As details of the death toll for January’s protests continue to emerge, three students explain why they are resisting a return to normality
More than 45 days after a brutal January crackdown that left thousands of Iranian protesters dead, students across several universities are protesting again. As Iran’s new academic term began on Saturday, students in Tehran gathered on campus, chanting anti-government slogans, despite a heavy security presence and plainclothes officers stationed outside university gates.
The Guardian spoke to protesting students about why they were rallying despite the fact that thousands had been killed and tens of thousands arrested in the January demonstrations.
“Our classrooms are empty because the graveyards are full,” said Hossein*, 21, a student at the University of Tehran. “It’s for them – our friends, classmates and compatriots, who were gunned down in front of our eyes, that we decided to boycott the classes.”
How is OP not banned? 18k posts which exclusively seem to be news, 5 comments, it’s literally a propaganda bot, what the fuck!
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
I mean, a large portion of Lemmy is Russians
A larger portion are Americans, unfortunately.
A non-insignificant portion are Russians pretending to be Americans.
You’re making that up
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.
Look at profiles like Davel@lemmy.ml
Cool, you have one example. I’ve had Polish and American users engage in multi-account downvote against me during discussions, and I don’t go around making claims of “this website is full of American and Polish bots”. You’re literally high into the EU propaganda of Russian propaganda prevalence, when in reality EU+US have a lot more power and are extremely more prevalent. We’ve literally seen the entire media apparatus in Europe align with Isntreal’s genocide and you still believe that the propaganda problem in Europe is coming from Russia?
Ask yourself why European countries are so quick to ban Russian media and even enjail pro-Russian politicians (looking at your southern neighbors on the other side of the Gulf) but are seemingly incapable to do anything remotely similar against autoctonous European far-right leaders. Your own freaking country is destroying itself with turbo neoliberalism and recently overtook my homeland in unemployment rates!! The problem is INSIDE!
If you were a Russian online in today’s atmosphere, would you admit to it
Yes, I don’t see why I would need to hide my identity. I’m a Spaniard and I don’t hide it. If Americans are comfortable online during times of US-sponsored genocide in Gaza and full-scale illegal bombing of Iran, I don’t see why Russians wouldn’t be comfortable beyond Russophobic users such as yourself.
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
Please remind me, what historical event happened in 1917 that led to Finland’s independence? Surely you must admire Lenin for promoting the FIRST CONSTITUTION IN THE WORLD that allowed the unilateral right of secession and self-determination that your homeland used? Also, what was Finland doing between 1941 and 1945?
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
Propaganda bot for posting The Guardian? You’re ok?
18k news posts, most of them from genocide-complicit western Zionist media
OK then be this way
Huh?
OP actually has hundreds (thousands?) of comments over the past few years, but all but the most recent are listed as deleted by creator. I won’t speculate as to the reason for this, but just note that their current comment count doesn’t reflect their historical contributions.
I’ll also just leave this quote from one of the comment chains they’ve recently commented on:
@MicroWave@lemmy.world I just want to say thanks for posting quality links so frequently. You’re one of the few who isn’t posting click bait junk like Raw Story and Daily Beast.
I don’t personally keep track, but it seems some others do feel they make valuable contributions. I for one don’t want to see anyone too quick to torch the relative few individuals putting content on Lemmy.
I can’t fathom how, after the disgrace that western media has proven to be during the “Israeli” genocide of Palestinians, posting unending links to western mass-media can be considered a positive and not a tool of brainwashing.
The protests are good and justified, all power to the Iranian people. Iran deserves a second revolution, after the first one was taken over by the Mullahs for their own goals.
But it’s genuinely disheartening how readily nominally progressive spaces are jumping abord the manufactured consent for an imperialist military intervention by Israel and the US.
How, exactly, will bombing Iranian cities help their liberation? Or even if they succeed with deposing the Mullah regime, is anyone really expecting self determination by the Iranian people afterwards? We’re seen how the Shar’s son is pushed as the next US puppet government by US- and Israeli media (and their European allies).
The Iranian people, not just the current regime, are supportive of Palestine, and Israel and the US absolutely cannot accept that. Don’t cheer for imperialist intervention.
I think most people are hoping for an attack on military targets like last year. No-one is calling for “bombing cities”. That’s a tankie fantasy. A fantankasy
People said the exact same thing about Libya in 2011. ‘Just military targets.’ ‘Just a no-fly zone.’ It’s genuinely impressive how the same script can be rolled out over and over.
What it actually meant was destroying Libya’s air defenses and command systems. Once that was done, NATO pushed regime change, the state collapsed, and the country was handed over to militias, foreign powers, and jihadist groups. That’s the model.
When people say ‘only military targets,’ they’re repeating the same script. You don’t bomb a country’s defenses unless your goal is to weaken it. Once that happens, it’s open season: invasion, proxy forces, destabilization. These strikes are never isolated. They’re step one.
