MintPress News has reposted content from Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik,[26][27] and is listed as a "partner" of PeaceData, a Russian fake news site run by the Internet Research Agency.[28][29][30] A report from New Knowledge includes MintPress News as part of the "Russian web of disinformation,"[31][32] and the site has published fake authors attributed to the GRU, the Russian military intelligence agency.[33] MintPress News defended Russia's invasion of Crimea, claiming Ukraine's post-revolution government was "illegitimate".[34]
On August 29, 2013, an unverified MintPress article attributed to Dale Gavlak and Yahya Ababneh said that Syrian rebels and local residents in Ghouta, Syria alleged that rebels were responsible for the chemical weapons attack on August 21.[14]
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On September 20, the Brown Moses Blog published a statement from Gavlak saying that "despite my repeated requests, made directly and through legal counsel, they have not been willing to issue a retraction stating that I was not the author. Yahya Ababneh is the sole reporter and author of the Mint Press News piece."[37][38] Gavlak also said the report had not been verified.[16][39]
Gavlak also told the New York Times that "There was no fact finding or reporting by me for the piece. I did not travel to Syria, so I cannot corroborate [Ababneh's] account" and that Muhawesh refused to remove her name from the byline because "this is an existential issue for MintPress and an issue of credibility as this will appear as though we are lying."[37]
MintPress added an editor's note at the top of the article stating Ababneh was the sole reporter on the ground in Syria, while Gavlak assisted in researching and writing the article. It said that Gavlak was a MintPress News correspondent who had freelanced for the Associated Press (AP) in Jordan for a decade. A note at the bottom of the story says: "Some information in this article could not be independently verified. Mint Press News will continue to provide further information and updates."[40] The Russian Foreign Ministry cited the article in future statements.[41][42]
In 2023, Randi Lucile Nord, a MintPress News staff writer,[60][59] admitted to spray-painting a swastika and the word "Azov" (in reference to the Azov Brigade) on a synagogue in Royal Oak, Michigan, in order to undermine United States support to Ukraine during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[61]
I was worried I might have gone too far off topic with my rant so I actually really appreciate the honest reply. I'm glad I wasn't off base.
I just feel like the more nefarious thing to do is to silo people with bad ideas so they can reinforce each other out of sight of people who could reasonably talk them out of their spiral. Like you said, Im sure the .ml people are self selecting but there's also an aspect of being defederated or ostracized for simply having an .ml username that makes them unable to get a reasoned debate out of people who claim to want a marketplace of ideas.
If they were truly so ideologically captured that they would kill you for saying Stalin was a bad leader they probably wouldn't be on here defending it. They'd be doing whatever psychotic militant commune shit the patriot front is doing.
We all seem to agree that patriot front is worse than whatever .ml is doing but the fact that .ml is publicly available to be scrutinized, and there are entire pages dedicated to going in their comms explicitly to get banned for bad faith, means the size of the outrage is not commensurate with its output. Idk who on .ml is plotting a communist coup but unless that's what they're doing I see no reason to be planning on imprisoning anyone who defends china.
There's real, material right wing threats in our country that have real power. Why are we on lemmy yelling at the weird kids table for playing their card game none of us care about? Like you said, even republicans who voted for this are just as much victims of propaganda as the best of us. We'd be better off pointing people towards the actual cause of our problems instead of trying to blame a fringe group for holding us back.
I'm saying we need everyone, and we can bicker about how much state intervention is too much once we no longer have to worry about concentration camps being filled with dissenters.
Thanks again for really putting thought into your reply and understanding where I'm coming from. Every time I mention .ml I'm worried that someone somewhere is gonna tag me and have me brigaded for "defending" them. I don't care what they're doing. I know its not nearly as destructive as what republicans have been doing and I don't see anyone on lemmy posting trophies of the republicans they've caught detaining someone illegally. Let's focus our energy on the real threats while we still have enough bodies to choke up the combine. I fear we are losing daylight fast.