Russia sought on Friday to declare Facebook an extremist organization and YouTube blocked Russian state media channels worldwide, an escalation of the tit-for-tat battle between Silicon Valley companies and Russia as the Ukraine war enters its third week.
YouTube blocked the channels of Russian state media outlets globally after initially doing so last week in Europe only. Friday’s decision is a major blow to Russia’s efforts to sow propaganda about the war to international audiences.
Meanwhile, the Russian government said Friday it was blocking popular social media app Instagram, taking further action against Meta — the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — because of reports the previous day that Facebook temporarily suspended its hate-speech rules to allow posts that called for the death of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. The country had previously blocked Facebook, which has a much smaller audience in Russia than WhatsApp or Instagram.
The incremental escalations over the past two weeks between Russia and the tech giants has forced the companies to rethink the ways they police speech online, rewriting their rules as they go in response to the fast-moving conflict. Social platforms are critical tools for the public to communicate and share information during wartime, but Russian propaganda outlets have also used them to spread disinformation about the war. And the companies are weighing pressure from world leaders to increase Russia’s isolation against potential retaliation by the country itself.
When I was a boy, we didn't have any silly social platforms to share information during wartime.
Foggy wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 8:03 am
Google shutting off RT videos from YouTube. Rando citizens using Google Maps to label Russian consulates as bathrooms. Anonymous possibly taking down the Russian stock exchange. Videos showing how to operate abandoned Russian tanks and artillery vehicles. The whole world trying to figure out how to weaponize the Internet against Russia. I bet our government cyber teams are ... a little bizzy this week.
To me, this is one of the most fascinating aspects of the war, and fertile ground for academic study. But I'd like to document how high-tech is being employed, because this is the new weaponry of the 21st century.
Maybeson 2.0 is a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army. He’s a cyber geek. He obviously can’t talk about his work, but he says he’s pretty busy at the moment.
I get similar winks and nods from people, so please tell him I feel for him. Not that he knows me from a hole in the wall, of course. Unless he works out of the defense attache team at an Embassy, in which case, hey, small world.
But the sunshine aye shall light the sky,
As round and round we run;
And the truth shall ever come uppermost,
And justice shall be done.
- Charles Mackay, "Eternal Justice"
Anonymous declared a ‘cyber war’ against Russia. Here are the results
KEY POINTS
More than three weeks ago, a popular Twitter account named “Anonymous” declared that the shadowy activist group was waging a “cyber war” against Russia.
Since then, the account has claimed responsibility for disabling prominent Russian government, news and corporate websites and leaking data from entities such as Roskomnadzor, the federal agency responsible for censoring Russian media.
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” —John Adams
Alex Kokcharov @AlexKokcharov wrote:
How times have changed: 10 most downloaded apps in App Store in #Russia, February (left) and March (right)
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” —John Adams
I think once we acknowledge that the information warfare attempted by Putin to legitimize this war only failed because of the Internet and the greater speed and throughput of information used to counter his plans, we must acknowledge that we are all of us more than a mere audience in this. We are to him legitimate though secondary targets (or maybe tertiary behind the Russians & Ukrainians as primary and the GOP as secondary) in the PsyOp campaign and it's draining.
For my own part, ironically, the plot in the Star Trek RPG campaign I've been running for a few years now (we just started 'Season' 5, but because of my overseas life, we run virtually and it's been about 7 years to get us this far) has since the start of Season 3 involved the Klingons, subverted by the Dominion, abrogating the Treaties of Alliance and declaring war on a minor (and never really liked) race sandwiched between them and the UFP in one vital sector despite the UFP's warning that said minor race (despite being never really liked) would be defended full-throatedly because they were innocent. The PCs had actual proof of the innocence that nobody outside of a certain fleet chain of command believed because of subplots and personality conflicts and the civilian diplomatic corps has washed their hands of it but luckily the Starfleet admiralty has said 'We gotchu on this'.
The Klingons thought the UFP was too soft to make good on their aid promise, invaded anyway, and is now at war again with the Federation after a generation of peace and friendship. They are fucking around and finding out. Plots have involved rescuing the families of exiled Klingon dissidents from behind enemy lines; destroying stockpiles of illegal chemical weapons meant to be used against the minor race in question (which has a distinct physiology); engaging in information counter-warfare involving certain factions of Klingon society which are straddling the fence on believing that this is an honorable war or not; etc. Bear in mind that I planned out this story arc *years* ago. Like, there's a file in it with episode names and plot summaries (I release episode name lists the full season in advance to get my players anticipating what the titles could possibly reveal and they have entire crazy discussions about it when I'm not around) going all the way out through what would effectively be Season 8, and most of these ideas were planned in 2018 or so.
My players paused to reflect on this last week and were all, "Ben, are ... are we *causing* this?" And I got that was a joke. But I replied "The headlines make more sense if you read them in the original Klingon." And that was not meant as a joke. And I admit the idea of running a lot of this now is ... draining me, mentally. I'm considering running us to a breakpoint and then asking folks if we can pause and do something else for a bit. Because while most gaming is wish-fulfillment, there must occasionally be escapism which involves not thinking of the analogous scenario which looms large and how an ideal version of you would save the day. As a storyteller, I need the occasional mental equivalent of a Calgon bath.
So, the TLDR version of this becomes: "How are you all, at this point, dealing with the high-speed information fatigue of this?"
But the sunshine aye shall light the sky,
As round and round we run;
And the truth shall ever come uppermost,
And justice shall be done.
- Charles Mackay, "Eternal Justice"
Well, I’ve been pondering the symbiotic roles between humans and information. Why symbiotic? I know that seems like and odd term, but as soon as information could be transferred between humans, achieved some sort of permanence, and was able to be replicated, information could be considered to be itself a rudimentary life on the complexity scale of a virus.
Using this perspective (analogies all have their faults) has been entertaining (at the very least) and insightful (perhaps very significantly).
There is a partnership of humans with information than is changing faster than ever. I had been considering this topic from a historical perspective of post-Fairness Doctrine and in the context of the Balkanization of news (and the lack of professional and ethical credentials) allowing any voice to seem to have the authority (often very hard earned) of traditional sources. The optimistic outlook for the Information Age has been replaced with the Post-Truth Era.
But, pulling back the temporal-lens and considering this partnership between mankind and transmissible information as even an evolutionary force, while also considering information to have virus like qualities and humanity to having to evolve new immune responses and responses has me excited.
Information began as piecemeal shared information from which correlations and theories we developed to contextualize and utilize in new ways and catalogued and written about in depth and detail. The Twitterverse and other social media as sources for news and information has seemed to have brought us full circle— into an environment where information does not have context?
Anyway, it’s all very much soft-thought right now and I’m enjoying contemplating this perspective.
Anonymous just dumped a boatload of Russian data they've hacked. Dunno what is in there yet.
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” —John Adams
I believe we’ve already discussed this, but in my goldfish brain it was interesting all over again this morning.
Google Turns Off Maps Features in Ukraine That Inadvertently Showed Russia’s Invasion
The tech giant said it disabled live traffic data in Ukraine for the safety of local communities.
Google has temporarily disabled tools that provide live information about traffic conditions in Ukraine, the company confirmed to VICE World News, following reports that people around the world were using the service to track the movements of troops and civilians during the Russian invasion.
Google Maps’ live traffic data works by incorporating location and speed information from smartphones with the app, then using it to show in real-time how dense traffic conditions are in certain places, or how busy those areas are overall. When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an attack on Ukraine last week, however, some spectators realised the feature could also be used to provide open-source insights regarding the whereabouts of military operations.
“I think we were the first people to see the invasion. And we saw it in a traffic app,” Jeffrey Lewis, an open-source intelligence expert and professor at Middlebury Institute, told Motherboard, after he noticed an unusual traffic jam developing around the Russian border town of Belgorod on Thursday morning.
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” —John Adams
Yeah, full disclosure (not that he hasn't been forthcoming about his service, but I wanna brag about him): JT8 commanded a tank in Desert Storm. He's a tank guy. I've been on a lot of Navy ships, but I've never been within a country mile of a tank, to my knowledge. Difficult to imagine.
raison de arizona wrote: ↑Sat Apr 16, 2022 11:12 am
I believe we’ve already discussed this, but in my goldfish brain it was interesting all over again this morning.
Google Turns Off Maps Features in Ukraine That Inadvertently Showed Russia’s Invasion
Foggy wrote: ↑Sun Apr 17, 2022 8:26 am
Yeah, full disclosure (not that he hasn't been forthcoming about his service, but I wanna brag about him): JT8 commanded a tank in Desert Storm. He's a tank guy. I've been on a lot of Navy ships, but I've never been within a country mile of a tank, to my knowledge. Difficult to imagine.
JT8 is the Fogbow's very own superhero!!
TANK MAN!!!!!!!
"Mickey Mouse and I grew up together." - Ruthie Tompson, Disney animation checker and scene planner and one of the first women to become a member of the International Photographers Union in 1952.
Expat in Kyiv @expatua wrote:
Google's increased resolution over Russian military bases is already yielding hilarity.
Just how much of the Russian Air Force is styrofoam?
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” —John Adams
"He sewed his eyes shut because he is afraid to see, He tries to tell me what I put inside of me
He's got the answers to ease my curiosity, He dreamed a god up and called it Christianity"
"Mickey Mouse and I grew up together." - Ruthie Tompson, Disney animation checker and scene planner and one of the first women to become a member of the International Photographers Union in 1952.
Expat in Kyiv @expatua wrote:
Google's increased resolution over Russian military bases is already yielding hilarity.
Just how much of the Russian Air Force is styrofoam?
Just how the Confederates during the peninsula campaign used to make phony cannon out of tree trunks to intimidate General McLellan.
According to a documentary I saw a while back, the U.S. used a similar tactic when preparing to invade Germany in WW2. It involved inflatable tanks, IIRC.
When I was a boy, we didn't have any silly social platforms to share information during wartime.
x5
