REMINDER: Bette’s Happy Hour with Dietmar Pichler on Leaked Names of Russian Propagandists

Please register for our Happy Hour on Tues., Sept. 24, noon Pacific, as disinformation analyst Dietmar Pichler joins us with an update on leaks of names of pro-Russian influencers

Sep 23, 2024

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***Bette members will find the registration link below the paywall. If you are not yet a member and would like to join our community events, please click the green button below. Our Happy Hours and Speakeasy events are open to all levels of membership. To join our monthly Founder’s Day events, please upgrade to a premium membership.***

Welcome to new and renewing members! My work is entirely reader-funded and your memberships and donations support me as I aim to get in front of the daily reaction cycle and into the more thoughtful work of historic analysis.

Please take the time to read my latest report on the Berlin diary of Bella Fromm.

The Shadow of Things: A Berlin Diary

Heidi Siegmund Cuda

Sep 22

Read full story

And please share the report with your networks. We have been treating an attack on our democracy as politics instead of war, and that is our failing. By highlighting Fromm’s work, I draw direct parallels from history — a media blanketed with dangerous propaganda, voter suppression and vote tampering, a lack of urgency to stop a cruel and effective playbook. Let those who documented the rise of fascism be our guides in this moment.

As I wrote on Friday, I’m not sugarcoating any of this with hopium. We can only win by fully defeating fascism, again. In 2024, there should be no normalizing or acceptance of ugly racist narratives. The GOP in its desperate hour will have no choice but to ratchet up the ugly, and we know GOP operatives are already cheating — as Anne Nelson pointed out, a half million voters were purged from the rolls in Oklahoma. That’s just one example. Those already cheating should have the full force of the law thrown at them, and that includes criminal members of the Supreme Court. While I am happy more members of the GOP are publicly coming out in support of Harris/Walz, we need an overwhelming victory in November.

We need to put a premium on decency and empathy, and those spewing Nazi themes should be shunned and thoroughly defeated.

That is our mission.

To help with this, we are bringing back our friend from Austria, Dietmar Pichler, who knows a thing or two about where fascist rhetoric leads.

He was at public event yesterday about the war-related ecocide in Ukraine, and he documented “more than 12 incidents where individuals verbally harassed participants with slurs and pro-Russian statements. One of these individuals, an American, imposed his own version of reality...”

He will share more on that on Tuesday at noon Pacific. Pichler is an information analyst, and he will also offer us an update on leaked names from internal Russian video highlighting some pro-Kremlin influencers. Unsurprising to see Glenn Greenwald, Kari Lake and KimDotCom among them, prompting me to write this post on Twitter:

With KimDotcom appearing in leaked video meant for internal use of “Russian Ideological Troops” — worth noting Elon Musk interacted with him multiple times, just like he boosted Tenet Media — a Russian-funded operation.

Is it still free speech if Russia is paying for it? 🤡🇷🇺

Shoutout to 5GW Hot Takes for slowing down the video so it was easier to see who was posting Russian propaganda, and shoutout to High Fidelity, my podcast partner, who gave me the gift of this terrific line: “Is it still free speech if Russia is paying for it?” I have tagged X/Twitter’s CEO and Musk over and over again with that line, since they have left up all the video content from the Tenet Media operation, which was funded with ten million dollars from RT employees linked to Russian military intelligence.

As the US State Department told us last week: Russian covert influence activities are not journalism, but Musk already knows that.

I am looking forward to a vibrant chat about the latest breakers on Russian influence, and I am asking those of you planning to attend to already think about how we raise awareness to the folks lost in the fog. Millions of Americans have become superspreaders of Russian propaganda, duped into thinking they’re posting messaging by US patriots. The entire country is blanketed with information warfare, and we have to acknowledge and reverse.

Details for our Happy Hour here:

Tuesday, September 24 — Bette’s Happy Hour with Dietmar Pichler, 12 pm PT/3 pm ET
Dietmar Pichler is a Vienna-based disinformation researcher, media literacy educator, and the founder of Disinfo Resilience Network. Please have a listen to RadPod’s interview with Dietmar here.
To support Dietmar’s Building Resilience Against Dictator Propaganda project, please go here.
Happy Hours are open to all levels of membership, and we look forward to meeting new members!