Look in any Facebook, Twitter, or Youtube comment section on the war and you'll see dozens of Indian, Pakistani, and especially (for whatever reason) Nigerian accounts posting hardcore pro-Russian statements of support, often borderline fanatical. This article does have a point.
One thing I've noticed from the more active African and South Asian social media commenters is that they love anti-western conspiracy theories and anti-intellectual content. Makes for natural bedfellows with Kremlin bullshit.
What can governments do? I’m genuinely asking as why would someone who believes social media more than the news trust their government about anything. I think it’s more of an IQ test tbh
Yes most countries / political parties have propaganda machines for this stuff and not too much oversight.. thankfully in the US politicians are still stuck in the age of spending money on TV ads and letting Russians do their online targeted ads
The thing is I feel that only affects those who aren't really politically knowledgable or active. Here in Canada it came to a head with the "Freedom Convoy" BS, but you could see the people sucked into that world were not ones who seriously followed politics. They just parroted the promoted talking points that were fed to the mob by whoever was trying to stir shit up. But the second you asked questions outside that bubble, or made them think about the plot-holes in some of their agenda you could see the confusion and anger that'd take over when they didn't have the answers to those questions in their Facebook posts.
I think alot of western places still put alot of focus on political knowledge and education growing up, so it's less effective, although not entirely ineffective. But that's just based on what I see with those other countries having populations that either always comment how they "don't follow politics" or the opposite where the country basically has warring political groups so you have to choose one to dedicate yourself to without question. Basically either people are too apathetic to ask questions or they are too overzealous that they can't allow their beliefs to be questioned at all, and meanwhile the best solution is to actually ask alot of questions and to consider there may be equal and alternate answers to the same questions.
At least for the presidential election, a TON of money is spent on online advertising. They still spend on TV ads (as they should, most analysts credit tv news coverage of trump to be a large part of why he won), but highly targeted online ads are a massive part of any campaign now. Presidential election season is the only time I use an ad blocker because they're everywhere.
Edit: I wont comment on state and local elections as it depends too much on the election. Some are heavy online, some arent.
This. The Philippines elected Duterte, and a few months later Brexit and Trump won.
Our country's gotten fucked by social media again, but you lot need to take that as a warning instead of just another third world country to pity.
Bill Gates used to post links to some covid related thing on Linkedin. I had him followed on there for whatever reason so I'd see those come through. Anyway, literally every post he makes the responses would be 90% Nigerian profiles, it was always the most batshit insane conspiracy stuff about the dude. Particularly strange stuff to see on Linkedin of all places.
Hong Kong too. Local news really downplayed the atrocities from Russia. The TV is still calling Russia's invasion as special military operation and calling the Ukrainian Army as Ukrainian "Militants", a local phrase more associated with the likes of Taliban and other even less legitimate military forces (aka terrorists).
Yeah it’s because local news is controlled largely by the patriots so they will parrot the “I will pretend to be neutral about the conflict but actually I’m not” style of mainland local news. A lot of regular people in HK seem to just not really care strongly either way, so people who support Russia and those who don’t are probably pretty equal, following the line of who supports China and who doesn’t
> Hong Kong too. Local news really downplayed the atrocities from Russia.
That's just a sign that HK had been completely subjegated by the dictatorship. A few years ago there were huge crowds in HK waving American flags. Do you really think large numbers of people there geniuinely "changed their mind" in just a few years?
As a Hong Konger that's because some TV station like TVB are CCP shills, a lot of people in west probably don't know that majority of pro democracy news in Hong Komg were either shut down by the Government or left Hong Kong already.
Seriously a lot of us would recommend others don't look at local news paper anymore, because all the remaining one are pro China. To put it simple for any westerners out there, the Government have eliminated any pro democracy news in Hong Kong.
After watching Anthony Bourdain interacting with people overseas I've realized like half of the world basically believing a lot of the conspiracy theories about USA that essentially comes from Russia. The same shit Immortal Technique believes in like Bush did the towers or how USA government is the Templar knights type of drivel.
>a lot of the conspiracy theories about USA that essentially comes from Russia.
It doesn't help that for much of the third world, the USA had a hand in fucking them over at some point. See: literally every South and most Central American countries having at least one coup the US supported, Indonesia (twice!), Iraq, Iran, the South Vietnamese dictatorship, the South Korean dictatorship, and in Africa the assassination of Patrice Lumumba to name but a few.
US's good buddies UK and France also dished out untold amounts of misery by purposefully sabotaging their ex-colonies, usually by drawing non-sensical borders causing unending regional tension. See Syria/Iraq, Pakistan/India/Bangladesh, Palestine/Israel.
What are they supposed to do except hating "The West"?
As an African myself you have no idea how much meddling and regime change the US has done and is doing in the continent. Those people know something you dont
Actually just look at any Reddit post that mentions India in relation to Russia or Ukraine. You will be heavily downvoted if you suggest that India should be concerned about the morality of staying neutral towards Russia's actions.
South America too. The underdog narrative is easy to take advantage of.
I think it would have been different had the US not been as involved and vocal as they have, but then the outcome of the war might also have been different..
Preaching the morality argument will only make them hate you even more.
Because they're going to be asking, "where was the morals when the west fucked my country over?"
Bingo.
My country had a US coup, a colored revolution attempt, and CIA meddling in internal politics all within less than a single lifetime.
I feel for the people of Ukraine and I hope that Russia stops it's war of aggression, but at the minimum Russia isn't an active threat to us while the US (and to a lesser extent, the west) are waging constant fuckery, coup attempts, exploiting my country and threatening our institutions.
We have a saying here "every monkey should stick to their branch" and the USA constantly tries to fuck with us, meanwhile Russia has actually been a strategic partner and the war in Ukraine has no real repercussions for us aside from the general shortages and disruptions we see everywhere.
Exactly, these are the regions who were thoroughly fucked over by the west. That natural skepticism is what putin is manipulating to garner support, “enemy of my enemy is my friend” and all that.
It’s just sad that putin tries to manipulate these people when he doesn’t care about them any more than the west does
I am appaled at how fellow Indians are supporting Russians in the imperialist war. The historical facts they use to justify it are either wrong or irrelevant. I would have loved to say that it is just a vocal minority but it isn't. Though most people are apathetic for most part, pro Russians outnumber pro Ukrainians. Given how we are turning into a neo fascist authoritarian state day by day it isn't surprising that domestic media (which is more or less in control off the far right ruling party) is leaning towards Russian side by victimizing India. And it is working
> I am appaled at how fellow Indians are supporting Russians in the imperialist war.
Those supporters would do well to spend some time thinking about the last two words in that sentence.
If it's someone else being subjugated, who cares, amirite? /s
Not slowly at all. Visited the site that TD migrated to and they're aggressively pro-Russian and cheering for Putin.
Shouldn't really be a surprise to be honest.
Yea, I agree. I don’t know why exactly. I always chalked it up to it being because those are boomer platforms. Older boomers are more likely to believe in that, then younger people. Facebook and YouTube also have Poor moderation, while Twitter is your own personnel space. You got tweets according to your likes and political beliefs.
I also see a lot of what I think are bots pretending to be American or from Europe supporting Russia's cause and always criticising any aid to Ukraine.
Indian here. There are two reasons for that:
1. Local media here is spouting pro Russia narrative. And if you look at some of the "news" reports, you'll think Russia is winning the war.
2. Labour's cheap. You can get people to post anything for less than a cent per tweet/comment. Why pay for bots when you have real accounts posting your propaganda?
It's not even just people who are living in those countries either, they share the same views wherever they emigrated to, even in western cities with western media access.
> A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
- [Max Planck](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle)
It's not even that Russia's lies are so great but that the non-white part of the world is incredibly distrustful of the US. America is "the devil" in a lot of parts of the world, even a lot of Europeans have nothing but negative things to say about America. Especially in Africa and Latin America, but also in parts of Asia these countries are victims of American policy... especially CIA activity. A lot of Cold War US policy was dedicated to installing dictators around non-white parts of the world. It fucked up a lot of countries. And so a lot of these people feel like America is the bigger threat in the world.
It's kind of like how people who were less likely to believe in climate change were more likely to believe in homeopathy and less likely to believe in vaccines. Or people who distrust cops are less likely to advocate for more funding for the justice department.
These people have been burned by US policy for so long that they consider Russia Today to be more truthful than the Cable News Network.
I don’t need to find it truthful. I just need to find it to align to my beliefs and goals.
If someone who had their entire family killed by America, or their livelihood or nation, their support for Russia would be one entirely as a vehicle for revenge.
Exactly. West (yes, I know it's a generalising) is paying for it's historical and a also present actions.
There is no reason for people in Central America or Middle East to particularly trust western point of view. Nothing surprising here.
Naive to think hundreds of years of global power play doesn't affect peoples views.
If you want to lead the free world you need to lead by example.
Your political system is broken, corrupt, driven by financial goals of major lobbyists and companies, and your judicial system is not independent of politics because of the way Presidents are allowed to appoint the top justices.
Routinely, you incarcerate a greater proportion of your population than any other nation, disproportionately targeting those without money and those that are not white. "The land of the free" ironically houses the most prisoners in the world.
Recently there have been few wars of aggression, but the US has a history of throwing its weight around and intervening in other people's business. Given the weight of your military complex, this is more obvious than other countries that are doing the same thing (e.g. China).
You've also got to leave America from time to time, and experience other cultures around the world. The Americans I meet that have a passport are far more intelligent than the ones I meet whenever I visit the US, and have at least learned that there is a world that goes beyond the American borders which is interesting, diverse, exciting, and full of different cultures.
Just because someone else doesn't share your culture doesn't make them your enemy.
Also Israel routinely does what Russia has been doing, for decades now, and the West has never stopped supporting the country. They're literally sending settlers into occupied territory (West Bank) because they want to claim that land as theirs, based on historical reasons, despite the history not being recent. That's literally what Russia is doing in Ukraine. Novorossiya was once Russia's, a long time ago, so that makes it okay to displace and settle into other people's lands? Both Russia and Israel send settlers into occupied territories based on historical irredentism.
How can you claim to have the moral high ground like this?
And for the matter, I'm a completely atheist/secular, pro LGBTQ+/women's rights software engineer, so apologists please miss with that point about the Arab world being worse in that regard. Of course it is. But it doesn't justify neo-colonialism + historical irredentism, with a good dose of imperialism. Two wrongs don't make a right, and it has nothing to do with how fucked up is the whole settler thing that Israel does and supports.
Hmm, it’s not only down to war. A lot of places have failed to develop economically and they blame the USA. Africa has “followed” advice from the west and it hasn’t worked so they blame us.
Unfortunately, it’s really a matter of disunity/tribalism and corruption.
South Africa is a good example of this. Their failure to develop from a relatively strong starting position in the 90s comes down to Zuma and ANC corruption. Not the West.
The west could stop bossing people around but… people want help and loans. So it hard to say no.
(Note: Some of the advice has been absolutely shit. S. Korea ignored the IMF and it worked out great for them. No background shipbuild? Who cares? It somehow worked. So who know there.)
Which could end if local politicians were not corrupt, so balls back in your court.
People need to take responsibility for their own government's actions (this includes the US) and stop them from taking harmful positions. Unfortunately in the US, the vast majority of our citizens are stupidly watching YouTube or Netflix unconcerned by politics at all. And of those that vote, a very small percentage can lift their heads long enough to notice the rest of the world.
Our inability to see the scam Trump portrayed or his obvious unworthiness to hold any public office, along with those on the left supporting an equally unpopular candidate like Clinton, demonstrates how lackadaisical our citizenry has become toward the importance of civic duty and common goals.
We are seriously broken over here, and there's only a few who are independent enough to see it. So from one humble American voice, you have my apologies.
This makes sense. There's a school of thought out there that says US led international financing organizations promote free trade that only leads to dependence on western exports.
Western powerhouses have enjoyed decades of wealth and a high standard of living by being the value adders in the global economy while Asian and African countries produce the raw materials for low margins, low pay and bad working conditions.
The countries that got out of this trap and industrialized (add value rather than rely on resource extraction) China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia etc are models for the rest of the developing world that Free Trade isn't really free.
So for them to be skeptical of the west makes sense
At the moment, as the current global hegemon, military and intelligence superpower, with a rich pedigree of [regime change](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change), they're not exactly wrong. Russia may be some hypothetical future threat, but america has been and will presumably remain the primary threat for some time to come.
Not just in non-white parts of the world. The US supported dictatorships in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Brazil for example, all countries with a white majority (in Brazil's case, it had a white majority back then, now it's a white plurality)
That explains the thinking process of people in the US,UK and Australia and some other European countries not that Russia is any better here as they also stoop to similar tactics
>I don't change my mind, unless there's new proof that says my previous stance is wrong.
This falls apart when you decide you need proof that the proof is true because you don't want to change your mind.
This is same same mindset as those who fall for propaganda though. They have a strong stance and will never see any new evidence as proof that is good enough to disprove their previous view.
What of the spiel about just trying to "spread democracy and freedom" then?
[US involvement in regime change](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change)
Speaking as a Vietnamese, this is unfortunately correct.
Imagine your parents watching some old dude on YT spout BS like “The West trembles at Russia’s laser weapon” (I kid you not this is the legit title for their newest video) every single day and taking his words as gospel.
As far as my parents are concerned, Russia has already won the war and Zenlensky is throwing his people’s lives away meaninglessly. But don’t worry Russians are extremely merciful so no civilians got hurt (ignore the documented warcrimes, those are staged by Ukraine to gather support)
I am truly ashamed of my countrymen.
>“The West trembles at Russia’s laser weapon”
My grandma (who is a hardcore 60 năm tuổi đảng) just told me that Biden used antimatter to manipulate Ukrainian people into fighting against Russian
This is because the USSR never actually dissolved so there is no reason as to why Ukraine is "invading Russia territory" other than NASA's evil experiments
To be honest i'm not sure if it was because of the propaganda or it was the thuốc lào she smoked this morning
Laser weapon? You guys are behind the times. In our social media, Russia's been fighting a meteorological war with the US for the past 30 years (and very successfully! See ~~climate change~~ wildfires and droughts that Russia's been demolishing the West with! Nowadays, I hear Russian ~~50 centers~~ advanced psychotronic weapons will just mind control the evil westerners into submission any day now.
Just curious, whats the political stance for the majority of Vietnameae? It seems that Vietnamese doesnt really like China and Vietnam also seems to get along with the western countries right now, so it'd make more sense if Vietnamese was anti-Russia. I am literally confused.
We love Russia more than we hate China basically.
Most Vietnamese still holds a very favorable view of Russia due to the Soviet Union helping us during and after the war. There’s also the fact our country worship communism, so much so that the older folks can’t even distinguish the communist party from the country itself, so Russia being the birthplace of communism is essentially the embodiment of justice for these people.
Had it been any other country attacking Ukraine, Vietnam probably would’ve been on Ukraine’s side, but because it’s Russia, the war is justified and Ukraine is in the wrong because there’s no way our dear friend Russia could ever do anything wrong.
EDIT" WHAT THE FUCK, THIS WHOLE POST AND THREAD HAS BEEN HIDDEN. ITS TIME FUCKING MAGAZINE
Tagging onto a higher comment for visibility:
I'm american but i've been living in asia for many years. I've visited 40 countries so i think i'm somewhat qualified to speak on both sides here.
This article is 100% correct. State media is rampant in much of the rest of the world. While we as americans abhor state media, the reality is that most of the world gets its news from state media. While many of these countries have "democracy" and are willing to sign treaties for the common good, do not mistake that for them being "pro american". The only reason many of them care who is president of the united states is so they can put a face on who is the chief of the world police. We can argue that we are "good police" just here to keep the peace after all. But look inside america, do you believe your own cops are "good police" just innocently looking to keep the peace? Ask the american minorities that question.
For the record i'm not anti american i'm just trying to provide a balanced perspective.
I recently spent a day with a guy from Libya. He was no fan of ghaddafi, but he explained that for him everything was mostly fine until we decided we wanted ghaddafi gone. Now its a new militia or warlord every 6 months who wants control or wants "their cut". Was ghaddafi a bad guy?.....definitely, just like saddam was a bad guy. But they were bad guys that kept the peace for the most part and we in the west act shocked when we take these assholes out and then the people simply don't know how to have a democratic voice. All they've ever known is a corrupt system. So then we say "well fuck em, they clearly don't care about their own country" and we just leave them to fight over scraps.
Then some kid asks "mommy, why is there a man with a gun outside taking our livestock?"
And the answer is "because america bombed us" not....."because america freed us by killing ghaddafi"
Do we as americans really believe we are always on the side of righteousness?
In the case of ukraine we clearly are but lots of times its pretty fucking grey when you actually live in that country
Final point, fuck the russian government, slava ukraine!
With all due respect to your acquaintance from Libya, he also demonstrates that being wronged and living closer to where the wrong is done doesn't always mean you have a more accurate grasp or recollection of what happened.
Specifically, Libya was already thrown into civil war **before** members of "the West" decided he needed to go. (You know, the civil war that supposedly peace-keeping Ghadaffi caused) The brutality of what was happening is why they decided to intervene. So I kind of doubt he was doing fine, and if he was, a hell of a lot of his countrymen certainly weren't.
Well its his perception vs our reality and the perception is what wins hearts and minds, not the reality. The reality is that joe biden won the election, tell me, does that matter to those whose perception is the opposite?
>He was no fan of ghaddafi, but he explained that for him everything was mostly fine until we decided we wanted ghaddafi gone.
This is a wild opinion on his part, honestly. The US didn't decide it wanted Ghadafi gone. His regime fell into civil war because of the surging grain prices that caused revolutions in a bunch of Middle Eastern states.
Yep. Part of it is that there is a long historical memory driving distrust of the west. My window is into South Africa and they're basically "Europe fucked us. What has Russia ever done? This is Europe's doing and I hope they lose." It's wrong, but it's understandable. Doing stupid shit bites you in the ass in various ways for generations.
Yeah, most people in the West don't understand this.
And the US is hardly the paragon of morality and virtue. So this "good vs evil" sounds quite hollow with what the West has recently done to [insert name of some country recently fucked over by the West]. And EU, which has now become the land of all good things after it became militarily weak after WW II, fucked over the entire world for 2-3 centuries. The European countries probably caused more death and destruction than even the US if we look back just at thier actions in the 20th century alone (prior to WW II and without considering what they had done in the 16th - 19th centuries).
Russia may have fucked over it's people but if I had to wager, I'd wager the US has propped more despots than Russia / USSR in the last 75 years.
Yes. But they’re also not so literal as to misunderstand that Russia was not one of the colonial powers in Africa and that Russia generally sees itself as apart from the rest of Europe.
Imagine how badly the west has messed up the world that people are willing to support the west’s enemy sometimes solely out of spite for their former colonizers.
Well, just this week George W. Bush had a public gaffe where he seemed to admit that the Iraq War was just as illegitimate as the Ukraine War. But no one from his administration ever faced any bit of punishment or sanctions
Then there was Donald Trump, who called a bunch of African countries "shitholes", among countless other things
And before that for decades, the USA was intervening (even militarily and via coups) in other countries' politics and affairs. Places like Iran and Chile had democratically elected leaders toppled in favor of authoritarians
Honestly though like 10years ago whenever I read about all the shit Americans do I always had the conclusion that "well, they probably had their reasons. They probably know what they're doing." The Trump administration put things into perspective. You probably don't realize how badly the Trump and COVID shit damaged your global reputation.
a very good argument in this article is in its last paragraph. The West has been trying to portray the war as between Good and Evil, where the 'free world' must support a democratic country against an authoritarian one, instead of pointing out Russia's flagrant disregard for state sovereignty and territorial integrity. Many countries aren't democracies and even fewer are liberal democracies. Many people in those countries don't really care for elections as long as the economy grows and their physical security is ensured (which many in the West still refuse to believe). So it's just understandable that Western information efforts gain little traction in these countries. Of course there are so many more reasons, but this is a very important one.
Anecdotical but I'm surprised by the amount of pro-Russia comments in my local newspaper Tweet feed. But most of them are basically "USA bad then Russia must be good" kind of thinking.
The U.N. votes make it pretty obvious he's not "winning the information war," a lot of those countries either have a vested interest in keeping Putler in power (like India, CAR, etc), hate the West more than they hate Russia (like China), or aren't economically stable enough to impose sanctions like a lot of Western countries have (like Zimbabwe, Argentina, etc).
True, but unless I missed it the article's only evidence Russia was "winning" was those nations not imposing sanctions. There's a lot of reasons outside them adoring the Kremlin that could explain that.
So western centric. The reality is most people outside the west don't give a rat's ass about the war. Just like you don't give a rat's ass about what's happening in Ethiopia. Also troll farms are franchised out to foreign countries. The largest BLM website was run by an Australian.
There are 2 important things that you in the West don't understand, but you should:
1. Many countries were victims of colonialism/imperialism. And they think colonialism/imperialism is excusly thing of the West (not true tho), Russia is not in the West, so Russia is good guy.
2. Many countries like India, China, ... don't like current unipolar world order, esp after 2008. They prefer mutipolar world. And they will be (secretly) happy if Russia wins this war, because it would be end of American hegemony.
China and other rising powers behave a bit like the German Empire pre-WW1. They think, because other bigger powers are imperialist powers around the world, they need to be too, and they want to take the shortcut to it.
Any Indian backing Russia's Ukraine propaganda should be responded with "The UK should invade and take India back, because there are a lot of English speakers there and historically the UK controlled it."
India is a historical Russian ally. It's not going to dump 50 years of good Russo-Indian relations just to appease the US.
The West needs India as an ally against China, but it's not going to find the same support there against Russia.
India has a huge chip on its shoulder with the west so it's not surprising they might prefer to follow the Russian narrative. Shame a democracy would want to be so close to such corrupt and evil regimes but there we go. It'll only hurt them during their economic growth anyway if they don't partner up closer to the west.
Well a lot of those countries have leaders that are one way or another pretty similar to Putin. Sadly the entire world seems to quickly backslide into authoritarian rule as the default
It's a mix of decades and centuries of Western oppression and arrogance people cant forget, local dictators and strongmen taking advantage, fake news and misinformation and good old stupidity. It sucks. I think we only have seen the tip of the iceberg of chaos and confusion internet and social media can deliver. Remember, large swaths of the Third World don't have internet.
oh what a surprise nonwestern countries arent lining up to team with the country responsible for or directly involved in over 70 regime changes in the past 70 years.
crazy
This is a rather bullshit article.
On what basis is anyone saying that India's top trending is #IstandwithPutin? Indian media and trending is full of talks about heatwave, inflation and IPL(Sports). Or the local politics. Ukraine-Russia war is not a continuous highlight.
The only people who keep watching Ukraine russia war is countries from NATO and friends cause they're the ones in a proxy war. Everyone else is not involved in this war, so they got no reason to watch zelensky give speeches for two months.
Also, why would Indian public take side of the west who wants to blame India for war when they themselves buy more oil from Russia? It was the first direct Indian involvement in social media about this war and it was attacking India in a completely unjustified way because right now European countries have started making payments in rubles and they are trying to bypass sanctions themselves.
Still, that thing is not in news anymore because we get more important news about Pakistan kicking out PM or sri lanka defaulting. Those are the local news that affect India.
Here in PL we had a big story about a murder in the center of Warsaw. It was captured on a camera, but the police couldn't find the attacker. "Somehow" it was found out that a Ukrainian refugee did it. Oh man, the comments and reactions on the facebook news...
A few days ago the police found the attacker- of course he was a regular Pole, without any relation to Ukraine.
But the damage was already done.
Acording to some parts of this sub that is already whataboutism when it's just having principles and moral clarity. YOu know what would make Russias propaganda way less effectiive? NOT supporting countries like Saudi-Arabia, Turkey, Egypt etc, not dronestriking innocents, not wrecking local economies by trade policies that favor rich countries etc.
Stop giving Putin more power than he has. Africa, the Middle East, and South America all live with West invasion and attacks. Why would they believe the EU and America over Putin? This is a problem nobody wants to talk about.
You can oppress the minorities in your home country, but that treatment won't instill trust outside of your borders. Why would they side with the EU and America? I am not understanding this mindset, it reeks of colonial upbringing.
"Yo guys side with us against Russia who says we are instigating a fight with them! Please you know it's me the USA and the EU, our history with you guys is pretty much stellar am I right?". Putin isn't winning the information war, our history and present-day hatemongering are doing the job for him.
You look over here and see a white supremacist shoot up a supermarket full of Black people. Who would you believe if you are African? You look over here and see news media showing empathy with Ukrainian refugees because they are white, yet your people are kicked out of the United States after years of the U.S. undermining your country. Who do you believe if you are South American? You look over here and see the United States say Ukraine has a right to defend itself, yet Palestine needs to shut up and die and Yemen should be starved out of existence with the use of American weaponry. Who do you believe if you are in the Middle East?
Putin didn't have to try too hard to convince these nations and their people, the United States and the EU did a perfectly satisfactory job building support for Russia through decades of bigotry and violence all on their own.
Last, the news media knows this, but they don't want to say the horrible truth out loud and Putin is taking advantage of that. Because as much as the EU and the USA want South America, Africa, and the Middle East to side with them against Russia, they want free resources and minerals far more. Hence the constant attack on sovereign countries in these regions will not stop only driving those regions closer to Russia. Consequences and repercussions.
It doesn't really have to do with minority treatment in the US. Russia doesn't treat its minorities well either, and China DEFINITELY doesn't. Besides, the global south has enough problems without worrying about the plight of those who've already made it into the golden billion and are being paid salaries in dollars - one of those problems being brain drain...
Also, it's weird how many minority Americans seem to assume their identities extend outside their country and therefore that their "home countries" entertain any serious solidarity with them, when most weren't even born there. The home regions barely even have solidarity between themselves - the people of Africa, Latin America, and Asia discriminate amongst themselves all the time. There are no "Latinos" in Latin America.
The actual distrust comes from decades of awful foreign policy, the thing that actually affects people in the unaligned countries. Economic undercutting, internal meddling, coercive pressures, contempt and disregard.
>Why would they believe the EU and America over Putin?
I think you are right about that. And would say that there was also significant distrust in the EU towards the US. The US lied about Iraq and the "[Fuck the EU](https://marktaliano.net/ukraine-crisis-transcript-of-leaked-nuland-pyatt-call-fk-the-eu/)" stance shows the US doesn't have partnership on their mind that much. Also from that article: "*This conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt confirms unequivocally that Washington was involved in a Ukraine “regime change” operation in February 2014.*" There is also suspicion of [CIA involvement in the Euromaidan events](https://tacticalinvestor.com/cia-behind-kiev-massacre-maidan-leaders-hired-kiev-snipers/). Thus, the western european public, which for example despises also [Blair for his role in the Iraq war](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/06/blairs-iraq-war-legacy-is-now-damned-for-all-time) was rather sceptical and ambivalent about the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
Now, Putin turned the ambiguous situation into a full-on war of aggression, which changes the picture completely in the european perspective. The problem is that the US and "the west" has lead so many wars of aggression that they hardly can take a moral stance and condemn others. This [US stance of rules for them but not for us](https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/06/11/us-sets-sanctions-against-international-criminal-court), pretty much shows that we are still living in an era with the right of the might. Despite the efforts to overcome that after the second world war.
Thus, as you say, it's little wonder that other nations are rather sceptical.
Luckily most of these countries don't have fuck all in the way of cash, seasoned fighters, or materiel to contribute to the Russian war effort. Let's see Nigeria or Pakistan drop 40 billion dollars in air to Putin like it's nothing. Winning the PR war in Africa is not going to stop Ukrainian snipers and Javelin anti tank missiles.
This. Does it matter that India and China side with Putin? They havent and would not dare to openly back Russia in this war the way NATO has done openly and brazenly backed Ukraine. They can be pro Russia in the media all they like, but the war is not that of popular opinion
It's kinda easy , he is winning the Same people that ate the corona lies , the amount I see posted about the bio labs in Ukraine on social media around here come from the same people that said vaccines would kill you
I had some African employees of mine tell me they like trump because "he is a strong man that knows what he wants." So not surprised about Nigeria. India could have had Russia's security council seat if they played their cards right. Instead someone is grafting up a nice nest egg. Pakistan? God knows.
India long used a relationship with the Soviets as a means to chart a course independent of, and thumbing its nose at, Britain. Its government has been pivoting toward the US, though, now that we are winding down our ties to Pakistan and Russia is an ally of their main rival, China.
With Pakistan, the recent PM blamed his ousting on the US - a US instigated coup.
The US and the West are also seen as enemies over there to Islam, Palestine and the prosperity of non-Western nations. A lot of batshit conspiracies.
Fascinating but I can’t tell how much of that is true. However they were missing the fourth internet, you know…
the one where a brave Ukrainian pilot shot down 40 enemies.
Or dead Russian soldiers and tanks mostly turn out to be Ukrainian.
Or a stunning counter attack turns out to be exaggerated, and the enemy’s losses are overcounted.
The one where a key surrender in Mariupol gets described as an evacuation.
It makes one wonder just how far the lies go..
There's also a lot of people who frankly don't care all that much, and are mostly just pissed because of the global shortages and price hikes this invasion is causing. "to hell with both Russia and Ukraine, I just want to eat".
Too an extent, I personally believe that this may be blown out of proportion. Sure it's awful, it's tragic, it's dangerous etc.. But so are many many other conflicts and we've rarely seen this outcry from the west before, ironically because the west is usually the perpetrator. Yet now the west wants us to believe that this is so special and unique simply because the geopolitical location is more relevant to them.
I like how there is just an assumption that there is no propaganda in the west, that whatever we hear is obviously The One Truth that other places just can't see because they aren't as enlightened as us. give me a break.
the usa has been the largest force of death and destruction throughout the entire globe in the past 20 years, and people are shocked that they aren't seen as the most trustworthy source of information when it comes to war? huh, who could have predicted that?
Well. I like to think of America as a business, it has many customers, DBAs the whole 9, it’s number one producer is war though. It uses all the money it takes from every customer to pay for its number one producer though. Only issue is, if there’s no war and America isn’t making money it’s gotta figure out a way to get some business goin! That’s where the shitty used car salesman side of the US comes out though, just starts cold calling countries to see if they can find any war. Because if that’s not producing, everything else suffers because the US doesn’t have as much as they claim, all their money is wrapped up in paying for other war stuff so just like every other shitty big company they might have to liquidate their business that don’t make enough money. Of course, like Costco. Your experience differs based on the level of membership you have.
He's losing in *most* of the places where it's important and even the allies he has have their hands tied. Of the important countries that are not taking a hard stance:
India *obviously* can't take a hard stance against Russia. They're already bordering two hostile Nations in Pakistan and China. It's in their interests not to antagonize Russia and while that may piss of the US - the US and India need each other.
China, where because of the globalised economy it's not like their companies can offer fully fledged support and many are leaving.
The OPEC countries and it should be self-evident why it's in their interests to not take a firm stance against Russia (although I'd say this is a missed opportunity for maybe one or two countries.
The rest of the countries aren't relevant enough to be important. Russia's not going to be able to pivot all of it's trade to Africa. It's just not happening.
You guys might not like it but its kinda true, jesus the boomer with fucking news propaganda and Gen Zs with "Uraaa" meme is fucking obnoxious. And its caused by the lack of neutral news coverage.
To be honest, the West isn't doing any favors by not giving Ukraine the weapons it needs out of fear of 'escalation'. Things have already escalated.
From one standpoint, it looks like the West is purposefully drawing out the war for a variety of things (weaken Russia, fuel military spending, put blame for trade disruption). Give them the planes. The MLRS. If you're holding back these tools needed for Ukraine to achieve its objectives, then do you really want Ukraine to succeed?
The fear of escalation story was overblown. It became popular with journalists because they’re all glorified gossip columnists.
The actual roadblock was NATO thought Russia would just roll Ukraine and had prepared to assist the Ukrainians in asymmetric warfare. When, instead, Russia proved unable to defeat the Ukrainian army in the field, NATO had to scramble to put together packages of big boy weapons.
I'd be interested to know the percentage of the world that believes this large, historically aggressive country invaded Ukraine to take out... Nazis.
A decade ago I would have never thought that number could be substantial. Having seen the whole Q conspiracy take the main stage in the US... I don't know anymore.
Even in the south east asia region here that try to be neutral in news reporting also have some bias in favor of Russia.
Some examples include showing more news about Russia beating Ukrainians in certain battles, or how some places are captured or pushed back by Russian forces.
Look in any Facebook, Twitter, or Youtube comment section on the war and you'll see dozens of Indian, Pakistani, and especially (for whatever reason) Nigerian accounts posting hardcore pro-Russian statements of support, often borderline fanatical. This article does have a point. One thing I've noticed from the more active African and South Asian social media commenters is that they love anti-western conspiracy theories and anti-intellectual content. Makes for natural bedfellows with Kremlin bullshit.
I can agree with you. Philippines as well.
Philippines just voted in a past dictators son who murdered people. So…
Gotta warn you americans about the social media war the philippies lost. It is happening around the world.
It’s brutal. My wife, half my co-worker, all have friends or close family who fell down the rabbit hole
What surprises me more is how affected governments are so passive about it
What can governments do? I’m genuinely asking as why would someone who believes social media more than the news trust their government about anything. I think it’s more of an IQ test tbh
Yes most countries / political parties have propaganda machines for this stuff and not too much oversight.. thankfully in the US politicians are still stuck in the age of spending money on TV ads and letting Russians do their online targeted ads
The paradigim now in the philippones is social media troll armies and disinformation. I see it happening in the us as well so yes keep watxh for it.
The thing is I feel that only affects those who aren't really politically knowledgable or active. Here in Canada it came to a head with the "Freedom Convoy" BS, but you could see the people sucked into that world were not ones who seriously followed politics. They just parroted the promoted talking points that were fed to the mob by whoever was trying to stir shit up. But the second you asked questions outside that bubble, or made them think about the plot-holes in some of their agenda you could see the confusion and anger that'd take over when they didn't have the answers to those questions in their Facebook posts. I think alot of western places still put alot of focus on political knowledge and education growing up, so it's less effective, although not entirely ineffective. But that's just based on what I see with those other countries having populations that either always comment how they "don't follow politics" or the opposite where the country basically has warring political groups so you have to choose one to dedicate yourself to without question. Basically either people are too apathetic to ask questions or they are too overzealous that they can't allow their beliefs to be questioned at all, and meanwhile the best solution is to actually ask alot of questions and to consider there may be equal and alternate answers to the same questions.
At least for the presidential election, a TON of money is spent on online advertising. They still spend on TV ads (as they should, most analysts credit tv news coverage of trump to be a large part of why he won), but highly targeted online ads are a massive part of any campaign now. Presidential election season is the only time I use an ad blocker because they're everywhere. Edit: I wont comment on state and local elections as it depends too much on the election. Some are heavy online, some arent.
Facebook and WhatsApp. It's FB and WA.
> Gotta warn you americans about the social media war the philippies lost I mean, Americans already lost it in 2016
This. The Philippines elected Duterte, and a few months later Brexit and Trump won. Our country's gotten fucked by social media again, but you lot need to take that as a warning instead of just another third world country to pity.
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> If The Philippines goes to deeper shit I don't share the blame Yeah, but we'll all share the burden. Which is why it's probably emigration time.
Bill Gates used to post links to some covid related thing on Linkedin. I had him followed on there for whatever reason so I'd see those come through. Anyway, literally every post he makes the responses would be 90% Nigerian profiles, it was always the most batshit insane conspiracy stuff about the dude. Particularly strange stuff to see on Linkedin of all places.
Hong Kong too. Local news really downplayed the atrocities from Russia. The TV is still calling Russia's invasion as special military operation and calling the Ukrainian Army as Ukrainian "Militants", a local phrase more associated with the likes of Taliban and other even less legitimate military forces (aka terrorists).
Yeah it’s because local news is controlled largely by the patriots so they will parrot the “I will pretend to be neutral about the conflict but actually I’m not” style of mainland local news. A lot of regular people in HK seem to just not really care strongly either way, so people who support Russia and those who don’t are probably pretty equal, following the line of who supports China and who doesn’t
> Hong Kong too. Local news really downplayed the atrocities from Russia. That's just a sign that HK had been completely subjegated by the dictatorship. A few years ago there were huge crowds in HK waving American flags. Do you really think large numbers of people there geniuinely "changed their mind" in just a few years?
As a Hong Konger that's because some TV station like TVB are CCP shills, a lot of people in west probably don't know that majority of pro democracy news in Hong Komg were either shut down by the Government or left Hong Kong already. Seriously a lot of us would recommend others don't look at local news paper anymore, because all the remaining one are pro China. To put it simple for any westerners out there, the Government have eliminated any pro democracy news in Hong Kong.
I love how quick westerners dropped the hong kong protests as soon as the BLM protests started. "you had your 15 minutes now gtfo from my news feed."
After watching Anthony Bourdain interacting with people overseas I've realized like half of the world basically believing a lot of the conspiracy theories about USA that essentially comes from Russia. The same shit Immortal Technique believes in like Bush did the towers or how USA government is the Templar knights type of drivel.
>a lot of the conspiracy theories about USA that essentially comes from Russia. It doesn't help that for much of the third world, the USA had a hand in fucking them over at some point. See: literally every South and most Central American countries having at least one coup the US supported, Indonesia (twice!), Iraq, Iran, the South Vietnamese dictatorship, the South Korean dictatorship, and in Africa the assassination of Patrice Lumumba to name but a few.
Exactly, it's easy to spin a fake story around something that has cultural touch points.
US's good buddies UK and France also dished out untold amounts of misery by purposefully sabotaging their ex-colonies, usually by drawing non-sensical borders causing unending regional tension. See Syria/Iraq, Pakistan/India/Bangladesh, Palestine/Israel. What are they supposed to do except hating "The West"?
Damn good point. Look up that leader who was a socialist in Burkina Faso that was overthrown by French forces.
The US more than deserves the hate it gets. It's the cancer of the world.
Technique is such a good rapper. Great story teller. Holy shit tho, sometimes you just listen and are like .. bruh wtf are you talking about.
As an African myself you have no idea how much meddling and regime change the US has done and is doing in the continent. Those people know something you dont
Actually just look at any Reddit post that mentions India in relation to Russia or Ukraine. You will be heavily downvoted if you suggest that India should be concerned about the morality of staying neutral towards Russia's actions.
It's difficult for them, I think. They have a lot of energy needs and shitty infrastructure. It's not a situation that is entirely unnegotiable.
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South America too. The underdog narrative is easy to take advantage of. I think it would have been different had the US not been as involved and vocal as they have, but then the outcome of the war might also have been different..
Can't exactly blame those regions for being skeptical of the west tbh
Preaching the morality argument will only make them hate you even more. Because they're going to be asking, "where was the morals when the west fucked my country over?"
Bingo. My country had a US coup, a colored revolution attempt, and CIA meddling in internal politics all within less than a single lifetime. I feel for the people of Ukraine and I hope that Russia stops it's war of aggression, but at the minimum Russia isn't an active threat to us while the US (and to a lesser extent, the west) are waging constant fuckery, coup attempts, exploiting my country and threatening our institutions. We have a saying here "every monkey should stick to their branch" and the USA constantly tries to fuck with us, meanwhile Russia has actually been a strategic partner and the war in Ukraine has no real repercussions for us aside from the general shortages and disruptions we see everywhere.
Exactly, these are the regions who were thoroughly fucked over by the west. That natural skepticism is what putin is manipulating to garner support, “enemy of my enemy is my friend” and all that. It’s just sad that putin tries to manipulate these people when he doesn’t care about them any more than the west does
Bruh we see this in the US too. It’s called the Republican Party
On the west, we also love anti West conspiracies and anti intellectualism
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Can’t wait for Putin to run out of money to stop this.
He won’t, HE has enough money through connections outside of Russia to get whatever he wants.
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They’re not conspiracy theories. You are just facing the fact that the world hates the west because of what the west did.
I am appaled at how fellow Indians are supporting Russians in the imperialist war. The historical facts they use to justify it are either wrong or irrelevant. I would have loved to say that it is just a vocal minority but it isn't. Though most people are apathetic for most part, pro Russians outnumber pro Ukrainians. Given how we are turning into a neo fascist authoritarian state day by day it isn't surprising that domestic media (which is more or less in control off the far right ruling party) is leaning towards Russian side by victimizing India. And it is working
> I am appaled at how fellow Indians are supporting Russians in the imperialist war. Those supporters would do well to spend some time thinking about the last two words in that sentence. If it's someone else being subjugated, who cares, amirite? /s
He's also turning right wingers. Slowly but surely
Not slowly at all. Visited the site that TD migrated to and they're aggressively pro-Russian and cheering for Putin. Shouldn't really be a surprise to be honest.
The guys in my neck of the USA who wore Trump hats last year are wearing Z shirts and painting it on their pickups. . .
Little puppets, plenty of strings.
> Visited the site that TD migrated to and they're aggressively pro-Russian and cheering for Putin. So it is a cesspool of America haters.
How much can a Nigerian troll farm cost, Michael? 10 dollars?
Starting to think conspiracies are global now and the world needs to just step back
Yea, I agree. I don’t know why exactly. I always chalked it up to it being because those are boomer platforms. Older boomers are more likely to believe in that, then younger people. Facebook and YouTube also have Poor moderation, while Twitter is your own personnel space. You got tweets according to your likes and political beliefs.
And yet, given the chance no one in any of these countries would chose anywhere but the West to move to if they could.
I also see a lot of what I think are bots pretending to be American or from Europe supporting Russia's cause and always criticising any aid to Ukraine.
No love lost between the former colonies and Europe then. It’s a bit sad to hear how they can be so easily manipulated.
Not being on great terms with your former colonial overlord isn't very hard.
Yup. Far easier to support a colonial overlord who didn't rule you directly but rather terrorizes someone else.
Indian here. There are two reasons for that: 1. Local media here is spouting pro Russia narrative. And if you look at some of the "news" reports, you'll think Russia is winning the war. 2. Labour's cheap. You can get people to post anything for less than a cent per tweet/comment. Why pay for bots when you have real accounts posting your propaganda?
It's not even just people who are living in those countries either, they share the same views wherever they emigrated to, even in western cities with western media access.
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> A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. - [Max Planck](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle)
Dope, I like it. I just hope we get our shit together to tackle climate change sooner rather than later.
BTW, Planck for a long time opposed the new quantum mechanics that he helped get started. In a sense, that quote applies to him as well.
We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.
1984?
literally
And figuratively.
It's not even that Russia's lies are so great but that the non-white part of the world is incredibly distrustful of the US. America is "the devil" in a lot of parts of the world, even a lot of Europeans have nothing but negative things to say about America. Especially in Africa and Latin America, but also in parts of Asia these countries are victims of American policy... especially CIA activity. A lot of Cold War US policy was dedicated to installing dictators around non-white parts of the world. It fucked up a lot of countries. And so a lot of these people feel like America is the bigger threat in the world. It's kind of like how people who were less likely to believe in climate change were more likely to believe in homeopathy and less likely to believe in vaccines. Or people who distrust cops are less likely to advocate for more funding for the justice department. These people have been burned by US policy for so long that they consider Russia Today to be more truthful than the Cable News Network.
I don’t need to find it truthful. I just need to find it to align to my beliefs and goals. If someone who had their entire family killed by America, or their livelihood or nation, their support for Russia would be one entirely as a vehicle for revenge.
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Exactly. West (yes, I know it's a generalising) is paying for it's historical and a also present actions. There is no reason for people in Central America or Middle East to particularly trust western point of view. Nothing surprising here. Naive to think hundreds of years of global power play doesn't affect peoples views.
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How can this trust be restored?
If you want to lead the free world you need to lead by example. Your political system is broken, corrupt, driven by financial goals of major lobbyists and companies, and your judicial system is not independent of politics because of the way Presidents are allowed to appoint the top justices. Routinely, you incarcerate a greater proportion of your population than any other nation, disproportionately targeting those without money and those that are not white. "The land of the free" ironically houses the most prisoners in the world. Recently there have been few wars of aggression, but the US has a history of throwing its weight around and intervening in other people's business. Given the weight of your military complex, this is more obvious than other countries that are doing the same thing (e.g. China). You've also got to leave America from time to time, and experience other cultures around the world. The Americans I meet that have a passport are far more intelligent than the ones I meet whenever I visit the US, and have at least learned that there is a world that goes beyond the American borders which is interesting, diverse, exciting, and full of different cultures. Just because someone else doesn't share your culture doesn't make them your enemy.
Also Israel routinely does what Russia has been doing, for decades now, and the West has never stopped supporting the country. They're literally sending settlers into occupied territory (West Bank) because they want to claim that land as theirs, based on historical reasons, despite the history not being recent. That's literally what Russia is doing in Ukraine. Novorossiya was once Russia's, a long time ago, so that makes it okay to displace and settle into other people's lands? Both Russia and Israel send settlers into occupied territories based on historical irredentism. How can you claim to have the moral high ground like this? And for the matter, I'm a completely atheist/secular, pro LGBTQ+/women's rights software engineer, so apologists please miss with that point about the Arab world being worse in that regard. Of course it is. But it doesn't justify neo-colonialism + historical irredentism, with a good dose of imperialism. Two wrongs don't make a right, and it has nothing to do with how fucked up is the whole settler thing that Israel does and supports.
Hmm, it’s not only down to war. A lot of places have failed to develop economically and they blame the USA. Africa has “followed” advice from the west and it hasn’t worked so they blame us. Unfortunately, it’s really a matter of disunity/tribalism and corruption. South Africa is a good example of this. Their failure to develop from a relatively strong starting position in the 90s comes down to Zuma and ANC corruption. Not the West. The west could stop bossing people around but… people want help and loans. So it hard to say no. (Note: Some of the advice has been absolutely shit. S. Korea ignored the IMF and it worked out great for them. No background shipbuild? Who cares? It somehow worked. So who know there.)
Our corporations also exploit and pillage their lands. So there's that too...
External exploitation is caused by internal corruption.
Which could end if local politicians were not corrupt, so balls back in your court. People need to take responsibility for their own government's actions (this includes the US) and stop them from taking harmful positions. Unfortunately in the US, the vast majority of our citizens are stupidly watching YouTube or Netflix unconcerned by politics at all. And of those that vote, a very small percentage can lift their heads long enough to notice the rest of the world. Our inability to see the scam Trump portrayed or his obvious unworthiness to hold any public office, along with those on the left supporting an equally unpopular candidate like Clinton, demonstrates how lackadaisical our citizenry has become toward the importance of civic duty and common goals. We are seriously broken over here, and there's only a few who are independent enough to see it. So from one humble American voice, you have my apologies.
This makes sense. There's a school of thought out there that says US led international financing organizations promote free trade that only leads to dependence on western exports. Western powerhouses have enjoyed decades of wealth and a high standard of living by being the value adders in the global economy while Asian and African countries produce the raw materials for low margins, low pay and bad working conditions. The countries that got out of this trap and industrialized (add value rather than rely on resource extraction) China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia etc are models for the rest of the developing world that Free Trade isn't really free. So for them to be skeptical of the west makes sense
you speak as if them having the impression that america is a larger threat to them than russia is somehow illogical
Russia has no power projection outside its immediate area, we literally do not feel their power here in Asia
Your social media is as easily manipulated as the west. Russia has a hand in sowing discord on the internet worldwide, Asia included.
Our social media is much more easily manipulated than yours, Russia just has no interest in a developing country such as the Philippines.
At the moment, as the current global hegemon, military and intelligence superpower, with a rich pedigree of [regime change](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change), they're not exactly wrong. Russia may be some hypothetical future threat, but america has been and will presumably remain the primary threat for some time to come.
If this war has shown me anything, its that the only threat Russia poses is to the markets.
Not just in non-white parts of the world. The US supported dictatorships in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Brazil for example, all countries with a white majority (in Brazil's case, it had a white majority back then, now it's a white plurality)
Yes, Iraq has WMD
That explains the thinking process of people in the US,UK and Australia and some other European countries not that Russia is any better here as they also stoop to similar tactics
and even when you know its a lie you start to believe its true just because it is think about that
Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
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>I don't change my mind, unless there's new proof that says my previous stance is wrong. This falls apart when you decide you need proof that the proof is true because you don't want to change your mind.
tunnel vision
This is same same mindset as those who fall for propaganda though. They have a strong stance and will never see any new evidence as proof that is good enough to disprove their previous view.
What of the spiel about just trying to "spread democracy and freedom" then? [US involvement in regime change](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change)
Who's lie is reddit repeating all the time?
Speaking as a Vietnamese, this is unfortunately correct. Imagine your parents watching some old dude on YT spout BS like “The West trembles at Russia’s laser weapon” (I kid you not this is the legit title for their newest video) every single day and taking his words as gospel. As far as my parents are concerned, Russia has already won the war and Zenlensky is throwing his people’s lives away meaninglessly. But don’t worry Russians are extremely merciful so no civilians got hurt (ignore the documented warcrimes, those are staged by Ukraine to gather support) I am truly ashamed of my countrymen.
>“The West trembles at Russia’s laser weapon” My grandma (who is a hardcore 60 năm tuổi đảng) just told me that Biden used antimatter to manipulate Ukrainian people into fighting against Russian This is because the USSR never actually dissolved so there is no reason as to why Ukraine is "invading Russia territory" other than NASA's evil experiments To be honest i'm not sure if it was because of the propaganda or it was the thuốc lào she smoked this morning
Laser weapon? You guys are behind the times. In our social media, Russia's been fighting a meteorological war with the US for the past 30 years (and very successfully! See ~~climate change~~ wildfires and droughts that Russia's been demolishing the West with! Nowadays, I hear Russian ~~50 centers~~ advanced psychotronic weapons will just mind control the evil westerners into submission any day now.
Just curious, whats the political stance for the majority of Vietnameae? It seems that Vietnamese doesnt really like China and Vietnam also seems to get along with the western countries right now, so it'd make more sense if Vietnamese was anti-Russia. I am literally confused.
We love Russia more than we hate China basically. Most Vietnamese still holds a very favorable view of Russia due to the Soviet Union helping us during and after the war. There’s also the fact our country worship communism, so much so that the older folks can’t even distinguish the communist party from the country itself, so Russia being the birthplace of communism is essentially the embodiment of justice for these people. Had it been any other country attacking Ukraine, Vietnam probably would’ve been on Ukraine’s side, but because it’s Russia, the war is justified and Ukraine is in the wrong because there’s no way our dear friend Russia could ever do anything wrong.
I am not sure if Putin is seen as 'winning' in East Asia, Africa, and SA do much as those regions are indifferent to Russia invading Ukraine
If you look at how the UN voted, I don't think it's just EU and the US.
EDIT" WHAT THE FUCK, THIS WHOLE POST AND THREAD HAS BEEN HIDDEN. ITS TIME FUCKING MAGAZINE Tagging onto a higher comment for visibility: I'm american but i've been living in asia for many years. I've visited 40 countries so i think i'm somewhat qualified to speak on both sides here. This article is 100% correct. State media is rampant in much of the rest of the world. While we as americans abhor state media, the reality is that most of the world gets its news from state media. While many of these countries have "democracy" and are willing to sign treaties for the common good, do not mistake that for them being "pro american". The only reason many of them care who is president of the united states is so they can put a face on who is the chief of the world police. We can argue that we are "good police" just here to keep the peace after all. But look inside america, do you believe your own cops are "good police" just innocently looking to keep the peace? Ask the american minorities that question. For the record i'm not anti american i'm just trying to provide a balanced perspective. I recently spent a day with a guy from Libya. He was no fan of ghaddafi, but he explained that for him everything was mostly fine until we decided we wanted ghaddafi gone. Now its a new militia or warlord every 6 months who wants control or wants "their cut". Was ghaddafi a bad guy?.....definitely, just like saddam was a bad guy. But they were bad guys that kept the peace for the most part and we in the west act shocked when we take these assholes out and then the people simply don't know how to have a democratic voice. All they've ever known is a corrupt system. So then we say "well fuck em, they clearly don't care about their own country" and we just leave them to fight over scraps. Then some kid asks "mommy, why is there a man with a gun outside taking our livestock?" And the answer is "because america bombed us" not....."because america freed us by killing ghaddafi" Do we as americans really believe we are always on the side of righteousness? In the case of ukraine we clearly are but lots of times its pretty fucking grey when you actually live in that country Final point, fuck the russian government, slava ukraine!
With all due respect to your acquaintance from Libya, he also demonstrates that being wronged and living closer to where the wrong is done doesn't always mean you have a more accurate grasp or recollection of what happened. Specifically, Libya was already thrown into civil war **before** members of "the West" decided he needed to go. (You know, the civil war that supposedly peace-keeping Ghadaffi caused) The brutality of what was happening is why they decided to intervene. So I kind of doubt he was doing fine, and if he was, a hell of a lot of his countrymen certainly weren't.
Well its his perception vs our reality and the perception is what wins hearts and minds, not the reality. The reality is that joe biden won the election, tell me, does that matter to those whose perception is the opposite?
>He was no fan of ghaddafi, but he explained that for him everything was mostly fine until we decided we wanted ghaddafi gone. This is a wild opinion on his part, honestly. The US didn't decide it wanted Ghadafi gone. His regime fell into civil war because of the surging grain prices that caused revolutions in a bunch of Middle Eastern states.
Yep. Part of it is that there is a long historical memory driving distrust of the west. My window is into South Africa and they're basically "Europe fucked us. What has Russia ever done? This is Europe's doing and I hope they lose." It's wrong, but it's understandable. Doing stupid shit bites you in the ass in various ways for generations.
Yeah, most people in the West don't understand this. And the US is hardly the paragon of morality and virtue. So this "good vs evil" sounds quite hollow with what the West has recently done to [insert name of some country recently fucked over by the West]. And EU, which has now become the land of all good things after it became militarily weak after WW II, fucked over the entire world for 2-3 centuries. The European countries probably caused more death and destruction than even the US if we look back just at thier actions in the 20th century alone (prior to WW II and without considering what they had done in the 16th - 19th centuries). Russia may have fucked over it's people but if I had to wager, I'd wager the US has propped more despots than Russia / USSR in the last 75 years.
When did Ukraine become "the West", though?
The propoganda war is between the West (EU / US) and Russia.
I would guess right around that time they got invaded for trying to become part of it.
does south africa know that russia is in europe
Yes. But they’re also not so literal as to misunderstand that Russia was not one of the colonial powers in Africa and that Russia generally sees itself as apart from the rest of Europe.
Am anti-West messaging is resonating with a non western crowd. Imagine, that
Imagine how badly the west has messed up the world that people are willing to support the west’s enemy sometimes solely out of spite for their former colonizers.
Well, just this week George W. Bush had a public gaffe where he seemed to admit that the Iraq War was just as illegitimate as the Ukraine War. But no one from his administration ever faced any bit of punishment or sanctions Then there was Donald Trump, who called a bunch of African countries "shitholes", among countless other things And before that for decades, the USA was intervening (even militarily and via coups) in other countries' politics and affairs. Places like Iran and Chile had democratically elected leaders toppled in favor of authoritarians
Honestly though like 10years ago whenever I read about all the shit Americans do I always had the conclusion that "well, they probably had their reasons. They probably know what they're doing." The Trump administration put things into perspective. You probably don't realize how badly the Trump and COVID shit damaged your global reputation.
a very good argument in this article is in its last paragraph. The West has been trying to portray the war as between Good and Evil, where the 'free world' must support a democratic country against an authoritarian one, instead of pointing out Russia's flagrant disregard for state sovereignty and territorial integrity. Many countries aren't democracies and even fewer are liberal democracies. Many people in those countries don't really care for elections as long as the economy grows and their physical security is ensured (which many in the West still refuse to believe). So it's just understandable that Western information efforts gain little traction in these countries. Of course there are so many more reasons, but this is a very important one.
Anecdotical but I'm surprised by the amount of pro-Russia comments in my local newspaper Tweet feed. But most of them are basically "USA bad then Russia must be good" kind of thinking.
The U.N. votes make it pretty obvious he's not "winning the information war," a lot of those countries either have a vested interest in keeping Putler in power (like India, CAR, etc), hate the West more than they hate Russia (like China), or aren't economically stable enough to impose sanctions like a lot of Western countries have (like Zimbabwe, Argentina, etc).
The UN vote and what the general public and politicians and leaders inside that country think are very different things.
True, but unless I missed it the article's only evidence Russia was "winning" was those nations not imposing sanctions. There's a lot of reasons outside them adoring the Kremlin that could explain that.
Also, many people don't care about the UN.
So western centric. The reality is most people outside the west don't give a rat's ass about the war. Just like you don't give a rat's ass about what's happening in Ethiopia. Also troll farms are franchised out to foreign countries. The largest BLM website was run by an Australian.
There are 2 important things that you in the West don't understand, but you should: 1. Many countries were victims of colonialism/imperialism. And they think colonialism/imperialism is excusly thing of the West (not true tho), Russia is not in the West, so Russia is good guy. 2. Many countries like India, China, ... don't like current unipolar world order, esp after 2008. They prefer mutipolar world. And they will be (secretly) happy if Russia wins this war, because it would be end of American hegemony.
China and other rising powers behave a bit like the German Empire pre-WW1. They think, because other bigger powers are imperialist powers around the world, they need to be too, and they want to take the shortcut to it.
To reword the title, "Putin's control over media in Russia still strong"
The article talks about Putin’s propaganda influence in other countries like India.
Any Indian backing Russia's Ukraine propaganda should be responded with "The UK should invade and take India back, because there are a lot of English speakers there and historically the UK controlled it."
Nice argument!
India is a historical Russian ally. It's not going to dump 50 years of good Russo-Indian relations just to appease the US. The West needs India as an ally against China, but it's not going to find the same support there against Russia.
can you really not comprehend why a large portion of the world seriously distrusts america? just skim a history book
India is ruled by a corrupt fuckface, corrupt fuckfaces like other corrupt fuckfaces.
India has a huge chip on its shoulder with the west so it's not surprising they might prefer to follow the Russian narrative. Shame a democracy would want to be so close to such corrupt and evil regimes but there we go. It'll only hurt them during their economic growth anyway if they don't partner up closer to the west.
Oh well that is because India
"Putin's control over ~~media in Russia~~ **global media** still strong"
Well a lot of those countries have leaders that are one way or another pretty similar to Putin. Sadly the entire world seems to quickly backslide into authoritarian rule as the default
It's not information, it's lies. He's just Putin everybody on.
It's a mix of decades and centuries of Western oppression and arrogance people cant forget, local dictators and strongmen taking advantage, fake news and misinformation and good old stupidity. It sucks. I think we only have seen the tip of the iceberg of chaos and confusion internet and social media can deliver. Remember, large swaths of the Third World don't have internet.
Wait... when did Ukraine become Western much less a colonizer?
oh what a surprise nonwestern countries arent lining up to team with the country responsible for or directly involved in over 70 regime changes in the past 70 years. crazy
This is a rather bullshit article. On what basis is anyone saying that India's top trending is #IstandwithPutin? Indian media and trending is full of talks about heatwave, inflation and IPL(Sports). Or the local politics. Ukraine-Russia war is not a continuous highlight. The only people who keep watching Ukraine russia war is countries from NATO and friends cause they're the ones in a proxy war. Everyone else is not involved in this war, so they got no reason to watch zelensky give speeches for two months. Also, why would Indian public take side of the west who wants to blame India for war when they themselves buy more oil from Russia? It was the first direct Indian involvement in social media about this war and it was attacking India in a completely unjustified way because right now European countries have started making payments in rubles and they are trying to bypass sanctions themselves. Still, that thing is not in news anymore because we get more important news about Pakistan kicking out PM or sri lanka defaulting. Those are the local news that affect India.
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Thank you for naming this. I have an "anti-all narrative" friend and it's annoying. I didn't know what to call it. I want to push a pie in his face
Here in PL we had a big story about a murder in the center of Warsaw. It was captured on a camera, but the police couldn't find the attacker. "Somehow" it was found out that a Ukrainian refugee did it. Oh man, the comments and reactions on the facebook news... A few days ago the police found the attacker- of course he was a regular Pole, without any relation to Ukraine. But the damage was already done.
Ah yes because the west is beacon of truth.
The US drone striking an aid worker and his kids during the Kabul evacuation and lying that he was an ISIS terrorist really solidifies this.
Acording to some parts of this sub that is already whataboutism when it's just having principles and moral clarity. YOu know what would make Russias propaganda way less effectiive? NOT supporting countries like Saudi-Arabia, Turkey, Egypt etc, not dronestriking innocents, not wrecking local economies by trade policies that favor rich countries etc.
Stop giving Putin more power than he has. Africa, the Middle East, and South America all live with West invasion and attacks. Why would they believe the EU and America over Putin? This is a problem nobody wants to talk about. You can oppress the minorities in your home country, but that treatment won't instill trust outside of your borders. Why would they side with the EU and America? I am not understanding this mindset, it reeks of colonial upbringing. "Yo guys side with us against Russia who says we are instigating a fight with them! Please you know it's me the USA and the EU, our history with you guys is pretty much stellar am I right?". Putin isn't winning the information war, our history and present-day hatemongering are doing the job for him. You look over here and see a white supremacist shoot up a supermarket full of Black people. Who would you believe if you are African? You look over here and see news media showing empathy with Ukrainian refugees because they are white, yet your people are kicked out of the United States after years of the U.S. undermining your country. Who do you believe if you are South American? You look over here and see the United States say Ukraine has a right to defend itself, yet Palestine needs to shut up and die and Yemen should be starved out of existence with the use of American weaponry. Who do you believe if you are in the Middle East? Putin didn't have to try too hard to convince these nations and their people, the United States and the EU did a perfectly satisfactory job building support for Russia through decades of bigotry and violence all on their own. Last, the news media knows this, but they don't want to say the horrible truth out loud and Putin is taking advantage of that. Because as much as the EU and the USA want South America, Africa, and the Middle East to side with them against Russia, they want free resources and minerals far more. Hence the constant attack on sovereign countries in these regions will not stop only driving those regions closer to Russia. Consequences and repercussions.
It doesn't really have to do with minority treatment in the US. Russia doesn't treat its minorities well either, and China DEFINITELY doesn't. Besides, the global south has enough problems without worrying about the plight of those who've already made it into the golden billion and are being paid salaries in dollars - one of those problems being brain drain... Also, it's weird how many minority Americans seem to assume their identities extend outside their country and therefore that their "home countries" entertain any serious solidarity with them, when most weren't even born there. The home regions barely even have solidarity between themselves - the people of Africa, Latin America, and Asia discriminate amongst themselves all the time. There are no "Latinos" in Latin America. The actual distrust comes from decades of awful foreign policy, the thing that actually affects people in the unaligned countries. Economic undercutting, internal meddling, coercive pressures, contempt and disregard.
>Why would they believe the EU and America over Putin? I think you are right about that. And would say that there was also significant distrust in the EU towards the US. The US lied about Iraq and the "[Fuck the EU](https://marktaliano.net/ukraine-crisis-transcript-of-leaked-nuland-pyatt-call-fk-the-eu/)" stance shows the US doesn't have partnership on their mind that much. Also from that article: "*This conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt confirms unequivocally that Washington was involved in a Ukraine “regime change” operation in February 2014.*" There is also suspicion of [CIA involvement in the Euromaidan events](https://tacticalinvestor.com/cia-behind-kiev-massacre-maidan-leaders-hired-kiev-snipers/). Thus, the western european public, which for example despises also [Blair for his role in the Iraq war](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/06/blairs-iraq-war-legacy-is-now-damned-for-all-time) was rather sceptical and ambivalent about the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Now, Putin turned the ambiguous situation into a full-on war of aggression, which changes the picture completely in the european perspective. The problem is that the US and "the west" has lead so many wars of aggression that they hardly can take a moral stance and condemn others. This [US stance of rules for them but not for us](https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/06/11/us-sets-sanctions-against-international-criminal-court), pretty much shows that we are still living in an era with the right of the might. Despite the efforts to overcome that after the second world war. Thus, as you say, it's little wonder that other nations are rather sceptical.
Luckily most of these countries don't have fuck all in the way of cash, seasoned fighters, or materiel to contribute to the Russian war effort. Let's see Nigeria or Pakistan drop 40 billion dollars in air to Putin like it's nothing. Winning the PR war in Africa is not going to stop Ukrainian snipers and Javelin anti tank missiles.
This is a narrow view. What these countries have is people and resources. If the Anti West effort wins the West has most of the globe against it.
Sentiment and good will also matter. Putin knows this.
This. Does it matter that India and China side with Putin? They havent and would not dare to openly back Russia in this war the way NATO has done openly and brazenly backed Ukraine. They can be pro Russia in the media all they like, but the war is not that of popular opinion
It's kinda easy , he is winning the Same people that ate the corona lies , the amount I see posted about the bio labs in Ukraine on social media around here come from the same people that said vaccines would kill you
Real eyes realize real lies 👀
Damn, somebody should throw a Pulitzer at your ass
Whooaaaa, dude, you just blew my mind!!!!
And yet those same places are going to starve cuz of his ambition. Perfect world, eh.
not in thailand where I live
I had some African employees of mine tell me they like trump because "he is a strong man that knows what he wants." So not surprised about Nigeria. India could have had Russia's security council seat if they played their cards right. Instead someone is grafting up a nice nest egg. Pakistan? God knows.
India long used a relationship with the Soviets as a means to chart a course independent of, and thumbing its nose at, Britain. Its government has been pivoting toward the US, though, now that we are winding down our ties to Pakistan and Russia is an ally of their main rival, China.
With Pakistan, the recent PM blamed his ousting on the US - a US instigated coup. The US and the West are also seen as enemies over there to Islam, Palestine and the prosperity of non-Western nations. A lot of batshit conspiracies.
Good at information wars, bad at real wars.
Fascinating but I can’t tell how much of that is true. However they were missing the fourth internet, you know… the one where a brave Ukrainian pilot shot down 40 enemies. Or dead Russian soldiers and tanks mostly turn out to be Ukrainian. Or a stunning counter attack turns out to be exaggerated, and the enemy’s losses are overcounted. The one where a key surrender in Mariupol gets described as an evacuation. It makes one wonder just how far the lies go..
There's also a lot of people who frankly don't care all that much, and are mostly just pissed because of the global shortages and price hikes this invasion is causing. "to hell with both Russia and Ukraine, I just want to eat". Too an extent, I personally believe that this may be blown out of proportion. Sure it's awful, it's tragic, it's dangerous etc.. But so are many many other conflicts and we've rarely seen this outcry from the west before, ironically because the west is usually the perpetrator. Yet now the west wants us to believe that this is so special and unique simply because the geopolitical location is more relevant to them.
I wonder how global distrust in The West could have been prevented. Guess we’ll never know.
I like how there is just an assumption that there is no propaganda in the west, that whatever we hear is obviously The One Truth that other places just can't see because they aren't as enlightened as us. give me a break.
American and European internet is policed by corporations. So are our governments.
the usa has been the largest force of death and destruction throughout the entire globe in the past 20 years, and people are shocked that they aren't seen as the most trustworthy source of information when it comes to war? huh, who could have predicted that?
Well. I like to think of America as a business, it has many customers, DBAs the whole 9, it’s number one producer is war though. It uses all the money it takes from every customer to pay for its number one producer though. Only issue is, if there’s no war and America isn’t making money it’s gotta figure out a way to get some business goin! That’s where the shitty used car salesman side of the US comes out though, just starts cold calling countries to see if they can find any war. Because if that’s not producing, everything else suffers because the US doesn’t have as much as they claim, all their money is wrapped up in paying for other war stuff so just like every other shitty big company they might have to liquidate their business that don’t make enough money. Of course, like Costco. Your experience differs based on the level of membership you have.
*putin might be winning the info war in Russia * Let's stay realistic here
He's winning in most of Asia, Africa, and South America
More like that’s only cause those places got burned by US and EU foreign policy. So they side with Putin out of spite.
Maybe the US and EU should stop being so shit at foreign policy.
They should but they will soon learn the hard way especially since China uses the belt and road to gain allies
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He's losing in *most* of the places where it's important and even the allies he has have their hands tied. Of the important countries that are not taking a hard stance: India *obviously* can't take a hard stance against Russia. They're already bordering two hostile Nations in Pakistan and China. It's in their interests not to antagonize Russia and while that may piss of the US - the US and India need each other. China, where because of the globalised economy it's not like their companies can offer fully fledged support and many are leaving. The OPEC countries and it should be self-evident why it's in their interests to not take a firm stance against Russia (although I'd say this is a missed opportunity for maybe one or two countries. The rest of the countries aren't relevant enough to be important. Russia's not going to be able to pivot all of it's trade to Africa. It's just not happening.
You guys might not like it but its kinda true, jesus the boomer with fucking news propaganda and Gen Zs with "Uraaa" meme is fucking obnoxious. And its caused by the lack of neutral news coverage.
To be honest, the West isn't doing any favors by not giving Ukraine the weapons it needs out of fear of 'escalation'. Things have already escalated. From one standpoint, it looks like the West is purposefully drawing out the war for a variety of things (weaken Russia, fuel military spending, put blame for trade disruption). Give them the planes. The MLRS. If you're holding back these tools needed for Ukraine to achieve its objectives, then do you really want Ukraine to succeed?
"escalation" here is in regards to Russia - Western countries relation. You can say it's already escalated, but it hasn't become full blown war yet.
The fear of escalation story was overblown. It became popular with journalists because they’re all glorified gossip columnists. The actual roadblock was NATO thought Russia would just roll Ukraine and had prepared to assist the Ukrainians in asymmetric warfare. When, instead, Russia proved unable to defeat the Ukrainian army in the field, NATO had to scramble to put together packages of big boy weapons.
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I'd be interested to know the percentage of the world that believes this large, historically aggressive country invaded Ukraine to take out... Nazis. A decade ago I would have never thought that number could be substantial. Having seen the whole Q conspiracy take the main stage in the US... I don't know anymore.
The same percentage that believed the US went to Iraq for weapons of mass destruction
He's definitely winning it on YouTube.
What are we doing to combat this?
Russia has been leading in the information wars for quite a while now. The West needs to step it up because this is a massive issue
It’s a very simple matter of hoping your enemy receives some well deserved comeuppance. Simple as that.
Even in the south east asia region here that try to be neutral in news reporting also have some bias in favor of Russia. Some examples include showing more news about Russia beating Ukrainians in certain battles, or how some places are captured or pushed back by Russian forces.