Russian Influence Campaign Sought To Exploit Americans' Trust In Local News (npr.org) 287
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: The information operatives who worked out of the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg did not stop at posing as American social media users or spreading false information from purported news sources, according to new details. They also created a number of Twitter accounts that posed as sources for Americans' hometown headlines. NPR has reviewed information connected with the investigation and found 48 such accounts. They have names such as @ElPasoTopNews, @MilwaukeeVoice, @CamdenCityNews and @Seattle_Post. "A not-insignificant amount of those had some sort of variation on what appeared to be a homegrown local news site," said Bret Schafer, a social media analyst for the Alliance for Securing Democracy, which tracks Russian influence operations and first noticed this trend. Another example: The Internet Research Agency created an account that looks like it is the Chicago Daily News. That newspaper shuttered in 1978. The Internet Research Agency-linked account was created in May 2014, and for years, it just posted local headlines, accumulating some 19,000 followers by July 2016.
Another twist: These accounts apparently never spread misinformation. In fact, they posted real local news, serving as sleeper accounts building trust and readership for some future, unforeseen effort. "They set them up for a reason. And if at any given moment, they wanted to operationalize this network of what seemed to be local American news handles, they can significantly influence the narrative on a breaking news story," Schafer told NPR. "But now instead of just showing up online and flooding it with news sites, they have these accounts with two years of credible history."
Another twist: These accounts apparently never spread misinformation. In fact, they posted real local news, serving as sleeper accounts building trust and readership for some future, unforeseen effort. "They set them up for a reason. And if at any given moment, they wanted to operationalize this network of what seemed to be local American news handles, they can significantly influence the narrative on a breaking news story," Schafer told NPR. "But now instead of just showing up online and flooding it with news sites, they have these accounts with two years of credible history."
Sinclair Broadcast Group (Score:5, Insightful)
Good thing there isn't a major, national media group that controls a whole bunch of local news channels and can force them to run pre-written stories to push a political narrative. That would be awful!
=Smidge=
Re:Sinclair Broadcast Group (Score:5, Informative)
Obligatory. [youtube.com]
This is extremely dangerous to our democracy!
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If not for Russian influence JEB would be president today!
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Then thank God for the Russians!
Re:Sinclair Broadcast Group (Score:5, Informative)
Were it only so. There would be no business model for them if what you said was true, and they're still thriving. Look to Sinclair Media's profitability and lockstep newscasts if you had any questions. Underestimating compromised media is a big mistake.
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Re:Sinclair Broadcast Group (Score:5, Informative)
the revenue comes from ads not watchers...if I bought my car based on an ad i'd be (fill in the blank)
One word: ratings.
The more watchers they have, the more they can charge advertisers.
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Nobody would pay to have their ads air on a broadcast with no viewers. Ergo, if advertisers are buying ad space, people are watching.
You can get a sense of who's watching in your area at any given time of day by what kinds of ads are airing, too. The selection of products and services will be aimed at the largest viewing demographic for that time slot in that region.
=Smidge=
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You mistake yourself for the average Joe or Jane.
They're the one watching TV tonight. Not you. They're not you.
They're not me, either, but at least I understand they exist, and swing electoral college votes. Don't under estimate TV watchers. TV is still free. Slashdot is still free. People do both because: Free.
Much of rural America still watches TV over dishes. Think about election demographics, urban vs not. Re-evaluate the importance. This is why nutjobs like 538.com blew the election predictions: undere
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Propaganda doesn't have to be profitable (Score:2)
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Well it certainly wouldn't look left leaning if you leaned to the left.
Unless you are trying to talk about left being what Europe defines left. But that wouldn't be relevant in a story about american politics and american news' networks.
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good thing most people don't listen, watch, or care...
Local news are watched -- and believed -- by those who care, and vote, the most.. the geriatric ward. Be very concerned. They still think it's the era of Cronkite.
They also watch -- and believe -- Fox "News"
To me, it is now apparent that someone, or something, is trying to rend this country apart... Some Say it's the Russians, Some Say it's dem Liberals, and some rather kooky religious nuts I know say it's Satan and his minions (rich people in control.) I don't know where the truth lies. All I know is I
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All the yelling on both sides? "Listen to me!" "No, listen to MEEEE! HE speaks lies!"
Except that there are objective truths in the world. And it's possible to examine the yelling and disregard that which doesn't seem to match what is true. It does mean you need to brand 90% of one party liars and 65% of the other liars, but you can find one side that leans more towards truth.
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But it is rather noticeable, no? All the yelling on both sides? "Listen to me!" "No, listen to MEEEE! HE speaks lies!" And so forth.
Ahh...The good old celebration of ignorance as wisdom.
Boy... if you can still convince yourself of that bullshit in this day and age you should turn in your card.
The "I am a living person with a working brain, please don't unplug me" one.
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Hell yeah! Bring on the thermonuclear Armageddon! That'll show those fucking Russian who's boss!
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Your a nut and I am Australian, from Adelaide without the least bit of Russian ancestry, in fact Croatian ancestry, hey but that's Slavic too your cry and I just, well, I just know you want to troll people, do better you wont last on slashdot with that low level trolling. The whole Russia bot thing has been destroyed and yeah calling all advertising coming out of Russia influence programs really lame. The US government has become a joke, a dangerous fool with a gun, from outside it looks like you are run by
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? To erode U.S. politics and disrupt NATO.
Russia's biggest restriction on expanding their influence has always been NATO. NATO's balls have been cut off without reliable American participation.
Someone ought to swing for this. As a cynic I know that powerful people often don't bear the consequences of their actions. But make no mistake, this is as much of an attack on America as 9/11 was.
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No showing most nations in NATO are not paying for mi budgetsl.
No showing how much energy Germany imports and from what nations.
Who Germany exports mil products to.
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So people only get their news from a select short list of news sites social media approves of.
Ideally you should get your news from vetted sources. How you determine what has been vetted is complicated because clearly you cannot trust an authority like the government to tell the whole truth all the time. Each person should be responsible to double-confirm information, and be prepared to change their own position as stories get debunked.
At least that's how a rational person would operate. An irrational one would attach themselves to a particular ideology (left, right, up, down, in, out). And once the
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Shut up trumptard. You'll believe anything the orange clown says. So you'll surely believe this:
"I could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot someone, and I still wouldn't lose any voters".
Those "voters" he was talking about, yeah, that's you.
It takes a special kind of moron to keep defending a man who calls them moron to their faces.
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You fucking moron. That was already debunked the day Trump said that.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
In general, yes.
Fact Check - Germany Imports Gas From Russia. But Is It a 'Captive'? [nytimes.com]
TL;DR: Trump was very incorrect (or lied, take your pick) about the amount of energy Germany gets from Russia. Germany does get _some_ of their energy from Russia, but it's not the majority of their energy, and despite that Germany has been far more willing to stand up to Russia and impose sanctions against than Trump is.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's all about pressuring Germany to buy fracked LNG. If you expected Truth from Trump, you were mistaken; he's a sales guy with lip flatulence, a bad hairdo, and no conscience. Sales guy.
Re: Why? (Score:2)
Even if he knows what the word means, he still doesnâ(TM)t what truth is.
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Lets look at its major claims:
That Trump lied about the amount of natural gas using the numbers 60 to 70 percent : The journalist did not even try to do basic research, and kind of admits that. The numbers from eurostat are 50 to 70 percent http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/ [europa.eu]. Trump was well in range, so ignorance to the times and its readers. If anything Trump is low because he was also talking about a new pipeline still in disc
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
> That Trump lied about the amount of natural gas using the numbers 60 to 70 percent : The journalist did not even try to do basic research, and kind of admits that.
I'm having trouble finding the necessary data on the site you linked, mostly because you didn't link to anything relevant. You may as well linked to Google.com as supporting evidence for your claims. Care to walk us through the process to get the numbers you're citing?
Meanwhile, the NYT article straight up states that 50% number ("nearly half") for natural gas imports, and links to a June 2018 report that shows Germany gets 48.5% of its total natural gas from Russia (51.1% of all *imported* natural gas).
Trump doesn't know what the actual value is, and has overstated it significantly when trying to make his point (and overstating claims is literally his only shtick). The fact that you have repeated the 70% value - a complete fabrication as far as I can tell - is a dismal reminder of how effective Trump's lie has been.
So good job on not doing your own research, and repeating a lie, I guess.
=Smidge=
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Correction: The table is Billion Cubic Meters, not percentages. That's 48.5 billion cubic meters from Russia, not 48.5%.
Still 51.1 percent though, not "60 to 70" percent.
=Smidge=
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The quote was about energy which since he also mentioned nuclear and coal so did he just mean fossil fuels?. If other forms of energy are considered the percentage is less than 20%.
Germany is totally controlled by Russia They will be getting between 60 and 70 percent of their energy from Russia and a new pipeline, and you tell me if that is appropriate because I think it's not,
Even with the new pipeline this will not raise their energy percentage that high. It may if only natural gas and oil are considered, but that would paint a very incomplete picture.
Germany is a captive of Russia because they supply (energy). They got rid of their coal plants. They got rid of their nuclear. They’re getting so much of the oil and gas from Russia. I think it’s something that NATO has to look at.
Of course they haven't gotten rid of coal or nuclear (yet anyway) and they're expanding renewable energy.
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> That Trump lied about the amount of natural gas using the numbers 60 to 70 percent ....
Meanwhile, the NYT article straight up states that 50% number ("nearly half") for natural gas imports, and links to a June 2018 report that shows Germany gets 48.5% of its total natural gas from Russia (51.1% of all *imported* natural gas).
This is why no one take people criticism of Trump seriously. By your own admission just about half of it's imported natural gas from Russia. 50 or 60 percent does not change the point that Trump was making.
Everyone knows that Trump exaggerates (or lies - I don't care which word you use.) But the point of his comment remains true.
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> Everyone knows that Trump exaggerates (or lies - I don't care which word you use.)
If you have to lie to make your point, then you don't actually have a point to make. There's actually a pretty big difference between 50, 60 and even 70 percent, especially when it comes to making up the difference should your supply become threatened.
> But the point of his comment remains true.
Except it isn't. Russia needs to sell that gas more than Germany needs to buy it, so any shenanigans by Russia to intimidate G
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If it was 59.8 percent instead of 60 you'd be making the same point about lies. You're petty and can't admit it.
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No, 59.8% is so close to 60% that it's an acceptable round-off. Nobody rounds 51.1% to 60% (much less 70%) unless they're straight up lying.
This is pure hyperbole intended to undermine Germany, possibly at Russia's request/suggestion. You're an idiot for buying it and a dipshit for defending it.
=Smidge=
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Your post is a perfect example of why people should not trust random Slashdot posters.
Your link to Eurostat goes to their home page. The actual data is here: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/s... [europa.eu]
That could have been a genuine mistake on your part, but unfortunately I've seen a lot of people using this trick where they post a link that they assume no-one will actually check to give their post credibility, even though the link is broken/wrong/doesn't support their argument.
Note that it's 50-75% of Germany's *gas* imports. Trump said "energy", but gas makes up less than 20% of Germany's energy mix.
Also, note that this doesn't mean Germany is "totally controlled" by Russia as Trump claims, any more than I am "totally controlled" by the supermarket I get 60% of my food from. It just means that if Russia did decide to squeeze Germany's natural gas supply I'd have to shop somewhere else or eat fewer avocados.
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How about the 2018 report that the NYT article linked?
https://www.bp.com/content/dam... [bp.com]
Page 36: Germany's total gas imports in 2017 totaled 94.8 billion cubic meters of gas, of which 48.5 came from Russia. That's 51.16% if imported natural gas.
=Smidge=
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"Are you denying that Germany is dependent on Russian energy?"
In general, yes.
Fact Check - Germany Imports Gas From Russia. But Is It a 'Captive'? [nytimes.com]
TL;DR: Trump was very incorrect (or lied, take your pick) about the amount of energy Germany gets from Russia. Germany does get _some_ of their energy from Russia, but it's not the majority of their energy, and despite that Germany has been far more willing to stand up to Russia and impose sanctions against than Trump is.
So, John Kerry:
https://112.international/ukra... [112.international]
https://twitter.com/EnergyAtSt... [twitter.com]
And Joe Biden:
https://uk.reuters.com/article... [reuters.com]
Were wrong?
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Trump said that Germany "will be getting 60 to 70 percent of their energy from Russia" and that as a result Germany "is captive to Russia".
One of those things is an opinion, which might or might not be correct, based on actual facts, and the other is an overreaction based on either a lie or a gross error.
As usual i don't really know whether Trump is just stupid or int
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The only policy West Germany was not happy with was any East German control over such exports from the Soviet Union.
Germany now accepts Russian energy due to price and the cost of an existing pipeline network.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
May as well ask why the U.S. is sending billions to China for goods. Or hundreds of millions to Venezuela for oil - even in 2018. Or tens millions to Russia for rides to the International Space Station.
Re: Why? (Score:2)
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Not just the Russians (Score:5, Informative)
Sinclair broadcast group owns many "local" stations, often multiple in a city. They force the "local" news shows to run their stories, commentators, and have the local hosts read corporate produced statements. They also force stations to run their national produced "news" shows like Full Measure.
They even run commercials about how independent and reliable local new is. It's funny to see these same ones on multiple stations.
This is not going away. (Score:5, Insightful)
I see every time this comes up that political process hacking is somehow not seen as a big deal, because injustice in the name of conservatism is somehow sacred and above such considerations.
Well, the digging won't stop. This isn't some 'Bengazi' investigation - this is about the heart of our election process, about how much influence foreign interference had.
I know that conservatives have power over the mechanisms of power now - and plenty of folks like that idea, and want it to continue at all costs. But if it comes at a cost of ignoring damage to our democracy, it won't be remembered well at all.
This is not going away.
None of these issues are going away.
Ryan Fenton
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It will after the midterm when Dem post huge losses instead of riding the fabled "Blue Wave", lol. Nobody is buying it.
Putin 202.. er, Trump 2020!!
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Apathy to be Expected (Score:2, Flamebait)
this is about the heart of our election process
Exactly, this is precisely the problem. People spreading lies and getting away with it has been at the heart of the election process in many democracies for far too long. The only change is that now foreign governments are getting involved - including the US government which got involved in the Brexit debate. It's going to be hard to elicit a big response from people about a torrent of lies from foreign agents when they are already used to listening to a torrent of lies from their local politicians.
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this is about the heart of our election process
Exactly, this is precisely the problem.
Yes, it is. People who think Twitter is the heart of our election process are a big problem.
Folks, Twitter is a social media thing. There is no validation of who posts what. It is DESIGNED for anyone to be able to say whatever they want. Just because someone calls themselves "OrlandoOfficialRealNewspaper" doesn't make them a newspaper, and it never has. Anyone who does not understand that shouldn't be allowed to view tweets from anyone.
Now it is a big deal that people are saying whatever they want, and it
Re:Apathy to be Expected (Score:4, Interesting)
Foreign governments HAVE ALWAYS been involved in the democratic process. The only time they aren't is if your country has absolutely nothing of advantage for them which is rare.
It may be as little as a nasty word or two about a particular politician or it could be an outright assassination but you'd be hard pressed to find any election in the past 200 years in which some foreign power wasn't involved either behind the curtain or outright on the streets.
The 'Russian' thing is just sour grapes. China probably had more of an impact on the last election in the US.
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Too much innuendo and grandstanding like we saw with the Congressional hearings over Peter Strzok. Democrats are children. Republicans are outraged. And Strzok is a disgrace and a POS person.
At least there is evidence for outrage toward the disgracful POS that is Peter Strzok. There is no excuse to act like a child. Ever.
Democracy necessitates that voters can make their own opinion. If a few memes and the airing of dirty laundry is enough to subvert that premise then democracy is a failed form of government
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"The campaign pays the DNC, DNC pays Democracy partners, Democracy Partners pays the Foval group, Foval Group goes and executes the shit on the ground.” -- Scott Foval
Good, the digging shouldn't stop because there's plenty to clutch our pearls about. When you can cut a check and get a political rally shut down [nytimes.com], it's only a matter of time before geopolitical adversaries start trying it themselves.
"So the Chicago protest when they shut all that, that was us.” -- Aaron Minter, Foval Group deputy rapid response director
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The nytimes article linked does not support you claim in any way whatsoever, and where did you get the texts that look like quotes?
The quotes were orinally from transcripts of undercover video footage done by a conservative journalist named James O'Keefe, which were posted to youtube. [youtube.com] O'Keefe's videos are often criticized for their editing, and have to be taken with a grain of salt, but the videos produce evidence of the provocateurs that were organized during the 2016 election to disrupt Trump rallies. This article [zerohedge.com] highlights some of the quotes I referenced.
The more that "threats to our democracy" narrative is driven by the likes
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The good news is that the investigations are working. This attack was stopped in its tracks before it could be used to interfere with US democracy.
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this is about the heart of our election process, about how much influence foreign interference had
Huh, you mean like a foreign agent [theamerica...vative.com] hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign to conduct a smear campaign against the opposition candidate?
"Steele, who is British, did far more than simply provide opposition research to the Democratic National Committee. He was able to make sure it reached the most influential people possible in politics, media and government to shape and influence the growing narrative of the 2016 presidential election. In other words, as a skilled professional intelligence officer, Steele
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The one 'witch' Mueller has found was simply a father being blackmailed into pleading guilty to a 'process crime' that even the FBI agents involved didn't believe happened because of threats of similar prosecution against his son (Flynn).
Manafort is, was, and always has been a crook (while working with both parties) but none of the crimes he's being charged with, by Mueller's own admission, have anything to do with Trump or the Russian investigation.
The Russian companies and citizens were just padding and n
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Notice how facts are met with empty rhetoric.
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FTFY. Even in Mueller's embarrassing indictment of a Twitter troll farm, he admits it had no effect on the election. You Russiagaters are as sad as the Bushbots who still insist that Saddam had WMD's more than a decade after the Bush Administration itself gave up on any such claims.
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You mean besides all the indictments and guilty pleas. Yeah, major lack of evidence
Yep. Bankrupting people or jailing them until they confess to something really counts as evidence.
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Except for the actual EVIDENCE against them. You think Mueller just made that up? It's all just a big conspiracy?
You see, EVIDENCE is actual documents, meetings, phone calls that show the crimes being committed.
Really? We suddenly trust the police or government not to use coercion?
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You understand that "Progressives" are going to have far far fewer examples than the "Conservatives" that have been bombing abortion clinics and shooting other people for decades.
I'm always curious if people are dumb enough to believe this or troll on purpose to get a reaction.
This is the weirdest shit (Score:1)
Yes, Jesus Christ, we know the Russians are spying and up to no good. Thank you.
They have been doing this for nearly a century now. Running this story every other day, OTOH, is destroying what little credibility the media has left. No, I'm going to automatically feel outrage and vote for whatever cunt piece of shit you favour. Please shut the fuck up about it. It's like being amazed that blue looks blue.
Yes they are/have been/willcontinueto etc etc etc.
Please. Shut the fuck up about it.
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How about we let Mueller do his job and see what the results are.
Until then, take your own advice, mmm-k.
Russians exploited Americans' trust In local news? (Score:1, Insightful)
This feeds into the MSN narrative as to how Putin influenced the US election through Facebook and Twitter posts. The truth being that across the board the media was totally opposed to Trump and fully positive for 'Hillary'. The American decided to not believe the MSM message and voted in Trump. This BS
Re:Russians exploited Americans' trust In local ne (Score:5, Insightful)
Side note: The media hardly ever talked about Hillary. They spent most of their time feeding into an underdog story for (privileged self-professed billionaire) Trump. And, sadly, this country values naive "thinking from the gut" over well-thought-out plans from people with experience and a proven record. The difference in detail (how goals could be accomplished) of plans for the country listed on their campaign pages was laughable as if Donald didn't want to win from the start.
The lobbying system is absolutely a problem though. And people desperately wanted change. But hiring a rich grifter is not a very logical way to change that compared to electing a moderate liberal judge who could help overturn Citizens' United.
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The media hardly ever talked about Hillary.
They spent decades attacking her and her husband and gave massive amounts of coverage to the FBI investigations right before the election that ultimately went nowhere.
Not saying they were necessarily nicer to Trump, they certainly called out a lot of his bullshit, but Hilary didn't get an easy ride by any stretch of the imagination.
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What 'evidence', that story concocted by some front organization being funded by the neocons, follow the money
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If you want to suppress the truth because you don't want it influencing elections I have no idea what to say.
Actually this is the crux of the matter. The US (and many other Western countries) Political scene is ready for wholesale silencing of "inconvenient" and "disruptive" and "hateful" truths for the sake of preserving cherished social illusions and National Myths. Many in the halls of power eye China with envy.
And while it is the Democrats at preset who are the torch-bearers of this "innovation", make no mistake, the whole of US corrupt political machinery, from the deep-state operatives, through the MSM corpo
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Conspiracy theories too often lack any affirmative evidence to swat it away. It doesn't matter if Mueller comes up with no indictments of individuals soliciting Russian aid. If the investigation ends like that then people will just insist that it was kept well hidden or that people are lying.
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It just shows what she thinks of her supporters that they could be so easily swayed by "fake news."
Wrong (Score:2, Interesting)
The media didn't really care who got elected as long as it wasn't Bernie (they were caught doing a Bernie Blackout when the guy who runs the youtube Channel "The Young Turks"
Curious.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Curious how deeply researchers dug into these accounts. Another possibility would be for them to have also posted 'fake news', allow it to get shared while relevant, and then delete those posts to continue the appearance of a semi-legit news source...? Very troubling either way. What would be really helpful now is news sources documenting how to detect these questionable sites....the willingness of people to trust what they see on Twitter and elsewhere is another side of the problem that needs attention.
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the willingness of people to trust what they see on Twitter and elsewhere is another side of the problem that needs attention
What?!? You expect people to think for themselves? But we've trained them from school to only regurgitate facts and just expect that the internet (Google, Bing) can always accurately answer their questions. The computer is always right, [computerworld.com] and has been ever since green-bar paper.
Given that a single right wing media outlet (Score:4, Insightful)
I keep saying this, but when it comes to economics the media has a distinct right wing, pro-corporate bias.
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> The nations with the highest standards of living are Democratic Socialist nations
The nations are also physically smaller, have different histories, etc. There is no silver bullet to every society. Pretending there is one, is a problem on a different scale.
People weren't fleeing the country (Score:2)
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Sweden is only ahead of the US in that list because, get this, they have very low government debt due to actually having taxes and a great economy. It's not the best argument. But what can I expect from someone who says 23 (Norway), 25 (Germany), 71 (France) are higher than 18 (US)
Beyond fake news (Score:4, Insightful)
These accounts apparently never spread misinformation
There is no need for fake news or misinformation. Very good results are obtained by just choosing what subjects are covered or not. This is what mainstream media do andit works very well.
Why bother (Score:2)
Sinclair Media has already done a pretty good job of making local news more distrustworthy than Fox News.
So no local news on the internet (Score:2)
Only a short list of trusted news sites that party political social media staff approve of?
Did anyone actually read the linked article? (Score:2)
The article says these accounts never actually posted misinformation:
Another twist: These accounts apparently never spread misinformation. In fact, they posted real local news, serving as sleeper accounts building trust and readership for some future, unforeseen effort.
It's strange that Tim Mak opens the article with this:
Russia's information attack against the United States during the 2016 election cycle sought to take advantage of the greater trust that Americans tend to place in local news..
You can't h
Anonymity (Score:2)
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However, vetted certificates would help, and at the least, make it hard for foreigners to take over ppl's IDs.
yeah . So what? You see it at /. (Score:2)
The problem is that many of them are manipulators and ppl need to read in-between the lines.
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OTOH, China has LOADS of companies that are adding over 300+ new coal plants in china alone, along with another 350+ coal plants in other nations, most of which does not have a lick of coal. IOW, China is setting it up so as to export their coal to these nations
Pull your head out of your arse Windy (Score:2)
Again with the anti China lies WindTroll. CoalSwarm [ieefa.org]
Aiqun Yu, an analyst with CoalSwarm, a think tank that tracks coal-fired electricity generation globally, said that in just the past two years, the Chinese government has essentially cancelled or suspended some 444 gigawatts of new coal-fired generation capacity. The program has been enforced rigorously, she said, and to the point that several completed coal plants have been barred from hooking up to the transmission grid, effectively placing them in mothball status. The policy has pushed down the amount of new coal capacity coming online from 60 gigawatts in 2015 to 34 gigawatts in 2017—the lowest number in more than a decade.
Still trolling your anti-China nonsense. Even when the very study you cite no longer says what you want it to say.
You still constantly lie and claim China's government is pushing coal.
Re: Pull your head out of your arse Windy (Score:2)
You constantly lie Windy. It's kind of your thing (Score:2)
How can you say with a straight face that a country that halved its coal use to the lowest level in a decade is pushing coal?
Is this your idea [wikipedia.org] of pushing coal?
China is the world's leading country in electricity production from renewable energy sources, with over double the generation of the second-ranking country, the United States.
China's renewable energy sector is growing faster than its fossil fuels and nuclear power capacity.
China added 35 gigawatts of new solar generation in 2016 alone. “That’s almost equal to Germany’s total capacity, just in one year,” Myllyvirta says.
Certainly sounds like China is pushing coal. No, wait, it sounds like China is pushing renewables, and you are pushing lies.
China isn't my country, but you knew that already too didn't you...
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halved its coal use
Sorry not halved coal use, that would be nonsense. Halved the number of new coal capacity, still to the lowest level in a decade.
Hardly pushing coal. If they were pushing coal they would be increasing coal faster not the slowest in a decade. And certainly wouldn't have cancelled or suspended some 444 gigawatts of new coal-fired generation capacity.
Re: Pull your head out of your arse Windy (Score:2)
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So it would be "honorable" and "decent" to ignore possible Russian meddling in our elections?
How about this: no, we're not going to ignore it
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I thought he sounded like a Russian.
Are there Russian Nazis?
Re:Enough about the Russians already! (Score:5, Informative)
Oh yes, and they have the full support of the Russian government.
https://www.theguardian.com/ne... [theguardian.com]
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That story would be so much more credible if it was delivered by Glenn Beck with a chalkboard.
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Yvgeny, get the bots to attacking!
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However, vetted certificates would help, and at the least, make it hard for foreigners to take over ppl's IDs.