A very toxic and vicious circle. Not just Russia doling out propaganda but absorbing the right's too

[ck4829]

Russia isn't the puppetmaster, but they have their hand up the backside of our right-wing and they have their hand up Russia's as well and they are one-upping each other over attacking western liberalism, multiculturalism, democratic values, etc.

Russia’s early struggles to push disinformation and propaganda about Ukraine have picked up momentum in recent days, thanks to a variety of debunked conspiracy theories about biological research labs in Ukraine. Much of the false information is flourishing in Russian social media, far-right online spaces and U.S. conservative media, including Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News.

The theories, which have been boosted by Russian and Chinese officials, come as U.S. officials warn that Russia could be preparing a chemical or biological weapons attack of its own in Ukraine.

Most of the conspiracy theories claim that the U.S. was developing and plotting to release a bioweapon or potentially another coronavirus from “biolabs”’ throughout Ukraine and that Russia invaded to take over the labs. Many of the theories implicate people who are often the targets of far-right conspiracy thinking — including Dr. Anthony Fauci and President Joe Biden — as being behind creating the weaponized diseases in the biolabs.

Disinformation experts said the biolabs theory echoes other Russian propaganda meant to justify its military efforts, which often makes allegations against other countries and populations that reflect similar attacks it plans to make.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/qanon-ukraine-biolabs-russian-propaganda-efforts-boosted-us-far-right-rcna19392

Go into a Russian government building and you will find computers with browser histories full of Breitbart and Gateway Pundit, I will bet money on that.

[BeyondGeography]

1. President Biden needs to speak about this

And the Democratic Party should run with it. You want a country where 70 percent of the population believes people are blowing up their own buildings just to make your country look bad? That’s where we’re headed with The GQP.

Connect the friggin dots, people.

[ck4829]

2. Indeed

[dalton99a]

3. Kick

The “biolabs” conspiracy theories were almost unheard of until the day of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Pyrra Technologies, a cybersecurity and threat intelligence company, said the first mention of biolabs came on the far-right social network Gab on Feb. 14, 10 days before the invasion. The user included an awkwardly worded graphic, titled “Exclusive US biolabs in Ukraine, and they are financed at the expense of the US Department of Defense.”

The post largely sat idle for days. Welton Chang, the CEO of Pyrra, said posts about biolabs on the top 15 far-right social networks numbered in the single digits in the days before Russia’s invasion. But on Feb. 24, the day Russia began its invasion, the number of posts about biolabs on English-language far-right websites skyrocketed into the hundreds and only grew in the days after.

Boosted by far-right influencers on the day of the invasion, an anonymous QAnon Twitter account titled @WarClandestine pushed the “biolabs” theory to new heights, using the same “US biolabs” graphic initially included on the Gab post that went largely unshared the week before.

[ck4829]

4. It used to be "US biolabs in Georgia" before they became "US biolabs in Ukraine"

[WarGamer]

5. Here's a good fact check from the BBC.

Summary:

Yes there are US funded Bio-Labs

And NO they're not making bio weapons.

https://www.bbc.com/news/60711705

[JHB]

6. The Right spend decades developing its networks of foam cannons.

Putin was a latecomer, but his goals were the same as its domestic developers, so what he mostly did was clone a second set of controls.