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Comment by nathankunicki | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure I see what RT is attempting to say about Twitter here. That they offered them promoted content, ad-buy discounts, custom emojis, etc, in exchange for an ad-buy of a certain amount. This doesn't seem like anything other than a partnership of some kind.

It doesn't say anything that RT should favour one candidate over another, in fact the presentation specifically promotes unbiased content and news.

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The 'unbiased' bit in the Twitter presentation is bullshit, how can they determine how an organisation is going to use this system? It's wishful thinking at best.

Otherwise, to be honest I'm with you. Suppose it was revealed Twitter had offered the same deal to Fox News, CNN, PBS, the BBC, etc. In fact they probably did.

Is it now illegal or immoral for US businesses to deal with RT? Should US advertisers be banned from working with RT? US media organizations? US telecoms companies? Maybe they should be, but it certainly wasn't back then. We all know RT is a Kremlin propaganda tool, if we want to penalise RT then lets do that directly and explicitly and not blame Twitter for just being Twitter.

Now if subsequently Twitter has decided that RT violated Twitter's terms of service, that's a different issues, but you can't expect Twitter to know they're going to do that beforehand, or in general pre-emptively decide who they will or won't accept on the platform like that.

Edit: See emodenrockt's reply below. Couldn't agree more. RT are toxic, but we can't afford to twist our deomocratic and press freedoms in knots over them.

Personally I think we probably shouldn't throw out our fundamental protections of the press because we don't like RT's angle, especially when you consider that even if you're a liberal who hates RT you can be sure they'll turn around and use whatever precedent is set against left-leaning sources too. We're already seeing this with the hysteria about fake news being taken out on sources like Naked Capitalism and Truthout.

being a liberal doesn't have anything to do with it. RT is state propaganda of a dictatorship, not some legitimate news source with a left or right bias.

It is a legitimate news source though. If you're sorting news sources into all-good and all-bad buckets and uncritically believing or disbelieving everything they print then you're going to end up with a distorted view.

"going" to end up with

Or more likely no news sources at all besides bloggers who totally aren't pushing agendas...

I've read a few good articles on RT and used it for news on a number of occasions. I'd never look to it for any balanced view about the Ukraine conflict, but I also wouldn't look to WaPo/NYT for a balanced view on US geopolitics either.

I have grown up in a communist totalitarian state and possibly as a result of that always consumed media with a critical attitude. There are no sources in the all-good bucket. The all-bad bucket is full of RT, Breitbart and other sources, because they have only one purpose. And that purpose is to further the agenda of their masters, not to inform their audience. That is the reason why it is not a legitimate news source.

Who decides what's legitimate? Twitter? Trump? There's nothing more anti-communistic than thinking for yourself.

I come from same background and have opposite opinion to yours. So you can see this is all personal biases and saying RT is not legitimate news is comparable to me saying CNN is state propaganda of US. Propaganda, by the way, is a tool used by all governments, not just Russia and North Korea but also US, China and so on. All have their own propaganda they are trying to push which favors their interests.

"I come from same background and have opposite opinion to yours. So you can see this is all personal biases" This is a nice example of a non sequitur.

"saying RT is not legitimate news is comparable to me saying CNN is state propaganda of US" It is comparable, so let's compare - both are statements, one of them is true and one of them is false. RT is not legitimate news, because made up stories are not news. CNN is not state propaganda of the US, because - as far as I know, please do correct me if I am wrong - it is not a state-owned, state-run, state-financed news channel. There is no US institution that sets the agenda of the CNN. Also, my impression from the American media landscape is that the media do shovel loads of (well deserved) abuse on president Trump - state propaganda would not allow that.

"Propaganda, by the way, is a tool used by all governments" Yes, but not all governments have the same legitimacy and the same aims. If you are looking for an American equivalent of RT, you won't find one; the closest you get is probably Voice of America, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, which were instrumental for Eastern European dissent during the Cold War, but are not very relevant anymore.

I think the biggest gripe that the US establishment has is that sources like RT and Al Jazeera don't kowtow to them. The USG wants to control the message inside (through various subtle means, not really overt means), but can't with these outfits.

Is the VoA a fair and biased news source? What about Fox News? Or the BBC? What makes RT especially egregious?

I remember when, post 9/11, Al Jazeera wanted to broadcast in the US. It was denied permission, which I found strange, as ... isn't the US all about free speech and free flow of ideas? And the best part is: Al Jazeera used to be the BBC's Middle East service, but spun off. So: it was OK when these folks were under the BBC banner, but suddenly became biased and unreliable when they spun off on their own?

    > It is a legitimate
    > news source though

On what basis? Because a certain percentage of their stories aren’t propaganda? What % does that have to be? Is Uriminzokkiri a legitimate news source because some of their stories are factual? Was Pravda?

To what end would you make that distinction though? Who should officially decide which organisations are legitimate news sources and which are not? In an open democracy any voice (that e.g. avoids criminal incitement) must be tolerated, even RT.

There is no "must" in tolerance. Tolerance is a peace treaty, if it is broken by one side of the deal, then the other side is no longer bound by it. Since Russia is activaly trying to destabilise "the West" (including central and eastern europe, including countries against which it literally wages war), we don't really have to tolerate Russian propaganda outlets.

Well we do if we don't want to shred a right enshrined in the Constitution which is, at least in my opinion, one of our best ideas.

Well I'm not American and also not a lawyer. But RT is not an American citizen either, so I doubt it has rights enshrined in the American Constitution. In fact as an agent openly financed and run by a foreign government, there are probably special rules for such organizations.

Ok, then I'm skipping too many steps. But the First Amendment specifically forbids "the abridging of the press."

> Since Russia is activaly trying to destabilise "the West"

This is what happens when we allow CNN to broadcast. They radicalize the population and turn them into fanatics.

It's funny how Russia became an existential threat immediately after the elections.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/03/...

Not sure what are you talking about and also what the article has to do with that. Russia is actively interfering with politics in many European countries, including the one I live in. It's pretty well documented too. It's sad the Americans have woken up to that threat only after it was too late, but I can assure it is very real.

I can't blame anyone for skepticism because the press has taken leave of their senses and begun blaming Russia for everything from Black Lives Matter to the Standing Rock protests to the Catalonian Independent Movement, as though there were no local grievances involved in any of these matters until the Russians stepped in. And the stories about Russians swaying the US election with $100K in Facebook ads just seem completely beyond belief given the mind-melting amount of money spent on the election.

Yes, some people are panicking. But also the fact that local grievances did exist before the Russians tried to use them does not tell us a lot.

On the other hand, there is stuff like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_Montenegrin_cr...

OK, but Montenegro is a small, relatively poor country in the former Soviet bloc. It's a bit more of a lift to create essentially every protest movement in the United States of the past decade. And accusing every protest movement of being unwitting dupes of the Russians also has the effect of delegitimizing all of them.

And a twist of irony is that the Russians are doing exactly the same - every protest movement, from ecology to lgbt rights to mothers of soldiers killed in wars that officially do not exist, is accused of being an agent of outside forces.

Yes, Montenegro is a small country that was about to join NATO at that time. Then you see the Russians befriending and supporting with finances, media coverage, bot and troll farms basically every far-right and/or independence movement across Europe, from Le Pen in France, FPO in Austria, AfD in Germany - again, this is well documented - to recent Catalonia independence events, where e.g. Assange was very vocal - and it's not always easy to stay cool.

It really must have taken a lot of foresight for Vladimir Putin to establish a distinct language and culture in Catalonia a thousand years ago, all in a bid to destabilize Spain.

Now you are distorting my words and that is not a way to have a good conversation.

Russia is actively interfering in politics so we should resort to burning books. Yeah what could go wrong. Next we'll start accusing people of being communists..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare

Yes, we really are seeing a kind of new Red Scare, and I feel like it's going to blow up in Democrats' faces.

Yes, Russia is actively interfering with internal politics of many Eastern European countries (I'm from one). But I have a surprise for you, US is interfering as much if not a lot more.

>Since Russia is activaly trying to destabilise "the West" (including central and eastern europe, including countries against which it literally wages war), we don't really have to tolerate Russian propaganda outlets.

We don't have to tolerate anything. However, it is no sin to tolerate it.

Many see and have seen the US as a major destabiliser (invading a country on false pretenses, military outposts everywhere, including in countries that don't welcome them). By your logic, the world should minimize all American news establishments.

>RT is state propaganda of a dictatorship, not some legitimate news source with a left or right bias

And yet the quality of its content exceeds quite a few "legitimate" news sources.

By that logic every news organization is a propaganda tool for the country which it is based in. What happens if every country decides to take action against CNN and BBC and any non local news org? What happens to free press?

We can't then launch global campaigns moaning about free press. This is too self serving.

> I'm not sure I see what RT is attempting to say about Twitter here.

Here's my reading.

Twitter: "RT has bought advertising to influence elections."

RT: "Twitter pitched to us that we could buy advertising to reach politically active users."

> It doesn't say anything that RT should favour one candidate over another, in fact the presentation specifically promotes unbiased content and news.

All but two papers endorsed one candidate over the other. The NYT released an op-ed after the election admitting bias and promising some soul-searching. The media is biased, jaw-droppingly so.

Also, we can't see the Twitter ads so can't judge on the content. As a corollary, we do know that the Facebook ads didn't even mention a candidate and simply took a moral stance on social issues. Taking a moral stance on social issues is the bread and butter of the media. Go visit any news website right now and you'll see at least one example of this without even having to scroll.

It's both bizarre and fascinating to witness the anti-Russia hysteria reach fever pitch. I feel sorry for the USA in a way. It's as if you lost the ability to think about issues and instead all you do is feel about them.

Part of me thinks that deep inside many people know the Russia thing is nonsense but they need some kind of grand narrative to give their life meaning now that Trump is President. A distraction that reads like a Tom Clancy novel to satiate them - and allow them to rationalize their bewilderment at being so wrong - in between seasons of Game of Thrones. I'm not kidding.

that they are lying hypocrites seems to be the general drift :)

complaining that RT was influencing the election after attempting to sell them a platform to influence the election does seem to fit the bill.

But that's the point: There's nothing in this presentation suggesting they were even implying that it's a way to change the outcome of the election.

In fact, I'd be quite surprised if it were: If you're doing marketing at Twitter in summer 2016, you'd be a genius if you though of RT's motives as anything else than getting clicks for their content.

There is nothing anywhere suggesting that RT did or could change the outcome of the elections because it has always been far beyond their reach.

Clinton's campaign outspent Trump's so badly that a few million this or that way did not matter. It may have been illegal or unethical for US outlets to take the money but it did not make a lick of difference in the outcome.

The whole point of buying advertising is to influence an outcome and the US Presidential Election is the clear topic or 'case study' for the slide deck. Twitter is listing discounts for advertising to a foreign news agency while bragging about how its platform allows advertisers to engage with their audience. It wouldn't surprise me if nobody at Twitter considered RT's motives, but then... ignorance is not an excuse.

Very well put.

> The whole point of buying advertising is to influence an outcome

That's sort of a truism, right?

> It wouldn't surprise me if nobody at Twitter considered RT's motives

Oh, sorry. I thought you were disagreeing.

The presentation may promote unbiased content, but it would be naïve to suggest that Twitter had no idea who RT would support.

Even if that's true, so what? It was pretty clear who Fox News or MSNBC would support but I doubt anyone would be up in arms if Twitter took advertising money from them.

Was what RT did so much of a change in nature to them that Twitter can claim to be surprised by what they did?

Or did they make a deal with RT because they wanted the money, knowing RT would be biased towards its interests and use the tools given for to push those, and are now embarrassed it got attention?

I think then the message is "we aren't someone that bought ads under the radar, Twitter explicitly worked with us on a deal knowing who we are"

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