WaPo Promotes a McCarthyite Blacklist from a New, Hidden, and Very Shady Group

If I still believed The Intercept article, I'd agree. But after reading the Wash Post article myself, I found The Intercept was deceitful and don't trust anything in it. I'd need to (and would like to) see other evidence.

> Look how they accuse sites critical of regime change in Syria as supporters of Assad (https://twitter.com/propornot/status/802095838965022720)

I don't see anything wrong with that tweet, which doesn't say that opponents of regime change are Assad supporters (EDIT: though it implies complicity). First, the tweets it responds to:

1) Rudolf E. Havenstein ‏@RudyHavenstein Nov 24: The one common denominator in the PropOrNot @WashingtonPost "fake news" list is opposition to disastrous neo-Con military interventions.

2) Rudolf E. Havenstein ‏@RudyHavenstein Nov 25: Obviously @NatCounterPunch and NakedCaptalism (and other sites PropOrNot listed) are not pro-Trump, but they are anti-war. @washingtonpost

And then the tweet itself:

3) PropOrNot ID Service @propornot: @RudyHavenstein @NatCounterPunch @washingtonpost They're not anti-Putin/Assad/etc-wars, though! They love those

Sounds like a good, fair point to me - if true (which I don't know).

I agree. Greenwald Tweeted not long after the WaPo article came out that the article was "journalistic garbage, and people were passing out around uncritically because it served political agendas." An emotional response from Greenwald.

Greenwald is an absolute godsend in today's world of 1984, but he is not perfect and his writing style can and has been much better than this.

If I understand correctly, they are flagging them for repeating Russian propaganda - including as unwitting 'Useful Idiots'. They aren't saying all those sites are trying to spread it.

Skimming the list briefly, I don't see any that surprise me. I think the propaganda has been very effective and Americans don't seem to have skepticism about it.

> Their tweets sounds like lulzSec

I agree that their tweets, as presented by The Intercept, are disturbing. But after reading The Intercept and then the WaPo articles, I no longer trust The Intercept - their portrayal of the WaPo article is deceitful.

Of course it isn't ridiculous, unless you do it in a thoroughly ridiculous manner.

I read the article on TI first then the WaPo, and have to say it fell well short of expectations raised by the former. I was expecting something out of Pravda C1922. The article is almost entirely hyperbolic, to the point of imagining the motives of PropOrNot, and then analogising said motives (with an added twist of sinister for effect).

The rest is pure speculation and conjecture; their motives, good and bad, could be anything, and likely have little to do with your particular concerns.

Could it possibly be that some people have the genuine thought that starting a new cold war with Russia wouldn't be a very good idea? Or is that simply impossible without it being a Russian propaganda plot?

IMO this is all heat that obscures what's going on. There's a new culture war afoot. IMO this site (PropOrNot) is a paranoid reaction to the rejection by a certain segment of the American population to an orthodox groupthink. Instead of people talking to one another and trying to communicate, they're polarizing. It's no good.

(I flagged the article, FWIW.)

Check to see whether the social-media account/commenter/outlet has a history of generally echoing the Russian propaganda "line" by using themes, arguments, talking points, images, and other content similar to those used by obvious Russian propaganda outlets. These themes include:

1. How terrible, weak, aggressive, and corrupt the the opponents of Russia and their friends are: The US, Obama, Hillary Clinton, the EU, Angela Merkel, NATO, Ukraine, Jewish people, US allies, the "mainstream media", and democrats, the center-right or center-left, and moderates of all stripes. Investigate this by searching for mentions of, for example, "NATO", on their site by Googling for "site:whateversite.com NATO" and seeing what comes up.

2. How dangerous standing up to Russia would be: It would inevitably result in "World War 3", nuclear devastation, etc, and regardless of who shot first or is bombing civilians where now, would be the West's fault. Russian propaganda never suggests it would just result in a Cold War 2 and Russia's eventual peaceful defeat, like the last time.

This is the criteria for being a russian propaganda outlet? Basically, anyone who parrots 'Crooked Hiliary' is now part of it. This is hogwash

The article was based on many sources, despite the Intercept's characterization of it. PropOrNot is just one of many:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13045686

I'm very wary of this attempt to silence "fake news"

The idea of journalistic integrity is pretty much dead at this point, given the monetary value of tapping into/catering to people's echo chambers/confirmation bias.

So is it possible that news sites that distrust certain elements of government will run stories that affirm that distrust? Certainly.

But we also don't really know the degree of what criteria were being used to measure this dissemination. What if the trackers labeled any of the primary source material from the email hacks as "propaganda"? Then anyone that discussed the contents and not only the source of the hacks (clearly the government's spin of the story) would be considered propagandists or "useful idiots."

Further, there's a huge difference between unsubstantiated fake news propaganda and stories that check out factually but have an agenda. We have no idea if the latter was included in the list of "propagandists."

There is a list we should put together for news sites. Namely, a list of which sites do a decent job of verifying their stories before publishing, and which ones have issues with accuracy. But that list should apply without regard to agenda. The Intercept piece rightly calls out the Post for being a mouthpiece for the WMD agenda a decade ago. That was certainly an instance where facts mattered, and tough questions should have been asked before publishing, but weren't. We need to demand greater accountability from our news sources, but obscure blacklists with obscure methodology and backing is not what's needed.

We need a (or several) "Snopes" for news, paid for by publishers/aggregators and preferred by readers over competitive publishers/aggregators who skimp on story verification. Without a solution like that, I have a hard time seeing anything change.

US media has many serious faults, but it is not state-controlled as it is in Russia, China and North Korea.

They are not the same.