to improve the people's political knowledge, when they are not interested in reality and prefer to moan and accuse others all the time?

By fixing your own political lense and recognising that they have valid political concerns.


Rather than dismissing (and even de-humanising?) them.

So regarding those who are not just too lazy and dumb, what real political vaild concerns are there?

Immigration?
Well how do other countries handle immigration? Is it better how it is handled in, say, Russia? Are immigrants a real problem or aren't certain people playing with the people's fears and exagerrating, while exploiting good old xenophobia? Is that better than a reasonable handling and calm thinking ahead how to find solutions?
Do you think that e.e exporting weapons to the Middle East will reduce the numbers of fugitives?

Bureaucracy?
The whole EU has less than 10 percent of the number of bureaucrats England alone has. And they are elected. To say they are not is one of Farage's dearest lies.

What else?
What is so bad about the EU? No wars for almost 75 years? Wealth? Wellbeing? International trade? Products that can be afforded by anyone? Workers rights?
Lacking nationalist patriotism? You would have a point there, the EU is indeed against nationalism, jingoism and xenophobia. Maxims like "Our nation is the greatest" and "To hell with all foreigners" is not a core concept here anymore. Too bad. For some nations that would prefer discord and conflict in the EU for their own nationalist goals.


I do not think that you (or Russia for that matter) believe in any of this of course, it is just a means of disinformation, to divert from reality; just pointing out Russia's interest in exploiting and influencing.

Like:
"The Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with the goal of harming the campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the candidacy of Donald Trump, and increasing political or social discord in the United States." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia...ates_elections)


You can see how successful all this has been. England and the US have never been so divided as they are now. Next try: the EU.


I have nothing against Russia, i also think Putin is an intelligent man. Gandhi also was. And Stalin. It is just all so backwards and almost medieval, for some time we had observed humanity having escaped the dark ages. But we still have to learn, and we will see.


edit: Do you really think it is in Russia's interest to have more educated people in Europe, seeing the real problems of the EU, and find a solution?

For most what you claim as positives the eU or a similiar organsiation would not be needed. Some of the claimed qualities are misattrubuted by you to the eU. Negatives it brings get underestimated by you.


The bureaucracy argument is nto about the staff the EU maitains, but the adminstrational procudres it gags whole europe and business with anbd wjcih gets worse and worse.



The EU as is and as it wants t become combines themes and issues and enforces them en bloc that have nothign to do with each other. It oinks these issues, the wanted to the non wante dones in order to enforce the unwanted ones as well - althoughl as I saidm they have nothign to do with other things.



The EU and the Euro have pushed conficts that fuels them that before, 20, 30 years ago, were almost unimagiable to exist.



An awesome lot about the issues with the EU can be learned from these two article I had linked in the UK thread.


You do not need to link mass migration from abroad, to a free market. The EU is not the actor that won the cold war or keeps shipping lanes open and Russia away. The Euro is not the source of endless prosperity of all and equality in welath distrubution, it is the opposite and consumes already now the fiscal basis for the future of the young.


No, thre eU cannot be reformed from within. The net receiver alliance soon will have voting majority in the union and in the Euro zone. They will not let their hosts of whose blood they live, get away. And Schäuble and other Germn stuids want to chnage voting mechanisms in the EU so that the majority of the receivers weigh even heavier and that resistence to EU wanted ways in policy defining can no longer be vetoed by a few actors.



The EU must be brought down. The polticians and parties wanting it, must eb brought down. teh whoke rotten scheme has to be brought down.



Else it brings Europe down.


The state the eU is in, hardly is an argument for how great it is. Impotent, ignored, laughed at, internally at odds with itself, only strong enough to bully small, single countries in the third world and dictate them tarrifs, terms and conditions. Russia, China, America only laugh about it - and make best abusive use of it where the can. And the eU offers many weak flanks where it is - well, as I said, just impotent. Nothing of the smblogical polcies it runs and the theatre acts it stages, can chnage that, that is all just whsiteling alone in the dark forest.


A free trade zone, for that you get my vote. And not for anything more. No super state. No centralism. No continental planned economy. No overruling of natioanl governments. No shared one currency. No Brussel foreign policy. No enforced mass migration from abroad. A free trade zone, the indispensible basis for growing wealth and the best system to foster peace and freedom. Keep the rest of the EU and and flush it in the loo. Its not wnated, its not needed, it just is expression of narcissistic craving for attention and careers, and megalomania, and socialist redistribution fantasies.


A new study found that if the US would leave NATO, the costs for Europe to compensate that equipment would be - depending on the conflict scenario choosen being securing of trade lines at sea or keeping Russia away range between low 200 billions and high 30 billions - and that excludes costs for actual war operations, its just about aquioring the equipment and wepaon platforms. Now see the heklpless imptence by whcih the eU acts in the Iran-US confrontation. This tells all one needs to know about what the eU wants to be, and what it really can be. That the eU claims credits for peace and freedom in Europe that belong to NATO, is just the arrogant cream on the cake. Its called "forging history".


The eU is a club of rabblerousers and special interest group activists - that includes career politicians - that does not want to realise that the era of European economic and cultural and military dominance in the world is over and that the old world is not only old by now, but domestically depleted and economically weak and militarily impotent.

I'm not sure if Russia is interfering or not buty I'm quitly confident the UK will be more resistant than other countries in the EU may well be at present, Brexit being at the top of the opinion agenda atm.

The EU just delivered another slap into the faces of European nation's citizens:


https://translate.google.de/translat...-entgehen.html


Anti-EU camps just won many new members. Well done, EU. Hardly anyone nows better than you how to piss people.

Axel Springer media. And it is more about the Geneva convention taken seriously, than "Eu law".

And maybe wait a bit ... to see whether this is not fake news.

"... now it's about democracy. She is threatened. And the danger is more subtle than history teaches. Neither are revolutionaries on the street nor is the Bundeswehr planning a coup. Instead, a kind of digital powdery mildew lays down the ecosystem, where politics, media and citizens symbiotically appreciate, use, and live the country's democracy.

For example, less than a year ago, a supposed letter from the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of the Interior appeared in the net, addressed to the "police chief for Cologne and Leverkusen". The text ordered that the crimes of "refugees, asylum seekers and persons with a migrant background" be disguised. The document itself was distributed by members of parliament on Twitter. The indignation was great. It was a fake though. However, after the Home Office clarified this, many users responded by calling the clarification fake.

It's one of the thousands of cases in the last few months that has been buzzing with fake news. Often nobody knows who is behind it. There are cases that right-wing populists play in the cards (like this one), and there are cases that help radical leftists. The lie has become everyday. And it has long been a means of digital warfare. The Russian state is regularly exposed as the author of some of the biggest lies. Radical Palestinians, meanwhile, paint their children in red paint to photograph them as victims of the Israeli army. ..."

And so on. Polarisation.

Can't see the likes of Hungary, Poland and a few others being phased by that :nope:

Mark Zuckerberg interferes in elections more than Russia. :03:



https://i.pinimg.com/originals/75/fb...7ecca64c43.jpg

^ :haha: ok


Mark Zuckerberg, on Facebook's role in the election and Cambridge Analytica fraud:

“One of my greatest regrets in running the company is that we were slow in identifying the Russian information operations in 2016.
“We have kicked off an investigation … I imagine we’ll find some things.

“There are people in Russia whose job it is to try to exploit our systems and other internet systems and other systems as well.

“This is an ongoing arms race. As long as there are people sitting in Russia whose job is it to try to interfere in elections around the world, this is going to be an ongoing conflict.”

"I imagine" Zuckerberg does not really care.. :03:
And while the data breach and manipulation may have helped russian interests, the direct approach to help certain people and their campaigns had not directly to do with russian interference, it was done quite voluntarily.
Media influencing people's minds, who would ever think of that :yep:

Well I guess the west could squander it's resources fighting the chimera of the Russian intervention while destroying the liberties that made it great.

While the first is quite real we are already very good in destroying our liberties and freedom, yes. But isn't this the plan?
Making something "great" is being seen and judged very different, depending on personal and political views.

We don't have a unified plan. Under the faceless and monolythic hood of the Russian state there are groups and actors working without much coordination with each other.

A good example of this would be FSB officers protecting hackers who would leak Medvedev's (when he was the president) private correspondence amongst other things. Incidentally this wasn't the reason why they were eventually sacked. Another would be the emergent strategy used in Syria (I would recommend reading Kofman).

The so called "troll factory" (internet research center) is one of many such organisations. Overall while such actors do operate in the west (and western actors operate and complete with those in Russia and elsewhere) I strongly believe that they do not have the resources to significantly affect much of anything. But yes, there is an element of the so called political warfare and measures below the threshhold of war due to the strong mutual nuclear and conventional deterrence.


The issue is that much like the Reichstag fire this is being used by those with the real institutional power to gain more power and limit the liberties of common citizens.