Will you accept evidence? Or will you downvote and call me a Russian bot?
[…]
Or downvote and maybe throw an insult my way, that works too.

Really? You could not do it without weird and undounded assumptions? C'mon, grow up.

Anyway, I appriciate you provide actual reasoning for your arguments. I'll read into it.

I think you’re reading way more into my comment than intended.

I just meant centre-left in the conventional media/political spectrum sense used in the UK, not a deep ideological classification.

It's what happens every time. I'm sorry, that was unnecessary, I felt burnt out.

I'm sure the cops were equally as 'peaceful' as the protesters and didn't go and kill a few tens of thousands of them.

Shit gets violent under a fanatic totalitarian regime.

Where did I say anything about 40K deaths? The highest estimate I saw in any of those links was 20K, and the highest confirmed body count was less than 10K. Are you just making shit up to make it sound easier to discredit?

I've said before they I have no doubt they killed a lot of civilians

Then what the fuck are you even arguing? Because you seem to keep calling me an imperialist propagandist for stating facts like the iranian regime viciously suppressing protesters.

but I don't justify imperialism and even more destructive and deadly wars as a response

Don't just cherry pick footage that justifies your war lust

They didn't kill 40k+ people, and you will not provide footage that demonstrates they did anything near that because it's a made up lie.

but you can't wrap your head around the fact that you're not the heroes of the world and America doesn't have an obligation to interfere with every country however it deems fit.

I never said anything even close to any of that. You're fucking psychotic, dude.

go ahead and watch the videos of counter protesters burning Israeli and US flags.

Those aren't counter-protesters. It's all the same protest. I know you find this impossible to comprehend, but it's entirely possible to oppose the mullah and US/Israeli colonialism.

It is amazing the amount of mental gymnastics people are willing to do to justify American and Israeli backed terrorism. Iran tolerated the protests until terrorists started shooting with AK's and shotguns. The terrorists also shot many civilians because they know that you will blame every single death they cause on the Iranian government.

Not even a little bit. You don't know what you're fucking talking about. In fact, the Ayatollah, being the dictator of a theocratic regime, is far more right-wing and "conservative" than even the most centrist western neoliberals (which I'm not even that, by the way).

Have you forgotten about Mahsa Amini, who was murdered in police custody in 2021 for being a woman and not wearing her hijab "properly"?

By the way, is this the same The Guardian that you're calling "western imperialist propaganda"?

If you're going out of your way to avoid any information that conflicts with your preferred narrative, don't act like contrary evidence doesn't exist just because you haven't seen it.

He would if he could. But that's neither here nor there, because this post isn't about the west. It's about Iranian student protesters, and you're trying to say we shouldn't give a fuck about them just because their oppressive government is anti-west.

Your red herrings are meaningless, because two things can be true at once. The Ayatollah is a violent dictator, but that doesn't mean the west is faultless. And nobody here claimed that it is.

The point is that this article isn't about the west, and you're only trying to insert them into the conversation to deflect blame for the Ayatollah's crimes against humanity.

The protests and their coverage started before the US admin leapt on it as an opportunity to justify military action. You're discounting a people's movement against an authoritarian regime just because some other authoritarian regime is trying to use them opportunistically.

The coverage isn't sudden, it's been there since the start of the protests. You just haven't been paying attention to it because it would force you to reevaluate your opinion. The media coverage was there in 2021/2022 during that movement too, but you probably weren't paying attention then either.

you have no right to kill more iranians, or meddle with their shit, or pretend to care about the instability you keep causing with blockades and sanctions.*

1. I'm not doing any of that

2. The current Iranian regime doesn't have the right to do those things to its people either

3. This is an article about the Iranian people rising up against their regime, and you're bitching about it because why exactly? Cause you hate the west so you lick IRGC boots?

in the meantime do the world a favor and stop voicing your excuses for supporting 21st century hitler in their fascist fucking crusade

I don't support trump or maga. In fact I viscerally hate them. How about you stop projecting and do the world a favor and stop voicing your excuses for supporting a militant right-wing theocratic dictatorship that's actively massacring its people?

you are currently on 2 simultaneous genocides atm, trying for a third while thinking yourselves moral and good for it.

I'm not committing any genocides. Never have and never will.

not wasting anymore time with the fascist libs in this thread

"Fascist lib" is an oxymoron. If you ask an actual fascist, they'll say liberals are the devil. And liberals rightfully hate fascists too.

Oh by the way, I'm more of a leftist anyway. I know you're not capable of comprehending this, but some leftists are actually capable of critical thinking and arriving at a well-reasoned opinion based on contextual nuance and complexity instead of simply falling for ideological campism, purity tests, and sports-team-like black-and-white thinking.

i'll be out there puking from the fucking disgust

Good, I hope you rupture your stomach and turn yourself inside out. You'll be able to think more clearly in a coma.

Two different stories, dude...

I never fucking said that, but since it's the Iranian regime that's killing Iranians and you seem to be supporting the regime, then I guess that comment is just projection...

"It's not a tough line to walk, I just think that students facing oppression, violence, and mass killings by a theocratic government should shut up and be quiet in case their struggle might be perverted to further imperial interests."

I don't know, from where I'm sitting, you seem to be struggling a bit to walk that line as easily as you proclaim.

And on that, I agree with you 100%, but this specific article doesn't do that. It's implicit, I agree with you, but how do you suggest combating that? I think the solution has to be using every news article post as a platform to denounce that military intervention and promote critical thought, rather than decrying the mere existence of those posts and suggesting that people will be too stupid to discern the truth if they're faced with propaganda. (Which is, of course, accurate lmao, but it's also a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people are never taught how to think critically and presented with opportunities to do so, they will remain stupid forever.)

Also in my opinion, Americans oppose military action in Iran for financial reasons, which always takes precedence over moral concerns. So, in this case, both fortunately and unfortunately, Americans will not be motivated to support military action because of another government's brutality against student protestors imo. It's a tired old talking point out of the War-on-Terror and Hasbara playbooks, but even older people barely buy that shit anymore - and even if they do, they're probably more concerned with why every trip to the grocery store is $250.

You're the one dancing. I don't need to.

I said "I don't need to dance around," implying "my worldview already aligns with reality and I don't need to contort either to get them to fit together."

What part of that do you interpret as meaning "I actually can't argue against your opinion that's divorced from reality even though you're the one skewing facts and 'dancing around' just to try and validate your asinine take"?

If you expect the whole world to twist itself to cater to your needs and wants, then you're probably a fascist.

What the fuck?

Is that what you think dancing is?

It's not zionist propaganda. It's news about current events. Just because zionists latched onto it opportunistically doesn't mean the whole thing is their doing, and it doesn't discredit the New Iran movement either.

And you're a really shitty person for not being able to see the difference.

From the start, as I've stated multiple times, my support is for the Iranian people in their struggle for autonomy and self-determination. You're the one who's been constantly desperate to insert Israel and the US into that narrative, even when the article in this post isn't about them.

Okay, but that's a different argument to make on a different post about a different argument, not this one because it's irrelevant here. Literally no one here is arguing in favor of US/Israeli military action.

Why don't you go argue with people on a post about the invasion? Spoiler: you won't see me there supporting it because that's not what I'm doing.

That's not what I was doing. This post is an article from The Guardian, an independent journal, about Iranian student protesters.

But now that we're clearly arguing in circles, I'm blocking you. Enjoy those rials while they last.

Death to Khamenei. The New Iran will rise from the ashes of the regime.

I mean, a large portion of Lemmy is Russians.

I find it the funniest when actual Russians like Davel@lemmy.ml, pretend to be Americans and go "why would Russian propaganda even care about something as small as lemmy?" Oh hmm let me think, an open unregulated and uncontrolled platform for spreading whatever, whenever and how much ever, why would that interest anyone pushing an agenda hmmm...

It's crazy how many people defend these propaganda bots

A non-insignificant portion are Russians pretending to be Americans.

Look at profiles like Davel@lemmy.ml

Literally pretending to be a red-blooded American while doing comments like "reality has a well known Russian propaganda-bias", and having several comments on his profiles in fluent Russian.

If you were a Russian online in today's atmosphere, would you admit to it, or pretend to be from another country?

No matter how much I'd like to make up shit against Russia, there's no need. Unlike Russians, we Finns don't feel the need to lie for our despotic leader. Mainly because we don't have one. Haven't had one since 1809 pretty much. Well, arguably a bit from 1809 to 1917, but I wouldn't make that argument.

So yeah. Feel like reasoning your feelings out at all? Could help others figure out what you're thinking.

Oh, getting a bit mad, huh? Where were you born and raised?

A whole essay shifting your goalposts. You said I'm making up Russians pretending to be Americans. I give you a every clear example, and you just kick off a tantrum about how "European propaganda" this and that. Clearly setting sort of teams here. And implying I'm on one (European) and by implication that you're on another.

I'm really not up to writing an essay where I answer all your whataboutism and shitty implications.

If you're pretending like "European propaganda" exists, that there's some hegemonic culture which unites all the countries and thus all their intelligence apparatuses as well and they share coordinated disinformation campaigns equal to those of Russia? Get fucked, you know how ridiculous of a notion that is. Europe isn't a hegemony, unlike Russia, which is absolutely infamous for its disinformation campaigns, all over the world. Objectively.

As social media gained prominence in the 2010s, Russia began to use platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube to spread disinformation. Russian web brigades and bots, typically operated by Russia's Internet Research Agency (IRA), were commonly used to disseminate disinformation throughout these social media channels.[24] In late 2017 Facebook estimated that as many as 126 million of its users had seen content from Russian disinformation campaigns on its platform.[25] Twitter stated that it had found 36,000 Russian bots spreading tweets related to the 2016 United States elections.[26] Russia has used social media to destabilize former Soviet states such as Ukraine and Western nations such as France and Spain.[27] It has been suggested that since 2019, Russian-sponsored troll accounts and bots have formed and taken over prominent left-wing and right-wing subreddits on Reddit, such as the antiwar, greenandpleasant, and aboringdystopia subreddits, "suggest[ing] a Russian-led attempt to antagonize and influence Americans online, which is still ongoing."[28] Canadian subreddits have also been directly targeted by Russia. [29]

Social media companies have moved to limit Russian disinformation on their platforms. In October 2019, Facebook moved to take down accounts connected to Yevgeny Prigozhin used to interfere with African political affairs.[30] Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council at the time, said Russia's aim is to make its presence felt in the same way it did during the Cold War, but with a much smaller investment using disinformation campaigns.[30] In 2020, the United States State Department identified several "proxy sites" used by Russian state actors "to create and amplify false narratives". These sites include the Strategic Culture Foundation, New Eastern Outlook, Crimea-based news agency NewsFront, and SouthFront, a website targeted at "military enthusiasts, veterans, and conspiracy theorists".[31] Russian influence operations, such as the Pravda network, have increasingly spread content that serves as training data for large language models in order to influence the output produced

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_disinformation

I said you're making up the scale of it, which you are.

The scale of "non-insignificant"? Yes, obviously it's me who's overreacting here. Lol.

No, not everyone who disagrees with me is a Russian, but most who virulently talk of "the West" and "European propaganda", especially bringing it out when Russia is criticised turn out to be. It's kinda funny, because said Ruskis never understand how see-through they are. Just like Davel. And even if I'm 100% confident he is Russian, and even had the evidence to prove it, he would never admit to it, because, why would he?

The point here is that Europe isn't a hegemony. There is no "European propaganda" in the same sense there is organised Russian disinformation. To argue against that is just idiocy, and shows how little you understand what it's like to live in Europe. And not all of Europe is EU either, even if EU had some sort of hegemony — which it doesn't.

Lmao, that's unbelievable, you're literally the joke of the CIA agent telling the KGB agent that there's no propaganda in the US

Oh like Russians who just stomp their foot and insist Lemmy doesn't have Russians, okay it has Russians but not Russians pretending to be from other countries, okay Russians pretending to be from other countries but not on this absolutely gargantuan scale which you said, okay you didn't say a gargantuan scale, you just said "non-insignificant", but still, I'm right and you're wrong.

Remember when I asked you if you were a Ruski, if you'd admit to it, or pretend to be from another country? Yeah... ;>

wyaaa wikipedia doesn't have source-criticism or discussion, but it's 100% "anglo-propaganda" *(holy fuck I'm giggling thanks for making my day, depressions really beating my ass so I need proper giggles like this)' so you can't trust anything on Wikipedia, you just should trust Lemmings like Davel and Yogthos etc.

Roflmao

I probably didn't answer all your garbage but I'm off to have a burger now, I'll read more about you crying and defending Russian disinfo later, because you won't be able to give this up, because I've called you out on your BS and that just annoys you so when people don't just do what they regularly do with people like you, which is to ignore them.

Like it's so hilarious that you're implying that basically only if Russia themselves admit to actively doing disinfo, then it's gonna be trustworthy, but anyone else saying anything about it is bs? :D

https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/schwerpunkte/EN/disinformation/examples-of-russian-disinformation-and-the-facts.html

Bund.de is probably just european propaganda and all made up but Russia doesn't do disinfo right? Ruahahaha

I have a hard time understanding how most of Ruskis are so simple and yet still have the most chess GM's and such good spycraft at higher levels.

"Propaganda doesn't exist in my country"

Ofc it fucking does. But "Europe" isn't a country, is it, dipshit? Europe isn't a hegemony. You need a hegemony for proper propaganda. How is this so hard for you to understand? Are you honestly so willfully ignorant you don't know what "hegemony" means that you won't spend 10 seconds checking the meaning? :D

What does discussing the Spanish civil war have to do with Russians being ashamed of being loser Ruskis? Either you're a super shamed Ruski, or even worse, a European who's bought into their propaganda. (I genuinely think the latter is worse tbh.)

It's a great burger btw.

Russian disinfo is objectively massive. Yet you're literally defending it like a conditioned dog.

Keep believing that everything is Russian propaganda while your own country guts your welfare, your rights, destroys its economy and supports genocide in Palestine lmfao.

Keep the workers distracted from questioning why they have no rights. Couldn't be the rich in america, it's clearly Russia's fault that the hillbilly state senators in texas hate minorities. Couldn't be home grown capitalism, it's Russian!