
Viral “Manspreading” video is said to be staged Russian propaganda - BerislavLopac
https://euvsdisinfo.eu/viral-manspreading-video-is-staged-kremlin-propaganda/
======
coldtea
"Kremlin Propaganda", no. But TFA is indeed playing into the anti-Russia
climate with sub-par journalism.

I was suspicious of it being real (not because "activists" wont do any kind of
shit these days, but because she would have easily got beaten up if it was
real).

It took like a few searches to find that the video is indeed fake, and it was
made as a viral video to boost the career of Anna Dovgalyuk, a ho-hum
model/minor celebrity that does such BS.

She has done such viral videos in the past, e.g.:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwdmPnJDvp0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwdmPnJDvp0)

Note how the BS TFA doesn't provide this info (it just mentions some magazine
who found one of the actors in the video), and jumps to the "Kremlin
propaganda" with tons of handwaving and no evidence at all, as opposed to one
of the tons of BS YouTube stuff produced every day to be viral.

Also the name of the site "EU VS DISINFO" points to a website created to cater
to the paranoid crowd, if not itself the work of some state agent or another
[1].

[1] Addition: Oh, as someone else points out in the comments, this is EU
financed.

~~~
oytis
> jumps to the "Kremlin propaganda" with tons of handwaving and no evidence at
> all

The video is promoted by RT, there is enough evidence for it (like, you know,
links to a page on RT website containing the video). Even if it wasn't created
as Kremlin propaganda, it is used as such now.

~~~
coldtea
> _The video is promoted by RT, there is enough evidence for it_

RT is a popular website.

Of course it will link to a viral video. It's no more "Kremlin Propaganda"
than anything posted on BBC is automatically "British propaganda".

~~~
lawlessone
>RT is a popular website.

Yeah i love their chemtrails stuff....

edit: Lol Fox is as bad as RT coldtea.. your attempt at whataboutism is
terrible.

Just because fox is crap doesn't mean RT isn't a Putin owned propaganda
network.

~~~
coldtea
Lol, I don't care much for "thought-stoppers" like the accusation of
"whataboutism".

In fact, I'm ALL for whataboutism -- or, as they used to call it back in the
day, putting things in perspective...

You have to really be conditioned to never see the larger picture and to think
your shit doesn't stink to even consider "whatabboutism" (that is, that a side
accused of something might has a right to point back to the other's side's
misdeeds) as bad...

------
netcan
_..Provoking a clash of extreme views.._

It's just hard to delineate between "legitimate" provocations from hostile
operations. FB optimize for this stuff by default, because it provokes shares
and clicks. Media does it for click-bait. People do it for fun an politics.

I guess that's why it works.

~~~
larkeith
Warning: Stream-of-consciousness rambling ahead.

FB and media sites are especially egregious offenders, but are symptomatic of
the modern internet as a whole. I'm not really sure how we change this - the
web is based around user interaction and sharing, and people will always
prioritize that which they care about, which encourages more extreme views in
any discussions among more general groups.

Dividing into sub-communities can reduce discord and increase legitimate
discussion and less-extreme views, as moderate community members will not be
suborned by unrelated topics they care about, but why join the sub-
communities? Also, as seen on some Subreddits, this can instead lead to an
echo-chamber, with dissident views discouraged.

Perhaps forums with a ranking system unlike current like/upvote, share,
freshness, and number-of-response based systems could assist - Having longer-
lasting, even permanent, threads for each topic might encourage novel
discussion over rehashing the same arguments repeatedly, while prioritizing
long-form replies could at least provide more grounds for debating views, but
none of that fixes the essential problem of moderate apathy.

I wonder if moving to a more mercenary web could help - while it feels as
though it would be losing something essential, if there were a cost to
responding and payment for valuable contributions, moderate feedback could be
encouraged financially, rather than by passion alone. You would still need an
essentially different ranking system, especially to prevent response
repetition, else I suspect you would see the opposite of the desired result -
people posting extreme views to get a quick buck.

Additional elements would likely be necessary to create a network entirely
successful in encouraging discussion from a full spectrum of views (while
repetition may be deadly to discussion, stagnation is also fearsome), but it's
a starting point for consideration. I'll have to think on this more later - I
might give building a prototype a try.

This digressed fairly significantly from the original topic, but I'd be
interested in thoughts regarding diversification of views on the internet.

------
edoloughlin
If this is indeed propaganda then, based on the discussion on this page alone,
it has achieved it's objective perfectly, which is to sew confusion and
argument from polarised perspectives over misleading, trivial nonsense.

~~~
anon7429
Not "sew," it's not ripped clothing; "sow" as in the seeds of revolution.

~~~
edoloughlin
Hmm, unnoticed autocorrect...

------
dvfjsdhgfv
For me it doesn't matter if it's fake or not, what counts are the reactions of
some people. Every time I hear "she did very well" I get upset. As if violence
become the new normal in making a change.

~~~
cyborgx7
Violence was always an important factor in making change. Many times for very
good change. This is not a new thing.

~~~
lixtra
While in certain situations violence is appropriate, here it clearly isn't. If
you don't agree on its inappropriateness here it would be indeed upsetting.

edit: added comma

~~~
cyborgx7
The comment I responded to talked about violence in general, not about this
specific instance. That is what I responded to.

------
0xfeeddeadbeef
It's Russia: that woman would be beaten into a pulp by now if it was real.

------
ssijak
Why is this on the front page of HN?

~~~
darawk
...Why wouldn't it be? Russian (and state-level generally) propaganda is a
huge issue in tech right now.

~~~
gsich
Not really

------
pencilcode
And that's how the public is duped into voting for incompetent corrupt, but
manly!, politicians who promise they'll put things back in order!! Seed rage
and you'll get politicians like Orban (Hungary), Bolsonaro (Brazil, on his way
to power), and Trump. All Putin lookalikes who have their own oligarchies
(call them friends) and everyone else is f __*ed poor. And that is how nations
/systems fail.

~~~
cabraca
you did not get trump because of putin alone, you got trump because hillary
did a poor job. insulting voters that elected and reelected obama as "basket
of deplorables" and "nazis" was shit. accepting leacked cnn questions from
dona brazil was shit. booting bernie sanders was shit. instead of attacking
his policies the democrats just shouted racist, sexist, homophob and xenophobe
over and over again.

dont get me wrong, i'm against trump. but you have to accept hillary f*ed up
big time.

~~~
pencilcode
She did but she's no longer the issue. And in voting against Hillary, people
voted for Trump, a worse alternative - morally corrupt. People fight over
whether Hillary was really corrupt or not, with Trump that's not the issue. We
_know_ he's a compulsive liar, exaggerator, we _know_ that he's mean and petty
and vain and that all he cares about are his name/brand and how many millions
he has in his bank account. This is not a guy who'll fight for the masses, me
or you, this a guy who'll fight to keep himself and his friends rich and makes
no apologies for that. So not being a Clinton but being a Trump is not better,
it's so much worse. It's the same in Brasil, voting against PT, Bolsonaro
might be president, but he's so much worse. Despite absolutely hating someone
you still have to keep your eyes open to what the alternatives are and if
they're worse or better. Or you might end up with someone that'll make you
more worse off.

~~~
chrisco255
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2016/11/08/how-
bil...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2016/11/08/how-bill-house-
hillary-clinton-made-240-million-how-much-earnings-rich-white/#620c61467a16)

The Clintons are super rich, $240 million net worth, despite a life of "public
service". I wonder how that works out?

It's like Robin Williams said, "Politicians are like babies, they should be
changed frequently...and for the same reason."

It was high time the Clinton dynasty ended.

~~~
lawlessone
Trump is allegedly richer so if we're going with the "wealth = corrupt" attack
here then Trump was still a worse choice than Clinton.

>Clinton dynasty ended.

2 people isn't a dynasty.

~~~
chrisco255
I wasn't the one who claimed wealth is equivalent to corruption. That was OP.
And I think it's rather dubious to believe that more wealth equals more
corruption. Trump's wealth was made in the private sector. The Clinton's
wealth was made through their public sphere influence.

Besides holding the presidency from '93 to '01, the Clintons moved on to the
Senate, where Hillary sat for 8 years, before joining Obama as Secretary of
State for 4 years. The Clintons have had deep influence in the Democrat party
for the last several decades.

------
mothsonasloth
The West is weak now and to make matters worse our leaders are openly showing
their weaknesses.

Therefore Russia sees us as fair game (which I agree in) and is attacking us
over the best medium; the internet.

In my opinion its not going to be territorial wars that will dominate our
future, but cultural wars.

You might maintain your national borders but you will lose in the cultural
war, whether that's political ideology, identity, civil morale.

In a way the policies or slogans you hear like "One China", "New Russia",
"Europe United" are cultural campaigns. Yes they might involve territory and
resources but they all have different cultural identities packaged with them.

In science fiction they have entertained this idea. If you look at Blade
Runner you can see that the world has been dominated by a hybrid of Sino-
American culture with rampant capitalism.

Exciting but scary times ahead!

~~~
mothsonasloth
Guess the Putinbots know I am on to them

------
close04
So... a fake and polarizing viral video on the internet? No way!

It's as if someone noticed that staging something extremely divisive on topics
that everyone has an opinion about gets clicks and attention.

------
nkkollaw
When there is such thing as having to combat men being able to sit how they
want, you know society has hit the bottom.

~~~
lawlessone
its fake

~~~
nkkollaw
The article is fake, "manspreading" is an actual thing. I was referring to
that, not the article.

~~~
KozmoNau7
How do you know it's an actual thing?

E: Not the "sitting with legs relatively wide, for comfort", but rather the
version that gets complained about online, the one where people are
deliberately blocking seats from other people.

~~~
bogomipz
Ride the train in NYC for any length of time and you are practically
guaranteed to see it.

The phrase entered popular lexicon years ago now in NYC, it's definitely not
new. Search the Gothamist website it's well-worn meme by now. Other news
sources as well as even the MTA themselves have commented on the phenomenon:

[https://www.npr.org/2014/11/23/366084646/mta-targets-man-
spr...](https://www.npr.org/2014/11/23/366084646/mta-targets-man-spreading-
and-other-subway-faux-pas)

I think it't more of a gender neutral bad behavior thing in that it seems that
people who do this will do it regardless of whether its a man or a woman
sitting next to them.

~~~
KozmoNau7
Yes, the "manspreading" is certainly real, if you mean some people (mostly
men) sitting in demonstrably relaxed or "macho" ways.

That is not what I questioned. Though it is nowhere near as bad as some people
online seem to claim.

The extreme online vitriol about it certainly seems to be at least partially
made up.

~~~
bogomipz
>"Though it is nowhere near as bad as some people online seem to claim."

The practice is most certainly pervasive in NYC. I would call that as bad as
people claim. Most of the online documentation of the phenomenon is more
behavior shaming though and not anything approaching "vitriolic", this
ridiculous bit of theater being an exception of course.

------
raffomania
I find it interesting that this is financed by the EU.

My first reaction to this was a lot of skepticism - the article makes a lot of
bold claims without backing any of them up. I was ready to write this off as
another sleazy mud-throwing operation when I found the official EU site [0]
describing the team and their goals - including "Effective communication and
promotion of EU policies towards the Eastern Neighbourhood". The biased
writing and this "promotion of policies" really make me think this is no
better than the "fake news" everyone complains about.

[0] [https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-
homepage/21...](https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-
homepage/2116/-questions-and-answers-about-the-east-stratcom-task-force_en)

------
throw2016
This is like saying fake pick up videos on youtube are funded by the CIA. This
is a witch hunt and an insult to informed discussion.

There are attention seeking groups like Femen who are known for staging
stunts. This group has a fake upskirt video, now this mansplaining video and
presumably they will keep trying.

If it works out you get tons of media interviews, attention, become a media
personality and spin it into some serious income.

