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Comment by throxaway | Hacker News Reader

I think when discussing this, it should be recognised that there is ample evidence that Russia has worked last several years to undermine the stability of western democracies. Brexit vote and resulting chaos being one glaring result. I am suggesting that we are just starting to understand the magnitude in which Russia has been able to cause havoc in the west by taking advantage of our freedoms.

Link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_...

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I don't think "freedom" is to blame. Freedom in varying degrees has been around for a long time, and attempts to exploit it failed to produce results for the enemies of freedom. They have however recently identified a weakness, (not freedom) and have exploited it to devastating effect. If we continue to fail to identify and make repairs to that weakness, well then that's on us and we deserve what we get.

Freedom isn't to blame directly, but freedom can be abused and without defense mechanisms it will be abused.

I think if your country's politics can be this badly steamrolled by a kleptocracy with the GDP of Italy then maybe, just maybe, you live in a failed state.

This is victim blaming. Destruction is asymmetrical compared to creation. It takes one idiot with a match and 30 seconds to burn your house down. Doesn't mean your house wasn't properly constructed.

Victim blaming is akin to taking responsibility in very many domains. This is becoming a bit of a cognitive fallacy, in my opinion.

Despite a 24/7 media campaign to suggest otherwise, there is no proof that Russia actually did this. The first line of your link agrees.

I think the relentless scapegoating by Western elite of Russia/China/Iran/COVID/$CURRENT_BOGEYMAN/etc. is the real problem. They are avoiding responsibility for a collapsing system, which is only going to allow that collapse to continue.

Both things can be true to varying degrees. Russian propaganda exists but it wouldn't be nearly as effective if it weren't for our elite fumbling so badly.

Yes, every important organization (nation, religion, corporation) does PR. Its normal and healthy to have some public image management when competitors may try to destroy your image for their own gain.

This is a far cry from having a coordinated disinformation campaign to cause political instability in a foreign country. The evidence of Russia doing this to any effect with Trump or Brexit is extremely scant and circumstantial. Such a campaign would be massive, well beyond the capacity of a hidden conspiracy. It would involve entire media companies and NGOs. There would be far more smoking-gun evidence than the current standard of "guilt by association with someone who spent some time in Russia".

Wasn't one of the main leave campaign organisations (Leave.EU?) funded by Aaron Banks who recently lost a libel action against a newspaper that accused him of receiving funds to pay for this from the KGB?

EDIT: found a source https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61782578

This is exactly the poor standard of tangential & circumstantial evidence I'm talking about. Read the decision carefully.

I expect it would be quite hard to prove beyond reasonable doubt without the security services getting involved in giving evidence but the fact that he lost means that on the balance of probabilities the story is true. Maybe Cadwallr should have burgled his house to find the suitcases full of roubles!

There is tons of evidence? Some European right wing parties even freely admit to receiving Kremlin money.

It's not seen by anyone I know as scapegoat either; they're fanning existing flames. No more, no less.

I'm not sure how accurately you can call it "interference" when major political players within the affected nations are actively courting it as a way to achieve their aims while maintaining plausible deniability and a consistent funding source.

What are you claiming? That Rupert Murdoch and his children are Russian sleeper agents?

If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck...

Look no further than Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri Peskov’s daughter, Elizaveta, being an assistant to far-right Aymeric Chauprade, a French Member of the European Parliament.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aymeric_Chauprade

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