cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/1594299

At the end of July 2024, the destructive #it'snotmyukraine was among the three most popular hashtags on the TikTok Creative Centre website, the Ukrainian media outlet Texty has found.

The numbers were impressive: 41,000 posts in a week and 10 million views — incredible results for a hashtag that didn't exist a month ago.

"We know for sure that hundreds of identical profiles on TikTok have been created with one goal in mind - to distribute videos about the misconduct of Recruiting office or actors playing Recruiting office representatives to the widest possible audience," the organization says. "We are not even considering the veracity of the videos themselves, as we are talking about 2,100 accounts that are trying to bypass the platform's algorithms and go viral among Ukrainians."

Fake accounts carefully try to redirect users to the "Renaissance of Ukraine" telegram channel. Created on 7 July, the channel posts "up-to-date information about Recruiting office, their actions and lawlessness. Useful tips and tricks", as well as calls for information to be sent to the bot and promises to create an up-to-date map with Recruiting office employees in different cities of Ukraine.

Sometimes, it also compares the 2014 Olympic Games in Paris and Russia. With the classic propaganda question, "Why is the West promoting this gayness and debauchery?"

I saw this and thought this would be useful in noticing and analyzing trends across the web and fediverse in specific. Which could help with noticing and finding disinformation.

~Anti~ ~Commercial-AI~ ~license~ ~(CC~ ~BY-NC-SA~ ~4.0)~

Yes, he was.

TLDR: No, they weren't.

This is a "pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative labelling popular protests against Russian allies as foreign-sponsored colour revolutions".

So-called "colour revolutions" are an invention of infamous conspiracy theorist, and perennial presidential candidate, Lyndon LaRouche. There's a good (quite long) video on this topic here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OFyn_KSy80 which is the fourth in a series about the Ukraine war.

There is no evidence pointing to any foreign involvement in the protests in Venezuela. These protests erupted after the country’s National Electoral Commission declared Nicolás Maduro as winner with 51% of the votes but did not release the minutes of voting stations, leading to accusations of fraud and widespread doubts among regional governments and international actors, who refused to recognise the results unless the minutes are published in a transparent manner. Opposition leaders claimed to have evidence of fraud after collecting more than 70% of the physical minutes, and created a website where citizens can access the actual results in their constituencies, which would show the opposition candidate Edmundo González won the election by a wide margin. Protests were widespread and took place in several cities, and involved people from all social extractions, debunking the allegation that demonstrators were paid and acted for profit.

Edit: fixed some grammar.

Bottom Line

The only purported evidence for the claim that Khelif is trans comes from an undisclosed test performed by an allegedly corrupt sports governing body that may have shown she has a DSD condition. The IOC has said Khelif meets its requirements for participation, with Adams, the IOC spokesman, specifically clarifying, "This is not a transgender issue."

Because Khelif is not transgender, claims attempting to make her victory against Carini an issue about transgender rights or "woke" politics are without basis.

This one is TRUE.

Archive link: https://archive.ph/xIAe3

This article is an interesting breakdown of the conflict between the US and the Houthis, and goes into some detail about the impacts of information warfare by both sides.

The best chance the United States has to deter Houthi attacks is to find ways to conduct an information campaign of its own to counter Houthi messaging. As long as the Houthis believe they are winning the information war, they will likely continue their attacks. Neutralizing Houthi propaganda is the best way to deter the group’s attacks. The most straightforward way to blunt their message would be to reach a sustainable cease-fire in Gaza. Although there is no guarantee that the Houthis would end their attacks once a cease-fire was in place, it would greatly diminish the power of their messaging by eliminating a huge source of popular grievance and angst. [emphasis added]

Notably, the author of this article is a researcher at RAND Corp, so even (some) mainstream neocons are now arguing the best way to counter the Houthi insurgency is to establish a durable cease-fire in Gaza, rather than perpetuating the conflict.

At a campaign rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota, former President Donald Trump rattled off several criticisms of Vice President Kamala Harris, his presumptive opponent in the presidential race. But some of Trump’s attacks ran afoul of the facts.

• Trump falsely claimed that Harris voted to “cut Medicare by $237 billion” and “betrayed American seniors.” The legislation allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices and reduces costs for some seniors.
• He pointed to Harris’ support in early 2019 for Medicare for All, saying she “endorsed outlawing private health insurance entirely.” Harris also proposed a plan later that year that included private insurance, but regardless, she isn’t supporting Medicare for All now.
• Trump claimed that Harris “said that a 80% tax rate is a bold idea that should be discussed.” Harris didn’t endorse that rate. Instead, she said a Democratic lawmaker’s ideas, which included a rate that high for people making more than $10 million a year, “should be discussed,” adding that “when we are able to defend the status quo, then do it.”
• Trump said Harris “just turned him free,” referring to Shawn Tillman, who committed murder in 2022, weeks after he was bailed out of jail by a nonprofit Harris promoted on social media in 2020. But it was not her decision to release Tillman, nor was he someone she sought to help get out of jail.
• He distorted the facts in claiming that Harris, a former prosecutor, “couldn’t pass her bar exam” to become a licensed lawyer. She did pass California’s bar exam on her second attempt.
• Trump claimed that Harris previously “supported mandatory gun confiscation,” without mentioning that she talked about having a mandatory buyback program only for so-called assault weapons. Harris’ campaign told us she is no longer pushing a buyback program.
• The former president said Harris “called for slashing consumption of red meat to fight climate change.” Harris once said she supported encouraging and incentivizing Americans to eat better, but she did not say she would restrict how much red meat is consumed.
• He claimed Harris’ votes “created the worst inflation in half a century.” Economists say the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic is primarily to blame.
• He wrongly said inflation was the worst “we’ve ever had” under this administration. The worst was in 1919-1920.
• Trump falsely said Harris supported abortion “even after birth,” and he wrongly said “all legal scholars” wanted the issue of abortion rights to be returned to the states.
• He baselessly said that Harris would let “40 to 50 million more people in our country,” referring to illegal immigration, and added that it would “kill Social Security and Medicare.” Those concocted figures aside, workers who aren’t authorized to be in the country can’t receive the benefits of those retirement programs.

This article is a couple of weeks old now, but I thought it was important to remind people that despite the fact I've posted a lot recently about Russian and Chinese disinformation, the US also has a track record of engaging in disinformation campaigns against it's adversaries.

Reuters interviewed nine people with knowledge of the information and disinformation war being waged in parallel with battlefield operations, including Ukrainian officials, disinformation trackers and security analysts.

The Ukrainian security official who requested anonymity said since the full-scale invasion of 2022, intelligence agencies had shut down 86 Russian bot farms in Ukraine. They controlled a collective three million social media accounts with an estimated audience reach of 12 million people.

Such facilities are rooms filled with banks of specialised computing equipment that can register hundreds of fake accounts daily on social media networks to pump out false information, the official added. One farm was found by security services in the city of Vinnytsia in central Ukraine in 2023.

Yet another week of the Kremlin trying to have its cake and eat it too has gone by. For Russia, there is no contradiction between nuclear sabre-rattling, calling for the total eradication of Ukraine, and deploying its diplomatic network to feign concern before global audiences about the peaceful settlement of war. It can comfortably call for bombing European capitals in the morning and complain about the ‘aggressive West’ by the afternoon. This type of almost schizophrenic dichotomy is the key characteristic of the Kremlin’s disinformation apparatus.