Here's a funny story:
A website propornot.com, allegedly "a nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds", compiled a list of "Sites That Reliably Echo Russian Propaganda" that was published on Nov 9th.
http://www.propornot.com/p/the-list.html
Apart from Rt.com and Sputnik, the list includes Sott.net and other notable alt. media sites like counterpunch, anti-war.com, wikileaks, global research, infowars, paulcraigroberts etc. but is mostly made up of rather small and obscure sites.
Note that on their main page - the only page other than "the list" - they have the YT video of two supposed Russian "trolls" who were interviewed by US talk show host Samantha Bee.
http://www.propornot.com/p/home.html
The interesting thing is that RT exposed these two as fakers who did it for the money!
https://www.rt.com/news/366576-kremlin-trolls-full-frontal-hoax/
Anyway, two days ago the Washington Post penned an article on "Russian propaganda" during the US Presidential election, that referenced "the list"
Here's a bit on the Foreign Policy Research Institute from wikipedia:
So there ya have it! Sott.net is either a Kremlin funded outfit or a "useful idiot" for the Kremlin. What do you guys think? :D
A website propornot.com, allegedly "a nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds", compiled a list of "Sites That Reliably Echo Russian Propaganda" that was published on Nov 9th.
http://www.propornot.com/p/the-list.html
We have used a combination of manual and automated analysis, including analysis of content, timing, technical indicators, and other reporting, in order to initially identify (“red-flag”) the following as Russian propaganda outlets. We then confirmed our initial assessment by applying whatever criteria we did not originally employ during the red-flag process, and we reevaluate our findings as needed.
Please note that our criteria are behavioral. That means the characteristics of the propaganda outlets we identify are motivation-agnostic. For purposes of this definition it does not matter whether the sites listed here are being knowingly directed and paid by Russian intelligence officers, or whether they even knew they were echoing Russian propaganda at any particular point: If they meet these criteria, they are at the very least acting as bona-fide "useful idiots" of the Russian intelligence services, and are worthy of further scrutiny.
Apart from Rt.com and Sputnik, the list includes Sott.net and other notable alt. media sites like counterpunch, anti-war.com, wikileaks, global research, infowars, paulcraigroberts etc. but is mostly made up of rather small and obscure sites.
Note that on their main page - the only page other than "the list" - they have the YT video of two supposed Russian "trolls" who were interviewed by US talk show host Samantha Bee.
http://www.propornot.com/p/home.html
The interesting thing is that RT exposed these two as fakers who did it for the money!
https://www.rt.com/news/366576-kremlin-trolls-full-frontal-hoax/
Anyway, two days ago the Washington Post penned an article on "Russian propaganda" during the US Presidential election, that referenced "the list"
Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/2016/11/24/793903b6-8a40-4ca9-b712-716af66098fe_story.html
Two teams of independent researchers found that the Russians exploited American-made technology platforms to attack U.S. democracy at a particularly vulnerable moment, as an insurgent candidate harnessed a wide range of grievances to claim the White House. The sophistication of the Russian tactics may complicate efforts by Facebook and Google to crack down on “fake news,” as they have vowed to do after widespread complaints about the problem.
There is no way to know whether the Russian campaign proved decisive in electing Trump, but researchers portray it as part of a broadly effective strategy of sowing distrust in U.S. democracy and its leaders. The tactics included penetrating the computers of election officials in several states and releasing troves of hacked emails that embarrassed Clinton in the final months of her campaign.
“They want to essentially erode faith in the U.S. government or U.S. government interests,” said Clint Watts, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who along with two other researchers has tracked Russian propaganda since 2014. “This was their standard mode during the Cold War. The problem is that this was hard to do before social media.”
Watts’s report on this work, with colleagues Andrew Weisburd and J.M. Berger, appeared on the national security online magazine War on the Rocks this month under the headline “Trolling for Trump: How Russia Is Trying to Destroy Our Democracy.” Another group, called PropOrNot, a nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds, planned to release its own findings Friday showing the startling reach and effectiveness of Russian propaganda campaigns.
Here's a bit on the Foreign Policy Research Institute from wikipedia:
For most of its history, FPRI was deeply immersed in the intellectual prosecution of the Cold War.
The U.S.-led War on Terrorism is a central topic of FPRI research. In March 2003, it received a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to study sources of potential terrorist threats to the state, and how to manage the risks.
The institute's primary fundraising event is the Institute's "Annual Dinner", which typically attracts 400 FPRI members in the Philadelphia area, local news media, and the contributions of various companies, including PECO Energy and Boeing. Past speakers have included such notaries as Henry Kissinger, Robert Zoellick, and Walter Russell Mead.
So there ya have it! Sott.net is either a Kremlin funded outfit or a "useful idiot" for the Kremlin. What do you guys think? :D