Society's Child

Sweden's truth police on guard for 'foreign interference' ahead of election

Nordic Business Insider
Thu, 17 May 2018 18:26 UTC

Royal guards at parade in Stockholm.

The above warning came from Russian freelance journalist Lyudmila Savchuk in a recent interview with Business Insider Nordic. After spending time working undercover in a St Petersburg troll factory, Savchuk has unique insight into how propaganda and fake news are produced.

In Sweden, voters will be heading to the polls on September 9 to elect members of parliament, county councils and local councils - and now, Swedish authorities are gearing up to deal with disinformation and propaganda in the upcoming election campaigns.

"What we have done is that we have collected information about international elections. It shows that certain voter groups that foreign powers have targeted have been affected. Step two is that it can influence public opinion, but that does not necessarily affect the election outcome," says Linda Escar, deputy department head at the Swedish Security Service, Säpo.

Comment: Like many Western nations, Sweden is in complete disarray, politicians want to reintegrate ex-jihadi's and the people want to vote in politicians who're unfamiliar with their own society:

Poland sides with anti-Russia hysteria by expelling people who refute the West's narrative

Poland in English
Fri, 18 May 2018 19:23 UTC

Spokesman of Poland's internal security agency, the ABW, Stanisław Żaryn

Poland will deport two Russian women who were members of a pro-Russian "hybrid" group that sought to stoke tension with neighboring Ukraine, Polish security official said on Friday.

Poland arrested a Russian woman identified as "Yekaterina C" and barred four other people from entering the country, Poland's internal security agency, the ABW, said on Thursday.

On Friday, one of the of the four people who had been banned from entering Poland was identified as a "Russian-Cypriot citizen, "Anastazja Z.".

Comment: It seems there are factions in Poland with different agendas:

Wikipedia: An establishment psyop

Caitlin Johnstone
Steemit
Mon, 21 May 2018 14:17 UTC

If you haven't been living in a hole in a cave with both fingers plugged into your ears, you may have noticed that an awful lot of fuss gets made about Russian propaganda and disinformation these days. Mainstream media outlets are now speaking openly about the need for governments to fight an "information war" against Russia, with headlines containing that peculiar phrase now turning up on an almost daily basis.

Here's one published today titled "Border guards detain Russian over 'information war' on Poland", about a woman who is to be expelled from that country on the grounds that she "worked to consolidate pro-Russian groups in Poland in order to challenge Polish government policy on historical issues and replace it with a Russian narrative" in order to "destabilize Polish society and politics."

Here's one published yesterday titled "Marines get new information warfare leader", about a US Major General's appointment to a new leadership position created "to better compete in a 21st century world."

Here's one from the day before titled "Here's how Sweden is preparing for an information war ahead of its general election", about how the Swedish Security Service and Civil Contingencies Agency are "gearing up their efforts to prevent disinformation during the election campaigns."

Comment: See also:

Use of anti-smoking app expands in Turkey

Daily Sabah
Sun, 20 May 2018 00:25 UTC

The head of the Green Crescent, which focuses on combating tobacco and alcohol addiction, said the Green Detector application they developed allowed concerned citizens to notify relevant authorities about the use of cigarettes at banned locations.

Şavaş Yılmaz said they viewed smoking as the most dangerous addiction to chemicals. "In the past year, 100,000 people died due to diseases linked to smoking," he said, adding that the figure for the world was closer to six million.

"I came out and said something cost 100,000 lives a year; whether it be terrorism, natural disaster an accident, there would be a huge reaction. However, when it comes to cigarettes, we just ignore it."

Comment: See also:

Russian firm indicted by Mueller investigation comes out swinging

Britain Eakin
Courthouse News Service
Wed, 16 May 2018 00:00 UTC

Attorney Eric Dubelier is not taking any crap from Mueller "investigation"

The authority of special counsel Robert Mueller to bring charges over Russian interference in the 2016 election will face stiff opposition from one of the indicted entities, its attorney pledged Wednesday.

Reed Smith attorney Eric Dubelier represents Concord Management and Consulting LLC, which Mueller has charged with funding the Russian troll farms that worked to support Donald Trump's candidacy in the presidential election.

At a 20-minute status conference in the case today, Dubelier said the count against Concord - conspiracy to defraud the United States - is unconstitutional as applied. Concord will file a motion challenging Mueller's authority, in addition to asserting failure to state a claim and violations of its due-process rights, Dubelier said.

The tactic is similar to the one being used by former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort in his criminal case, which Mueller is also prosecuting.

Comment: As the inquiries continue, and the facts come out, it becomes ever more obvious that the Mueller investigations don't have a single leg to stand on - and further goes to show how spurious the whole Russian collusion narrative was/is to start with:

Senator Rand Paul: 'We're not going to leave our kids defenseless'

AWR Hawkins
Breitbart
Fri, 18 May 2018 00:00 UTC

During a May 18 Fox News appearance Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said it is time for Americans to take a stand and say, "We're not going to leave our kids defenseless." His comments came in the wake of the shooting that killed at least 8 at Santa Fe High School.

Paul said, "Why don't we say it as a country - we're not going to leave our kids defenseless. We're going to defend them."

He also spoke to Hollywood celebrities who react to a high profile firearm-based crime with calls for more gun control, saying, "Every Hollywood actor that hates guns has armed bodyguards defending them. So they hate guns unless the guns are defending them."

Paul's call to protect our children is reminiscent of President Trump's response to the February 14 Parkland school shooting. CNN reported that Trump responded to Parkland by saying that a "gun-free zone to a maniac - because they're all cowards - a gun-free zone is 'let's go in and let's attack because bullets aren't coming back at us.'" Trump said adopting a policy where "20 percent" of teachers are armed would reduce or eliminate the perception of weakness, making schools a riskier target to strike.

Comment: There is logic in the argument that a gun-free zone is an invite. Guns onsite may give a novice shooter pause, but will they also deter the game-changer false flags?

From Conservative Fighters:

Rand said, "I think the first thing we should do is, there needs to be an announcement by every school district that we're going to defend our children, and that we're not going to have a sign outside that [says], 'We're defenseless.' And I think that's the problem, is that we do have these homicidal or crazy or mentally disturbed kids, but they still aren't so disturbed that they're going to shoot up the sheriff's office. They're showing up where there is no self-defense."

Rand also argued that we need to try to stop people who have psychiatric disorders that cause them to act violently and prevent people who are crazy from getting firearms. He further said there isn't enough work being done to keep people who are mentally unstable or breaking the law from having guns.

Within the US evangelical capital rises mixed views on Israel

Josiah Hesse
The Guardian
Sat, 19 May 2018 12:16 UTC

This week, the Trump administration completed its move of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. At the opening ceremony, two of the American speakers were evangelical superstars: Pastor Robert Jeffress, the author of several doomsday books about Israel, and John Hagee, who interpreted recent lunar eclipses as evidence that the end times were nigh. The Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro, meanwhile, declared that Trump had "fulfilled biblical prophecy". The ceremony coincided with massive protests, in which 60 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces.

Thousands of miles away, in her home outside Colorado Springs, Kimberly Troup sat in a cluttered basement office. She is an evangelical Christian who takes to heart the Bible verse in which God speaks of the Jewish nation: "I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse."

Accordingly, she has devoted 22 years to Israel. She is now the US director of Christian Friends of Israeli Communities, an advocacy group with a Zionist ideology. Two other CFIC employees work with her. This week, they have been very busy.

Ever since she was a child, in Kentucky, Troup has been immersed in Israel. Her father saw the creation of the state in 1948 and the six-day war of 1967as evidence of biblical prophecy surrounding the end of the world. Troup believes in such prophecies, though she does not pretend to know when they will occur. She sees it as her Christian duty to care for Israel, to defend it against "Arabs" who are "not interested in peace".

Comment: See also:

Saudi Arabia intercepted Yemeni missiles; Houthis targeted military airports

RT
Mon, 21 May 2018 02:58 UTC

Saudi air-defense systems have reportedly managed to intercept a ballistic missile launched from Yemen after Houthi rebels said they had targeted a "military airport" in the city of Jizan.

The alleged Scud-type missile was destroyed before the projectile hit the intended target in the port city, which lies in the southwest corner of Saudi Arabia and directly north of the border with Yemen, local media reported. Earlier, Saudi air defenses reportedly intercepted another ballistic missile, which targeted a military airport near the southern border.

The launches on Monday morning were the latest in a series of missile attacks on Saudi positions which have intensified over the weekend.

Riyadh has repeatedly accused Iran of being responsible for ballistic missile launches from Yemen, warning that such acts could be considered an "act of war," while the Islamic Republic firmly denied such accusations.

Not an experiment: Google's Selfish Ledger ideas can be found in its patent applications

Vlad Savov
The Verge
Sat, 19 May 2018 17:24 UTC

I trust by now we've all seen and been at least a little disturbed by The Selfish Ledger, the nearly 9-minute-long concept video from inside Google's "moonshot factory" X labs. In the wake of it becoming public this week, Google quickly disavowed the video, claiming it was just a thought experiment "not related to any current or future products." And yet, the company's patent applications exhibit a mode of thinking that runs at least in parallel, if not on the exact same tracks, as The Selfish Ledger's total data collection proposal.

A reader pointed me in the direction of a Google patent application from 2015, made public last year, titled "Detecting and correcting potential errors in user behavior." A core part of the Selfish Ledger concept can be defined in very similar terms: its premise, on the individual level, is to help users with self-improvement and behavior modification.

In all honesty, the idea described in this patent document sounds all kinds of helpful. It proposes a system wherein your device would use information Google already collects - such as travel itineraries from your email inbox - and act on that knowledge if it detects you're going astray. So if, like me on at least one occasion, you start heading to the wrong airport, your phone would be smart enough to notify you that you're going the wrong way.

Comment: See also:

A deeper look at a Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign to discredit anti-war campaigners and journalists

fivefilters
wikipedia.fivefilters.org
Mon, 21 May 2018 14:32 UTC

A Wikipedia editor called Philip Cross (Andrew Philip Cross and later "Julian" on Twitter) has a long record of editing the entries of many anti-war figures on the site to include mostly critical commentary while removing positive information contributed by others. At time of writing he is number 308 in the list of Wikipedians by number of edits.

Wikipedia entries very often appear first in search results, and so for many will be the first and only port of call when researching something. People unaware of the political nature of the editing that goes on on the site, in this case supposedly by a single, dedicated editor, are being seriously misled.

As an active editor for almost 15 years, Cross is very familiar with some of the more arcane Wikipedia rules and guidelines (along with their obscure acronyms) and uses them to justify removing information he dislikes in favour of his own inclusions. Often in a very subtle manner and over a long period of time. Anyone familiar with the work of the people he targets will recognise how one-sided and distorted those entries become.

Cross is, however, much nicer to the entries of people he likes. Former hedge-fund manager and Iraq war supporter Oliver Kamm, and right-wing author Melanie Phillips, both columnists for The Times, are two examples.

If you read the linked white house statement try not to puke.

sbc

Let's go, Brandon! Fucking asswipe, worthless, POS. Fraud! Argh! 😤

slbeaudry

I don't think this new requirement has undergone proper public review. There are procedures codified for this sort of thing. If some sort of...

Buffalo_Ken

First it will be 100 employees,then 50, then one. Masses are collectively powerful against the intolerant vocal minority and it is time to wipe...

Bezel Bub

I most certainly would not park my arse on a plane full of vaccinated people and have them infect me with their mutated virus. Whilst my...

Winternights3

Society's Child

Sweden's truth police on guard for 'foreign interference' ahead of election

Poland sides with anti-Russia hysteria by expelling people who refute the West's narrative

Wikipedia: An establishment psyop

Use of anti-smoking app expands in Turkey

Russian firm indicted by Mueller investigation comes out swinging

Senator Rand Paul: 'We're not going to leave our kids defenseless'

Within the US evangelical capital rises mixed views on Israel

Saudi Arabia intercepted Yemeni missiles; Houthis targeted military airports

Not an experiment: Google's Selfish Ledger ideas can be found in its patent applications

A deeper look at a Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign to discredit anti-war campaigners and journalists

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