
Why Russia’s Alternate History of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Matters - SanderMak
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/magazine/why-russias-alternate-history-of-malaysia-airlines-flight-17-matters.html
======
yc1010
I was born in the Soviet Union during its dying years back then everyone knew
the system was corrupt, inefficient and basically a pile of bullshit and
thankfully it all fell apart.

I still remember having to queue hours to get bread from bakery, and not
seeing toilet paper, milk or meat for some time... Anyone who wants to go back
to those days is insane imho :(

My parents and older generation of relatives mostly watch Russian news and
entertainment channels via satellite, and the unashamed propaganda and
brainwashing is incredible to behold, whats worse is how my parents/relatives
believe everything they hear even if it is absolutely absurd or borderline
conspiracy crazy.

We often argue nowadays about the direction Russia has taken, but usually the
arguments end once i ask "where would you want your grand children to grow up,
here in the western Europe or back home", that's when they go quiet.

They truly believe that Putin is some sort of a genius (ignoring the rise in
oil prices that helped him) and this is actually downright scary :( at least
in the Soviet days people didn't buy the propaganda, now a lot of people seem
to actually believe all they hear and see, and live under a sort of a massive
reality distortion field where the world is out to destroy Russia and its
people.

aside: interestingly enough back then the collapse of USSR was partly prompted
by low oil prices and a stupid war with Islamists, fast forward 30+ years and
economy is even more reliant on resource extraction and Putin is boldly
marching into another quagmire

~~~
dijit
I have an inverse story from yours.

I'm a citizen and former resident of the UK, the UK for many reasons has a
very loving relationship to the US, our young people are fashioned by the
image of Television, and more than half of all English speaking entertaining
media is american.

We like America/Americans, by default before we learn politics.

I travelled to the US in 2013, and to Russia the same year.

What I saw was not "good" vs "evil" or, "propaganda" vs "truth".

What I saw was exactly the same shit, I spoke to natives in both places, I
travelled around.

Russia has it's side of the story and America has theirs, America is good at
spreading it's propaganda outside of it's borders and fostering the image of
"the beacon of light and purity of the world" but those who actually take a
sceptical or inquisitive eye to America see an insidious underbelly which is
only parabled by that in Russia.

Russia is guilty of being no more evil than the US government, if anything
they're more honest with their intentions.

The differing factor is that we bought the kool-aid.

~~~
lambdadmitry
May I add yet another story to this thread?

I was a member of municipal polling board during last Putin's election.
Honestly I did my best to prevent fraud, and yet the voting protocol (a paper
where all ballots are summed up, it goes to an higher-level board) was
rewritten right under my nose (+25% to a leading candidate, guess which one),
with police covering it up. I tried to warn a friendly member of higher-level
board, just to learn that all independent members of the board were escorted
out of building by our SWAT analogue.

Voting and vote counting were all recorded on much-hyped state-wise CCTV
system, so I thought "right, I'll go to a public prosecutor, they will
retrieve the record and the fraud would be obvious". Guess what — there were
no interest at all, my complaint was routed into the same higher-level board.

It wasn't an isolated event. In fact, the huge part of polling boards in
Saint-Petersburg had their protocols rewritten. It was widely publicized in a
local independent press, but all court cases were ultimately lost and no one
were held accountable. Similar stories took place in other Russian cities.

This was a huge, centrally orchestrated fraud, with those in power getting
away with it (as always). Voting is an institute of critical importance to any
liberal democracy out there, and it is completely and systematically destroyed
by Putin and his team. I can't see how on Earth the country where it's normal
can be even compared to US; it's like comparing North Korea and US with a
straight face.

And yes, given that it's HN, let me also mention that all cellular and
Internet operators in Russia are legally and openly obliged to pay for
wiretapping equipment and install it with no regulatory oversight on how it's
used. It's so amusing when people somehow combine any degree of support for
Snowden AND for Russian government.

~~~
3princip
This is very suspect and very hard to believe. I've been on polling boards in
a much (much) smaller country, and it would be logistically impossible to
carry out fraud on that scale (25%) without it being widely documented.

The suggestion that there are enough police (including SWAT none the less) to
watch over tens of thousands of polling stations and enforce this is even
stranger. And this is from a miniscule country compared to Russia (size
mentioned because of the logistics challenge of such an endeavour). There were
such stories in my country as well, previously, but were generally propaganda
from the opposition at the time.

~~~
lambdadmitry
>This is very suspect and very hard to believe

Here is my blog post on that elections [1]. It's in Russian, so please use
Google Translate to make sense of it.

>without it being widely documented

It _is_ widely documented. Now what? There is no such thing as "class action
lawsuit" in Russia. The only two entities that can file a lawsuit are
candidates (because they are directly harmed by fraud) or public prosecutors.
The former are filtered [2], and the latter one don't care. So what exactly
can be done with the documented fraud?

>The suggestion that there are enough police to watch over tens of thousands
of polling stations

All polling station have at least one policeman during voting day in Russia
(at least in big cities). There are about 700 000 policemen in Russia, so
there are more than enough to handle this.

>logistics challenge of such an endeavour

What do you consider a logistic challenge? There are a lot of police stations
in Russia, it's not like they're all concentrated in a few places. If you mean
the logistic challenge of the fraud itself, it's also pretty straightforward:
the biggest part of county's funding comes from Moscow, and it depends on
election results. Incentives for local authorities are here, combine them with
deteriorated social institutes and all branches of authority fused together
and you get widespread fraud without much coordination.

Heck, just look up Chechnya's voting results, with 99.59% turnout and 99.89%
of votes for Putin [3]. It's just plain impossible in any electoral situation.
Nothing is done about it, guess why.

[1]:
[http://si14.livejournal.com/23943.html](http://si14.livejournal.com/23943.html)

[2]: you need to get an absurd amount of signatures to become a presidential
candidate, and even if you manage to collect them, they can be easily
dismissed by some anonymous expert as "forged" ones

[3]: [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/world/europe/fraudulent-
vo...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/world/europe/fraudulent-votes-for-
putin-abound-in-chechnya.html)

------
Htsthbjig
Thank you New York Times, the News Group that Snowden could not use to whistle
blow because it is a direct branch of US government, for reminding us Western
how free we are against propaganda.

We can really trust the 6 companies that own all media groups in the US, or
the two news agencies that control all what we watch in the West.

Never believe that the Government of the US have ever thought about
controlling these 6 groups. That in order to make a movie about the military
you have to give your script to the US military for review.

Don't read Propaganda by EDWARD L. BERNAYS or any other book, just trust us,
we are the good guys.

~~~
ddorian43
I think you have to give the script to the military to get FREE access to the
machines/ships/tanks. You get free access and they get free propaganda.

------
calgoo
What I don't understand is how so many people can still watch TV news and
believe what they say. Every news show I have seen in the last 10 years or
more is complete BS and exists in a reality bubble where bad things happen but
everything is fine as a kitten was saved in the end of the show. Why do they
hold so much power? I can understand 50+ year olds maybe, but young people?
Are you telling me young people look on their TV and believe that dictator is
actually telling the truth? We know the western TV is BS, but so is theirs.
Its not about one or the other, its about not believing anything at face value
and actually educate yourself.

Sorry about the rant, its just something that surprises me continually.

~~~
jmnicolas
What I don't understand is why you trust this article if you don't trust TV.
The fact that it's written doesn't mean they don't lie.

And what's even more troubling is that nowadays Russian propaganda is more
believable than the western one ...

~~~
calgoo
I don't trust the article, but I have at least read different sources on the
information, including some of the Russian ones. And while I cant say 100%
what is true or not, I generally distrust news when they are changing their
stance way to often. Another reason is that Russia is the aggressor in this
war, and that in itself is a very big red sign saying "watch out". I apply the
same to the US, UK or any other country that is attacking another country to
"save them" or whatever excuse they come up with. I'm not saying that we don't
need to help out in certain situations, but the current situation is out of
control.

As another example, I currently live in Spain, and the government here lie to
our faces and then hide from reporters so they cant ask any important
questions. Here in Cataluña the people where tricked again into voting for a
guy who is "promising" independence, and people believe it and shut up about
any corruption or other issues that related to what's going on. They just
blame Madrid and Germany for those issues, as that's what the TV tells them to
do.

Edit: Added missing last sentence...

------
datalist
"Put another way: Propaganda works. Putin has understood that from Day"

We can be only glad that Western media (including the NY Times) has never been
used for propaganda and all information is absolutely objective, reproducible,
and a hundred percent trustworthy.

Has anybody already found the WMDs in Iraq?

~~~
knowaveragejoe
To put the two in the same category is a bit much:

[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/04/russia-s-
pr...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/04/russia-s-propaganda-
blitzkrieg.html)

~~~
dmichulke
Well, one killed intentionally from 150k up to 600k people [0], the other one
(if it was "him" and if it was intentionally) some 300.

So not really the same category...

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War)

To be more specific: I don't see any of the features prcolaimed by the West
(honest government, no interference in other country's business, avoid
civilian kills) upheld by themselves.

Also to note, I don't think Putin does it either.

~~~
dave_sullivan
I do pay attention to the way Russia does propaganda and I've noticed one
common tactic is to call out some hypocrisy of the US, then use that to
completely skirt the first issue.

For instance "Why does Russia torture dissidents?" "Ah, sure, like the US
doesn't torture people that disagree with them..." So move along because
Russia doesn't torture people? Or it's OK because America does too? Or many
Americans don't believe America _really_ tortures, so Russia must not _really_
torture either?

Or, specific to this discussion: "Why do people believe the Russian propaganda
machine?" "Oh, sure, like Americans don't believe their own propaganda _cough_
Iraq war _cough_." So move along because Russian and American propaganda are
similar?

Both of those (US tortures people and Iraq war was sold with a lie) are true.
The weird trick is that getting someone to admit that two parties are remotely
similar makes them much more similar in our minds than we intended (our minds
think in black and white, villains and heroes, "somewhere in between" is a
strange and modern concept). Suddenly, you are much less worried about Russia
because the US is doing it too. Or rather, you're not worried about the US, so
why worry about Russia?

The other favorite is appeals to nationalism: "How do you respond to
protesters in the capital?" "They are not real Russians, just look, some of
their signs are in English, they are meant as propaganda for the Western
media. All the real Russians understand what we are doing, despite the best
efforts of the West."

But while we're at it, I'll raise your 600k people to the tens of millions
that died during the reign of the USSR.

------
drinchev
Ah... Media these days. I can't trust anyone, anymore.

I guess, best thing to do is not to have opinion at all.

I'm having a GPS in my pocket, I can browse most of the cities from my
computer through Google Earth. I can talk to my watch, which replies and sends
messages for me, but not a single country can provide a satellite image of the
exact location of a fired rocket or any other evidence, like radar logs of
some sort.

Sometimes I really think I'm living in a multi-country-conspiracy and Snowden
is only the top of the iceberg.

~~~
reqres
That seems to be the point of modern propaganda. It's no longer about trying
to convince people of what to believe in. Instead, the idea is to throw out
multiple competing ideas no matter how far fetched to breed cynicism and
conspiracy theories.

I tend to read RT.com from time to time when Russia is featuring in the news
to see what the Russian media is saying. And I have to confess the barrage of
conflicting information (vis a vis western media) is extremely disorienting
and difficult to methodically process. I'm not surprised that some people feel
the way that you do.

What I would also add is it's interesting to note how the story is pretty
consistent from western media (that rebels shot down the plane by mistake).
From what I've seen, the Russian media perspective is highly fluid; i.e. prone
to change and multi-pronged.

~~~
ckozlowski
There was an article posted here on HN detailing how this is performed.

I'll see if I can dig up the article, but it had interviews with internet
users paid by the Russian state to shape argument. A group of 2-3 would take
opposing sites in creating an artificial argument on say, a forum where it was
being discussed. The "Western" POV would be discredited, and the argument
focused between differing "Russian" explanations. The argument would never
actually cease or come to a conclusion, but re-center around a number of
accepted conclusions.

------
PythonicAlpha
One side note:

The trouble, I see at least in my (Western) country: The main (public) TV
programs are in the hand of the state (via regulatory control of the TV
channels through political parties) or of two to three big corporations (many
channels belong to one big corporation controlling them and also other news
media).

From Italy, I heard, that many TV channels are controlled by one media mogul
that also was the president. I guess, there are also other western countries,
with similar situations.

At least in my country, I see clear evidence, that political unwanted news are
at least suppressed or sometimes shown in a very distorted way. For example,
when the software patent discussion came up some years ago in Europe, they
brought news showing software patents in a shiny, only positive way. I would
accept that from a purely private TV channel, but that was a "public TV
channel" \-- and many in my country still believe, that those public TV
channels only tell the truth. But that is not so -- they tell, what our
governments want us to know!

Also, at least one leading news reporter was dismissed (against protests from
other reporters), he was inconvenient for one leading political party.

So, in the west, we don't have it as bad as in Russia -- but we should be very
careful, the situation is far away from good.

~~~
cpncrunch
Perhaps Italy is different, but in countries like the UK and Canada the press
is constantly bashing the government.

------
qwerta
Why Russians should not believe it?

\- Ukraine army shoot down civil airliner with 90 people on board just a few
years ago [1]

\- It was regular war zone with dozens other planes shoot down [2].

\- It happened on Ukraine territory, most likely by Ukraine citizens.

\- Buk 9M38 is not Russian missile, but Soviet (that includes Ukraine).

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ukrainian_aircraft_los...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ukrainian_aircraft_losses_during_the_Ukrainian_crisis)

~~~
Avalaxy
> Ukraine army shoot down civil airliner with 90 people on board just a few
> years ago

What does that have to do with this incident?

> It was regular war zone with dozens other planes shoot down

This contradicts your point. The rebels didn't have planes, so all planes that
were shot down were Ukrainian planes that were shot down by the rebels.

> It happened on Ukraine territory, most likely by Ukraine citizens.

What proof do you have for that?

~~~
ayepif
Not to detract from you valid points (since I think these are important
questions to ask) but the rebels do have a small airforce.

Source: [http://www.ibtimes.com/pro-russian-rebels-have-air-force-
mad...](http://www.ibtimes.com/pro-russian-rebels-have-air-force-made-old-
soviet-aircraft-say-ukraine-officials-1799114)

"Kiev has claimed that Ukrainian troops have destroyed one separatist L-39
military trainer aircraft, two An-2 agricultural aircraft, one Yak-52 trainer
airplane and four Mi-24 attack helicopters -- the latter being the most
dangerous aircraft in the list, and the only ones built expressly for an armed
role."

Wikipedia also has a list:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Unite...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_United_Armed_Forces_of_Novorossiya#Aircraft)

------
tim333
It's kind of scary how effective the Russian propaganda is with only 3%
believing MH17 was shot down by the rebels when that is almost certainly what
happened.

------
sschueller
Propaganda is now everywhere. [1]

[1]
[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130715/11210223804/anti-...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130715/11210223804/anti-
propaganda-ban-repealed-freeing-state-dept-to-direct-its-broadcasting-arm-
american-citizens.shtml)

------
ck2
Is this the same missile that was launched from a mobile carrier that arrived
from across the Russian border and then days later was driven back across the
border?

Putin is extremely manipulative and dangerous. Like a Kim Jong-un without
anyone like China to tell him "no".

I'm surprised no-one points out he is basically on the third term of what
should be a two term limit. That alone removes all legitimacy from his rule.

~~~
cdash
Except Russia does not have a two term limit, it only has a two consecutive
term limit. Putin did not have 3 consecutive terms.

~~~
ck2
He was also Prime Minister, because "modern" Russia has this crazy PM +
President system where the President is not even the executive.

And somehow his first term was 8 years despite the limit being 6 years.

------
vbezhenar
Honestly, I believe more to people who did those missiles, than to some random
Dutch experts (with all respect, of course). Almaz-Antey did their own
investigation, they did experiments, they have very expert knowledge about
those missiles, so it's very important not to throw away their facts.

They might be influenced by Russia politics, of course, but Netherlands, as
part of Europe, definitely follows anti-Russian politics as well.

~~~
trymas
Theoreticaly - yes, practically - no.

As a person who lives in an ex-Soviet country, which is not Russia, many who
have not seen Soviet/Russian reality distortion field (aka political lies) can
be too naive to believe them.

Russia, when it's convenient to them likes to exploit western liberalism and
naivety. Like here, they (Russian) say that their experts, who know best in
the world how BUK missile launcher system works in every aspect, concluded,
that Russia did not do it.

Though, I believe that Russia's underground political tactics have not much
change from the times of KGB. Possibly, those Russian experts were made (by
government agencies) to 'investigate' and produce 'report'. Also do not ignore
the fact, that Russians gave their report at the same time as Dutch report was
released. The goal was, that the people would see Russian 'report' instead of
the Dutch one. The 'dictatorship' cannot let people doubt that they do not
have a enemies in the west.

------
rm_-rf_slash
Oh wow, finally an opportunity to see the pot calling the kettle black.
Nytimes readers should remember this article every time they see a casual line
coming from "anonymous government officials" of the United States being
printed as fact without question or scrutiny.

------
etaty
There is propaganda in every countries, just look at who own the media... My
opinion, is some extreme right groups did Maidan massacre (
[http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31359021](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31359021)
), and they were ready to do more. See how IS developed in Syria. Same story.
Libya same story. Also look at Egypt... Some countries are pushing other
countries politics...

Now, what can we do?

------
richardwigley
Odd and interesting to read. I would have guessed a larger percentage of
Russians got their views online.

I would also think that most online news written in Russian would be under
control of state media. In which case, if they did start to use the Internet
to find news then nothing would change.

Maybe a Russian nytimes.com?

~~~
vbezhenar
I don't think that majority of young Russians even watch TV. Most of young
people getting information from Internet. And there are many different points
of views in Russian media space. Though main news sources are heavily
influenced by Kremlin, that's true. But those who want to find an alternative
point of view, will do that without any problems.

~~~
Avalaxy
Yea, except for when you're looking for wikipedia, reddit or github, right?

~~~
vbezhenar
What do you mean? Those sites are available from Russia, as far as I know.

~~~
Avalaxy
[http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/27/9210475/russia-
wikipedia-b...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/27/9210475/russia-wikipedia-
ban-censorship)

[http://uk.businessinsider.com/russia-bans-
reddit-2015-8?r=US...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/russia-bans-
reddit-2015-8?r=US&IR=T)

[http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/03/github-
russia/](http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/03/github-russia/)

~~~
vbezhenar
I'm not sure about reddit, but wikipedia and github are not banned currently.
Internet censorship is worrying and might eventually ban an important sites,
but not yet.

------
cpncrunch
To be honest I'm not really surprised by this. Given the Milgram experiment
results (where 100% of people gave a lethal 300V shock, and 65% gave a 450V
shock), it's not really surprising that 97% of people believe whatever
ridiculous nonsense they are told by the authorities.

------
dmichulke
Sounds to me like it's them that use propaganda and we are the truly informed.

 _Keep the company of those who seek the truth- run from those who have found
it_

------
swehner
They skipped over this one: Why the New York Times Matters

------
arpa
Lots of shills here. How's the pay?

~~~
dang
Accusations of shillage without evidence are not allowed on Hacker News.

~~~
cpncrunch
I assume the OP is talking about this:

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/putin-
kremlin-i...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/putin-kremlin-
inside-russian-troll-house)

Of course, given that 97% of people in Russia believe the propoganda, it could
just be plain old brainwashing rather than shilling.

~~~
arpa
True enough...

