Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy. (Politics General)

The term “brevity” is one you should invest in.

@Background Pony #12E1
The hell are you on about?

So many words to say so little.

@Background Pony #12E1
Best I can tell, you’re tsundere for MethidMan or some shit.

I swear i just saw their comment get deleted, undeleted, then deleted again lol

@Background Pony #1F81
I felt “lmao” was inappropriate as a deletion reason. There’s no way to change a deletion reason in the forums short of restoring and re-deleting a post.

Dang, that 1st deletion reason was sticking a mirror to their own post.

@Vivace
I honestly didn’t know how many characters a deletion reason could be. I was kind of surprised it worked. But, this is off topic. So let’s get back to the usual noise in here.

@Background Pony #12E1

A picture like from a f**king post-apocalyptic video game. I have only recently realized that the yellow armbands (actually it’s yellow tape) means that the wearers are Ukrainians. If the Russians start wearing red tape now, this war will become even more absurd than it already is. :-/

Meanwhile, the Putin regime is isolating not only itself, but its entire people from the rest of the Internet, so that just no more nasty videos can be viewed, proving that its own state media is not quite honest about the “military operation”. Well, who’s surprised? Nowadays, war always means information and media war.

@Background Pony #12E1
@Background Pony #12E1
@Background Pony #12E1

Okay Daffy.

–

The first casualty of war is truth.

Hypothetical controversial question/take: I don’t see a way Ukraine can win this. NATO is not coming and they are getting slowly grinded down by the Russians. There won’t be much left of their country if this keeps up.

Their defense is heroic and admirable but at what point is it rational to go for peace with the Russians? Obviously the terms of any such agreement will heavily favor the Russians and shaft Ukraine, possibly dividing the country and “demilitarizing” parts of it.

Hey Zincy and Dusty, there’s the occasional tweet or comment on social media popping up which asks ”IF UKRAINE IS SO INNOCENT THEN WHY DOES AMERICA HAVE BIO-LABS THERE?” in such smug manners.

I’m hearing it’s likely Russian Propaganda that’s supported by Far Right Peddlers but I’d like to hear your big brain opinions.

@CaptainXtra
There are no US biolabs in Ukraine. There are Ukrainian biolabs, which conduct research to improve public health in Ukraine (like the CDC).

Analysis of Russia’s invasion
This guy is a retired Navy sonarman who does analysis of naval craft and other military stuff. It confirms Russia’s problem is supplies, but another reason the invasion is stalling is their equipment is in poor shape. I guess some of it was sitting out in the elements for months before it was used.
And that leads up to this story:
Putin’s plans unraveling
It may be he never wanted to occupy the Ukraine. Just trash it so they can’t join NATO and it remains as a buffer between him and NATO. And that honestly sounds like something he would do.

And amazingly Russia has agreed to a cease fire in 2 areas to allow civilians to escape: The port of Mariupol and town of Volnovakha.

@lonewolf
Despite the ceasefire, Mariupol is still under heavy shelling. You can’t trust Putin to keep his word.

In related news, a Sky News crew was ambushed by a Russian death squad near Kyiv this week and barely managed to escape with their lives (and it was less due to them identifying as journalists, as the bastards kept firing at them nonetheless, and more thanks to their bulletproof vests). Here’s their eyewitness report, complete with video footage.

The death squads need to be brutally tortured to death.

Well here’s what Andrew Torba of Gab thinks of what’s happening to Russia on the internet:

“The entire nation state of Russia is getting the “Gab treatment” by Big Tech and the globalist regime.
By that I mean they are being systematically purged from the internet all within the span of about a week.

Google is blocking their apps.

Apple is blocking their apps.

YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Telegram have banned or limited access to their accounts.

Twitter has started “fact-checking” and reducing the reach of their links.

YouTube has demonetized their videos.

Reddit has “quarantined” the /r/russia community.

Namecheap, a domain registrar, has cut off ALL Russian customers.

American right wing dissidents are no strangers to any of these things. All of these tools of war have been used against us as American citizens for six years now. In Gab’s case we have been banned from both app stores, domain registrars, and big tech platforms for years. Now these same tools and tactics of war that have been developed and used against us as dissidents are being used against all of Russia.

Other nation states should be paying attention to this. Are you going to continue to allow your citizens to be controlled entirely by a handful of companies in Silicon Valley, or is now perhaps the time to start building your own sovereign technology and infrastructure?

Unlike our spineless Republican “leaders” in America, who had total and complete control over government from 2016-2018 and did absolutely nothing to stop Big Tech tyranny, Russia is fighting back. Russia has shut down Facebook and Twitter completely and this is honestly a smart play. Why give the globalist regime insight into what your citizens are talking about?

Data isn’t just the “new oil,” data in a time of war is priceless. Especially the data of your own people!

Yesterday Gab engineers discovered a massive anti-Russian botnet on our platform, which we quickly banned. There were hundreds of newly created accounts all sharing the same dozen or so IP addresses. They were reposting, commenting, and liking anti-Russian fake news to the Gab Explore page. Our bot detection systems caught them quickly and we removed them from the platform.

This type of activity is eerily similar to CENTCOM’s Operation Earnest Voice. We have no proof who was behind this activity, all we know is what their agenda was: promoting anti-Putin and anti-Russian propaganda. Gab is not a platform for state-backed PSYOP campaigns. We’re not going to allow this coordinated inauthentic activity to take place in our community, not from foreign state actors and not from our own government.

We also aren’t going to ban a foreign news outlet or Russian citizens from Gab for no reason. RT News has been on Gab for over a year now and has never once even come close to violating our terms of service. Gab is now the one place on the internet where you can find RT News and you can do so by clicking here.”

Sounds like they don’t like anti Putin stuff on there.

@lonewolf
The Venn Diagram for the alt-right, Trumpists, and Putin supporters has a very unsurprising overlap.

What’s really cool is watching all these “cancel culture is worse than the holocaust!” dipshits being totally silent on Putin making calling the war a war a crime that carries a prison sentence. (never mind, you know, shutting down all non-state controlled TV and radio, banning multiple social media platforms, and likely wikipedia in a few days)

Apparently the only part of “free speech” so many conservatives cared about was the freedom to spew racial slurs and jokes about beating up gays

From what I’ve heard even the Taliban is against Russia’s actions. I wonder when Putin is gonna take the hint that literally no one is on his side right now.

I am a free speech advocate for citizens speaking irl or online, even if what’s discussed is offensive to someone. Illuminating debate is important, especially for its spectators.

A hostile nation that during wartime operates wast botnets justifying war crimes and spreading disinformation should be purged.

There is a time and a place for a discussion about online democracy and how corporations decide who gets to speak online and who does not.

The Russian regime is excluded from this discussion until it grants its people the right to speak freely without fear of persecution.

Free speech means that the goverment can’t stop you from speaking against it. It doesn’t mean that you can spew whatever shit you want and not have people call you out on it or have their opinion of you change after it. It’s freedom from censorship, not of consequence.

@Meanlucario
I really wish people would understand that nuance.

@NitroFury
The fact that this autistic manchild (me not you) understands that says a lot about those who don’t.