By Aaron Maté, RealClearInvestigationsApril 30, 2024
In successfully lobbying Congress for an additional $61 billion in Ukraine war funding, an effort that ended this month with celebratory Dem
In Russian-aligned countries, there is a tactic where they cultivate news sources with balanced, good reporting, then they use them to disseminate disinformation at critical moments. I’m not saying this is it, but I’ve seen this happen before with different outlets.
I’m not just saying accounts, I’m saying entire news outlets. A while ago in Hungary, the government bought a popular independent news outlet. They still post articles criticising the government, basically nothing changed in alignment, the quality went down though.
But when there is a hot topic issue that could actually hurt the govt, or if there is an election, then key hit pieces are taken and posted without edits and changes from the government propaganda media, even if they are blatantly false.
Ah, gotcha. I guess I understood that as people who cherry pick things from otherwise credible sources to push a specific agenda.
Going to have to start keeping a closer eye out for mergers / purchases of media outlets. MBFC is a good check, but they grade over time. If an outlet gets purchased and changes direction, it can be a good while before their MBFC rating is updated.
In Russian-aligned countries, there is a tactic where they cultivate news sources with balanced, good reporting, then they use them to disseminate disinformation at critical moments. I’m not saying this is it, but I’ve seen this happen before with different outlets.
I’ve seen that on Lemmy quite a bit, actually. Have banned all the ones I’ve come across (including OP just now).
I’m not just saying accounts, I’m saying entire news outlets. A while ago in Hungary, the government bought a popular independent news outlet. They still post articles criticising the government, basically nothing changed in alignment, the quality went down though.
But when there is a hot topic issue that could actually hurt the govt, or if there is an election, then key hit pieces are taken and posted without edits and changes from the government propaganda media, even if they are blatantly false.
Ah, gotcha. I guess I understood that as people who cherry pick things from otherwise credible sources to push a specific agenda.
Going to have to start keeping a closer eye out for mergers / purchases of media outlets. MBFC is a good check, but they grade over time. If an outlet gets purchased and changes direction, it can be a good while before their MBFC rating is updated.