Comment by dundarious | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dundarious | Hacker News Reader

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The misinformation/talking-points ideology is bipartisan norm for Russia and China discourse. There are numerous articles and studies now claiming to measure disinformation purely based on alignment: rough alignment with “enemy” = dis/misinformation, with no justification or discussion.

The NYTimes ran one such article about a week ago on China. The “fact checking” done by orgs like VoxUkraine amounts to similar alignment tests as well. You would think the results showing widespread wrongthink by your own population would be an indication of disagreement rather than a disinformation campaign working on a citizenry already justifiably motivated against Russia: https://voxukraine.org/en/the-ability-of-ukrainians-to-disti...

> Research Results

> Overall, the majority of respondents, both in Ukraine and abroad, agreed with pro-Ukrainian messages and disagreed with pro-Russian ones. This indicates a general tendency of the population to distinguish Russian propaganda narratives. However, when analyzing each narrative separately, the following concerning signals were noticeable:

> 43% of respondents in Ukraine and 36% abroad disagreed with the statement “Nazi and/or neo-Nazi ideology is not widespread in Ukraine”;

> 29% of respondents in Ukraine and 35% abroad disagreed with the statement “The Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine in 2013-2014 was NOT a coup”;

> 26% of respondents in Ukraine and 29% abroad agreed with the statement “Russia is fighting against the West/NATO in Ukraine”;

> 25% of respondents in Ukraine and 29% abroad agreed with the statement “The West is using Ukraine for its own purposes in the war against Russia”;

> 32% of respondents abroad agreed with the statement “Russian speakers are oppressed in Ukraine”.

This is all to say that I think your optimism is misplaced.

> There are numerous articles and studies now claiming to measure disinformation purely based on alignment

You are phrasing this as "being on Russia's side means you believe the propaganda" as if that somehow turns it into not a disinformation campaign.

How can something be disinformation in that mindset? You eliminated the category completely.

You phrase as if it is a marginal thing showing their bias is showing at the top, but then go to list the most egregious examples of disinformation as evidence... I mean at least your last three aren't explicitly false, so not all disinformation.

Disinformation is about false statements.

Neo-Nazi ideology being in Ukraine hasn't been meaningfully backed up by Russia nor is their any international precedent for such a thing being a justification for invasion. Remember the Nazis invaded first.

Revolution of Dignity was a coup by definition. If Hong Kong declared it was independent of China it would be a coup. It doesn't matter your feelings on the treaty saying it would be X years before control was taken or anything of that nature. Unilaterally leaving a parent entity is the meaning of coup.

Proxy wars are weird so your next two questions are odd. There is ambiguity in the question. Is the West using Ukraine to reduce Russia's power acting as a sort of proxy war? Certainly but since Ukraine is objectively the defender here that doesn't seem problematic, the alternative would be to let be invaded which while bad for the West is also bad for Ukraine.

I don't have any data on suppression based on language but also don't think mistreatment justifies invasion. We have economic pain points to push instead.

> You are phrasing this as "being on Russia's side means you believe the propaganda" as if that somehow turns it into not a disinformation campaign.

> How can something be disinformation in that mindset? You eliminated the category completely.

Not at all. VoxUkraine state accurately, though as a minor point I would dispute the terminology somewhat, that there is "pro-Ukraine" and "pro-Russia" propaganda. The truth or falsehood of individual pieces of each side's propaganda is a separate matter. As an extension, it's also the case that one side's propaganda may use lies to promote statements that are nonetheless true! If you insist on the "disinformation" label, then I think we often must go into Rumsfeld-ian territory and talk of "true disinformation" and "false disinformation".

So my original point was, statements may be true/false regardless of whether they are part of an evil/enemy/exaggerating propaganda campaign (likewise, statements may be false/true regardless of whether they are part of a propaganda campaign from an ally). I openly acknowledge the propaganda campaigns. I just consider VoxUkraine to be engaging in their own propaganda campaign, and making some false statements. Russia's propaganda campaign makes laughably false statements regularly (their "denazification" justification being one of them).

On the key topic you raise of justification for the war, I want to note that that was not part of the quoted text from VoxUkraine, so I made no argument about justification. I think there was no moral justification for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, certainly none of the ones they presented. Unfortunately, I don't think that lets NATO, etc., off the hook, as you are morally responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions, even if a predictable consequence is an immoral act from another party, but that is a more complicated matter.

And these questions came from VoxUkraine's polling. If you have quibbles with the phraseology, they're not with me.

I could write more to respond to your specific points, but because they seemed to mostly revolve around justification of the invasion and polling phraseology, I'll hold back for now, given my comments above. I also spent a few minutes editing this response for clarity and completeness, but am finished now.

> Unfortunately, I don't think that lets NATO, etc., off the hook, as you are morally responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions, even if a predictable consequence is an immoral act from another party, but that is a more complicated matter.

Is there a "moral" act here? What should they do?

Certainly providing arms will result in loss of life but that is twisted logic IMHO.

You pointed to the phrasing as problematic so I handled why responses would be mixed. You implied that the fact different responses came in was indictive of it being a political thing.

Nothing you have said has been consistent or clarifying simply muddying the waters by misdirecting.

A "moral" act by NATO, etc., before the war would have been to listen to the advance warnings and concede on some minor points like NATO membership (remember that NATO membership means eventual bases in Ukraine, and questionable status for Russia's lease on Sevastopol), making the same kind of concessions that the US demands other nations make when operating on/near its border. You don't have to like or agree with the angry 800lbs gorilla to know that you shouldn't walk right up to it.

You claimed I was defining disinformation out of existence, and I countered that it exists as part of almost all propaganda campaigns, and is such a loaded/partisan term that it is not useful, IMO. My original point was "enemy propaganda" != "disinformation" and "agreement with one element of enemy propaganda" != "victim of a disinformation campaign". I think the polling responses were mixed largely because of genuine disagreement amongst Ukrainians, who are not a political monolith.

> A "moral" act by NATO, etc., before the war would have been to listen to the advance warnings and concede on some minor points like NATO membership

NATO did that when Russia demanded that NATO not offer Ukraine and Georgia Membership Action Plans in 2008, complying with the Russian request. Russia responded almost immediately by invading Georgia, this is also a factor in why Ukraine, even after deposing Yanukovych, did not renew its bid to join NATO until after the Russo-Ukrainian War started with the Russian invasion in 2015. To quote a famous American statesman: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool my twice... can’t get fooled again.”

> (remember that NATO membership means eventual bases in Ukraine, and questionable status for Russia's lease on Sevastopol)

No, it doesn't mean foreign bases in Ukraine (not all NATO members have foreign bases), and Russia's invasion on 2014, largely carried out from and in violation of the agreements governing the bases it had in Ukraine, pretty much guaranteed that their use of those facilities was gone if and when Ukraine regains control of Crimea.

> NATO did that when Russia demanded that NATO not offer Ukraine and Georgia Membership Action Plans in 2008, complying with the Russian request.

That is not my understanding of the historical record, and I don't think it's the understanding of the US, French, or German leaders at the time either. The 2008 agenda report states "NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO", emphasis mine.

> No, it doesn't mean foreign bases in Ukraine

This is fair, and I thought about clarifying the point myself. The reason I left it as is, is that regardless of whether there would be a literal NATO/US base in Ukraine, there would be a highly effective level of military command and equipment synchronization, such that NATO ally troop/materiel movement into Ukraine would be vastly more fast and simple to accomplish. It would certainly vastly expand the risk profile of that section of Russia's border. Of course, since 2014 Ukraine became a NATO-lite member and most of this synchronization began anyway.

> The 2008 agenda report states "NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO", emphasis mine.

Both countries were hoping for a formal onramp to membership via a MAP at that summit, Russia demanded that they not be given MAPs, saying that doing so would be a provoication and destabilizing, NATO acceded to the Russian demands and papered over the denial of a concrete onramp with the no-process, no-timeline language you quote, and Russia immediately invaded Georgia.

Yes, Russia’s demands 8 years into its subsequent war on Ukraine were somewhat greater (including permanently ruling out all further NATO expansion—not just for Ukraine—and withdrawing all alliance troops from Eastern flank members of the alliance), but the 2008 experience weighed heavily against consideration of acquiescence, even in part, to Russia’s demands of this kind.

In the annals of diplomacy, it would not be strange for Russia to have interpreted the near invitation and late-stage downgrade to a "will join" statement as something far from acquiescence. I think it was taken as quite provocative, just less so than an invitation. By analogy, I think a statement from the USSR that "Cuba will join our nuclear military defense pact" would not have been taken as acquiescence during the Cuban missile crisis.

> In the annals of diplomacy, it would not be strange for Russia to have interpreted the near invitation and late-stage downgrade to a "will join" statement as something far from acquiescence. I think it was taken as quite provocative, just less so than an invitation. By analogy, I think a statement from the USSR that "Cuba will join our nuclear military defense pact" would not have been taken as acquiescence during the Cuban missile crisis.

I think it didn't matter what happened at the NATO conference Russia was looking for an excuse to invade and they were going to find one regardless of what was said.

The reason Russia invaded soon after was because NATO blinked when Russia dared them to, if NATO had given Georgia and Ukraine a MAP I think the situation would be very different today.

NATO clearly justifies its existence largely as an anti-Russia organization as it denied entertaining the idea of Russia as a member, has an offensive first-strike nuclear doctrine, the US pulled out of the ABM and the INF, installed missile defense systems in former Warsaw Pact countries that are clearly part of a strategy to mitigate Russia's capabilities (when Russia has no aggressive first-strike doctrine and only has a defense of Russian territory first-strike doctrine). Almost all of which happened when Russia was a relative "friend" to NATO when it was doing worse things in Chechnya as part of "GWOT" than it is currently doing in Ukraine, and what it is doing in Ukraine is appalling enough.

A good offense is a good defense, but you leave yourself more open to losses when your opponent is able to effectively fight back. In this case, NATO was perfectly happy to accept those losses because they would be Ukrainian. The world is far worse off as a result.

Edit: I'm going to stop responding to this thread now, as it really is a huge tangent from the original "disinformation" topic. At this point, nobody is arguing about Ukraine/Russia/NATO in order to dispute my points about the use of "disinformation" by VoxUkraine, we're just arguing about Ukraine/Russia/NATO.

> NATO clearly justifies its existence largely as an anti-Russia organization as it denied entertaining the idea of Russia as a member

False. Russia was on a track toward membership, with some additional special treatment, but then Putin demanded immediate membership without readiness criteria ahead of any other former Warsaw Pact countries, NATO balked at that demand, and Russia abandoned its pursuit of membership and became antagonistic to the expansion process it had previously been part of.

> I'm going to stop responding to this thread now, as it really is a huge tangent from the original "disinformation" topic.

Disinformation was never the topic (though you keep repeating Russian disinformation), this whole discussion about Ukraine/Russia/NATO history was in response to your separate claims in the same post as the disinformation ones about justification of the war.

I was referring to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37447928 which was clearly about "disinformation", and how one must actually debate the merits of the subject, instead of doing alignment tests. Obviously that means I have to debate the substance of the issue, but at this point, I think I've done enough to show that there is room for debate (you attacked one plank of my argument, even if I were to concede that point, it would not be a critical blow), i.e., this thread is a kind of existence proof for abandoning alignment tests. Ironically, you are now disputing all of that and tarring me with an alignment brush. I consider my point made, regardless.

> NATO clearly justifies its existence largely as an anti-Russia organization as it denied entertaining the idea of Russia as a member

To clear this up. Russia tried to join by bypassing the typical application process, was told pretty much, no you join like everyone else and then decided they didn't want to join anymore.

> has an offensive first-strike nuclear doctrine, the US pulled out of the ABM and the INF, installed missile defense systems in former Warsaw Pact countries that are clearly part of a strategy to mitigate Russia's capabilities (when Russia has no aggressive first-strike doctrine and only has a defense of Russian territory first-strike doctrine).

Russia also has multiple different agreements / treaties / etc where they promised to respect the sovereignty of Ukraine.

Great good they did.

Russia not having a first use policy would be great if I trusted them to not make up an excuse to nuke someone if they think it would benefit them.

Like how they just chuck out international agreements / etc when it benefits them.

> Almost all of which happened when Russia was a relative "friend" to NATO when it was doing worse things in Chechnya as part of "GWOT" than it is currently doing in Ukraine, and what it is doing in Ukraine is appalling enough.

NATO is currently helping Ukraine defend itself from a country which is trying to subjugate it.

> A good offense is a good defense, but you leave yourself more open to losses when your opponent is able to effectively fight back. In this case, NATO was perfectly happy to accept those losses because they would be Ukrainian. The world is far worse off as a result.

Im confused by this statement.

Russia is the one on the offence and Russia is the one who invaded, Ukraine is the one invading itself.

With the help of NATO.

I think the world is far better of with Russia losing the current war in Ukraine.

Russia does not get to veto NATO membership, they are not at the table.

Saying if NATO just ignored Ukraine then Russia wouldn't have invaded us ridiculous. The entire reason Russia pushed to exclude Ukraine was to allow invasion. Otherwise they would have asked for a treaty guaranteeing Ukraine wouldn't be used as a forward base instead.

Disinformation was used because in the internet age propaganda isn't direct. When a Russian controlled newspaper posts propaganda it is obvious. When a Russian controlled social media post goes viral is it propaganda in the same way?

The West hasn't tended to use as much disinformation (I won't claim they don't use it at all) mostly due to not controlling their own news sources to the same degree.

Note how OP doesn't include anything about journalism. Journalists are considered an independent group in the US and so anything too nakedly false tends to result in everyone downplaying.

You can still pull off lies, we did have quite a few pointless wars after all, but it requires more focus and effort. They didn't outright lie about the situation just bent the truth about non public information.

But I would consider the "weapons" in Iraq to be just as much disinformation if it came out during the internet era just as much as it was propaganda before.

BTW "people believe it" isn't proof of anything. A non trivial percentage of people believe the earth is flat after all.

When a social media account that is not Russian controlled goes viral, but nonetheless it contains quote "pro-Russia propaganda" unquote, is that "disinformation"? Maybe they just disagree with you. Are John Mearsheimer, John Pilger, Jeffrey Sachs, etc., spreading "disinformation"? Geopolitics involves a lot of historical understanding, and there are legitimate disagreements, and "disinformation" is a brush swept very liberally. Jens Stoltenberg said a few things in a speech recently that were called "disinformation" a year ago -- he is the NATO secretary general.

> Is there a "moral" act here? What should they do?

Not kill peace deals?

https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/09/03/west-peace-propos...

IIRC the story wasn't as told. Specifically while peace talks were possible the West reminded Ukraine before they began they needed to make clear that there were certain uncompromising demands.

In particular Russia had to leave Ukraine completely. Russia was not willing to put that on the table so peace talks sputtered out.

Note that this doesn't mean the West prevented peace talks. There would have been a lack of fighting for a month or two while the peace talks were going on, sure, but they wouldn't have gone anywhere.

Ukraine said from the moment the invasion slowed down at all they were only going to be willing to accept Russia leaving completely with no land left in their hands.

Russia in turn has always said they want a land bridge to the ocean at minimum.

Until one of those changed peace talks were futile.

A coup is a change in leadership enacted outside of the accepted legal method for that unit of governance it has nothing to do with leaving the patent unit.

To my knowledge there has never been an "accepted legal method" and so while I agree with your point I don't know your summary is better...

Perhaps that was insufficiently clear. Every nation has an acceptable legal method for choosing new leadership

> A coup d'état, or simply a coup, is an illegal and overt attempt by the military or other government elites to unseat the incumbent leader by force. A self-coup is when a leader, having come to power through legal means, tries to stay in power through illegal means.

The proper turn when an existing power structure attempts to detach itself from its superiors is secession

And as I attempt to correct I can't type "term" or "parent" my apologies.

Hong Kong is lead by China directly which is why I phrased it as I did.

Secession would have been before China took direct control. At this point any "secession" wouldn't come from the government.

Secession is when the smaller unit removes itself from the larger unit. Coup an illegitimate change in control of the unit.

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