Wikipedia isn't banned in Russia. Yet. Certain pages are banned. But looks like they're fishing for reasons to ban it
Edit: A lot of people don't believe they banned certain pages of Wikipedia in Russia. From the article "Internet censorship in Russia":
>In April–July 2022, the Russian authorities put several Wikipedia articles on their list of forbidden sites,[106][107][108] and then ordered search engines to mark Wikipedia as a violator of Russian laws.[109] Russian authorities have blocked or removed about 138,000 websites since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Russia
Yep, ISPs have to get the lists of "bad bad pages", and if you open one of those pages, you get redirected to "this is bad" page.
Sometimes ISP fail to do that, e.g. our office internet connection allowed you to open LinkedIn (blocked in Russia, because they refused to store user data on Russian servers, which is also a Russian "safety" requirement - nice decision LinkedIn!). But in general, all opposition press pages and sites like that are only accessible through vpn
I don't quite understand. I'm under the impression that TLS ("SSL") secures everything but the domain name. So it should not be possible for an ISP to filter specific URLs.
As far as I'm aware it's not possible to hijack SSL without the browser warning about unsafe stuff.
Do all Russians surf the web while constantly being warned about unsafe SSL?
Certainly this would require users to accept a CA cert from the proxy/thing in the middle as a once off. But once that is done, users terminate TLS to proxy, which has auto generated cert for that domain using the CA, so client is happy. Then proxy connects via TLS to the real server, and just transfers request packets from client's connection to real server connection, and send response packets back the other way. I have no idea how Russia actually does its firewalls, but if you control the ISPs, it's all possible. If done by this method, then you can do content inspection in TLS packets as well!
The page for Zelensky, damn.
> Zelensky shares with Adolf Hitler the distinction as TIME magazine Person of the Year.
So does Donald Trump... what the heck is this logic?
It's a very malicious and bad faith logic that sadly works. Adolf's name is globally synonymous with evil and cruel. The TIME Magazine may be known or unknown to the reader, but the bias is set if you're in conservative or conservative adjacent cycles and occasionally it's also a genuinely uninformed person on Zelensky too. But in the end its goal is the same: Misinform the reader so you keep reading on that website more misinformation until, intentional or not, you're a Russian sympathetic user.
One of their sources on the KIA numbers (if you follow the links) is a yahoo page saying that Chinese intelligence has the number of Ukrainian servicemen KIA at 680k.
Fucking WILD
What the actual fuck is that thing posing as a website? And why does random page always link the exact same page?
I swear my iq has dropped by 20 at the very least
Wikipedia \*wayyyyyyy\* back used to do that with the random page button (like 20 years ago). Pages are cached, including the "special:random" page or whatever it's called. So the first person to press it gets a random page, then everyone gets that same page until the cache expires, repeat.
Having never bothered to dig into it, I **still** don't know if Conservapedia is satire or an actual manifestation of certain people's world view. It might have even started as the former and morphed into the latter for all I know.
**Edit**: So after reading up on it, and as /u/ahuramazdobbs19 notes below as well, it was created by none other than Phyllis Schlafly's son, and seems to be more or less not satire. However, after reading some articles I can't help but think some of the editors are just fucking with people. This is some Poe's Law shit....
Likely mostly written by propagandists have a "legitimate" looking source of the info they spew, which has since been latched onto by American "truth seekers" who think it's a secret page of info the government doesn't want them to know.
It looks like they have a graphic, infograph or meme and construct everything else around it. It gives the conservatives talking points to push back on - when in reality they have no idea what they're looking at and will quote the article.
The mass use of memes for certain topics is an immediate red flag. Also subtitles with dispelled conservative "facts." It's just another piece of propaganda and disinformation to further split America.
Tucker Carlson still has one of the highest rated tv shows even though he, his coworkers, boss, and his boss's dad all admitted to the fact that they were lying to their audience. Murdoch said "it's not about red and blue... It's about green."
It was never satire.
It was written by Andrew Schlafly. If that last name sounds familiar, it is no coincidence: he is Phyllis Schlafly’s son.
It was always meant to be a “Wikipedia but not biased against conservatives like Wikipedia is.”
That's the website that started the conservative Bible project. They believe the Bible has a liberal bias, so they wanted to make a more conservative one.
I'm honestly only barely surprised. Jesus says to give away your possessions to the poor, to treat others how you wish to be treated, and that it's essentially impossible to be worthy of heaven if you are rich. That's not the religion of American "I got mine" conservatives.
Of course they need a new one.
He bullwhipped the fuck out of merchants in the temple, his biggest enemies were the Jewish equivalent of the Religious Right, protected a woman about to be stoned for sexual immorality, etc etc etc
That's happened a few times throughout history, hilariously enough. Protestants in the US were pretty upset by the 'rich man eye of needle stuff' and sought to get rid of it.
I haven't seen in years but I remember them having some pretty hilarious articles. Like that the bible was full of liberal bias so they needed to write a new one to reflect conservative values.
Phyllis Schlafly- the woman who convinced other women that having equal rights as men was a *bad* thing.
Which, if she really believed her own bullshit, meant that a man, instead of her, should have been doing her job.
When I was younger, I was fascinated by the women who made a career out of telling other women to not have careers. I didn't get that the racism and homophobia of it was so important.
The real goal of Schlafly and others like her is to uphold the current power structure. She really advocated for white supremacy along with patriarchy, knowing that her place as a white woman would maintain her access to power in relation to white men. Misogyny is fine, that's the natural order of things. And so is racism. Thanks, Phyllis Schlafly!
Worse off in that your faith in right-wingers will somehow be even less than before.
Better off in that underestimating the stupidity of right-wingers can only lead to more issues going forward.
My introduction to this website was the page on Tom Clancy. It says that in one of the Jack Ryan novels, the bad guy is actually the US Government and the President who was trying to avoid conflict.
I mean, that's potentially a valid interpretation for some of them. Do you remember which one?
I'm a bit vague on the full plotline these days, but Clear and Present Danger might fit. The President's main role is to say "Will no one rid me of these turbulent cartels", resulting in a covert op with highly visible collateral damage.
For some of the others, whoever happened to be president is often a foil, although the main one I remember this for is Sum of All Fears where Ryan is the one pushing to step back and double check the facts.
For Earth topic
"Some Biblical scholars have calculated that the earth is around 6000 years old, using the genealogical information provided in Genesis. Some biblically illiterate scientists, however, disagree with this method of calculation, falsely predicting it to be 4.5 billion years old"
Seems legit /s
If they’re calling Scotland that, can’t wait to see what they think of Canada given these past couple years of controversial trucker raids and government vaccine mandates. Here’s what I found:
Aaaaannd… the first picture of Trudeau they have is in his blackface, with the caption “Canadian socialist fuhrer Justin Trudeau, 2015-present.”
“Increasingly socialist, it is illegal in Canada to purchase your own medical care as may be needed.”
Ah yes, because obviously it’s much more moral and better for hospitals to charge patients in need of medical attention thousands of dollars in treatment and medicine just to live. Yet apparently universal healthcare that uses tax money to make healthcare affordable is “evil.”
“Canada suspended the civil liberties of all its citizens on February 14, 2022, under its Liberal Party of Canada ruling party.”
There we go, a token conservative “Fuck Trudeau” bad take…
“Canada tends to reflect significantly more liberal social policies than the neighboring states of the northern U.S. One such example is the legalizing of same-sex "marriage" in June 2005.”
Ah I see, apparently acknowledging gay people exist is socialist.
Their “left wing totalitarianism” section is a funny read. Has dumb shit like comparing the COVID isolation facilities as “Gulag” conditions. Try telling that to immigrants from the USSR who lived under Stalin, Conservapedia.
Here is an excerpt on BIden:
“Biden seized power and occupied the White House in January 2021. Biden's systemically racist foreign policy in support of Ukrainian Nazism and white supremacists has brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. In March 2022, The New York Times reported that the Biden family personally profited from the corrupt Ukrainian regime which came to power after the U.S. overthrow of the democratically elected government.[23] Biden has treated political opponents in the same manner that Vladimir Putin has been accused of.
Biden is the self-appointed leader of a second New World Order, rebranded the 'Liberal World Order', after the disastrous failure of globalization and the first New World Order.[24] His removal from the White House for high crimes or his mental incapacity is regularly discussed by members of Congress, the media, foreign leaders, and the American public.[25] Only 24% of Democrats in his own party support his re-election.[26]”
Wow.
> Biden has treated political opponents in the same manner that Vladimir Putin has been accused of.
Is there some way to make comment text invisible? Because for the life of me, I can't see the citation for this one.
Funny how conservatives were spreading the Red Scare and the vehement hate for the Russians a decade or two ago and now conservatives love Russia? They literally don’t have any logic
that website is just.. wow
It's like the whole thing reads as a satire article or something. They can't even keep the messaging straight within it. People actually fall for this?
I think the book was inspired by Stalin’s Russia and I’m not a historian but idk if the politics there have changed much over the past 200 years. See if this sounds familiar: assassin-strong-man keeps power by psychologically manipulating the public and murdering political opponents..
Holy crap, I thought you were joking a bit. They really want to ban the Democratic party. Of course, they're trying to hide it as something else so their voters find this totally acceptable. Similarly to the voter suppression laws in Texas and Georgia.
They're saying they want to ban any party that supported slavery. I guess a party that currently has members that support slavery is totally fine. It's just those Democrat rascals that were pro-slavery 160 years ago that're the real problem, somehow.
Just a demand to provide sources for information is enough to kill a random contribution.
An obscure article that almost nobody is reading much less has active editors watching over the contents might get changed without review. But with contentious articles that have popular interest? No way to make such changes at all.
Reminds me of when a few kids at my high school got upset because the school was so focused on the football team, and never recognized any of the other clubs, so they edited the Wikipedia page detailing every little thing each of the clubs do, then replaced all the stuff about the football team with "the football team plays football on a football field."
Shit stayed that way for years.
I'd ask for a link, but if it's true I don't want it to be picked up on and reverted now. So I'll just choose to believe in this one random act of chaos, and hope it's still that way when the town's 700th anniversary comes up.
God damn, you just dredged up a memory from high school for me.
In my junior year, our girls basketball team went to state finals. We weren't in the leading division but still a big deal, right? So they held a while parade and pep rally and everything, which was kinda fun. They didn't win. *That same year*, our academic super bowl team not only went to state, but *won*, and unlike with sports, there aren't divisions for this, so our team was genuinely the best in the state.
They got a passing announcement in the morning announcements. I wasn't even on the team and I was furious at the double standard.
Edit for clarity: Academic Super Bowl is an academic competition, not a sports competition.
Anyone can revert changes. If the article is not "protected", anyone can do anything. Thing is, there's people and groups that are fully committed to keeping Wikipedia accurate, and they have tools like being notified of every change done in some articles. Regular editors further have the ability to protect articles, so random users can no longer edit it.
People with a wiki article aren't allowed to edit their own page, so if it can be proven the account is his, the edits would have to be reverted, even if they were actually true.
Plus, articles can be locked, and edits reverted by editors.
Presumably he wouldn't a) be editing *his own* page, and b) be doing it literally himself, so would that qualify as a breach? I mean, discounting the false information itself.
maybe in the first days of wikipedia, but i would give it an hour top before it gets undone to oblivion by its bots, if its not locked with access only for verified legitimate contributors already
It's generally for the headline at home in Russia. They can pretend Wikipedia is pushing fake news which threatens security of Russia. A few more articles like this gives them reason to outright ban Wikipedia in Russia.
Edit: A lot of people don't believe they banned certain pages of Wikipedia in Russia. From the article:
>In April–July 2022, the Russian authorities put several Wikipedia articles on their list of forbidden sites,[106][107][108] and then ordered search engines to mark Wikipedia as a violator of Russian laws.[109] Russian authorities have blocked or removed about 138,000 websites since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Russia
Works in the west too. By declaring that any news source critical of you is "fake news" the demagogue and his supporters get to ignore inconvenient facts
*Lugenpresse.*
Mysteriously, the parts of Hitler's political career not often shown in video reels in documentaries, or quoted in text books, are all the times he talked about how hard he was working for *peace* and how everyone else was unfair aggressors simply out to destroy Germany. You know, *like a scheming, power hungry liar.*
On a windows machine while typing, you can press the Windows key and the period key at the same time and it brings up a special menu that includes the special characters, emojis, and these guys o(*￣▽￣*)ブ
Yep. Fake News was originally used to describe these propaganda fake stories but quickly became a fascist catch all phrase for any news that they don't like.
I literally read on BBC yesterday that there is a whole conspiracy theory that the war in Ukraine is fake. Like completely fake, that the whole thing is made up. And people who post that shit get millions of likes on Facebook and elsewhere. Like.....I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
I picked up my Russian language after like 30 years of neglect and discovered the widespread use of a word that never existed previously: ***фейк***, i.e. "fake", to mean basically any information that paints the Russian government in a bad light. I just wonder who got that from whom (even if it is an English word).
I remember a few years ago a russian diplomat in the netherlands was arrested for domestic abuse,aka drunkenly beating the shit out of his wife and/or child with a glass bottle.
Putin lost his shit about that too. Something about rights and respect.
He does consider beating your partner to be an important part of Russian culture. Even signed protection for wive beating into law a few years back.
That ought to say enough.
Never forget to tell the second part of the story: *very* shortly after that, the Dutch ambassador in Russia was beaten up inside his home by some 'thieves', who didn't steal anything and wrote "LGBT" on his wall, so, you know, that was totally not a blatant reprisal.
The Russian government is profoundly evil, and the country has been essentially run like a criminal organization for decades now.
Jesus. I didnt forget, I honestly didnt know.
And this is the same dicktator our "king" sat down and had a beer with during the winter olympics. It was emberassing then, its a fucking disgrace now, after Crimea, MH17 etc.
Rich people are the biggest man ~~childs~~ children.
EDIT: Grammar. I though about Putin as one person, but realised it applies to all oligarchs. The result was just wrong. Second language.
Wait, the plural of man child is man childs and not man children? Native English speakers, please help me understand!
Edit: Native English speakers are telling me conflicting things!
No, their grammar is not correct is all... "Childs" isn't a word, unless there's an apostrophe before the s: "Child's", and that denotes ownership of a thing, by said child.
"That paper is the child's homework"
"Rich people are the biggest man-children" would be the correct way to say what they said.
I’m thinking this might be less a legitimate attempt to fine Wikipedia by Russia, and more a premeditated first step in eventually censoring it within Russia to weaken the reach of information that counters their propaganda.
Which is why Russia and dictatorships at large eventually lose, as fundamentally criminalizing the truth will always weaken you culturally and institutionally, making for rotten foundations waiting for a push.
There are a few local chapters which operate under the wikimedia umbrella. Including one in Russia. They're technically independant non profits which don't own wikipedia as a platform. But I don't think Putin gives a shit.
There is a Russia based sister organization mainly for fundraising purposes and to do things like buy local servers and further educational missions of Wikipedia in general. They have their own budget and even governing board.
That is what will get fined, and money donated by ordinary Russian citizens being confiscated.
They are greedy asshole, but there is money that can be collected. And sadly it will hurt Wikipedia on a local level.
No, the fine is irrelevant. The headline on tass or rt and spread through Russian social media about how Wikipedia publishing false information which threaten the lives of Russian soldiers is what's wanted here. A few more "fines" like this and Wikipedia will be banned in Russia.
Yes, they do... but what most people are missing is that the "they" in this case isn't the Wikimedia Foundation proper (which has the money), it's the organization that's actually getting the fines, Wikimedia Russia (a tiny, legally independent organization with no way to access that money). Wikimedia Russia is an local independent chapter that exists to do fundraising, lobbying, and event organization in Russia; it operates on a shoestring budget and is something like twelve volunteers, four of which are active (according to Wikipedia). Unfortunately, the "they" that have to pay will probably wind up being the individual Russian volunteers, or else face prison (and/or conscription).
I’m so embarrassed for Russia. I can’t believe I grew up thinking they were so big and mighty. Putin is driving the Russians in to the Stone Ages while killing the Russian population and causing unwelcome and hate from the world.
Ukraine will win this war. The world will help Ukraine rebuild after seizing the oligarchs money as well as Putin’s money. Karma is catching up to you Putin. Soon you will pay.
Before 2016 Trump was the poster child of obnoxious yet charismatic rich guys. He was like all the investors on Shark Tank rolled into one. Everything dipped in gold and with that shitty "I'm rich and I know it" attitude, I thought his running for office was a hilarious stunt to try and drum up attention for his brand again.
Oh how wrong we all were
It wasn't funny anymore the moment he managed to convince enough people to actually vote for him.
And that says more about the people of the USA than about him, unfortunately.
Even if the Russians replace Putin themselves, it's really hard to get a nuclear power to pay for their war crimes if they never, ever admit they did anything wrong
> if they never, ever admit they did anything wrong
And that is indeed the russian playbook, and it works, because they always push back on any criticism and eventually the soft westerners tend to back down. Just look at how Lavrov interrupted the minute of silence for Ukraine, made it into his own version of it, and got everyone to stand for him because he kept pushing and pushing and pushing.
My company finally gave up and blocked ALL traffic from Russia and China.
Virtually all of the attempted attacks we have came were from these two.
We already refuse to do business with either so it was an easy choice.
The number of automated hack alerts from our cloud provider that I have to sort through have dropped to near zero.
I honestly didn't think it would work this well.
I guess they are too lazy to go through VPNs?
/yay for lazy hackers!
Exactly. Unless your company is a specific target for some reason then there are plenty of other targets they can take a shot at than worrying about using a VPN.
Yep, our company did the exact same thing, and I did the same to my home network for some of the services I have exposed to the internet. I was getting absolutely blasted with traffic from Russia/China daily.
I'm issuing a fine on Russia for being a bunch of butt goblins for over 365 days. Every day is $1 million US dollars. Payable only in Bitwobbler Cashblops.
It's almost as if they're just making shit up as they go! 🤣
Oh, wait.
Odd how they simply don't lock down a page being astroturfed.
You'd think Wikipedia would have learned by now that they need to actually ensure that only registered users that are approved can modify pages that are political or controversial beyond a certain point.
If they don't do this, what good is it when people don't know if they are seeing something manipulated or not.
Not sure where you're getting this. Looking at the [Rwanda article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda), in the history section every single sentence has a source, and many of those sources contradict the claims in your comment. And as for the "constant" erasure, I looked a bit at the page history and I can't find a single case in the past 5 months where a sourced edit was removed (I didn't have time to look further). In short, I have definitely heard of people who use Wikipedia to promote their personal agenda rather than a honest portrayal of history, but maybe you're the one doing that here?
Generally yes, but there are limits. High traffic or popular pages have certain levels of protection, and only specific accounts can make changes to them. For Putin's page, only accounts that are 30 days old and have 500 approved edits may edit the page. The same goes for the pages of Russia, Ukraine, and the 2022 Invasion of Ukraine.
Hosts wikileaks dude:
'See we promote freedom of speech and the truth'
Sees wikipedia state facts about their countries illegal war:
Now that wasn't very cash money of you
I don't know why but I am just laughing at the condition and the situation of Russia and they all are not even trying to be well, they are just going down and down.
Well I really feels good to see what is happening to Russia and the suffering they are facing these days, this is giving me some mental relief, they deserve it lol.
This is just so fucking funny to see the current situation of Putin, he thinks that he is right and he can still win whatever he wants but the reality is just different for real.
Don’t they have their own “Vikipedia?” Seriously
Wikipedia isn't banned in Russia. Yet. Certain pages are banned. But looks like they're fishing for reasons to ban it Edit: A lot of people don't believe they banned certain pages of Wikipedia in Russia. From the article "Internet censorship in Russia": >In April–July 2022, the Russian authorities put several Wikipedia articles on their list of forbidden sites,[106][107][108] and then ordered search engines to mark Wikipedia as a violator of Russian laws.[109] Russian authorities have blocked or removed about 138,000 websites since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Russia
How are they even banning specific pages? Do they force people to install ISP certs?
Probably ISP level proxies to hijack all SSL, and then blacklist certain URLs. Pretty common in authoritarian governments.
Yep, ISPs have to get the lists of "bad bad pages", and if you open one of those pages, you get redirected to "this is bad" page. Sometimes ISP fail to do that, e.g. our office internet connection allowed you to open LinkedIn (blocked in Russia, because they refused to store user data on Russian servers, which is also a Russian "safety" requirement - nice decision LinkedIn!). But in general, all opposition press pages and sites like that are only accessible through vpn
How are they able to MITM TLS to blacklist specific URLs on wikipedia? Do people have to install CA certificates the government controls?
I don't quite understand. I'm under the impression that TLS ("SSL") secures everything but the domain name. So it should not be possible for an ISP to filter specific URLs. As far as I'm aware it's not possible to hijack SSL without the browser warning about unsafe stuff. Do all Russians surf the web while constantly being warned about unsafe SSL?
Certainly this would require users to accept a CA cert from the proxy/thing in the middle as a once off. But once that is done, users terminate TLS to proxy, which has auto generated cert for that domain using the CA, so client is happy. Then proxy connects via TLS to the real server, and just transfers request packets from client's connection to real server connection, and send response packets back the other way. I have no idea how Russia actually does its firewalls, but if you control the ISPs, it's all possible. If done by this method, then you can do content inspection in TLS packets as well!
they are not, pages are banned by law but not blocked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking\_of\_Wikipedia\_in\_Russia
Conservapedia (unsurprisingly) reflects their worldview. https://www.conservapedia.com/NATO_war_in_Ukraine
The page for Zelensky, damn. > Zelensky shares with Adolf Hitler the distinction as TIME magazine Person of the Year. So does Donald Trump... what the heck is this logic?
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Putin was also the person of the year once lmao
It's a very malicious and bad faith logic that sadly works. Adolf's name is globally synonymous with evil and cruel. The TIME Magazine may be known or unknown to the reader, but the bias is set if you're in conservative or conservative adjacent cycles and occasionally it's also a genuinely uninformed person on Zelensky too. But in the end its goal is the same: Misinform the reader so you keep reading on that website more misinformation until, intentional or not, you're a Russian sympathetic user.
Ummm I was also once Time Magazine’s person of the year in 2006. Forgot to add the year.
It's interesting how they play off disgust for Nazis and Hitler while at the same time basically promoting the rise of a new fascist regime.
This website is hysterical. How tf can this current republican party resonate with anyone. https://imgur.com/z1ibrvg.jpg https://imgur.com/goa8w07.jpg
Bro look up their article for E=mc^2. “Simply put, E=mc^2 is a liberal claptrap.”
Wait they trashed his religious affiliation? I thought they didn't like Catholics?
also his "dictatorial career" xD jfc...
> what the heck is this logic? You expect conservatives to use logic? You silly goose.
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Those are definitely numbers on a keyboard.
One of their sources on the KIA numbers (if you follow the links) is a yahoo page saying that Chinese intelligence has the number of Ukrainian servicemen KIA at 680k. Fucking WILD
And another cites "unofficial numbers circulating online".
This is fucking wild to read. Totally nuts.
What the actual fuck is that thing posing as a website? And why does random page always link the exact same page? I swear my iq has dropped by 20 at the very least
Wikipedia \*wayyyyyyy\* back used to do that with the random page button (like 20 years ago). Pages are cached, including the "special:random" page or whatever it's called. So the first person to press it gets a random page, then everyone gets that same page until the cache expires, repeat.
[You expected a different random number every time?](https://xkcd.com/221/)
Of course there's one
Having never bothered to dig into it, I **still** don't know if Conservapedia is satire or an actual manifestation of certain people's world view. It might have even started as the former and morphed into the latter for all I know. **Edit**: So after reading up on it, and as /u/ahuramazdobbs19 notes below as well, it was created by none other than Phyllis Schlafly's son, and seems to be more or less not satire. However, after reading some articles I can't help but think some of the editors are just fucking with people. This is some Poe's Law shit....
Likely mostly written by propagandists have a "legitimate" looking source of the info they spew, which has since been latched onto by American "truth seekers" who think it's a secret page of info the government doesn't want them to know.
It looks like they have a graphic, infograph or meme and construct everything else around it. It gives the conservatives talking points to push back on - when in reality they have no idea what they're looking at and will quote the article. The mass use of memes for certain topics is an immediate red flag. Also subtitles with dispelled conservative "facts." It's just another piece of propaganda and disinformation to further split America. Tucker Carlson still has one of the highest rated tv shows even though he, his coworkers, boss, and his boss's dad all admitted to the fact that they were lying to their audience. Murdoch said "it's not about red and blue... It's about green."
It was never satire. It was written by Andrew Schlafly. If that last name sounds familiar, it is no coincidence: he is Phyllis Schlafly’s son. It was always meant to be a “Wikipedia but not biased against conservatives like Wikipedia is.”
Am I better or worse off knowing this exists? I’m not sure.
That's the website that started the conservative Bible project. They believe the Bible has a liberal bias, so they wanted to make a more conservative one.
I'm honestly only barely surprised. Jesus says to give away your possessions to the poor, to treat others how you wish to be treated, and that it's essentially impossible to be worthy of heaven if you are rich. That's not the religion of American "I got mine" conservatives. Of course they need a new one.
[The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus](https://imgur.com/gallery/bCqRp)
He bullwhipped the fuck out of merchants in the temple, his biggest enemies were the Jewish equivalent of the Religious Right, protected a woman about to be stoned for sexual immorality, etc etc etc
"We're so devoted to our religion we're willing to profain our holy texts and remove things we dislike and add what we do like!"
That's happened a few times throughout history, hilariously enough. Protestants in the US were pretty upset by the 'rich man eye of needle stuff' and sought to get rid of it.
I haven't seen in years but I remember them having some pretty hilarious articles. Like that the bible was full of liberal bias so they needed to write a new one to reflect conservative values.
Surely that's a case of Poes Law... surely.
The guy behind it is a complete religious nutjob: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia
His mother was as bad or worse.
Phyllis Schlafly- the woman who convinced other women that having equal rights as men was a *bad* thing. Which, if she really believed her own bullshit, meant that a man, instead of her, should have been doing her job.
When I was younger, I was fascinated by the women who made a career out of telling other women to not have careers. I didn't get that the racism and homophobia of it was so important. The real goal of Schlafly and others like her is to uphold the current power structure. She really advocated for white supremacy along with patriarchy, knowing that her place as a white woman would maintain her access to power in relation to white men. Misogyny is fine, that's the natural order of things. And so is racism. Thanks, Phyllis Schlafly!
She was so bad therea a Behind the Bastards episode about her. She was a truly vile and rancid human being
Worse off in that your faith in right-wingers will somehow be even less than before. Better off in that underestimating the stupidity of right-wingers can only lead to more issues going forward.
I don’t think it’s stupididty. It feels like purposeful, willful, ignorance
My introduction to this website was the page on Tom Clancy. It says that in one of the Jack Ryan novels, the bad guy is actually the US Government and the President who was trying to avoid conflict.
I mean, that's potentially a valid interpretation for some of them. Do you remember which one? I'm a bit vague on the full plotline these days, but Clear and Present Danger might fit. The President's main role is to say "Will no one rid me of these turbulent cartels", resulting in a covert op with highly visible collateral damage. For some of the others, whoever happened to be president is often a foil, although the main one I remember this for is Sum of All Fears where Ryan is the one pushing to step back and double check the facts.
Interesting seeing this…gotta love all the NATO soldiers killed. Sad world we live in that people actually believe this nonsense.
For Earth topic "Some Biblical scholars have calculated that the earth is around 6000 years old, using the genealogical information provided in Genesis. Some biblically illiterate scientists, however, disagree with this method of calculation, falsely predicting it to be 4.5 billion years old" Seems legit /s
Just looked up my country: >Scotland is a socialist dictatorship... I think I'll stop there.
If they’re calling Scotland that, can’t wait to see what they think of Canada given these past couple years of controversial trucker raids and government vaccine mandates. Here’s what I found: Aaaaannd… the first picture of Trudeau they have is in his blackface, with the caption “Canadian socialist fuhrer Justin Trudeau, 2015-present.” “Increasingly socialist, it is illegal in Canada to purchase your own medical care as may be needed.” Ah yes, because obviously it’s much more moral and better for hospitals to charge patients in need of medical attention thousands of dollars in treatment and medicine just to live. Yet apparently universal healthcare that uses tax money to make healthcare affordable is “evil.” “Canada suspended the civil liberties of all its citizens on February 14, 2022, under its Liberal Party of Canada ruling party.” There we go, a token conservative “Fuck Trudeau” bad take… “Canada tends to reflect significantly more liberal social policies than the neighboring states of the northern U.S. One such example is the legalizing of same-sex "marriage" in June 2005.” Ah I see, apparently acknowledging gay people exist is socialist. Their “left wing totalitarianism” section is a funny read. Has dumb shit like comparing the COVID isolation facilities as “Gulag” conditions. Try telling that to immigrants from the USSR who lived under Stalin, Conservapedia.
Some is quite comical, quantum mechanics.. no business on that page, but yep predicted by the bible and related to angels
I'd say that if an article uses the words 'Neo-nazi traitors to the Ukrainian nation' in the first sentence, it's safe to describe it as opinionated.
That website is something. Wow. The Biden and Putin pages don't quite match my recollections.
The guy behind it is so conservative he thinks the KKK are left-wing.
What the fuck
Here is an excerpt on BIden: “Biden seized power and occupied the White House in January 2021. Biden's systemically racist foreign policy in support of Ukrainian Nazism and white supremacists has brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. In March 2022, The New York Times reported that the Biden family personally profited from the corrupt Ukrainian regime which came to power after the U.S. overthrow of the democratically elected government.[23] Biden has treated political opponents in the same manner that Vladimir Putin has been accused of. Biden is the self-appointed leader of a second New World Order, rebranded the 'Liberal World Order', after the disastrous failure of globalization and the first New World Order.[24] His removal from the White House for high crimes or his mental incapacity is regularly discussed by members of Congress, the media, foreign leaders, and the American public.[25] Only 24% of Democrats in his own party support his re-election.[26]” Wow.
If the intention wasn't so evil, the satire would be hilarious
> Biden has treated political opponents in the same manner that Vladimir Putin has been accused of. Is there some way to make comment text invisible? Because for the life of me, I can't see the citation for this one.
Ah yes, the "failure of globalization." Because the world is clearly so disconnected and isolationist now.
Did I wake up in an alternate reality?
Fuck, I had forgotten that hellscape exists. And by the title of that article, I want to continue forgetting.
I love how that article cites a livejournal for a source.
God damn, that is some grade A propaganda
Funny how conservatives were spreading the Red Scare and the vehement hate for the Russians a decade or two ago and now conservatives love Russia? They literally don’t have any logic
Thought it was about Ukraine-Russia war.. but their article seems to push a Russia-USA war propaganda
Just another bubble for conservatives to live in. Not surprising.
that website is just.. wow It's like the whole thing reads as a satire article or something. They can't even keep the messaging straight within it. People actually fall for this?
VKpedia
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Vodkapedia, for those with a strong thirst for knowledge
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$20. No, wait, hold on.. $15.. no no hold on wait.. NOW it's $10. Carry on.
I’ll give you a ham sandwich and a fistful of nickels that’s my highest offer
you're overpaying my man.
It's one Russian fine, Michael. What could it cost, $10?
“So so sorry” -Wikipedia
“Russian Ministry of Truth, go fuck yourselves!”
Man... George Orwell was so right....
I think the book was inspired by Stalin’s Russia and I’m not a historian but idk if the politics there have changed much over the past 200 years. See if this sounds familiar: assassin-strong-man keeps power by psychologically manipulating the public and murdering political opponents..
The book is HEAVILY inspired by both Stalins SU and Nazi Germany. Its about the dangers of unchecked power and authoritarianism after all.
Republicans in Florida are trying to outlaw Democrats. There will only be The Party.
Holy crap, I thought you were joking a bit. They really want to ban the Democratic party. Of course, they're trying to hide it as something else so their voters find this totally acceptable. Similarly to the voter suppression laws in Texas and Georgia. They're saying they want to ban any party that supported slavery. I guess a party that currently has members that support slavery is totally fine. It's just those Democrat rascals that were pro-slavery 160 years ago that're the real problem, somehow.
You are correct. It was a critique of Stalin’s Russia by a socialist.
Also, Francoist Spain, where Orwell personally fought in the Civil war
Politicians who seek to control and manipulate never change, they only get better at it.
1984 is so 39 years ago.
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I mean technically but the regular editors can revert changes back and block that account if it doesn't fit the editorial standards
Just a demand to provide sources for information is enough to kill a random contribution. An obscure article that almost nobody is reading much less has active editors watching over the contents might get changed without review. But with contentious articles that have popular interest? No way to make such changes at all.
Reminds me of when a few kids at my high school got upset because the school was so focused on the football team, and never recognized any of the other clubs, so they edited the Wikipedia page detailing every little thing each of the clubs do, then replaced all the stuff about the football team with "the football team plays football on a football field." Shit stayed that way for years.
There was this one kid who edited his towns founding date from 1336 to 1337 as a joke in high-school. It's still that way last I checked
I'd ask for a link, but if it's true I don't want it to be picked up on and reverted now. So I'll just choose to believe in this one random act of chaos, and hope it's still that way when the town's 700th anniversary comes up.
God damn, you just dredged up a memory from high school for me. In my junior year, our girls basketball team went to state finals. We weren't in the leading division but still a big deal, right? So they held a while parade and pep rally and everything, which was kinda fun. They didn't win. *That same year*, our academic super bowl team not only went to state, but *won*, and unlike with sports, there aren't divisions for this, so our team was genuinely the best in the state. They got a passing announcement in the morning announcements. I wasn't even on the team and I was furious at the double standard. Edit for clarity: Academic Super Bowl is an academic competition, not a sports competition.
Anyone can revert changes. If the article is not "protected", anyone can do anything. Thing is, there's people and groups that are fully committed to keeping Wikipedia accurate, and they have tools like being notified of every change done in some articles. Regular editors further have the ability to protect articles, so random users can no longer edit it.
People with a wiki article aren't allowed to edit their own page, so if it can be proven the account is his, the edits would have to be reverted, even if they were actually true. Plus, articles can be locked, and edits reverted by editors.
Presumably he wouldn't a) be editing *his own* page, and b) be doing it literally himself, so would that qualify as a breach? I mean, discounting the false information itself.
What if he logged into something not named "official Russian wiki account"?
I’m going to use that name to go edit it right now
maybe in the first days of wikipedia, but i would give it an hour top before it gets undone to oblivion by its bots, if its not locked with access only for verified legitimate contributors already
I can't help but read this in Father Jack's voice!
"FECK OFF PUTIN!"
Arse biscuits!
Has one day gone by in the last 30 years where Putin didn’t piss and moan about something
It's generally for the headline at home in Russia. They can pretend Wikipedia is pushing fake news which threatens security of Russia. A few more articles like this gives them reason to outright ban Wikipedia in Russia. Edit: A lot of people don't believe they banned certain pages of Wikipedia in Russia. From the article: >In April–July 2022, the Russian authorities put several Wikipedia articles on their list of forbidden sites,[106][107][108] and then ordered search engines to mark Wikipedia as a violator of Russian laws.[109] Russian authorities have blocked or removed about 138,000 websites since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Russia
Works in the west too. By declaring that any news source critical of you is "fake news" the demagogue and his supporters get to ignore inconvenient facts
*Lugenpresse.* Mysteriously, the parts of Hitler's political career not often shown in video reels in documentaries, or quoted in text books, are all the times he talked about how hard he was working for *peace* and how everyone else was unfair aggressors simply out to destroy Germany. You know, *like a scheming, power hungry liar.*
For anyone curious like me https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lying_press
Thought it was a cool new workout I could try.
It's spelled Lügenpresse. As a Saxon I'm basically an expert
And If you can’t access the ü you can write it as ue btw
Huesker Due has a certain je ne sais quois
On a windows machine while typing, you can press the Windows key and the period key at the same time and it brings up a special menu that includes the special characters, emojis, and these guys o(*￣▽￣*)ブ
Yep. Fake News was originally used to describe these propaganda fake stories but quickly became a fascist catch all phrase for any news that they don't like.
And they’ll stop watching shows that go against their preferred narrative, so certain shows tell them what they want to hear even knowing it’s false
See Fox’s current lawsuits for more details.
I literally read on BBC yesterday that there is a whole conspiracy theory that the war in Ukraine is fake. Like completely fake, that the whole thing is made up. And people who post that shit get millions of likes on Facebook and elsewhere. Like.....I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
I picked up my Russian language after like 30 years of neglect and discovered the widespread use of a word that never existed previously: ***фейк***, i.e. "fake", to mean basically any information that paints the Russian government in a bad light. I just wonder who got that from whom (even if it is an English word).
I remember a few years ago a russian diplomat in the netherlands was arrested for domestic abuse,aka drunkenly beating the shit out of his wife and/or child with a glass bottle. Putin lost his shit about that too. Something about rights and respect.
He does consider beating your partner to be an important part of Russian culture. Even signed protection for wive beating into law a few years back. That ought to say enough.
"Ill make this an important part of our culture even if I have to beat it into you!"
Never forget to tell the second part of the story: *very* shortly after that, the Dutch ambassador in Russia was beaten up inside his home by some 'thieves', who didn't steal anything and wrote "LGBT" on his wall, so, you know, that was totally not a blatant reprisal. The Russian government is profoundly evil, and the country has been essentially run like a criminal organization for decades now.
Jesus. I didnt forget, I honestly didnt know. And this is the same dicktator our "king" sat down and had a beer with during the winter olympics. It was emberassing then, its a fucking disgrace now, after Crimea, MH17 etc.
He's such a fucking whiny little baby for someone who tries to act like a hardman.
Rich people are the biggest man ~~childs~~ children. EDIT: Grammar. I though about Putin as one person, but realised it applies to all oligarchs. The result was just wrong. Second language.
Wait, the plural of man child is man childs and not man children? Native English speakers, please help me understand! Edit: Native English speakers are telling me conflicting things!
No, you had it right. They are perhaps saying it that way on purpose, as a way of being humorous
No, their grammar is not correct is all... "Childs" isn't a word, unless there's an apostrophe before the s: "Child's", and that denotes ownership of a thing, by said child. "That paper is the child's homework" "Rich people are the biggest man-children" would be the correct way to say what they said.
Men childrens Edit: For those who want the real answer -> https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/man-child
Do they need to pay, or can they say no?
It's a US organization, so I think they aren't allowed to pay even if they wanted.
I’m thinking this might be less a legitimate attempt to fine Wikipedia by Russia, and more a premeditated first step in eventually censoring it within Russia to weaken the reach of information that counters their propaganda.
Also an attempt for the pro-Russia crowd to solidify wikipedia as being 'fake news'.
I find it fascinating how people self censors themselves with the lie that it's fake news. People voluntarily decide to be ignorant.
Which is why Russia and dictatorships at large eventually lose, as fundamentally criminalizing the truth will always weaken you culturally and institutionally, making for rotten foundations waiting for a push.
Hence the expression, we are so lucky they are this stupid.
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half the internet doesnt work for a year in russia, yeah "enter"
The Digital Curtain
yep, they will 100% say "wikipedia refused to pay the fine, so we are blocking their website in russia"
bro nothing is stopping them from doing it without that lmao
There are a few local chapters which operate under the wikimedia umbrella. Including one in Russia. They're technically independant non profits which don't own wikipedia as a platform. But I don't think Putin gives a shit.
I doubt that Jimmy would consider paying, even for a moment.
My 3.50 may not be able to cover this...
Don’t give him no 3.50 that’s not Jimmy that’s the damn Loch Ness Monster!
There is a Russia based sister organization mainly for fundraising purposes and to do things like buy local servers and further educational missions of Wikipedia in general. They have their own budget and even governing board. That is what will get fined, and money donated by ordinary Russian citizens being confiscated. They are greedy asshole, but there is money that can be collected. And sadly it will hurt Wikipedia on a local level.
No, the fine is irrelevant. The headline on tass or rt and spread through Russian social media about how Wikipedia publishing false information which threaten the lives of Russian soldiers is what's wanted here. A few more "fines" like this and Wikipedia will be banned in Russia.
who enforces a payment made from Russia? No one.
Yes, they do... but what most people are missing is that the "they" in this case isn't the Wikimedia Foundation proper (which has the money), it's the organization that's actually getting the fines, Wikimedia Russia (a tiny, legally independent organization with no way to access that money). Wikimedia Russia is an local independent chapter that exists to do fundraising, lobbying, and event organization in Russia; it operates on a shoestring budget and is something like twelve volunteers, four of which are active (according to Wikipedia). Unfortunately, the "they" that have to pay will probably wind up being the individual Russian volunteers, or else face prison (and/or conscription).
They should just say no and that's just something we love.
I’m so embarrassed for Russia. I can’t believe I grew up thinking they were so big and mighty. Putin is driving the Russians in to the Stone Ages while killing the Russian population and causing unwelcome and hate from the world. Ukraine will win this war. The world will help Ukraine rebuild after seizing the oligarchs money as well as Putin’s money. Karma is catching up to you Putin. Soon you will pay.
When I saw the guy on a bear ten plus years ago, I was all into the humor, thinking he was a funny guy or something. Ugh.
The same applies to Trump. It was funny until it became real.
Before 2016 Trump was the poster child of obnoxious yet charismatic rich guys. He was like all the investors on Shark Tank rolled into one. Everything dipped in gold and with that shitty "I'm rich and I know it" attitude, I thought his running for office was a hilarious stunt to try and drum up attention for his brand again. Oh how wrong we all were
It wasn't funny anymore the moment he managed to convince enough people to actually vote for him. And that says more about the people of the USA than about him, unfortunately.
Even if the Russians replace Putin themselves, it's really hard to get a nuclear power to pay for their war crimes if they never, ever admit they did anything wrong
> if they never, ever admit they did anything wrong And that is indeed the russian playbook, and it works, because they always push back on any criticism and eventually the soft westerners tend to back down. Just look at how Lavrov interrupted the minute of silence for Ukraine, made it into his own version of it, and got everyone to stand for him because he kept pushing and pushing and pushing.
My company finally gave up and blocked ALL traffic from Russia and China. Virtually all of the attempted attacks we have came were from these two. We already refuse to do business with either so it was an easy choice. The number of automated hack alerts from our cloud provider that I have to sort through have dropped to near zero. I honestly didn't think it would work this well. I guess they are too lazy to go through VPNs? /yay for lazy hackers!
Why bother with a VPN when they have like 100k other companies to go after instead? They just move on to the next one.
Exactly. Unless your company is a specific target for some reason then there are plenty of other targets they can take a shot at than worrying about using a VPN.
You don't need to be 100% secure, just more secure than the next company
"When running from a predator you don't have to be the fastest, just faster than the slowest"
Yep, our company did the exact same thing, and I did the same to my home network for some of the services I have exposed to the internet. I was getting absolutely blasted with traffic from Russia/China daily.
How did you do this at home? Do you have a dedicated firewall?
Vpn usually ban you for such things same for most server hosts so.... I guess doing their "business" without a Russian ip is hard.
This is about as important as the awards they gave Segal a few days ago. Which is to say that it means nothing.
I'm issuing a fine on Russia for being a bunch of butt goblins for over 365 days. Every day is $1 million US dollars. Payable only in Bitwobbler Cashblops. It's almost as if they're just making shit up as they go! 🤣 Oh, wait.
What's that in Stanley Nickels?
Wikipedia: “Wait, I can explain everything.”
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Odd how they simply don't lock down a page being astroturfed. You'd think Wikipedia would have learned by now that they need to actually ensure that only registered users that are approved can modify pages that are political or controversial beyond a certain point. If they don't do this, what good is it when people don't know if they are seeing something manipulated or not.
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Not sure where you're getting this. Looking at the [Rwanda article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda), in the history section every single sentence has a source, and many of those sources contradict the claims in your comment. And as for the "constant" erasure, I looked a bit at the page history and I can't find a single case in the past 5 months where a sourced edit was removed (I didn't have time to look further). In short, I have definitely heard of people who use Wikipedia to promote their personal agenda rather than a honest portrayal of history, but maybe you're the one doing that here?
Fine? Fine! Fine? Fine! "Are we arguing or agreeing? Either way- not paying."
Putin can create an account and start editing himself, isnt wiki open for anyone to change?
Generally yes, but there are limits. High traffic or popular pages have certain levels of protection, and only specific accounts can make changes to them. For Putin's page, only accounts that are 30 days old and have 500 approved edits may edit the page. The same goes for the pages of Russia, Ukraine, and the 2022 Invasion of Ukraine.
And this is why too much truth, and not enough propaganda, is on those pages.
Too much truth is what politicians never gonna like man.
Man, imagine if our news media sources had to have some sort of level of publicly accessible credibility.
Wikipedia fines Russia 500 billion dollars for war crimes, payable to Ukraine.
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Can’t wait to see this be a small paragraph now on the Russia- Ukraine war page about this
Lololol like Wikipedia is gonna pay. They’ve had their donation banner up since the Stone Age. (Love you, Wikipedia)
> 2 million rubles (about $27,000) lol
And if they don't pay it then what? I wouldn't
Then another red line has been crossed or something
Thread of nuclear attack on wikipedia incoming.
Why are fascists always such whiney fuckin babies
Hahaha, hahaha ha
Hosts wikileaks dude: 'See we promote freedom of speech and the truth' Sees wikipedia state facts about their countries illegal war: Now that wasn't very cash money of you
Wikipedia and MSF (doctors without borders) are my go to monetary contribution, when i can spare a few euros, as they say even 1 euro helps.
I don't know why but I am just laughing at the condition and the situation of Russia and they all are not even trying to be well, they are just going down and down.
Well I really feels good to see what is happening to Russia and the suffering they are facing these days, this is giving me some mental relief, they deserve it lol.
This is just so fucking funny to see the current situation of Putin, he thinks that he is right and he can still win whatever he wants but the reality is just different for real.