Coordinated Pro-Russian Propaganda Network Targeting ActivityPub and ATProto Services
Update October 25: Accounts are still being created (571 observed so far), and a number of servers are either unwilling or unresponsive in removing these accounts. A list of servers recommended for limiting or defederating is now available at about.iftas.org/library/known-…
Update October 14: Accounts are still being created, and unused accounts registered earlier are being activated.
Since 15 September, IFTAS has been tracking a coordinated network of over 300 accounts operating across Mastodon. These accounts are engaged in a high-volume propaganda campaign, promoting pro-Russian narratives and linking to Telegram channels associated with known state-aligned disinformation operations. We became aware of a related investigation by the Antibot4Navalny research team that observed these accounts bridging to Bluesky, and we have since collaborated to enhance our investigations and share our findings. Their public post provides further context.
Antibot4Navalny’s observations identified additional impacted services we were unaware of, and highlighted that accounts were still being created. Furthermore, thanks to their specific expertise in this area, this helped clarify and confirm that what we were seeing was indeed the work of a coordinated campaign with an increased likelihood of it being a state-sponsored or state-approved campaign.
We have been contacting affected Mastodon administrators, and are now moving to a public advisory to inform the broader network.
The network includes accounts impersonating reputable news outlets such as BBC News, Euronews, and Meduza, designed to give credibility to Telegram propaganda links. We believe it may be connected to the “Pravda/Portal Kombat” pro-Russia propaganda network.
Accounts are hosted across numerous Mastodon instances and bridged into Bluesky, creating the appearance of independent sources. Activity on Bluesky helped reveal aggregate patterns, identical usernames, posting schedules, and content themes more clearly than across decentralised Mastodon services.
This campaign appears to mimic tactics observed in earlier influence operations, blending low-cost automation with impersonation and volume-based amplification.
Remember every time we find Putin backed propaganda outside of Russia in the wild, it's nearly always boosting predominantly conservative viewpoints versus anything else.
Outside of their borders they're more interested in people fighting with each other than anything like coming together. Right wing politics is how they do that
Sorry, but this is wrong. They're also actively sponsoring "left wing" propaganda, to further sow discord. Depending on which group you yourself belong to, it's just easier to spot "the others".
And of that propaganda being created, that conservative inclined people are most likely to fall for it: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/…
There seem to be plenty of other papers that more or less reach those same conclusions with a good number of citations, but I can't find anything really at all on Google Scholar concluding the opposite with a quick search, let alone something also credible.
The closest some papers come is saying that they try groups all over the political spectrum, as their goal is disunity ultimately, but they seemingly don't really have any kind of continued success with misinforming those groups anywhere near as effectively. They more or less all end up concluding that most of the propaganda targets conservatives, because they're the ones that fall for it.
I think one of the problems with citing that first study as evidence Russian disinfo is targeted at conservatives more than liberals is that it only studied one case, and Russian disinformation campaigns tailor their disinfo to different demographics, often through brute force/trial and error. So it is quite possible that the particular case they studied happens to be tailored to (or more successfully resonated with) conservatives, while another specific case would have resonated with liberals more thus resulting in more liberal exposure by their metrics.
Your assertion that more is conservative is a meaningless assertion in the context of this discussion.
More can be conservative on average but you don't see an average view of the internet, you see your filter bubble, and that source backs up the original assertion that yes, Russia is targeting leftists too.
Rumors and smears are part of free speech. To the extent that right-wing trolls and their audience are actual voters, it's essentially just a coarse form of ordinary political speech.
The extent to which a foreign government acting coverly is either creating or artificially boosting such content is scandalous.
True enough. But even a tyrannical government at least has a presumable intent of working for the betterment of its country. (Albeit through wrongheaded and small-minded means )
A.foreijgn power, especially a historical adversary and bad actor, is instead presumably working to harm or diminish us.
No, they have the intent of working for themselves. That's it. They don't give a shit about the country and you should never presume the ruling class of your country has your country's best interests in mind.
You presented it as proof that Russia is supporting misinformation on the left. To be that, it has to both include all three parts of the claim -- that there is disinformation on the left, that Russia is covertly supporting disinformation, and that some of the disinformation on the left was supported by Russia.
If your wife sleeps around, and I engage in casual sex, it does not necessarily follow that I slept with your wife.
A common suspicion in America is that Vladimir Putin believes that Trump as POTUS is good for Russia, and that Putin interferes with US politics with a specific goal of helping Trump.
If you have some reporting that directly links Russia to left-wing disinformation I'd love to read it. But the BBC article I read after following your link didn't have any such link.
When you make a statement it's your responsibility to provide proof because what if you're talking out of your ass? How would we find any proof in that scenario when it literally wouldn't exist? How would we know if you misinterpreted a source? How would we know we misinterpreted the correct source? What if we think what you're saying is so stupid we don't want to waste our time looking for proof? There are a lot of reasons the burden of proof shouldn't fall on us, which means the burden of proof should fall on the person who made the statement. They know if what they said is factual and if it's factual they know where they found this fact and thus it would be significantly less effort for them to find and present the source.
Better. That actually supports the assertion that Russia does engage in left-targeted disinformation (in Canada, on Twitter.)
It also supports the original point you dismissed as "wrong" -- of the 90 "most influential" accounts, only 9 were subjectively identified as "Canadian far left".
Maybe you should spend more time reading the actual articles, and not just their headlines?
Absolutely and utterly false. They try and promote fighting, anger, and distrust of government to everyone.
They target leftists with things that will upset them, make them angry at the right and the government and other leftists and sow further discord and polarization.
Less extreme Leftists generally aren't nearly as likely to be control freaks as the right (although there are always exceptions), so getting them (as a group) angry enough to fight takes much more effort than it does the right.
A source for my lived experience? Or do you mean an example?
I have been banned from .ml twice for stating that Russia shot down a civilian airliner over Ukraine - a matter of incontrovertible fact which has absolutely nothing to do with any leftist theory, as far as my masters degree in political science can discern.
.ml is moderated to be ideologically one sided. Pro-capitalism is literally not allowed and will deleted. Making a pro-west or anti-China or Russia comment is like a bat signal for .ml admins and users alike to dogpile on your comment.
It’s their right to moderate their instance how they see fit, but removing content on ideological grounds is going to result in people thinking what’s left is propaganda.
For the most part I like .ml users, I don’t care for the admin team and moderator decisions and that’s why I’m not on that instance. I could care less about the fact my instance is defederated from hexbear users or grad users. They do want to be polarizing and live in a propaganda bubble
I wouldn't call them that. Most if not all of them are genuine people with some having accs for many years before Reddit crossed the line for most of us and them becoming anyhow relevant to interfere. In a recent hexbearean post about fediverse negativity I've read a couple of opinions with a notion that federating with others wasn't that great, and they were pretty happy just by themselves. I assume, it's the same for other two too. That's a game too long and effortful to be a psyop imho. Their positions and where they get their info are things to argue, but let's not get as far as dehumanizing them.
Almost everywhere I soundly proclaim that I am a russian dummy anarchist, that I live in that state for I have no options, and I angrily disagree with their fascination, mystification of what it is, I hold a grudge with anyone who wants that russki mir to be the model the whole world should share.
I, nevertheless, find a lot of points, like personal stuff and grieveancies, theoretical things, sympathy to protesters, to Gazan survivors that I share with them. Unlike transparently racist/fascist troll comms that were there, unlike their campaigns I've noticed, there is a huge population of real people worthy of talking, arguing with.
Call me any names and ban me, but as long as any person or community is supportive of basic pillar causes like body autonomy, you, like, can at least talk to them and find something in common.
What I missed though, is that Diva said the same, but misleadingly doubted the existence of russian bot networks. Them and state suppression ruined the rusophonic space to that degree I dropped it altogether. I don't know how their actions affected other countries, but as a nolifer shitposting addict trying to trust them just a bit, I came through fire, water and copper tubes before dropping them altogether. They are like current Twitter, but worse. And, well, fuck, I wasn't abandoning that to find the next option already corrupted.
To be honest I didn't understand the thrust of most of what you wrote, but if you are against the Rusky Mir, you are probably on the right side to begin with. If you are an anarchist, you probably have no place on .ml to begin with.
Drunktexting and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
The main point why I wrote it was that I don't find them either bots or artifical influencers. They do probably want to have some reach or fresh blood, but don't want their local culture to be spread too thin like it's reddit 2.0. They are anything but cancer that I've met seeing real botfaming ops.
And, although I don't share many of their thoughts, most of the posts I see in my feed discuss common issues where we aren't that far from each other. Closer, than to maga/zionist/z-crowd. And in that context I find it alright to not draw any lines and just talk.
When things start to get overly political, well, that's a whole another thing, where different bestest solutions are incompatible, historical betrayals are dugged up and the internet infighting ensues. It's exhausting and pointless with just 2mil mostly irrelevant nerds on Fediverse. It's easier to just scroll through some amuzing takes, and instead focus on things where we can cooperate.
"I have to admit, I'm always so impressed by Soviet propaganda. You really know how to get people worked up," the CIA agent says.
"Thank you," the KGB agent says. "We do our best but truly, it's nothing compared to American propaganda. Your people believe everything your state media tells them."
The CIA agent drops his drink in shock and disgust. "Thank you friend, but you must be confused... There's no propaganda in America."
Lots of people can not stand the fact that you don't agree with them. They will accuse you of being a bot or something, rather than to accept the fact that people have different opinions on things.
The fact the comments here are so contentious is just funny. I will block as is appropriate but so far have not had to do to much of it on the fediverse. Man it needs to be reciprical though so their training is limited.
There are obviously agents from elsewhere, and some of them may be pretty effective, but it's nothing compared to Trump and Co getting money from the likes of Saudis and acting like they own the place. If the main concern is american politics, well, the real worms aren't theoretical or real foreign enemies, but corrupted fuckheads that ignore human, state rights, shutdown government, pack people from the streets to deport. No enemy could've done such damage so-called friends are doing.
The rise in right-wing nationalism has been notable across Europe, as well. It's a good guess that the Russians have been pushing that, too. The US is just ahead of the curve.
The network includes accounts impersonating reputable news outlets such as BBC News, Euronews, and Meduza, designed to give credibility to Telegram propaganda links. We believe it may be connected to the “Pravda/Portal Kombat” pro-Russia propaganda network.
Accounts are hosted across numerous Mastodon instances and bridged into Bluesky, creating the appearance of independent sources. Activity on Bluesky helped reveal aggregate patterns, identical usernames, posting schedules, and content themes more clearly than across decentralised Mastodon services.
If your first reaction was to post "posts I dislike are Russian bots", then you haven't actually grasped the argument. It has nothing to do with anyone disagreeing with specific posts.
It's also very telling that you're reflexively posting that when it says nothing about the data being presented.
The Grayzone has geolocated the underground bunker of an important military command and control center nestled within a densely populated Tel Aviv neighborhood. Known as ‘Site 81,’ the U.S.-built facility houses a hyper-secretive intelligence base.
When Iran struck a series of targets in the heart of north Tel Aviv with ballistic missiles on June 13, Israeli authorities immediately cordoned off the area to prevent journalists from filming the damage. “The building on this compound was just hit,” Trey Yingst of Fox News reported as he arrived that evening at the site of HaKirya, Israel’s Defense Ministry headquarters, and the nearby Azrieli Center. But within seconds, Israeli police officers arrived to aggressively shunt Yingst away from where he was standing, just north of the HaKirya Bridge on the west side of Menachem Begin Road.
That day, Iranian missiles struck the north tower of the Da Vinci apartment complex roughly 550 meters southwest of Yingst’s location. The Grayzone has determined that the building sits immediately south of the “Canarit” / “Kannarit” Israeli Air Force towers and above an underground military intelligence bunker jointly administered by the US and Israeli militaries. According to an analysis of leaked emails, public documents, and Israeli news reports, the location is host to a highly secretive, electromagnetically shielded intelligence facility known as “Site 81.”
Israel aggressively censors information relating to its urban military and intelligence facilities while simultaneously accusing its adversaries of engaging in ‘human shielding’ – a practice of protecting military targets with civilian populations that is prohibited by international humanitarian law. While the existence of a U.S. Army project to expand Site 81 to a 6,000 square-meter facility was widely reported from government records circa 2013, the specific location remained unknown...
It's always projection with fascists. "Khamas is using human shields!!!1!" "oh shit, pay no attention to our super secret spy base we built with the American Nazis right under apartment buildings in the middle of a residential area. We just really liked the location for other less illegal reasons."
ttbomk, India did an official execution/hit/assassination of a Canadian Sikh man, sometime in the last couple of years..
it isn't "just Muslims" that Modi's modeled-on-Republican-religious-polarization is cutting: it's everybody not-Hindutva, apparently.
No matter: His fake-protection against China is going to get his Hindutva-India butchered by China, when Russia refuses to lift a finger against its puppetmaster China, .. perhaps as soon as next-year.
( ever seen an addict fighting against their own unconscious-mind's addiction, for their own life & losing?
The whole world looks like that, to me, now.
Addicted-to-ideologies, "no time for" things like still-accelerating-ClimatePunctuation, or strategically-required quality-of-education & child-nutrition, or absolute-epidemic-mitigation, or international-state-backed-terrorism..
ideology's always 1st..
it will be, until there's nobody left, apparently.
I believe it's common there to celebrate with gunfire. It probably wasn't especially chosen to celebrate ceasefire with gunfire. I could be midtown though.
When I visited Jerusalem with my wife several years ago we were also standing upright in our hotel room when we suddenly heard yelling and gunfire and when we spoke to the hotel guys they told us we shouldn't worry, it was just a wedding celebration.
Wouldn't that not be just another reason to not fire weapons randomly in populated areas?
But what you are saying is basically exactly what I am trying to get at: War has become so much normalized in the region, that people just don't know otherwise any more. Quoting the somewhat fitting Cranberries song: "In your head, they're still fighting". Even while a glimmer of peace is shining across the horizon.
I'm from the region and this is a thing even in places that aren't and have historically not erupted into violent outbursts. It's just a local culture thing, and according to Wikipedia isn't even an exclusively Middle Eastern thing.
Even as initial celebrations unfolded, details of the agreement remained unclear on Thursday, including whether the parties in Egypt had made any progress on thornier questions about the future of the conflict, such as whether Hamas will demilitarise, as Trump has demanded, and how the war-torn territory will be governed in future.
So it isn't even conclusive. There's no way to make sure Israel won't break the cease fire. There's only hostage trade. Hopefully there's more detail coming out soon.
They'll probably wait until the hostages are exchanged and return to annihilation
Probably won't even wait that long.
While the broader population seem to genuinely consider the hostages extremely important, the decision makers in the government don't care about them except as a convenient excuse for doing what they've always wanted to do.
I mean, I can see that some people are easily fooled by him when he speaks like an idiot, makes silly faces and tells all the possible lies he can, but yeah, he didn't do shit.
If Harris has won and took the exact same actions as Trump as it relates to Israel, which doesn't seem too unlikely given the way all of Washington on both sides kowtows to Israel, would you be taking the same stance that "she didn't do anything to help bring this about?"
Look, I hate Trump as much as the next guy, but I find it unlikely people would be coming out of the woodwork to slam Harris, even if she did the exact same things.
Just because someone is a villain, it doesn't mean that literally every single thing they do is villainous. I'm not gonna stop drinking Coke, just because Donald Trump drinks Coke. And I can recognize the the US was positively involved in this ceasefire negotiation, even if I hate the guy heading the US.
Trump can still be evil, even if he's right sometimes, and even if he does the right thing sometimes. He's not a comic book character. He's a very real, human kind of evil. And just because he's not stomping on puppies every day doesn't mean he's not bad.
And if you're not willing to admit when he does a good thing, your hatred isn't founded in reality, it's founded on purest tribalism.
Some of those gathered in the city’s hostage square said Trump should be recognised for his role in brokering the deal, calling for a “Nobel prize to Trump” as they gathered in the early hours of the morning to celebrate.
Oh, he'll love to hear that. I, for one, find it hard to give him any credit beyond 'he was there'. Then again, Biden was so incredibly weak stopping Israel, fighting under him might have dragged on for longer.
Technically a ceasefire is just a pause in hostilities. Like if you stop bombing to refuel the bombers. And there is a good chance that Bibi will do just that.
I really loved when, a few years ago, he fell ill and flew to France (IIRC) for medical treatment. His family was so sure he wouldn't make it, they filled a commercial airliner with people ready to flee the country.
Then he bounced back! GD Methusala over here. And they all had to go home and pretend like nothing happened.
As the central African country prepares for Sunday's presidential election, he said he would not be heading out to vote. [... ] “He is already too old to govern, and it’s boring knowing only him as president," Nghobo told The Associated Press
The British government’s refusal to testify that China is a national security threat in a major espionage trial has signalled to Beijing that “the UK can be bullied”, according to a former senior diplomat who was due to be a prosecution witness in the now-collapsed case.
The warning comes after Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions (DPP), revealed that his team had repeatedly tried and failed to obtain witness statements from the government that said China was a threat to UK national security.
Prosecutors had to abandon the trial of two British men charged with spying on parliamentarians for China, just weeks before it was due to start, because of the government’s refusal to provide the evidence, Parkinson said in a letter to MPs on Tuesday.
Charles Parton, a former UK diplomat who spent more than two decades working on China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, had been due to appear as a prosecution witness in the trial.
“In broad fashion, this [collapse] says to the Chinese, ‘yes, we can bully the British, they will crumble if we play hard ball in whatever the negotiation is’ — that’s the worrying thing to me”, he told the Financial Times.
The failed prosecution was, he added, “a missed opportunity to demonstrate clearly China’s espionage efforts, and to say to anyone thinking of betraying our national interest, that you will be caught and punished”.
Parton, now an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said: “There is absolutely no doubt China is a threat, and it’s a common sense point. A threat equals hostility, intent and capability. Well, each of those is very easy to prove.”
Their main purpose is enabling their users to consume content from various sources in one place.
Uh, no? RSS/Atom only contains a summary. It's to inform you about news, a alternative to E-Mail newsletters. Website scraping is extra functionality some clients do.
RSS/Atom can contain a summary, or it can be the full article. It's the choice of the website what to put in it. They only put a summary to force you to visit their webpage to serve ads.
I have tried all sorts of RSS feeds. All the same painful to navigate through a painful, outdated email-like interface that makes it vastly inferior to, you know, scrolling through a website.
FFS, RSS people must have grown up on being desk jockeys stuck in Outlook all day and they don't know how to navigate anything else.
I don't know if it's Lemmy not standing different opinions than: A) some opinions don't add much value to any conversation except to say "I disagree" and that's both not super helpful and in a small community I'd argue it's healthy for positive engagement to be more prevalent than negative engagement. B) some comments disagree or tear down a solution without offering up a good alternative - which leaves the people with solutions feeling worse for their solution, the problem unaddressed in a different way, and if someone likes their solution or even knows it's superior to alternatives it becomes very easy to down vote a subjectively wrong opinion.
In this instance "going to the website" is not a helpful alternative for a tool who's purpose is to aggregate many desired websites into one location only when they have new content. "Going to the website" would be less efficient both in time and effort. This person saying they don't get them, while being on Lemmy - a site aggregator - is to me very funny.
My instinct was to down vote because it was already down voted and for the reasons above, but your comment gave me pause so now I won't down vote but I also won't upvote because it's not content I think anyone should waste their time reading.
Should there be a neutral response on site aggregators for this very circumstance? Never thought about that before.
I think that's a very common and logical instinct/bias. I'm fairly confident you and everyone else does this as well. If someone told you two compare two drinks and that one was expensive, the expensive one gets a statistical boon. If someone says this book sucks and the author is an asshole, you're primed to take previously neutral statements and skew them towards a negative understanding.
I always read before voting but ya, we have bias my guy and talking about them is good.
I’ve liked using FreshRSS in the past, but has the developer finally capitulated and allowed users to sort entries by publication date?
It was probably the most requested feature and they always insisted it didn’t make sense or wasn’t possible despite being a common feature among other RSS feed readers.
my problem with these was that id have one website filling up the feed with a lot of posts and another interesting website that only makes a post every once in awhile and i almost never see it
I have a firehose folder on freshrss that has its own rotation rules such that posts are only retained for a couple days and are then deleted. It is also excluded from the “main” feed listing. Works great for news sites.
I’ve been using FeedBin after Google Reader sunset… so, a long time now. Every year I say I’ll bring it in-house, then I get billed for another year and say fuck it. It works fine. And now they have a minimalist podcast app called Airshow that lets me use my FeedBin account to synch my podcasts across devices. So, whatever… take my money. 25$ a year isn’t going to break me.
Edit: want to add that I use Netnewswire (free) to read my feeds. Integrates Feedbin and isn’t overkill on ridiculous feature that turn it into a p.o.s. subscription app.
Abdel Qader Sabbah and Sharif Abdel Kouddous Oct 13, 2025
In Khan Younis, thousands of people gathered to greet the freed detainees, who arrived in dozens of buses operated by the Red Cross and in Red Crescent ambulances. The crowds gathered in the courtyard of Nasser Hospital and on rooftops and balconies overlooking the medical complex where the freed captives were taken for medical checks. Nasser hospital, which has been repeatedly bombed by the Israeli military, is one of only 13 out of 38 hospitals still partially functioning in Gaza.
Freed detainees wearing gray jumpsuits leaned out of bus windows and waved to the crowds. Family members and friends embraced them through the windows as they drove by.
VIDEO: Hundreds of Palestinian Captives Released in Khan Younis From Israeli Detention
Abdel Qader Sabbah and Sharif Abdel Kouddous Oct 13, 2025
In Khan Younis, thousands of people gathered to greet the freed detainees, who arrived in dozens of buses operated by the Red Cross and in Red Crescent ambulances. The crowds gathered in the courtyard of Nasser Hospital and on rooftops and balconies overlooking the medical complex where the freed captives were taken for medical checks. Nasser hospital, which has been repeatedly bombed by the Israeli military, is one of only 13 out of 38 hospitals still partially functioning in Gaza.
Freed detainees wearing gray jumpsuits leaned out of bus windows and waved to the crowds. Family members and friends embraced them through the windows as they drove by.
Abdel Qader Sabbah and Sharif Abdel Kouddous Oct 13, 2025
In Khan Younis, thousands of people gathered to greet the freed detainees, who arrived in dozens of buses operated by the Red Cross and in Red Crescent ambulances. The crowds gathered in the courtyard of Nasser Hospital and on rooftops and balconies overlooking the medical complex where the freed captives were taken for medical checks. Nasser hospital, which has been repeatedly bombed by the Israeli military, is one of only 13 out of 38 hospitals still partially functioning in Gaza.
Freed detainees wearing gray jumpsuits leaned out of bus windows and waved to the crowds. Family members and friends embraced them through the windows as they drove by.
CNN will host a live town hall with progressive lawmakers Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday, October 15, the network announced Friday.
The town hall will air at 9 p.m. ET and will be moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins from Washington, DC.
The event comes as the government shutdown is set to enter a third week, leaving roughly 1.4 million federal employees furloughed or working without pay. The funding lapse has already affected travel, and its impact could soon be seen on food assistance programs and the economy overall.
Mark Elliott, Professor of Public Law at the University of Cambridge, provides a good analysis on Starmer's comments.
The Prime Minister insists that the dropping of China-related espionage charges occurred for reasons entirely outwith the control of his government — but his argument that his hands were tied by the previous government’s position on China is, at best, highly contestable ...
The reality is that it is open to the government today to say that it considers that China was a threat to national security in 2021–23 and to offer that view as evidence for the purpose of criminal proceedings ...
The Prime Minister has claimed that his government’s hands are tied in relation to whether China constituted an ‘enemy’ for the purpose of a now-dropped criminal prosecution under…
During Friday's massive strike action in support of the Palestinians, demonstrators went to the Italian national team's training centre in Florence to demand the match against Israel be called off.
As of Tuesday only around 4,000 tickets had been sold for the game in Udine, a small city in Italy's far north-east, which was picked specifically to help limit the potential for disorder.
Italy are struggling to qualify automatically for next year's World Cup finals and the pressure on the team is exacerbated by the tension surrounding next Tuesday's qualifier with Israel in Udine.
All children – wherever they are in the world – deserve to be children: to explore, laugh and play, especially since play is a vital path to their learning and growth. But what about Palestinian children’s play time – or lack thereof? This is a human right taken from them by Israel.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Israel and Hamas have agreed to the “first phase” of his peace plan to pause fighting and release at least some hostages and prisoners, U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday in announcing the outlines of the biggest breakthrough in months in the two-year-old war.
“This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace,” Trump wrote on social media. “All Parties will be treated fairly!”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on social media, “With God’s help we will bring them all home.” Hamas said separately that the deal would ensure the withdrawal of Israeli troops as well as allow for the entry of aid and exchange of hostages and prisoners.
Hamas plans to release all 20 living hostages this weekend, people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press, while the Israeli military will begin a withdrawal from the majority of Gaza.
So what are the odds this lasts, and how does Trump react if his grand plan falls apart? The 20 point plan seems like it'll be a very hard sell in Israel in general, let alone to the far right partners in Netanyahu's coalition.
The reason I don’t think that will happen is he needs his evangelical base and they’re obsessed with full support for Israel because they desperately want the temple in Jerusalem rebuilt because they think it’ll bring about the end times.
It's possible. And then how does Israel react? There's already been talk of autarky over there, and they have a nuclear arsenal. The pieces are there for a last-ditch attempt at becoming a rogue state if US backing disappears.
A nation like North Korea, for example, has good relations with one neighbour, and their relations with the other entirely depend on how much they've pissed them off lately.
Israel isn't so fortunate. Without support from countries like the US, they'd likely cease to exist, given how they've systematically pissed off every neighbour they have.
It's not an exact analogy, though, because they're actually stronger than their neighbors, who don't really have superpower allies of their own. If Israel were to take that path, they'd start by expanding (more), and rely on the weakening of the world order to get away with it. The economics would be straight out of the historical empires.
I think that's plausible just because of how deep into the hate Israeli society has gotten, and how they've already set up economic and legal mechanisms like that on a small scale, through their settlement movement.
The other option is basically that, however it shakes out through domestic politics, they give up and do whatever the US makes them. Which would be less frightening, but leaves another chapter to be written whenever the US fully loses interest in having anything to do with them, since the shift away from Zionism crosses party lines there.
The whole regime lies twice every time they open their mouth once. Sorry Diaper Donnie, you still haven't earned that Nobel Prize, now release the Epstein files.
This is like the third time we've been at the "both sides agree!" Portion of things, only for it to never actually happen, Israel just continues the murdering...
Germany's competition watchdog has announced an investigation of Chinese discount online retail site temu.com, suspecting it of influencing retailers' prices. The site is the fastest-growing of its kind in the world.
Some people have the audacity to say that Trump's policies don't lead to misery and death.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat before Congress and declared: “No one has died” because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program. Rubio also insisted: “No children are dying on my watch.”
But the data says and projects otherwise.
A study published in The Lancet journal in June said the U.S. funding cuts could result in more than 14 million deaths, including more than 4.5 million children under age 5, by 2030.
The United States could have been a beacon of hope and a model to look up to. For many years, that was the case for people and immigrants all around the world.
In a matter of months, that has all crumbled to its foundation. It's so hard to watch.
No, it was never a model all around the world. The US has been hurting some groups of people for hundreds of years. Don't think they don't see it... So foreign aid is good, but don't get all patriotic on us.
My use of 'all' was a generalization, not literal. Historically, many people around the world did view the U.S. as a model and a place to aspire to, even as others rightly criticized its actions. My point is that the MAGA slogan claims to be trying restore (something like) that old image, yet their actions only deepen global resentment.
It would be great to see the US genuinely become a beacon of hope again (and atone for their sins), but I'm not holding my breath. Honestly, I've been cheering on other nations to fill that role. I'm not a US nationalist or patriot.
I'm afraid that you aren't seeing just how bad it really is:
There are specific dimensions to human-evil:
narcissism
machiavellianism
sociopathy-psychopathy
nihilism
sadism
systemic-dishonesty
eradication-of-objectivity
eradication-of-considered-reasoning
( and possibly others I haven't found, yet )
The problem is that MAGA is pushing-the-envelope on ALL these dimensions, simultaneously, & less than 1/4 way through Trump's 2nd term, he's got about 1/2 of "Project 2025" implimented.
People don't underrstand: there's a tipping-point" when it becomes totalitarian-dictatorship, & that point is *fast approaching.
The manufacturing of homelessness, combined with the criminalization of homelessness,
The law he got enacted that exempts him & his appointees from court-injunctions & related court actions,
The law he used to de-register Democrat voters, just before the Trump/Harris election,
The law that allows him to simply remove citizenship from everybody he doesn't like, "denaturalization",
There is NO limit to the evil that they will bee allowed to "legally" enforce, shortly.
As I tried explaining to the USMC, some time before Sept 11, 2001, "the USMC obeys any LEGAL order" does NOTHING to protect the USMC's heart/spirit once the law has been rewritten so that murdering babies is now a legal order.
The reason he's throwing-around the National Guard sooo much, now, is simply because it's part of how he's going to be enforcing his removal-of-rights-from-the-"woke", from the non-Republican, from the non-White, obviously too, in his enforcement of his confederate-kingdom..
The only saving-grace is that he'll be waging war on 3 fronts: war against Canada, because it's intolerable to him that he doesn't possess the entire-continent ( that's why he wants Greenland: to seal-off Canada from Europe, to quicken our butchery )
war against the US itself, Civil War Part2,
AND war against the countries to the US's south, basically all of Central America & much of South America,
WHILE picking fights with China whenever he can, offshore ( the navy )..
This is going to be the worst 6-7y that the Americas EVER had, once that tipping-point is crossed.
( & anybody who thinks that Russia isn't going to launch all-out war against Europe once NATO's butchered, is foolish: China'll be backing them, North Korea'll be backing them, & Canada'll be looking like Ukraine does, right now, if not like the way Mariupol did..
& China'll be rampaging Asia, with impunity..
etc.
IOW, regional-conquering will be the only thing the world is orienting-to for literally years, until Putin & Trump implode )
Tipping-points are violations of status-quo, & we're all unconsciously-wired to ignore violations-of-status-quo, unfortunately..
IF you're not with Trump, & you're in the Americas, please consider arming yourself significantly better than you are now..
( I've spent my life trying to find the Himilayan-Buddhist-monastery HOME that my soul remembers, from a previous-incarnation/life..
it is depressing-as-hell to have to say what I just told you, but it is dishonest to even think-of not telling you that.
I expect that there will be a couple hundred million dead in North America by the early 2030's, in Trump's rampaging of our world.
I expect that there will be a similar percentage dead in Europe then, too.
Even if I'm wrong by over-estimating-by-factor-of-2, that'd still be .. unimaginable for us, now, right?
US's Civil War Part2 .. civil wars are BAD: the most intense hatred-enforcement of any kind of war.
I hope that Canada's Carney finds somebody who can think in the proper frame-of-knowing that CAN stand, systematically, against Trump, because as European journalism has identified, he's spineless against Trump in the longer-term, & that isn't strategy: we're deadmeat, if that remains ruling Canada.
Financially, he's got no equal, that I know-of, anywhere near Canadian politics, but .. as a war leader??
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
They've crunched the numbers and know the vast majority of those people will die long before they are entitled to the money. They just won't pay the rest.
Not true. The sign up bonuses go to their next of kin. Russia is legitimately paying it out.
There are entire regions that have regeared their local economies to depend on these payouts. Because it's mostly underdeveloped regions signing up, this has become the most bizarre and macabre investment program in the world. Here's an excellent video on the topic.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
typo: "that's why SO many Russian casualties" .. "do" changes the meaning to incomprehensible, & I suspect that many who don't have English as their primary language might not understand how to fix the meaning..
You're spot-on, of course: this is the point I'd been going to make!
Those mobile-crematoriums that Russia uses, to avoid paying-out the death-amount for fallen soldiers: machiavellianism taken to a degree I'd never have imagined..
I've heard of plenty of cases were people (or their next of kin) didn't get shit. I'll grant that that was from the first 2 years of the war, maybe they got their act together.
dont worry, putin is just grabbing the undesirables, from the poor regions,aka ethnic russians, and not the white russians moscow and st petersberg area.
Considering how cheap life is in Russia, and how expensive recruitment bonuses are, I'm surprised they haven't already switched to conscription which they have a long history of.
They have conscription, but Russia can't send conscripts abroad unless they're at war, and this is a special military operation, not a war. The real question is "Why don't they go to war, and send the conscripts?" And the answer why people don't understand why Russia doesn't is because they think Russia is a single country. That's a very normal thought to have when you live in the west, because say, France or Poland, are a single country.
But Russia is basically two countries. You've got Moscow, which has 20 million people and is slightly bigger than the Netherlands, and Saint Petersburg which has 6 million people but is also somewhat smaller. Those two cities are where the government sits, it's where all the decisions are made, where all the companies are, where all the capital sits and all the investements get made. Moscow has technology, internet, plumbing, subways, etc etc.
And then there's the entire rest of Russia, which you can sorta-kinda view as a massive colonial empire of Moscow. They get to decide nothing, they exist to provide labour for all of Moscow's capital and to have resources that can be exploited. It's where all the GDP comes from, yet they have no money because all that mineral wealth immediately goes back to Moscow.
Declaring war and sending in the conscripts would mean people from Moscow (read: People who actually matter) would get send to war, as opposed to the "colonial troops". Literally nobody in Russia cares about what happens to the 4 million people living in de Federal Republic of Bashkortostan (it's a real place, I promise), but everyone cares what happens to the people in 140.000 people in Kolpino, because it's part of St. Petersburg.
Surely it would be a piece of cake to fudge the laws and come up with some excuse to exempt those two regions from conscription? Not like they care about anyone's established rule of law anyway.
When the US still had conscription, they implemented college wavers so rich and middle class (largely white) kids could avoid serving in Vietnam and only poor kids and minorities had to do the fighting and dying. Now we have an all volunteer military but since we don't have universal healthcare or higher ed, we force our poor to serve in the military if they want those things.
With a new school for "drone commandos," the massive "Cold Start" drone war games, and an ambitious air defense reform, India is rewriting its military playbook amid challenges from Pakistan and China.
Both Sunzi ( Sun Tzu, in the old way of naming him: it means Master Sun ) & Clausewitz would have a bit to say about that..
You aren't going to have military dominance, unless you've significantly out-invested your competitors/opponents.
Pretending that India's competitors/opponents are significantly out-invested by Modi's India .. is a pathetic joke.
< digging >
LMAO
India's next-year budget is around $80B, whereas China's is around $300B.
( that AND the fact that Modi has "bet the farm" on Russia's aiding India against China, when Russia's now an economic-vassal-state of China: they won't lift a finger against their new puppetmasters )
Crossing fast-track citizenship off the books was a key migration-related election campaign promise from Chancellor Merz's CDU. Critics argue that this will deter highly qualified immigrants from coming to Germany.
Too stupid to be like Trump. You've got to be Merz for that. TBF he might be just too stiff and socially inept to be a good copy, but still: who in the world might want to imitate Trump except comedians and Merz?
We could argue which of the two is the bigger asshole, but I would definitely say Trump is the bigger idiot. Maybe I'm a bit too influenced in this decision by his incoherent speeches though, which is currently more an Alzheimer thing, but I have never heard any old recordings that were much better. Merz can speak and cover his lies much better.
The provocation on September 10 triggered a wave of social media messages in Poland, originating from Russian and Belarusian accounts, in part blaming Ukraine or NATO for the incident.
The complete article identifies that the platforms, like Facebook, won't deplatform disinformation, even enemy-of-country disinformation, because it is profitable.
They won't comply.
& .. you will notice that the national-governments therefore are .. capitulating to the platforms, .. not wielding any law, any fines, any jailtime, an ANYthing, to coerce platform-compliance with national-law.
So, the "responsible" authorities are "helpless", then, .. while our countries are intentionally misrailed ( not identical with "derailed", but deliberately put on wrong rails ) by Russia: our governments, due to not having any spine, are "unable" to make that stop.
Enjoy the consequences of that, a few years down the road, when Trump has declared open war on NATO ( using Greenland to seal-off & butcher Canada, for his "continental kingdom" ), ditching Europe to Putin's Russia ( China backed, because of how that'll benefit China once Europe is butchered, in a few years .. "The destruction of the West is the midwife of Chinese dominion" )..
it's fucking inevitable, & it's unfolding as blatently/obviously as it can.
WHEN we have no spine to enforce integrity in our own institutions, AND "our" institutions have no spine to enforce integrity in their domains, AND everybody just accommodates the true-enemy-of-our-viability rewriting our owncountries .. while "wringing their hands", *displacing national-integrity..
it is our population that will be butchered, exactly as the Ukrainian population is currently being butchered because we accommodated Russia's invasion, after promising Ukraine that we'd protect them if Russia ever attacked them, when we got Ukraine to give-up their nukes..
Maybe our-race NEEDS to be butchered from existence, so that our souls might, someday, on some other world, have a speck of motivation to have integrity, then, instead of having any now..
The appeasers-of-Hitler certainly made many others pay for their non-responsibility..
Why would this-generation be any different?
This makes me wonder: when Trump's goons are literally murdering people willy-nilly, anybody who won't insta-grovel to their authority's "lordhood", will the Democrats THEN admit that they aren't going to be taking back the US of A through election??
WHAT THE FSCK DEGREE OF EVIDENCE IS REQUIRED TO CAUSE AUTHORITY TO SOMEHOW BEGIN EMBODYING INTEGRITY??
Infinite?
Species-wide DarwinAward's inevitable, then, & this is our kind's final century.
An organism's immune-system only has actual chance of breaking an infection IF IT IS FIGHTING infection.
If it's accommodating, instead-of fighting, then .. there is ZERO chance of breaking the infection, & the pathogen then OWNS the fate of the organism.
This is true of countries, as well as of individual-organisms.
But still, nobody would dare to help against Russia. If they don't need help -- good for them. I'm interested in more wars involving Russia and its allies.
Ethiopia purchases arms from Russia as well. Russia was supportive to Ethiopia in Tigray. Ethiopia has been a solid ally for Russia in the UN since the the war started. Ethiopia has a good relationship with Russia
Ethiopia has a better relationship with Russia than Eritrea and because, weirdly, Eritrea and Israel have a fairly good relationship, so my friends enemy is not necessarily my enemy, in this case, but a good contact to sell weapons to while I look for money to find my special military operation, and take my skim for you know, war effort. Also noted is that Ethiopia and Israel are fairly good friends, but I believe Israel operates some military out of Eritrea.
However, Russia will flip weapons to Ethiopia and Eritrea and watch them shoot it out. That being said, Ethiopia is the bigger monster when it comes to equipment because of its licensed manufacturing deal for old Soviet hardware, up to large field guns, I think, but is battle fatigued. Eritrea has far greater manpower of highly trained but poorly motivated and poorly equipped soldiers. Null sum game.
Also, they aren't going to fight. Aferwerki has enough problems at home, and his own tenure is at risk. Age has caught up and younger upstarts are sensing blood in the water. So while his avenue is to distract with a ports war, conveniently, it is again, a null sum game.
All hail Somaliland. The new powerbroker and infrastructure operator in the region.
That whole region is impossible to see how it ends up. Ethiopia and Trigray. Ethiopia and Eritrea. Ethiopia and Somolia. Somalia and Puntland and Khatumo. Egypt and Ethiopia. Sudan hanging out in between with their own civil war. Then over time Rwanda is setting themselves up to try and be the Israel and may end up to varying degrees attacking everyone
You have seen the massive amounts of weapons going to Ukraine?
Help is going there. Saying nobody wants to help Ukraine is disingenuous at best, and just a flat lie at, well, not even worst, just normal.
Look, I know that it would have been awesome if Europe would send soldiers but there is this thing where you try not to make things worse. Putting European soldiers there might very well escalate the Ukraine invasion to something we will all regret
You have seen the massive amounts of weapons going to Ukraine?
No, I haven't. But I am an engineer and therefore am capable to count to 100. I know even bigger numbers, so, let's say, 15, doesn't impress me at all. I wouldn't call it "massive".
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that it would investigate how Tesla’s semi-autonomous driving software handles railroad crossings.
That was Donnys way to scratch Elon's back for helping with the campaign. After the back stabbing and subsequent fall out, I'm sure Elon took all his people out.
WHY THE FUCK ARE PEOPLE STILL EXPECTING THIS GARBAGE TO WORK? Tesla’s “full self driving” crashes have been widely covered. Is it simple ignorance? Are they not aware of the news? Is it stubbornness? Laziness? Thinking that “it won’t happen to me”? Do they sincerely believe Musk’s lies?
I know that victim blaming isn’t the answer, and that’s not what I’m doing. I just want to know what’s going on in their heads.
People don't know about the unreliability of such systems. They also don't know how simple Tesla's autopilot is compared to other systems.
As a person who has used OpenCV before, I would never trust a computer vision system. I maybe could trust LiDAR based systems as those can see 3 dimensionally but that's a big "maybe".
The weirdest part to me is that one apple engineer who died in a tesla crash. I have no idea how an engineer working in a software company could trust that thing
I have no idea how an engineer working in a software company could trust that thing
Because many of us are fucking morons. I had one colleague who was writing the control software for a baseball-throwing machine. Despite being way past the deadline and way over budget, the client asked him to create a special version of the software so the machine could be used with Little League teams. He decided to do his first test of this version on a field with actual Little Leaguers on it, which resulted in a 125 mph knuckleball (no spin at all so incredibly erratic in flight) a foot above a 10-year-old kid's head. Which resulted in the only time in my programming career that I had to physically intervene to prevent a fistfight between two people (my boss and the client).
What's mad is there are self-driving vehicles that do actually seem to work. There is even a few that have enough confidence to remove driving controls. But they use LiDAR, the one technology that musk refuse is to incorporate for some reason.
I think an analogue version would be a taxi. Buses drive set routes I would hope that the self-driving car can go on all roads not just pre-selected ones.
Tesla should be fined and forced to change when saying or responding with "despite its name self driving is not self driving". They continue to lie. With continued consequences. At the cost of others and the public.
Them responding as such is absurd. Them getting away with that even more so.
How is this clearly defective product still on the market?? If any other car manufacturer had "features" that were so consistently causing this much mayhem they would have recalled all vehicles and been held liable.
We don't look at car features in isolation. e.g. seatbelt or airbag could cause injuries too in a crash, but we have them because it's better than not having them.
In the same token self driving doesn't have to be perfect, it just need to be better than humans. I don't know what Tesla's number looks like, just speaking generally.
I hated working for target 20 years ago. They aren't guests, they're customers. It's not a guest experience, it's shopping. And if I don't want to smile, fuck off and quit trying to say I should smile more.
And I'm a guy. I hear women get told they should smile more WAY more often than I did when I worked at target. Those people saying that can fuck all the way off onto a cactus dildo.
It's one German state. Nevertheless, better than none. Sadly, for instance, Munich moved away from Linux to Microsoft in 2017 (end of project limux). Did I mention Microsoft has a location there?
Earlier switches were primarily about cost-savings, so Microsoft would just swoop in with discounts and backroom deal$, or offer discounts to anyone considering copy-catting, isolating the early-adopters.
This case is not about cost but data sovereignty, and it's also a smaller switch (keeping the Windows OS), so we can have hopes for better success.
Well, we have like 3 decades at most of this kind of tech, and really only a couple of generations modern capitalism, so it's a bit tough to say "always" about anything. It would be more accurate, historically, to say that the monarchy always wins - but especially in that case - past performance does not guarantee future returns.
Of course I remember. There is no too big to fail, too.
But that does not mean it's not getting replaced by another one. That's also a pattern. Or maybe the meta game changes, someone else has money and invests and holds a lot of smaller players. Still.
For docker it would be Kubernetes and that's Google.
Lol, I don't know of that's intentional shade but that photo is of my hometown (Lübeck), which is in the state (SH) but not the capital. So they didn't find a photo from capital (Kiel) they that was aesthetically pleasing enough to accompany the article?
This isn’t really newsworthy anymore - European governments are all moving towards digital sovereignty for stuff like this, which makes sense. Microsoft will most likely start offering “host your own” cloud versions of these products soon to try and stop/slow the exodus, as controlling your own data becomes more and more important to governments and companies.
According to the article, it is due to restructuring that has nothing to do with the spite layoffs being used by the Trump administration to punish Democrats for their unwillingness to support a dramatic 2x increase to healthcare expenses for Americans.
AFAIK JPL is part of the University of California, not NASA and I’m pretty sure this isn’t the first round of layoffs at JPL in the last few years.
Edit: It’s Caltech. I misremembered.
Edit 2: People seem to not be understanding what I am saying so I will clarify: JPL - Founded in 1936. NASA - Founded in 1958.
While NASA is the primary sponsor of JPL today its management has always fallen to its original founder, Caltech. Both JPL and Caltech are considered Federal Contractors. The decision to lay people off was made by JPLs management and has nothing to do with the current government shutdown. This is the third round of layoffs at JPL in the last 18 months or so and is largely due to cuts and restructuring to planned missions like the Mars Sample Return.
Find information about employment at JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), a Federally Funded Research and Development Center funded by NASA, managed by Caltech.
Space mission and science news, images and videos from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the leading center for robotic exploration of the solar system.
I misremembered, but my point still stands; the decision for layoffs, this being the third round in 18 months, didn’t come from the government it came from JPLs management which isn’t NASA.
of course it does. nasa pays the bills and they are the ones who say "we will hire or fire people, because we do or do not have money". management from caltech says "ok, these are the people who have expertise we need".
you don't think they are giving money to someone and that someone does whatever they want with these money, do you?
That’s literally how think tanks work. Their paychecks come from Caltech not NASA. They answer to the board of governors not NASA. But you also seem to have forgotten the context of the original comment I was replying to.
Thing is, when the economy is already going downhill... You ought to increase government spending instead of reducing it. It puts more money in the economy. More people with jobs also spend more money at businesses that employ people.
Well unfortunately the President of the United States is bad at business and the Republicans are ...Republicans. The only thing that matters to either are rich people.
Oh I know, I'm just fully enjoying the irony of watching the man who was supposed to lower the grocery prices make fewer people be able to afford groceries.
He is a moron to be sure, but crashes like this make opportunities for those with means to gobble up the big stuff cheap. Sure ground beef is expensive as fuck right now but I bet the wagu steak hasn't changed nearly as much. Hell when the economy is going well the rabble want a taste of the good stuff. Better to keep them in their place.
There is an argument to be made that having secure high paying government jobs harms other sectors by taking employees and raising average pay, forcing them to keep up. We aren't anywhere near that being an issue though, but there is a limit where more government jobs can make recovery harder, when other sectors go out of business competing with it and there's nowhere for anyone to go once the government jobs close.
One of the best-known photographers in Mexico. Her work looks away from the sensational images of violence that have for years defined the nation, and instead looks inwards, to the traditions, faces, and unusual sights seen everyday.
Iturbide came to photography later in life. She was the eldest daughter of a wealthy, conservative couple. In 1962, she married the photographer Pedro Meyer and had three children. It was after the death of her daughter in 1970, aged just 6, that Iturbide turned to photography.
The 5th image is perhaps her best-known photograph. Nuestra Señora de Las Iguanas (Our Lady of the Iguanas), it was originally published as part of her photo essay Juchitán de las Mujeres (1979-86), a project which began with Iturbide's support of feminist causes.
Iturbide was also involved in documenting the indigenous cultures of Mexico. This image, Mujer Ángel, in which a woman carries a tape recorder on her journey to ancient cave paintings. was shot in 1979 in the Sonora desert, when Iturbide was living with the Seri Indians.
In many of her photographs there is a sense of playfulness and strangeness. These qualities are at odds with many people's expectations or experiences of Mexico. Iturbide has always strived to look beyond the lurid headlines, to the absurdity of life.
Folk stories and religious themes are common throughout her work. Particularly when the visual language of the catholic church meets ancient native traditions and the realities of contemporary life.
Iturbide started photographing landscapes and birds. She had heard the Seri Indians talk of the significance of birds, and she began to incorporate living and dead birds into her art; symbolic of strength and fragility, freedom and vulnerability.
In the mid-1980s she photographed Mexican-Americans in Eastside Los Angeles, many of whom were involved in street gangs. The cholos and cholas of the White Fence Gang would later feature in the anthology A Day in the Life of America (1987).
EU lawmakers voted on Wednesday to ban the use of the term "veggie-burger" and limit food descriptions such as steak, escalope and sausage to products containing meat, part of a proposed EU law to protect farmers.
a hamburger refers being in the style of, or a resident of hamburg Germany.
A burger should only be allowed to refer to the residents, or styles of, any legally defined Burg- ie a german walled town or fortress.
Hamburg should claim a DOC for ground beef, like champagne's for sparkling wine.
Although that might be disingenuous, as a practice of making the minced beef steak into a sandwich wasnt developed until the dish made its way to america.
Imagine if the term hamburger was under the protected designation of origin, just like feta cheese and champagne. You couldn’t produce hamburgers anywhere besides Hamburg. The rest of the world would have to call them something else, like beef sandwiches.
The world is collapsing under the weight of totalitarianism, climate change, pollution, escalating conflicts, terrorism, tariff battles, supply chain issues, job losses, diseases, and various other huge challenges. And this is the bullshit they are focusing on?!
This is day-to-day shit politicians have to vote on. Went to my state capitol to protest as a senior. Blew me away how fast they were cranking through the votes.
"On proposal $X, \<very short descriptive blurb>, all those in favor?"
We see headlines like this because it's so ridiculous. But it's just the daily grind to legislators.
Who knows what concession(s) they got for bringing this dumb issue to the table? Maybe a concession on one of the issues you noted?
Not really, it's more of a farmer's lobby protecting animal products from vegetarian alternatives.
Which as someone else says below is a bit neutral and doesn't do much, but hey. They did it to milk.
Guessing it's some bargaining chip with the industry on the wider legislation they're passing? This stuff is pretty byzantine. European agricultural industries are constantly on the verge of setting stuff on fire. It's a full time job to be even vaguely aware of what's going on with them.
I nean... it's a labelling thing, presumably. They don't want milk substitutes to be labelled "milk" so they can't advertise as easily as a milk substitute on supermarket shelves, and presumably the same is true for meat substitutes, except this goes at a glacial pace and they tried and failed in 2020 when it was still relevant and now they're trying again even though nobody cares about veggie burgers anymore.
You are presuming this sort of arcane manipulation of collective weirdness into multinational legislation follows human logic, and that way lies madness. Best you can do is steer it ever so slightly so it at least does something in the aggregate that stops some anarchocapitalist loon from privatizing oxygen or whatever. It's been a very weird century.
As a form of protest the producers could call their veggie-burgers something like "veggie- big uncooked round grain based edible rotund" which conveniently shortens to veggie-b.u.r.g.e.r. Simply make the dots between the letters tiny and you barely have to change the packaging.
Hope that's legal and someone does that. Those idiots who made this law would blow a gasket.
They already did that. It's all soy drink instead of soy milk, and it says "vegan alternative for cheese", with "alternative for" in small print, or just "cheese alternative". That kind of thing. It might have delayed some sales, but in general the vegan market grew anyway.
I'm perfectly fine with the vegan market growing - the more the better!
I'm just tired of accidentally buying congealed vegetable oil when I'm trying to buy cheese, and compressed bean patty when I'm trying to buy burgers. Making it more clear on the packaging will mean I don't have to spend an extra five minutes triple-checking the fine print all over the package to make sure I'm not being tricked into buying something I don't want. I can just grab the ones that say "burgers" and "cheese" with no worries and go.
Not to mention that this will also make it easier for those who are looking for congealed vegetable oil and compressed bean patty, meaning they'll be less likely to accidentally buy something they're morally or ethically opposed to.
I hope it's real meat and not a small amount of meat blown up with starch, fat, water and emulsifier that just shrinks alarmingly as soon as it hits the pan.
I mean, I usually do, but when I'm hosting for like 15 people it's much faster to just buy a Costco 20-pack. Also, I think "just don't buy burgers then" is a pretty dumb take in response to the topic at hand.
It was the worst cheesy bread I've ever experienced. And that was after triple checking to make sure it was mozzarella. I can't remember where on the packaging it finally said that it was vegan, but it was anything but prominent.
Ever since, I get downvoted in threads like these, because I know from experience how much making the distinction matters to consumers.
If it says "cheese", it should be cheese, end of story.
If what they did to milk and cheese is any indication, putting "burger alternative" on the packaging is good enough, so in the end it's going to be a big nothing burger.
What's next? Soon you won't be allowed to call it baby oil unless it's made from real babies.
On a more serious note, I did order a "flexi" burger at Max by mistake. I thought it was a gateway burger with one patty replaced by halloumi. All I got was veg.
realitista
in reply to onehundredsixtynine • • •like this
Fitik, RandomStickman, bluGill, osaerisxero e dandi8 like this.
9point6
in reply to realitista • • •Remember every time we find Putin backed propaganda outside of Russia in the wild, it's nearly always boosting predominantly conservative viewpoints versus anything else.
Outside of their borders they're more interested in people fighting with each other than anything like coming together. Right wing politics is how they do that
troed
in reply to 9point6 • • •Sorry, but this is wrong. They're also actively sponsoring "left wing" propaganda, to further sow discord. Depending on which group you yourself belong to, it's just easier to spot "the others".
bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-39…
The rise of left-wing, anti-Trump fake news
BBC Trending (BBC News)like this
Fitik, justOnePersistentKbinPlease e bluGill like this.
dadarobot
in reply to troed • • •troed
in reply to dadarobot • • •Oh you think they just stopped? Did you bother to verify for yourself?
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.11…
9point6
in reply to troed • • •Primary sources tend to disagree
Here's a study from 2019 about it that backs up my assertion that more is conservative academic.oup.com/joc/article/6…
And of that propaganda being created, that conservative inclined people are most likely to fall for it: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/…
There seem to be plenty of other papers that more or less reach those same conclusions with a good number of citations, but I can't find anything really at all on Google Scholar concluding the opposite with a quick search, let alone something also credible.
The closest some papers come is saying that they try groups all over the political spectrum, as their goal is disunity ultimately, but they seemingly don't really have any kind of continued success with misinforming those groups anywhere near as effectively. They more or less all end up concluding that most of the propaganda targets conservatives, because they're the ones that fall for it.
OpenStars
in reply to 9point6 • • •like this
Coopr8 likes this.
JollyG
in reply to 9point6 • • •like this
bluGill e troed like this.
troed
in reply to 9point6 • • •Primary sources tend to agree
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.11…
Might it be that you're commenting based on what you want to be true?
masterspace
in reply to 9point6 • • •Your assertion that more is conservative is a meaningless assertion in the context of this discussion.
More can be conservative on average but you don't see an average view of the internet, you see your filter bubble, and that source backs up the original assertion that yes, Russia is targeting leftists too.
DomeGuy
in reply to troed • • •Your article doesn't seem to mention Russia once.
Rumors and smears are part of free speech. To the extent that right-wing trolls and their audience are actual voters, it's essentially just a coarse form of ordinary political speech.
The extent to which a foreign government acting coverly is either creating or artificially boosting such content is scandalous.
Diva (she/her)
in reply to DomeGuy • • •DomeGuy
in reply to Diva (she/her) • • •True enough. But even a tyrannical government at least has a presumable intent of working for the betterment of its country. (Albeit through wrongheaded and small-minded means )
A.foreijgn power, especially a historical adversary and bad actor, is instead presumably working to harm or diminish us.
queermunist she/her
in reply to DomeGuy • • •troed
in reply to DomeGuy • • •Feel free to read any other article that does, if you somehow have managed to avoid learning about russian influence campaigns over the last decade.
DomeGuy
in reply to troed • • •You presented it as proof that Russia is supporting misinformation on the left. To be that, it has to both include all three parts of the claim -- that there is disinformation on the left, that Russia is covertly supporting disinformation, and that some of the disinformation on the left was supported by Russia.
If your wife sleeps around, and I engage in casual sex, it does not necessarily follow that I slept with your wife.
A common suspicion in America is that Vladimir Putin believes that Trump as POTUS is good for Russia, and that Putin interferes with US politics with a specific goal of helping Trump.
If you have some reporting that directly links Russia to left-wing disinformation I'd love to read it. But the BBC article I read after following your link didn't have any such link.
troed
in reply to DomeGuy • • •This is the third time I post this paper in this thread: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.11…
There are plenty more. You spent more time writing your post than it takes to find them.
Goodeye8
in reply to troed • • •DomeGuy
in reply to troed • • •Better. That actually supports the assertion that Russia does engage in left-targeted disinformation (in Canada, on Twitter.)
It also supports the original point you dismissed as "wrong" -- of the 90 "most influential" accounts, only 9 were subjectively identified as "Canadian far left".
Maybe you should spend more time reading the actual articles, and not just their headlines?
queermunist she/her
in reply to troed • • •Flax
in reply to troed • • •masterspace
in reply to 9point6 • • •Absolutely and utterly false. They try and promote fighting, anger, and distrust of government to everyone.
They target leftists with things that will upset them, make them angry at the right and the government and other leftists and sow further discord and polarization.
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optissima
in reply to masterspace • • •masterspace
in reply to optissima • • •optissima
in reply to masterspace • • •FunctionallyLiterate
in reply to masterspace • • •masterspace
in reply to FunctionallyLiterate • • •like this
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FunctionallyLiterate
in reply to masterspace • • •goat
in reply to 9point6 • • •socsa
in reply to realitista • • •optissima
in reply to socsa • • •socsa
in reply to optissima • • •A source for my lived experience? Or do you mean an example?
I have been banned from .ml twice for stating that Russia shot down a civilian airliner over Ukraine - a matter of incontrovertible fact which has absolutely nothing to do with any leftist theory, as far as my masters degree in political science can discern.
optissima
in reply to socsa • • •The wild claims you made.
optissima
in reply to realitista • • •TORFdot0
in reply to optissima • • •.ml is moderated to be ideologically one sided. Pro-capitalism is literally not allowed and will deleted. Making a pro-west or anti-China or Russia comment is like a bat signal for .ml admins and users alike to dogpile on your comment.
It’s their right to moderate their instance how they see fit, but removing content on ideological grounds is going to result in people thinking what’s left is propaganda.
For the most part I like .ml users, I don’t care for the admin team and moderator decisions and that’s why I’m not on that instance. I could care less about the fact my instance is defederated from hexbear users or grad users. They do want to be polarizing and live in a propaganda bubble
Lemminary
in reply to optissima • • •morrowind
in reply to realitista • • •realitista
in reply to morrowind • • •altkey (he\him)
in reply to realitista • • •I wouldn't call them that. Most if not all of them are genuine people with some having accs for many years before Reddit crossed the line for most of us and them becoming anyhow relevant to interfere. In a recent hexbearean post about fediverse negativity I've read a couple of opinions with a notion that federating with others wasn't that great, and they were pretty happy just by themselves. I assume, it's the same for other two too. That's a game too long and effortful to be a psyop imho. Their positions and where they get their info are things to argue, but let's not get as far as dehumanizing them.
Almost everywhere I soundly proclaim that I am a russian dummy anarchist, that I live in that state for I have no options, and I angrily disagree with their fascination, mystification of what it is, I hold a grudge with anyone who wants that russki mir to be the model the whole world should share.
I, nevertheless, find a lot of points, like personal stuff and grieveancies, theoretical things, sympathy to protesters, to Gazan survivors that I share with them. Unlike transparently racist/fascist troll comms that were there, unlike their campaigns I've noticed, there is a huge population of real people worthy of talking, arguing with.
Call me any names and ban me, but as long as any person or community is supportive of basic pillar causes like body autonomy, you, like, can at least talk to them and find something in common.
What I missed though, is that Diva said the same, but misleadingly doubted the existence of russian bot networks. Them and state suppression ruined the rusophonic space to that degree I dropped it altogether. I don't know how their actions affected other countries, but as a nolifer shitposting addict trying to trust them just a bit, I came through fire, water and copper tubes before dropping them altogether. They are like current Twitter, but worse. And, well, fuck, I wasn't abandoning that to find the next option already corrupted.
realitista
in reply to altkey (he\him) • • •You don't have to be aware that you are a Russian asset/propagandist to be one. A couple useful definitions
Intelligence Asset
Useful Idiot
derogatory term for a person perceived to propagandize for a cause without fully comprehending the cause's goals
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)altkey (he\him)
in reply to realitista • • •You've ignored whatever I said to drop a one-line generalized response, not an organic one, and didn't elaborate why it relates to what I said.
Isn't that a behavior of a useful tool you alert others against? I don't assume you are one. But I get some vibes you don't act in a good faith there.
realitista
in reply to altkey (he\him) • • •altkey (he\him)
in reply to realitista • • •Drunktexting and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
The main point why I wrote it was that I don't find them either bots or artifical influencers. They do probably want to have some reach or fresh blood, but don't want their local culture to be spread too thin like it's reddit 2.0. They are anything but cancer that I've met seeing real botfaming ops.
And, although I don't share many of their thoughts, most of the posts I see in my feed discuss common issues where we aren't that far from each other. Closer, than to maga/zionist/z-crowd. And in that context I find it alright to not draw any lines and just talk.
When things start to get overly political, well, that's a whole another thing, where different bestest solutions are incompatible, historical betrayals are dugged up and the internet infighting ensues. It's exhausting and pointless with just 2mil mostly irrelevant nerds on Fediverse. It's easier to just scroll through some amuzing takes, and instead focus on things where we can cooperate.
BaroqueInMind
in reply to onehundredsixtynine • • •like this
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Diva (she/her)
in reply to onehundredsixtynine • • •foggy
in reply to Diva (she/her) • • •RepleteLocum
in reply to Diva (she/her) • • •aliser
in reply to Diva (she/her) • • •like this
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Diva (she/her)
in reply to aliser • • •prole
in reply to Diva (she/her) • • •True, the existence of US propaganda means Russian propaganda doesn't exist.
GOOD point
Diva (she/her)
in reply to prole • • •herseycokguzelolacak
in reply to Diva (she/her) • • •HubertManne
in reply to onehundredsixtynine • • •SunSunFuego
in reply to onehundredsixtynine • • •everyone i dislike is a russian bot.
also: пошел нахуй путин
Frezik
in reply to SunSunFuego • • •herseycokguzelolacak
in reply to onehundredsixtynine • • •Skavau
in reply to herseycokguzelolacak • • •like this
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altkey (he\him)
in reply to onehundredsixtynine • • •Frezik
in reply to altkey (he\him) • • •like this
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Captain Aggravated
in reply to Frezik • • •REDACTED
in reply to onehundredsixtynine • • •acargitz
in reply to onehundredsixtynine • • •Frezik
in reply to onehundredsixtynine • • •If your first reaction was to post "posts I dislike are Russian bots", then you haven't actually grasped the argument. It has nothing to do with anyone disagreeing with specific posts.
It's also very telling that you're reflexively posting that when it says nothing about the data being presented.
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comfy
in reply to Frezik • • •0_o7
in reply to onehundredsixtynine • • •Most effortless and effective blame offloading "news" of the century.
I guess I'm ruzzian now.
dickalan
in reply to onehundredsixtynine • • •