[walrus66]

... I wouldn't really call RT a foreign propaganda site. Frankly, and perhaps I'm myself biased, they provide less propagandic of an assessment of Western events than nearly every one of our mainstream media outlets that I can think of.

Regarding what the article is referring to, things like the Washington Post allowing China to buy ads or China funding lobbyists who speak to congressman who likely have no idea, I can't see anybody justifying that, unless they hate the US, which okay, that's your prerogative.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that the average person is at least two orders of magnitude less endowed with information than the people you might speak with on HN, whether or not any of our opinions are correct, so even a tiny bit of propaganda reaching enough people can change minds against the interest of the country.

I think this should've been illegal 50 years ago, and I think the people abetting this should be tried for treason, almost by the very definition.

[jnurmine]

It is not good to confuse what RT and Ruptly etc. are meant to be.

Their purpose is to pretend to be serious news outlets to amplify various social media phenomena by selectively reporting about them and repeating this over and over again, with the purpose of legitimizing the phenomenae.

The message that comes out is aligned to the goals of the Russian Federation. The messages that are repeated are chosen for political purposes. The point is to not speak to Russians but to the "disgruntled people" of the West. The main idea seems to be to amplify divisions, whatever those may be.

For instance, just look at what is coming now out related to the "Yellow Vests" in France.

These sites are not a channel for presenting facts or a "counterbalance to Western media". They are simpleton propaganda outlets, news theater that is one part of the media influence mechanism that the Russian leadership wields.

The narrative in the prominent articles is always quite predictable: NATO equals bad, USA equals culture imperialism, Europe equals falling apart, Ukrainians equals fascists, Russia the underdog does nothing wrong, and so on.

Once RT starts running articles detailing the corruption in Russia and why there is an opposition movement in the first place (hint: not due to foreign involvement) it might start gaining plausibility as an outlet for high quality fact-based journalism.

[walrus66]

>> Their purpose is to pretend to be serious news outlets to amplify various social media phenomena by selectively reporting about them and repeating this over and over again, with the purpose of legitimizing the phenomenae.

In comparison to major US outlets? I get what you're saying, and agree that they place a halo on Russia, but, I would argue instead that you can get a much more holistic view of what is actually happening in the West from RT than what's being sold you to us on a TV screen in the US. From what I've seen, it doesn't look like RT is sparking anything that isn't already brewing and should not be covered.

There are very serious issues and changes brewing in France and all over Europe that OUR media is obscuring and even dismissing.

For one example (of many), regarding the Yellow Vest situation, Paris is on the verge of open revolution, but, up until about a week ago, most of the US outlets, especially the liberal ones (sorry, but it's true), portrayed peace and harmony in France and would mention Macron as some kind of noble visionary in contrast to Trump - not once did I see a mention of how his polling numbers were precipitously dropping to the lowest in modern history, among a myriad of other indicators. That, to me, is propaganda.

The word "division" is thrown a lot now, but conflict is inevitable, and I think the greater sin in our media has been obscuring issues behind a TV screen until things reach a climax.