Last April, Vladimir Putin visited the campus of Bauman Moscow state technical university, set on the banks of the Yauza River in the east of the city and home to some of the country’s brightest scientific minds.
He toured the campus, met undergraduates and boasted about Moscow’s ambitious plans for space missions to the moon and Mars. “You have everything it takes to be competitive,” Putin told the students.
What the Kremlin readout of Putin’s visit did not mention was a secret faculty inside the university, known simply as Department 4, or “Special Training”.
But why do they even need to hack elections? The folks over at .ml told me that elections are pointless and the rich already controls everything!
Two parts of the same attack: Undermine election integrity while also pushing the idea that votes don’t matter anyway. Maybe you’re only partially successful with both approaches but a couple percentage points here and a couple there can tip previously well-balanced scales in the attacker’s favor.
Its called hedging and they are known for it
I thought that was when you- oh, wait! Hedging, never mind.
TBH it feels like the rich have so many politicians in their pockets that now they focus on election meddling to show the policies of authoritarianism are validated by the voter base.
The folks over at .ml also said they have definitely never attended this particular Russian spy school.
I doubt they have. They are the poor saps who are falling for the propaganda created by the people who attended the spy school.
If the rich control the elections, doesn’t that make them meaningless?
Obviously. There have and will continue to be elections like that all around the world. Giving the people the false impression that they made a choice is a good way to curb protests and riots.
And just to be clear, it’s only a small part of all elections and I’m not saying what .ml says is fully true or that I agree with them on much.
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Just wait until The Guardian learns about the CIA!
But whattabout…
Hey, you want to argue the world should be treating the US as a pariah state as well, I have no objection.
The UK doesn’t quite do that, though, do they? How’s that war in Iran going?
And how much is the Russian interference having on US action? Ignoring that for the obvious baddy is exactly what this interference is meant to do. You’re essentially helping them do their job.
Can you rephrase that in any way that makes sense?
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If youre a communist and youre backing Russia, youre doing it wrong.
Now if you’re a soviet apologist on the other hand…
There is also the evidence that this Russian interference is directly impacting how US is being run. Does that not factor into your value judgment?
No one can, in good conscience, say that the US isnt having a significant negative impact on world stability… but obviously it’s not happening in a vacuum.
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Where in my comment did I back Russia?
You’re right, you didn’t explicitly back them.
It doesn’t have to be run by the Russian government to be affected by it. This article is about election meddling, not deep state conspiracy stuff. Do you deny that meddling? That it has had a serious impact on the US and a wide array of other countries?
Intentional destabilization while not mucking about with actually controlling it is often times even worse, especially when it comes to as influential country as the US.
That doesn’t mean they have no culpability… but as I said, it’s not a vacuum. There’s always more than one factor, and ignoring any in favor of only one is intentional ignorance of the worst kind.
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@Riverside @world Do you also think election meddling by Russia in Ukraine, Georgia, Hungary, and other central European states is a conspiracy theory?
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Putin was probably swapping notes and tactics with the old orange pedophile.
