Hacker News Reader

I was born and raised in Ukraine till I turned 14. Still have most of my family there and they visit regularly. They were present during most of the revolution and I can confirm nothing but love and pride to be Ukrainian. All that talk about Ukrainian nazi is garbage. Yes, we aren't perfect and we may have difficulties bringing order but it was all done with good intentions at heart. Most recent revolutions, including the Orange revolution, are some of the most peaceful times in Ukraine. People are truly united, crime rates drop dramatically, people make food and bring it to feed others for free. Both of my grandparents attended all of these events. I've never been more proud, I hope peace and order can be restored without Russia's involvement.

Taken out of context, this type of comment makes for good nationalist propaganda.

Nothing but love here, I didn't even say anything negative about Russia. You kind of surprised me with that actually.

Truly united? Sadly that's just your PoV.

I was too born and raised in Ukraine, in Odessa. As many Odessans, we will never forget May 2nd, 2014 and will never forgive.

Yeah good luck in Ukraine. I see the pro Russian 'rebels' have gone from claiming the Kiev government are nazis to claiming they are 'miserable Jews.' They seem a bit confused in their messaging. If it was just propoganda it would be comical but sadly the Russians seem to be sending troops and weaponry also.

The rest of the world has also gotten much better at propaganda. Listing to older broadcasts can almost seem laughable in comparison.

EX: Reefer madness vs. modern anti-smoking campaigns. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reefer_Madness http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/06/24/cdc-smo...

I find it deeply concerning how easily a modern state can alter how its population thinks. Outright lies are a lot easier to counter than selective truths.

Some of the change has just come from the entertainment industry. As it has gotten used to working in film/video it has discarded more and more elements of the stage (styling it as a stage show is at least partly why something like Reefer Madness was so silly).

Embedding thoughts, mindsets, attitudes, and prejudices is very easy for a government to do when they control the curriculum requirements for the nation's children and discipline teachers when they stray from the official positions.

I dunno about sophisticated. The presumably failed experiment with the #ColombianChemicals hoax was almost cute in its lack of direction or success[1]. It sounds like the sort of hoax Anonymous - teenagers without leadership or direction or payment - would successfully have pulled off. And the ironic thing is that even if they had the wherewithal to actually convince people, the rumour would barely have moved the needle compared with the hornets nests stirred up on a daily basis by rumours (true and false) spread by the mainstream Western press (much of which is sufficiently unprofitable for the price of influence to be affordable, incidentally[2])

If Russian propagandists are generally active in the Western media, it's difficult to view them as particularly effective: you'd have found more Western contemporaries willing to sympathise with Stalin than Putin, even during the McCarthy era, and Obama's approval ratings aren't doing too badly. I can't judge their effectiveness in Russian media, but I doubt that a particularly large proportion of the promoters of nationalism and bigotry are on Putin's payroll.... its not like their ilk is exactly nonexistent in the West.

Goebbels' message might have been more top-down and less subtle than Russia's social media spamming, but it did convince a reasonably well educated and well-to-do population that there was absolutely nothing wrong with rounding up all the Jews to deport, and convince the rest of Europe there was nothing to be particularly concerned about. That takes a little more effort than persuading Russians the West doesn't like them very much.

[1]to the extent that false explosion reports on September 11th can be considered cute

[2]Four mainstream British newspapers actually are owned by a wealthy Russian, though he's far too involved with Russian opposition parties to be inclined towards toning down their pretty standard critical editorial line on Russian policy

It has exceeded the level of the Soviet Regime during its later years because it's quite effective. Soviet Regime was falling apart so in the last few years of it everybody paid lip service to propaganda, but nobody really believed it because it was quite obvious that the system was falling apart. This is not really the case now in Russia. Yet

The astonishing thing about this propaganda machine is not that it is technically proficient. It is not in any way; it is technically crude. It's just a fairly direct political control by state of the TV and papers, and for on-line, just hiring people to spread propaganda on forums.

What is astonishing is its psychological effectiveness. It seems to encompass all levels of Russian society, especially the poorer people who are cut off from anything but the state TV, but also the middle classes. And the elite is wise to shut up and pretend to believe though they surely know what goes on. The conformity to social norms is so important: if you don't condemn the Kiev Nazis, you are a fascist yourself. Any disagreement will make even friends and family members turn against you, regardless of how good evidence you have for what you say.

I know Russians who live abroad and/or are net-connected and understand what goes on, but they are simply staying quiet, because they don't want to loose contact to their relatives and long-time friends. In a way, it's an example of "The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil."

My dad claims that the level of brainwashing in USA far far exceeds that of the WWII Germany he says.

Of course statements like that evoke Godwin's law and a hard to swallow. However, my dad grew up in USA and trained troops on the use of artillery equipment during the Vietnam war. He's been around the block and has seen firsthand the US propaganda in multiple countries.

If you think about the insidiousness of troll-style, FUD propaganda, it's way way more psychologically insidious than the overt US propaganda. You can't cut off access to facts and appear "fair"--instead you make people question the truth.

USA just raised a whole young generation that's a socially-backwards by a generation. Homophobic, racist, blame-the-russia feelings are rampant.

During the early days of the Ukranian conflict, I was surprised to hear a close relative in USA tell me how she has seen videos on Youtube of "blacks from Africa" killing innocent US youths in Nigeria.

This shit is real.

Well they didn't really need propaganda in Russia. They had communism. Believe it or not some people actually believed that Communism is better than capitalism, and arguably at one time capitalism kind of sucked.

> Well they didn't really need propaganda in Russia. They had communism.

And how do you think they spread that and maintained it once it was spread? Propaganda.

The exact same way they maintain democracy and fascist dictatorships. Even though the fascists need more than propaganda to keep it up.

> arguably at one time capitalism kind of sucked.

Still does!