apio:

apio:

So I’ve been seeing posts being reblogged and passed around being like, white people are trying to claim black lives matter is russian propoganda! They’re trying to delegitimize the movement! This is fake news!

No.

Just, no.

I cannot possibly express the absolute indefatigable confidence I have in telling you that that is NOT what is going on. Tumblr is taking a huge and comparatively bold step in trying to address Russian propaganda (especially compared to places like Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook). Employing the cybersecurity resources it takes to track down those accounts, verify their origins, and address their repercussions is costly, difficult, and ultimately gains the company nothing beyond trying to protect its impressionable consumers.

The extent to which Russian propaganda has infiltrated our news, our social media, and our sources of information is really hard to grasp if you’re not tuned into geopolitics (which most of us aren’t). But at the very least, even if you haven’t read the US intelligence community’s many declassified memos on Russian influence, you have to understand one thing: the intel behind the fact that Russian state-backed propaganda has infiltrated our country is unquestionably sound. Russia’s blueprint for this is literally in their textbooks. By finally starting to crack down on Russian propaganda blogs, Tumblr is not trying to target BLM or any other movement. The sources of the posts trying to tell you otherwise are, at best, dangerously uninformed, and at worst, Kremlin backlash against sites like Tumblr cracking down on Russian influence.

And here’s the stark truth: just as Russian influence spread like a disease within ultraconservative channels, it’s also spread through ultraliberal channels. In the wake of the election, far-left movements like “Calexit” and even Jill Stein’s campaign were found to be backed by Russian money. The Kremlin’s only goal with relation to the United States–between all the misinformation, the mistrust, and the abuse of our media–is simple: sow chaos. Fracture our identity as Americans, destroy our faith and trust in our institutions, and call to question our belief in the veracity of truth. 

Addressing Russian propaganda truthfully and responsibly is not one social media company’s thinly-veiled attempt at rewriting the narrative of BLM or Bernie Sanders or any other important cultural movement. It’s trying to create a space allowing freedom of speech where that freedom is not systematically abused by a foreign power peddling an agenda. The Russians didn’t CREATE Black Lives Matter, just as they didn’t CREATE the Tea Party or #MAGA. They don’t create movements and ideologies and platforms that people can get behind; they study ones that already exist, they gather information on them, and they INFILTRATE them, DISTORT them, and then USE inflamed passions to sow mistrust, misinformation, and ultimately violence, hatred, and chaos.

The only way to deal with how badly this has affected us, as a country and a society and a people, is to do what Tumblr is trying to do. Stop, take a step back, and be responsible about the information you’re spreading, even when it’s hard. Consider the implications. Verify your sources. Don’t fall for inflammatory rhetoric. You can BE passionate and BE righteous and stand up for what you believe in, but the only way you’ll do your movement the most good is by representing it truthfully, understanding it fully, and protecting it from those who would abuse it for their own ends. 

Information is power. Awareness is power. Certainty is power. Trust nothing and question everything, because the stuff that really matters will stand up to that level of scrutiny, be even more searingly poignant in the light of truth. 

Reblogging for the afternoon crowd because this is probably the most important post I’ve ever written in my dumb blog!! Pls reblob! Thanks!!!!

Whether you still need convincing, or could use help addressing this suspicion and confusion where you see it, it’s important to realize this is much bigger than Tumblr. There have been numerous articles in a variety of publications about this exact issue as it unfolded on Facebook – here’s one from Wired that discusses the very popular, 100% Russian-backed “Blacktivist” Facebook community, examining it in the context of other documented examples where hostile groups have infiltrated Black spaces to achieve similar goals. 

Here’s an article that quotes actual Black activists in Buffalo who were approached by anonymous members of “Blacktivist.” They ingratiated themselves by helping promote and organize community rallies following the death of India Cummings, and then began spreading dissent, like (very unwelcome) content on the local BLM page urging Black voters to “show [Democrats] your power by not showing up to vote.”

This particular pseudo-SJW organization has been indicted in the Mueller probe on Russian election interference. You can bet your ass the same Russian disinformation operatives were doing the exact same thing on this overwhelmingly left-leaning platform, where instead of moderators deleting insidious crap (which they did on the Buffalo BLM page), there’s a much younger aggregate user base that “signal boosts” anything that sounds plausible. They absolutely were playing both sides, and they did it very, very well. We have to acknowledge that, no matter how uncomfortable it is.