About the story "NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte threatens US"? Its fake.

FreeRepublic.com ^ | November 11, 2024 | Widget Jr

[Widget Jr]

Posted in response to the thread NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte threatens US and expanding on my comment on that thread.

This story is fake.

How do we know? By reading and asking if it makes any sense and searching for the original sources and checking if they are legitimate. Then asking what are the target audiences and intended effects. Processes that one side of the Ukraine conflict are particular resistant to carrying out.

Does the story even make sense? No. First and so obviously it should not require explaining, if Rutte said that he would instantly lose his job. The NATO Secretary General cannot unilaterally expel a member. When the US spends 12% to 15% of its budget on defense, when the rest of Europe is currently below 5% and realizing they need to increase defense spending to counter Putin's ambitions, NATO isn't going to threaten to expel its biggest financial and material contributor.

Are the sources credible? The "news" sources which broke are story is https://trump.news-pravda.com/ukraine/2024/11/10/2326.html, using https://t.me/belarusian_silovik/44164 as a source, and https://nato.news-pravda.com/ukraine/2024/11/10/556.html, using https://t.me/Slavyangrad. According to whois.domaintools.com both trump.news-pravda.com and nato.news-pravda.com are under news-pravda.com, which was created on May 23, 2024.

TLDR without the HTML, the sources for this are pro-Russian, anti-West telegram channels, distributed through a prefabricated and disposable fake news site, to spam social media sites.

The story, websites and social media accounts spreading this story are all fake.

What are the consequences of falling for stories like this? It helps create conflict between the US and our European allies. It works to make Trump and his supporters, all of us who voted for him, look worse for it before he's sworn in. This only benefits Russia and Putin's interests in creating a second USSR.

[Widget Jr]

If someone's going to debunk more mediocre Russian disinfo, it might as well be me (again). Not that it is all that hard to check out a story posted online before posting comments about it online.

The Russian Firehood of Falsehood propaganda model of flooding social media with phony stories and creating phony buzz about them is running into secondary effects. Russian produces so much of it so poorly done it is easy to identify and filter out.

Before I forget, one more thing. Russian state TV's hello to Melania Trump was running her 2000 GQ magazine photoshoot. Really classy there. /s.

Comments, questions, informed critiques, angry ranting and raving?

Tear Collection Kits available at poster's expense.

[ifinnegan]

Not surprising.

[ansel12]

These ridiculous threads are common for the Russia backers and the gullible embrace them with passion and vigor.

[Widget Jr]

Thank you.

[wildcard_redneck]

Oohh! Russian disinformation! You neocons are so far down the rabbit hole it is ridiculous. Trump is going to kill your grift of a war and I shall enjoy ridiculing you before, during and after it happens.

Clowns.

[Who is John Galt?]

I tend to take most threads 'with a grain of salt', especially when the source is one of the major US purveyors of misinformation/disinformation (MSNBC, NYT, CNN, WaPo, SeeBS, etc.) or a completely unknown source ('The Mudbrickistan Times', for example)...

;^)

[butlerweave]

AI created Fakes ?

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

Thank you for this. I reached the same conclusion as soon as I saw the claim that he was going to expel the U.S. from NATO. Nonsensical.

[ifinnegan]

You’re the one spreading the Russian Hoax that Trump is working for Putin.

[wildcard_redneck]

“You’re the one spreading the Russian Hoax that Trump is working for Putin.”

I am sorry/not sorry that President Trump, like many others who voted for him, understands that the Ukraine War is a con and a disaster. I told you and your fellow clowns that this CIA initiated and managed war would be a disaster.

Trump is going to end the war and I shall enjoy your wailing.

[Widget Jr]

You are supporting Russia's effort to drive a wedge between Trump and NATO member states before he's sworn in.

Does that help or hurt Trump and US foreign policy? Do you care?

(I know you don't care, I just thought I'd ask.)

[Widget Jr]

This story is not using AI deepfakes. It is using a few fake news sites and shills to spread a story, then spam social media, to mask a fake story as legitimate.

It starts with Pro-Russian telegram channels out of Russian and Belarus. Then those posts are picked up and spread by feeding fake but real looking news websites, substack accounts, etc, then jumps over to x.com and more mainstream social media. And then there are a few willing accomplices, The Duran, Redacted with Clayton Morris, Judge Napolitano or Col. Macgregor to give a phony air of independent legitimacy to what was created in Moscow. Then shills spread and repeat it all over twitter/x.

There is a lot of distrust of the mainstream news sources in US, especially among Republicans or non-Democratic voters. Russian disinfo takes advantage of that. This is not saying the western news media is good, we know how politicized they are. Russian state controlled news is worse in creating and enforcing narratives than the western press.

[dfwgator]

AI deepfakes are going to be a big problem.

[wildcard_redneck]

NATO has devolved into a grift to fleece America and it needs to be placed in the dustbin of history.

[wildcard_redneck]

Now try to tell us that Hunter Biden’s laptop evidence of pedophilia and criminality was a Russian disinformation operation. I dare you.

[Widget Jr]

AI is only part of the problem, it is how the fake is spread and that people are so distrustful of one group of news sources they blindly accept another without checking.

The deepfake of Zelenky's wife buying a car was easily spotted because of all the mistakes, and that the story didn't originate from authentic sources.

Authentic sources can't be faked yet. It doesn't help when politicians will claim what they said to the press was a deep fake, like Biden tried to do.

[ansel12]

That ridiculous thread is still running strong.

https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4277503/posts

[Kazan]

No, a globalist scumbag like Rutte, who was driven out of office after his war on farmers in his home country, would never made a threat like that.

[Kazan]

I oppose your efforts to spew propaganda defending leftist POS like Rutte.

Rutte is one of the most despicable SOBs in the world.

He carried out the WEF/globalists assault on farming in his home country.

Globalists, you idiot, are far more of a threat to the well-being of Western citizens than Russia.

[BobL]

“If someone’s going to debunk more mediocre Russian disinfo, it might as well be me”

Considering that it’s a different domain than Pravda, it’s not that hard to debunk. But we know why you guys post these things, so it’s ok.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda.ru