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morphballganon ,

Skull and crossbones patch?

Are we sure they’re not just gravy seals who bought some military surplus and decked them out with pirate patches?

somethingsnappy ,

CIA agents cosplaying as gravy seals in an uno reverse?

PhlubbaDubba ,

I mean if you’ve met some of the old boy shot callers who work with or for the CIA, yeah no they could totally pull the disguise with a wardrobe change and some fake sunburn makeup.

Most of the actual work that goes on there is data analysis, and that means tech workers, and that means the saged guru tech workers who live out of a single family home that’s less expensive than their home lab, their backup servers, their backup backup servers in a compound in montana, the backup backup backup servers in a bunker in New Zealand, and the thoroughbred they got for their horse girl daughter because these guys are usually also complete suckers for their kids or even younger siblings if there’s a wide enough age gap, as I found out that one such guru was technically the half brother of this girl I had AP microeconomics with.

somethingsnappy ,

I love how you go off the rails, I really do. There’s a lot I’d like to say, but probably shouldn’t.

PhlubbaDubba ,

Would you believe me if I told you my ability to tangent into subjects I know someone is interested in is part of how I got into it with my current SO?

somethingsnappy ,

I would, yes.

PhlubbaDubba ,

I make them laugh and giggle a lot, it’s the cutest crushy giggle you’d have ever heard

somethingsnappy ,

BRB, going to delete all my comments, and take your advice on firewalling my precious precious data.

PhlubbaDubba ,

If you’re genuinely serious, a beginner’s server box and some CLI training will usually be enough for your average person’s storage needs, especially with a proper personal VPN connection.

Only people who need entire racks are those aforementioned gurus because they’re working with whole computer images which can be hundreds if not thousands of gigs, and people who are trying to torrent all of known visual media in human history to create a personal free streaming service, which will almost definitely land you in a court room courtesy of your ISP ratting you out to the authorities.

Agent641 ,

Pirate Bay enthusiasts?

mozz ,
@mozz@mbin.grits.dev avatar
  1. I watched the video and honestly just this one dude standing in this unidentified location for unknown reasons with a patch that maybe looks like a Wagner patch if you zoom in and squint, doesn’t really mean anything.
  2. I had no particular opinion about the Venezuela elections and no idea that anyone in geopolitics cared, until some of the Lemmy propagandists who also don’t like Ukraine started going HARD that Maduro was the best and totally won and González was a tool of US imperialism and Elon Musk.
  3. Fact check bot? Where you at? I sorta want to know what’s up with this site I’ve never heard of
breakfastmtn ,
@breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca avatar

They don’t have an MBFC page, which is a bit weird since according to their Wikipedia page they’ve been around for 26 years. I couldn’t find any bias rating info on them anywhere.

The story seems a bit sketchy. IntelliNews attributes the video to Jason Jay Smart – a political consultant and writer for the Kyiv Post. The video didn’t originate with him though. About 6 hours earlier it was posted by ‘The Spot News’ who are probably a fake news organization*. They don’t seem to have a web presence beyond that twitter account. Spot News was used as the source for this article from Defense-Blog that pre-dates the IntelliNews piece.

The earliest post with the video I can find is here from ‘Ukraine News 24 Hours’, who are also not really a news org and just link to a telegram account. They claim that they posted it but, who knows? Most references to the video describe it as “appearing online” without any attribution, which itself is a bit sketch. No one really reputable is reporting this (yet?).

  • Edit: by “fake news organization” I mean that they are not a real news organization, not that they are necessarily posting fake news (though they could be!)
Gsus4 OP ,
@Gsus4@mander.xyz avatar

If the video is fake or more verification by other outlets doesn’t show up, I’ll certainly take the post down.

mozz , (edited )
@mozz@mbin.grits.dev avatar

Personally I don’t think it’s wrong to have it up; there is enough bullshit in the “factual” news that I think it’s okay if people see this interesting thing while still being aware of the context that maybe it is a weird mistake or means nothing at all. I was just - maybe for the first time - sort of actually wanting the bot to tell me more about this news source.

As a general rule, to me the model of “let me take the information and figure out for myself and based on comments whether I think it is well founded enough to take seriously” is better than “the mods and MBFC bot will keep me safe, anything untrustworthy should come down, anything that does stay up I can just accept uncritically because it’s had a stamp of being definitely trustworthy”.

Maggoty ,

Amateur news organization or unaccredited news organization are two better ways of referring to Twitter accounts with two guys and a camera.

breakfastmtn ,
@breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca avatar

At least in the case of ‘The Spot News’, I don’t think that’s what they are and I think it’s giving them more legitimacy than they deserve. I don’t believe it’s a genuine effort to do reporting. They’re posing as a news agency when they’re just reposting stuff they find online. Even in that tweet, they’re reposting a video as if it’s their own.

There are a million of these grifty accounts/sites that claim to be ‘The World’s #1 Source for Global Breaking News’. Two people and a camera can do a lot of things, but they can’t be that. The people and the camera can only be in one place at a time, right?

In just the last 12 hours, The Spot News have “covered” Aerosmith, an attack on Israel, Imane Khelif (with this scummy nugget: “Imane Khelif, who has male hormones and beats women, took refuge in Allah.”), a Kirill Fedorov interview with a Russian soldier, bird-shaped Chinese drones, Eylem Tok’s lawyer, and a Ukrainian attack on a Russian sub. That’s quite the travel budget for a little operation out of Sheridan, Wyoming! They don’t indicate who their “reporters” are. There isn’t one human being associated with that account. These are all hallmarks of news grifters. What they’re really doing is plagiarism.

‘Ukraine News 24’ doesn’t make any big claims about being the world’s top news source and, honestly, I’m not totally sure that they’re even trying to claim that they’re doing journalism even though they’ve identified themselves as a “media and news company.” It seems more like news activism and 99% of what they seem to do is curate and amplify news about Ukraine (with attribution). There’s no problem at all with them doing that. They don’t seem to do any original reporting though. I was too harsh in equating those two but I think pointing out that they’re not really a news org is appropriate because their name is kind of deceptive (intentionally or not).

Maggoty ,

Oh God it gets worse. There’s like a hundred “spot news” accounts across X and YouTube, an app, and it’s a general news term.

unexposedhazard ,

I mean its an open secret that the US likes to meddle in Venezuelan politics with varying degrees of military force. So it makes sense to me that Russia would also want to be there just because of that.

mozz ,
@mozz@mbin.grits.dev avatar

Yeah. Venezuela has a TON of oil which makes it of interest to anyone in the world who likes to go around fuckin with people and taking their stuff.

Gsus4 OP , (edited )
@Gsus4@mander.xyz avatar

Venezuela’s oil reserves are the last that should ever be pumped out of the ground in the world. It is thick sludge like bitumen, full of heavy metals and hard to extract and process because it has lots of Sulphur, so it’s corrosive. It is almost as bad as burning coal and produces less high-value light hydrocarbons like gasoline and more bunker fuel that can only be used in tankers and industry…which are heavy polluters.

I’m almost tempted to say that it would be better for those reserves to be under the control of a backwards dictator who won’t be able to develop them or privatize them, but China has its eyes on exploiting those reserves too, not just the US, so even that unethical argument is moot.

Omniraptor ,

Isn’t the whole point that oil is easy for anyone to exploit, including backwards dictators? Unlike say, semiconductor manufacture which requires complex processes and therefore a functioning society

Gsus4 OP , (edited )
@Gsus4@mander.xyz avatar

Not always, Venezuelan oil requires high investment and gives low return (compared with other reserves), so it requires a competent government who can keep a level of education/safety and/or can let expertise flow in and set up infrastructure with an expectation that they will get a long term return. At this rate neither are going to happen and Venezuela is fucked unless China goes all in (I don’t think China is going to go all in).

This former minister explains that the reasons the military are backing Maduro are mainly financial, not political m.youtube.com/watch?v=UtcbV9HuHq8 Venezuela is essentially bankrupt and they can’t default on debt to China without getting into bigger problems or becoming fully dependent on the IMF/US.

Maggoty ,

Yeah for the presence of mercenaries it’s best to wait for corroboration. But the election in Venezuela has been heading news since the night Maduro abruptly stopped counting votes, refused to release detailed results, and just declared victory. Then the opposition turned out to literally have the receipts.

Yeah it’s been kind of a big deal.

mozz ,
@mozz@mbin.grits.dev avatar

Oh yeah no doubt. I just meant that I didn’t think anyone from any of the great fuckin-with-people states was trying to involve themselves, UNTIL all the vatniks on Lemmy started going nuts about it.

Maggoty ,

Ahh okay.

PopShark ,

Hey from a Russian-Ukrainian American guy I want to say thank you for actually caring about the facts and not just eating up the propaganda (because honestly I did)

FiniteBanjo ,

Wagner Group? Weren’t they part of the anti-Putin Faction when the war with Ukraine started to go downhill?

I would be surprised to learn they’re operating anywhere at all.

Blum0108 ,

They got folded back into the regime

PhlubbaDubba ,

If you’re a 40k fan familiar with the theory that the 2nd and 11th legions had their marines glommed into the Fists and Blueberries…

…that.

DragonTypeWyvern ,

Hey, there’s literally no evidence they were traitors and, in fact, probably weren’t because we know what they do with traitor legions and it’s different.

However, knowing about them is treason and so is talking about them, double traitor.

PhlubbaDubba ,

You just admitted you knew about them and talked about them.

We’re going out together brother!

Spreads arm to embrace impending core cracker bomb

FiniteBanjo ,

He’s a ranking Tech Priest. Rules for thee, not for he.

PhlubbaDubba ,

Pish posh, I’m a software engineer, we’re basically the exact same thing! Inscrutable incantations that we don’t know how exactly it makes the machine do what we need it to and all!

Maggoty ,

I thought you were talking about Wagner for a second and I was really confused. At any rate please step this way to meet the Commissar.

iAvicenna ,
@iAvicenna@lemmy.world avatar

Putin probably absorbed them silently into his ranks after their boss died

FiniteBanjo ,

Ah yes, big tragedy that plane crash. It shot itself 7 times in the back.

DarkCloud ,

I think it’s obvious that Putin has to be killed in the name of global political stability.

Gsus4 OP , (edited )
@Gsus4@mander.xyz avatar

I’d rather have him tried and imprisoned at the Hague. He destroys institutions. Institutions must destroy him in the end, not guns.

PS: and before the tankies rush in with their whataboutisms: Sinwar, Netanyahu and Dubbya should be made an example of too.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Agreed. Monsters should live out their lives in prison for their crimes.

DancingBear ,

Unfortunately, the United States and Israel (ironically) have all but neutered The Hague….

irreticent ,
@irreticent@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t know why you’re being downvoted. The American Service-Members’ Protection Act, known informally as The Hague Invasion Act, is a United States federal law described as “a bill to protect United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the United States government against criminal prosecution by an international criminal court to which the United States is not party”.

YeetPics ,
@YeetPics@mander.xyz avatar

So that’s how Lil’ Putler is being allowed to genocide unranians.

DancingBear ,

Not an expert on the ICC but I don’t think they have any means of enforcement other than public pressure on the international stage, or another country arresting the war criminal and then handing them over….

Frog ,

Also put Russian astroturfers on that list that have to be killed in the name of global political stability.

Aqarius ,

How about we just kill everyone you, personally, find annoying, would that work?

Frog ,

Why didn’t you say this to the guy I replied to?

Also I personally find you annoying.

DragonTypeWyvern ,

Can it be the people I find annoying instead?

prettybunnys ,

You get 5

SynopsisTantilize ,

Can I just have a note book? Black leather bound notebook with a single pen.

irreticent ,
@irreticent@lemmy.world avatar

No.

SynopsisTantilize ,

I’ll only use it for justice dude… I promise.

irreticent ,
@irreticent@lemmy.world avatar

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/20e8c5df-d6df-4256-b12a-d6e7a89d45eb.jpeg

SynopsisTantilize ,

Man…can’t have shit around here…

irreticent ,
@irreticent@lemmy.world avatar

I’m just teasing. You do you. Have fun!

YeetPics ,
@YeetPics@mander.xyz avatar

As an homage to Putin Style ™? Or on a new, more creative level?

pjwestin ,
@pjwestin@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah, you know what’s great for global political stability? Assassinating the heads of state of countries with massive nuclear arsenals.

Zoldyck ,

ruzzians are ruining the world

TokenBoomer ,

Yeah. /s It’s the Russians…

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/06c83fac-7032-4fb3-b487-edcd7b0af87c.jpeg

Wait. Is that current Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Machado meeting with war criminal George Bush in 2005, after the 2002 coup attempt ?

YeetPics ,
@YeetPics@mander.xyz avatar

Of course it’s the russians.

сколько бы они вам ни платили, этого недостаточно.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

That literally happened before some people here were even born and before plenty were old enough to remember it.

Maybe try an example that’s within their living memory too… if you have one?

theacharnian ,
@theacharnian@lemmy.ca avatar

Is Wagner still a thing after last year’s shenanigans?

ILikeBoobies ,

Yes, it’s beneficial to have a PMC

With different (totally not under Russia) leadership they went back to Africa

SkunkWorkz ,

They are now fully integrated into Putin’s goon squad.

HoornseBakfiets ,

You never hear about mercenaries spotted holding back against protest crackdowns

ZILtoid1991 ,

The good PMC protecting the good dictator! - lemmygrad and hexbear probably

Siegfried , (edited )

One of the conspiracies around Prigozhin’s death suggested that he was alive in Margarita island in Venezuela… which makes no sense. But finding wagner’s mdrcenaries in Venezuela is kind of quaint.

Edit: vzla to venezuela

viking ,
@viking@infosec.pub avatar

Is it really so hard to spell out Venezuela?

Siegfried ,

i usually write it that way and didnt realize

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