feddit.org

-4 points

1 month ago

As another poster commented, the actual article doesn’t call it a ‘warning’. So, this does look like social media/bubble hyping up the issue.

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huppakee@lemm.ee

6 points

1 month ago

These warnings are what ministries of foreign affairs (= government officials) give out to their citizens. Newsweek is neither based in Norway nor written in Norwegian (it’s US-based), so saying it looks like something based on this single source isn’t adding much weight to your argument.

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-2 points

1 month ago

Oh, wait, ok, let me go do up a massive post with a ton of cited sources and detailed research in order to support an online opinion about the general feeling I get when seeing these sorts of articles – specifically ones where the social media site (this lemmy OPs post) re-words the title of the article from “travel update” to “travel warning”, and aims to get people going on about how the USA is evil.

Or, no, I won’t bother. It’s an online opinion meant to draw some additional thought / criticism towards these sorts of posts, and the intentions behind them.

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huppakee@lemm.ee

7 points

1 month ago

I didn’t reply to you because of how evil the USA is or isn’t but because I wanted to stress to you how big the change is that is happening. I assume you’re American and dislike anti-American opinions, I’m fine with that. I also don’t like it when people don’t like my country or my people. This is not personal, I’m not anti you. But I do think you are wrong that these travel updates are just a social media hype. The friendship between US and other western countries is under severe pressure, that is not just an opinion.

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0 points

1 month ago

I ain’t American. I’m from one of the countries most irked by America at present (Canada) – if you look at my @, I’m on a Canadian lemmy server.

But its still true that Russian propaganda is mostly about disrupting allied nations and fostering civil unrest / animosity between countries. They have literally stated that they seek to amplify things like race-oriented conflicts and stories, because it helps to destabilize western countries (so things like Tiktok, where any anti-black event is automatically on the front page, is part of that routine – compared to other nations, where it shows more benign things, such as “child prodigy plays piano”). Things like “BuyCanadian” campaigns are likely supported/partially funded by Russian interests – because it’s not just “avoid american products”, but “avoid all traditional allies” in tone. Sorta like how Russia didn’t need specific ‘agents’ in the US, but could instead fund “influencers” that were saying things that promoted Russian geopolitical goals.

Is there a reason to be concerned about what’s going on in the states? Yes. Doesn’t mean that we should hype up negativity beyond reason / create anti-american echo chambers.

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huppakee@lemm.ee

2 points

1 month ago

I agree with you on the not going along with russian bots and giving space to their propaganda. I’m not pointing to wether you should be concerned of what is happening within the United states, but about what is happening between the us and it’s allies. This split is not caused by russian bots online, but by the current us government. I agree Russia is likely involved, but the answer in not staying quiet. You can call this echoing anti-American propaganda, but dismissing it as such makes you vulnerable to tolerating this split happening as opposed to moving against it.

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2 points

1 month ago

I’m mostly familiar with the Canadian situation due to my locale.

What I’d say on this front, is that the government of Canada has generally taken preformative steps so far in regards to the issues in the USA. There’s a lot of chest thumping and pageantry. Our largest province, Ontario, recently re-elected a fairly hard right Conservative politician – one who is well known for doing things against the public interest (like selling off what little green/parkland exists around toronto, to his developer buddies)… he was re-elected because he draped himself in pro-Canada trappings. He’s the guy who made the “Canada is not for sale” hats more popular. Branding yourself as captain Canada works for elections currently – which is why, for example, its very likely we’ll see a Liberal party returned to power federally, even though until very recently they were looking at a significant routing (that, plus them changing to Carney, who is probably the most right-wing/conservative leader of the Liberal/“centrist” party in history).

When I say preformative, I mean things like… there have been no explicit calls from our government to businesses/industry to follow suit on untangling supply chains or shifting trade relationships explicitly – they’ve taken some steps to try and lay ground work for further diversification of international trade, but haven’t pushed any levers, outside of allowing market forces to do their thing. Our banking regulators, for example, happily remain within Microsoft’s cloud ecosystems – and they have seemingly no interest in the financial industry outsourcing all of their websites to foreign countries / the USA. Many of our levels of government have made overtures of “buy local” procurement policies, but when you ask for details they’re all just “planning/reviewing/considering”, without direct action on the table. It’s not what you’d expect, given the ‘rhetoric’ of it being an existential threat / crisis. Our politicians are full of sound and fury, but they aren’t bothered enough to take direct action at this point.

If you rely on concrete / verifiable data points from our government, trade and relations are deteriorating, but there’s no overt cautions/warnings/mandates to take action. Media posts that hype up the fear by changing words feed into the public paranoia, and ignore the relative calm seen in our government agencies.

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