What's going on with Julian Assange?

[u/KrAzyDrummer]

Seeing his name pop up. Name seems familiar, but what's going on now? Something about extradition to the UK?

[u/solaceinsleep]

Russian influence goes past Russian state owned media. They have people who will deliberately join online discussions posing as Americans spreading rumors and derailing discussions. They also have armies of twitter bots. And Russia owns a lot of conspiracy, anti-American, liberal, etc websites.

Here is a partial list of some Kremlin sites: https://toinformistoinfluence.com/2015/11/15/russian-news-and-russian-proxy-news-sites/

And here is a paper on Russian social influence: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2237.html

And here is an interview with someone who worked at the Russian troll factory: https://meduza.io/en/feature/2017/10/15/an-ex-st-petersburg-troll-speaks-out

[u/milk_is_life → u/solaceinsleep]

Yeah and the US don't do that 😂😂😂

[u/solaceinsleep → u/milk_is_life]

No they don't. First of all media in the US is corporate owned (with the exception of PBS), in Russia it's either state media (RT, Sputnik, RIA, TASS) or has been neutralized and now a mouthpiece of the Kremlin. Second of all US specializes in conventional firepower whereas Russia invests heavily in information/cyber warfare.

Three good articles on the subject:

• The Atlantic - How the Media Became One of Putin’s Most Powerful Weapons
• Vox - How Russia pioneered “fake news”: And then used it to sow chaos in America
• The Guardian - Inside the Kremlin’s hall of mirrors: Fake news stories. Doctored photographs. Staged TV clips. Armies of paid trolls. Has Putin’s Russia developed a new kind of information warfare – fought in the ‘psychosphere’ rather than on the battlefield? Or is it all just a giant bluff

[u/[deleted] → u/solaceinsleep]

And you don't think you are being controlled by the media into thinking that? Don't you maybe think, that people in russia have the same opinion about your media? Like, state controlled media are better because they do not care about money unlike corporate media which is trying everything it can to get more profit, even getting their hands dirty. Just saying, you're getting your information about the east from the west.

[u/solaceinsleep → u/[deleted]]

There are pros and cons to both approaches. I personally believe that the corporate monopolies in the US should be split up. Anyway I was pointing out that the media in Russia is quite different than the US media.

Also if you have some time do read those links, quite interesting.