Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Russian troops in Ukraine have allegedly been using SpaceX’s Starlink terminals to get internet access during the ongoing war that has seen hundreds of thousands of casualties on each side. And now, House Democrats are finally asking hard questions of SpaceX leadership about how this could be happening, according to an open letter published on Thursday.
The letter to SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell from some top Democrats in the House makes the case that Starlink’s high-speed satellite internet access is considered essential to Ukraine’s continued ability to fight against Russia’s invasion, which first started in February 2022.
The letter from the Democrats, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Rep. Robert Garcia of California, stresses that Russia’s use of Starlink tech would be “potentially in violation of U.S. sanctions and export controls.”
The Wall Street Journal was the first to report on February 15 that Russian troops have been using Starlink internet for “quite a long time,” according to Ukraine’s Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov.
Russia is believed to be acquiring the Starlink terminals from black market sellers, sometimes posing as German appliance manufacturers according to the Journal, but SpaceX leaders presumably have insight into who and how these terminals might be used by illicit Russian actors. For example, Musk shut off Starlink access for Ukrainian-controlled devices in Crimea early in the war, ostensibly to stop an “escalation” of the conflict.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Gaaark on Wednesday March 13 2024, @11:02AM (6 children)
Shut Musk down; he's obviously a complete asshole. Tax him down to poverty level and leave him in the street.
Sheeeit.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2024, @01:26PM (3 children)
I wonder why people like you only see the bad.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Tork on Wednesday March 13 2024, @04:19PM (2 children)
Wanna step up defend him? Unlike Twitter here you can speak freely about him.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2024, @04:38AM (1 child)
Naa, if I do you'll get all torked up.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday March 14 2024, @04:42AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday March 14 2024, @08:48PM (1 child)
To be fair, aren't all billionaires Nazis who want to rule the world?
Poe's Law [nooze.org] has nothing to do with Edgar Allen Poetry
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday March 14 2024, @09:07PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday March 13 2024, @11:52AM (3 children)
There's two memes in one story.
The first is that Musk Derangement Syndrome is the new Trump Derangement Syndrome. All the NPCs say orange man bad, err, South African man bad, err, X man bad.
The second is that Starlink Control is the new Gun Control. I'm sure if we implement a common sense 30 day waiting period and some instant background checks on all purchasers the war will immediately end and both sides will hug each other.
It's the same people with the same issues and the same problems and the same utterly ineffective solutions that essentially no one believes and only parrots to show allegiance for (or against) one side, it just underwent a little search-and-replace action. Total lack of creativity and common sense, but political propagandists have to propagandize, so that's what they do.
Another amusing point is there's some kind of hit piece thing going on here: "sometimes posing as German appliance manufacturers". Come on guys, it's a war zone, people just pick things up and start using them unless there are too many bullet holes or other battle damage. So the real story is what did "German appliance mfgrs" do to deserve a hit piece? Maybe not buy enough advertising from legacy media? Sure would be a shame if that advertising budget didn't increase, we might have to make up some imaginary war crimes to report...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bussdriver on Wednesday March 13 2024, @12:26PM
Trump Derangement Syndrome like everything Trump attacks, is projection.
Derangement best describes Trump supporters and syndromes are usually named after their cause; furthermore, mental classifications are mostly for minority groups differing from the global norm which sees Trump far more realistically than his cult.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Tork on Wednesday March 13 2024, @03:13PM
Yeah, lay off those guys, they're squeaky clean!
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday March 13 2024, @10:28PM
Righto, Muskie can no wrong.
No massive Twitter layoffs just because, no hyping hyperloop then just squandering public money for a tunnel unser Las Vegas in which a single car can drive at reduced speed, no pump-n-dump practices (not limited to crypto), those were geni(t)al business decision from which the humanity benefited and should be forever grateful to Musk.
Rrrrright. And all the economic sanction against Russia, including technology that can be used for military purposes are just that: an affront to the Second Amendment to which the Ruskies are entitled by the very US Constitution!!!1!1one!
Yeah, nobody but those Ukrainians are at fault, they are so stupid that use spanking new unboxed Starlink kits [youtube.com] as ammunition, and they throw them against the Russians on a trajectory going through the Arab countries [reuters.com].
Those things are so natural and obvious that the idea of an investigation must have been originated in the lunacy of the Deep State's bureaucrats.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Interesting) by looorg on Wednesday March 13 2024, @12:57PM (1 child)
So blackmarket purchases or captured from Ukrainian positions that have been taken over or devices left behind. Still it seems risky to use them, they could in theory or practice be shut off at any time. How are they in regard to interception of communication? How strong is the encryption? Can they be used to geolocate or triangulate their positions?
One would gather that if the Russians have them it's cause the US doesn't mind that they have them. So they have to give them some kind of benefit. Otherwise I guess Musk/Starlink would be ordered to brick them.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Barenflimski on Wednesday March 13 2024, @01:51PM
Interesting point. Seems like if this was true, they could be used to spy on the Russian communications. Dupe the stream to the 5 eye sniffers.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday March 13 2024, @01:52PM (1 child)
Couldn't Ukraine's packets be labelled so that Starlink could permit them, but block all other packets in the region? But use some other mechanism than the Evil Bit? [wikipedia.org]
Good packets. Bad packets. Nice straight lines. All nice and neat.
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2024, @03:17PM
I tried a search for,
can starlink packets be labelled
and got a variety of confusing results that mostly talked about Starlink packet loss--maybe someone knows more about this?
Also found this from 2022,
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/21/1062001/spacex-starlink-signals-reverse-engineered-gps/ [technologyreview.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Tork on Wednesday March 13 2024, @03:47PM (3 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday March 13 2024, @04:57PM (2 children)
I think there a misleading statement in the story that's throwing everyone off.
My understanding is, there were accounts set up and billed to whoever, then given to Ukraine. The payments stopped and musk made the decision to suspended the accounts since it is a business, not a charity.
I cannot think of a way to differentiate a Ukrainian civilian use from Russian soldier use of starlink. I do not think banning the internet will fix anything in Ukraine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2024, @05:59PM
> The payments stopped and musk made the decision to suspended the accounts
This sounds right, thn, shortly later, Musk decided to turn them back on (probably many more details that I've forgotten).
> I cannot think of a way to differentiate a Ukrainian civilian use from Russian soldier use of starlink.
Perhaps someone else can think of a way to do this?
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Thursday March 14 2024, @11:38AM
The timing on this is a bit fuzzy because people aren't talking about details in real time. My understanding is...
In February 2022, Musk/Starlink shipped Ukraine a bunch of Starlink terminals. Some of those were paid for privately and many were donated.
In the fall of 2022, ran a controversial poll on twitter (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576969255031296000? ) and there started to be a bunch of Ukranian complaints about Musk and allegations he was working with Russia. Musk pushed back against these complaints saying that he was footing the bill for terminals in Ukraine costing Starlink $20M per month.
Later we found out that the source of the complaints wasn't the Poll or "Peace Plan". It Starlink's enforcing the contract provisions that terminals could not be used in mobile weapons, e.g. to control military drones, an ITAR requirement. Sidebar: At the time, the squawk on that was about UAVs, but that didn't seem right given the size (and expense) of the terminal hardware to me. Anyway, we've since learned that Ukraine had built a bunch of naval drones (USVs) they were sending up to Sevastapol to sink the Russian Black Sea fleet at anchor in a surprise attack. SpaceX either turned off service to those units (according to an unofficial Musk Biography) and/or refused an emergency request to turn on service in that area (Starlink press release). Musk says that decision, and it's unclear which, was driven by fear that Russia would launched nukes in response to losing that fleet.
As a coincidence, many terminals are now operating under DOD contracts that don't have those pesky ITAR restrictions, and we have some great footage of what those USV drone attacks look like. https://funker530.com/video/ukraine-sinks-another-russian-war-ship-with-usv-swarm/ [funker530.com] It's unclear if those are operated via Starlink or something else.
From the comfort of my "I'm not being shot at." chair, it's been very interesting to watch this from a propaganda/fog-of-war/victor-writes-the-history perspective.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Spamalope on Wednesday March 13 2024, @04:02PM (8 children)
Remember when Starlink wouldn't work at the front lines because Starlink is a worldwide service and they didn't want to be forced into conflict involvement? I 1st saw threats over that and interference with long standing political censorship on Twitter.
Then I saw astroturfed smear campaigns start on all things Musk, on the platforms where I normally see inorganic politicized messaging (Imgur, for instance). Pick a topic where you've got 1st hand knowledge and there is someone arguing against the DC opinion on the topic and you'll see messaging smearing that someone you'll know from your 1st hand knowledge is false. After seeing that pattern repeated like Hallmark movies re-use scripts, I don't accept 'anonymous' smears. 'Sources close to' etc etc.
Or to reframe; Both sides in a war use 'net communication. Both sides use captured equipment and are able to acquire some equipment from the black market. Conclusion: 'net company is evil!
How dumb.
The thing we can be sure of: This smear isn't the story; there is some other thing prompting the smear. It could be refusal to take domestic political sides (shadow ban my groups opponents - that was happening at Twitter as exposed by the two (left leaning) journalists who investigated), could be refusal to allow Starlink to 'accidentally' fall into Russian hands then use it to spy - whatever it is, it isn't the direct thing they're saying - that's just political messaging.
Also note, the only thing I'm decrying here is the lies and the individual deceitful folk's tactics. That's not an endorsement of anyone else. (just to head off knee jerk poo flinging - things are so divisive today that's an unfortunate risk)
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by c0lo on Wednesday March 13 2024, @10:49PM (5 children)
Rrrright. The very idea of an investigation of whether or not the Russians use Starlink on non-trivial scale and the way they could obtain the terminals is ludicrous, there's nothing to see there, Spamalope says so and thus is must be true.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 14 2024, @01:57PM (4 children)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday March 14 2024, @08:31PM (3 children)
Are you asking if the need to ban technology transfer to Russia or the more general need of economic sanction have been shown... or what?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 15 2024, @04:12AM (2 children)
Does Starlink enforce those bans or economic sanctions? The story that was presented was that Russia had gone through considerable effort to covertly circumvent those bans and sanctions. Investigating Starlink doesn't do a thing to fix that. A rational person wouldn't expect Starlink to be responsible for things outside its control - not so much a politician looking to punish Musk.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday March 15 2024, @06:46AM (1 child)
Do you have info which say that "investigation = accusing StarLink of directly selling kits to Russians"? Because I read in TFA:
Which is consistent with many approaches, including: "Can you please unravel your sales process to us to help identify how the holes leaking StarLink terminals to the Russian can be plugged".
The original letter [house.gov] reads
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 15 2024, @04:15PM
Pretty odd leading question to ask when nobody in this thread (or for that matter in the investigation) made that claim. For example:
And from the letter you just quoted we have:
The very strong implication is that SpaceX's "oversight" is lacking and aiding the Russian side somehow. I find that highly dishonest given that they aren't asking similarly hard questions of other inadvertent sources of Russian gear - such as $20 billion [strategypage.com] in alleged smuggled EU military hardware. Nor are they allowing for the difficulty of detecting Russian smuggling. My take is that there's probably hundreds of US companies inadvertently supplying the Russian war effort through elaborate smuggling channels that none of these businesses have anything to do with.
And we already have the answer to how this happens via the Wall Street Journal: "Russia is believed to be acquiring the Starlink terminals from black market sellers". Sounds like SpaceX just needs to bring that to the committee hearing.
The obvious answer is get a search warrant. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Starlink also has the capability to identify individual units in the field remotely. With that warrant, you can then trace who purchased the unit and thus, cover SpaceX's side of this smuggling chain. No congressional hearing required, just effective law enforcement.
I find it interesting how the "hard questions" have easy answers. Selective scrutiny is a sign of political harassment. While Starlink/SpaceX has a history of cutting regulatory corners, no one has bothered to show first that there's an actual problem that can be addressed. Russia's smuggling and seizures on the battlefield remain something that Starlink (nor other affected businesses) doesn't have the capability to do anything about. And there are existing solutions for law enforcement and counterintelligence.
That's why I mostly agree with Spamalope here. The process is the punishment.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Se5a on Wednesday March 13 2024, @11:03PM (1 child)
And this gets labeled troll.
Yeah I'm done with SN I think.
Flat out lies get labeled insightful and things like this are troll. Massive echo chamber, no real tech talk anymore.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday March 13 2024, @11:34PM
It is a troll because it suggest that an investigation whether or not something is happening is not rational but a just smear campaign.
Not a very sciency or engineering type of approach to take the Musk's “To the best of our knowledge, no Starlinks have been sold directly or indirectly to Russia.” on faith with no investigation.
If you aren't prepared to provide information to support your assertions, good riddance, your presence here would be just an attempt to create echoes that fit your beliefs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday March 13 2024, @04:46PM (3 children)
TFS states: "Musk shut off Starlink access for Ukrainian-controlled devices in Crimea". That's a bit fuzzy. Sevastopol, a city annexed by Russia in ?2014? has never had Starlink service. Refusing to enable service so Ukraine can use it for attacks is not the same thing as turning off active service.
Sidebar, I'm surprised WW3 has stayed in Beta so long. I expected it to go GA by now. I'm not complaining, to be sure, just surprised.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday March 13 2024, @08:38PM (2 children)
I don't think anybody expected Russia to be so tragically incompetent in war. Which, for me, raises a question... are we* gonna find out our military is just as bad? I know China's worried about theirs [wsj.com].
* by 'we' I mean the USA, but it occurs to me it might apply to everybody's homeland.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Wednesday March 13 2024, @10:57PM
They already learnt it is (almost?) as bad [defensenews.com] and started doing something about it [defenseone.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2024, @02:48PM
There are other targets in the USA which are likely to be a lot less protected and better "bang for the buck" - key personnel in various organizations, key/symbolic infrastructure, etc.
The USA might send people to assassinate me too, but if they are already attacking my country or trying to kill me, I might as well strike back.
There are likely to be many useful idiots in the USA who could muddy the waters by trying assassinations and other disruptive stuff of their own.
There are also targets in other countries which can have a lot of impact if you can successfully false flag them and make it look like the USA might have done it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by digitalaudiorock on Wednesday March 13 2024, @05:38PM (43 children)
No surprise that Musk, like many in the GOP, really, truly are on Russia's side. That's been clear for awhile now. The fact that the entire country isn't screaming bloody murder about that is nothing short of stunning.
Not long ago, Russia created a fake "news" site intended to look like an actual U.S. news site (pretending to be in Chicago I believe). That site started a fake story about Volodymyr Zelenskyy supposedly buying a $48 million yacht. They didn't really try to make the site look believable in any way...almost to the point of being ridiculous...yet the story got traction none the less.
And wouldn't you know!!...our own brain dead fascist Congress people...J.D Vance and MTG specifically...sited the story on the house floor as a reason to stop funding Ukraine. Thanks comrades!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Tork on Wednesday March 13 2024, @07:38PM
That reminded me of an article [thehill.com] I found a while ago. This *is* off-topic though, it's from 2018. Heh.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday March 13 2024, @08:29PM (22 children)
We have any evidence for that assertion?
This paragraph strangely doesn't seem to be about your supporting evidence for your Musk assertion, but a rando tale that has nothing to do with Musk!
Link [bbc.com] to a real story discussing this very thing.
[...]
It wasn't hard to back your assertion with facts. So why didn't you do that? Still don't see what that has to do with Musk. I'll note that another Republican senator, Tom Tillis made a point of publicly dispelling this allegation.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2024, @08:44PM (20 children)
your blind-spot with elon seems to have prevented you from seeing his controversial public statements on the war. it's gonna take the users here a lot of extra time to write their posts with all the context you've ignored, pretty big ask.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Wednesday March 13 2024, @09:17PM (5 children)
I still don't see those controversial public statements or that alleged content that I supposedly have ignored. Perhaps you could link to it so that we can settle this without further fuss?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2024, @09:34PM (4 children)
supposedlyhave ignored.ftfy
> Perhaps you could link to it so that we can settle this without further fuss?
this search phrase (w/o quotes) works with google: "elon musk's controversial public statements on the war" expecting a bibliography from everyone here is gonna end in disappointment, so i highly recommend you master this ability.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 13 2024, @11:59PM (3 children)
Because you are incapable of that ability?
This isn't mysterious. You made a claim so back it up. The whole reason I posted was because digitalaudiorock did the same. Since he bothered to post under his pseudonym, I made the effort and asked him to back it up next time. I have no similar interest in your post especially since you're doing the same meaningless drama that ACs have done before.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2024, @12:18AM (2 children)
are you?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 14 2024, @12:32AM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2024, @12:39AM
(Score: 4, Informative) by digitalaudiorock on Wednesday March 13 2024, @09:29PM (13 children)
This is EXACTLY how khallow replies to literally everything. Total crap designed to be VERY time consuming to refute. I refuse to participate.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2024, @09:48PM (9 children)
i don't like the way the green site turned debate into confrontation for a bunch of people. sadly this place sometimes reeks of it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 14 2024, @12:02AM (8 children)
And you just demonstrated why. You're just grandstanding. This is far from the first time that an AC has demanded I make their argument for them. I don't have time to research everyone's unsubstantiated claims so I don't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2024, @12:38AM (7 children)
you had time to click a link or two from my search phrases. but you elected to gripe at digitalaudiorock about wasting time. you could make a lot less noise while you "don't have time to research everyone's unsubstantiated claims", but you don't. why?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 14 2024, @12:41AM (6 children)
Yep. So are you going to do your job or whine once again that mean ole khallow isn't doing your job for you?
Sounds right to me as well. So what? Why should I have even the slightest respect for your feelings here?
You do as well, and it's your claim.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2024, @12:47AM (5 children)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 14 2024, @12:51AM (4 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2024, @01:06AM (3 children)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 14 2024, @05:24PM (2 children)
If there were genuinely evidence that Musk was working with Russians, I would have heard about it well before these unsubstantiated claims. Your refusal to provide evidence just demonstrates that I was right all along.
Is it really too much to ask that you post rationally?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2024, @06:34PM (1 child)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 15 2024, @04:01AM
I disagree on the lecture. It was called hard for. My green site peeve are the people who just say shit. More often than not, that stuff is just outright wrong.
Moving on, if we look at digitalaudiorock's original post, he made two claims. One was completely unsubstantiated (Musk truly was "on Russia's side") and one that had some details that could be verified (the Russian news-like site that two clueless Republican congresscritters used as part of their real world argument to cut off funding to Ukraine). The Musk claim never was substantiated, even when I happened to look at a google search. But I was able to confirm most of the latter (though not the relatively minor detail of whether it came from a Russian fake site alleging to be a news organization in Chicago).
My take is that the Musk claim was actually false and that's why I never heard of the alleged siding with Russia or the lack of supporting evidence in that google search. If you had bothered to look for supporting evidence, you would have either found out the claim were true and be able to present said evidence, or that it wasn't, and be able to correct/modify your message respectively. I have been blatantly wrong before in my initial understanding, and found it out by looking for supporting evidence before I posted. It's some work, but so was this thread. Which of the two would have gotten us further?
My view is that supporting your argument and ideas should be second nature - not something you foist off on people who doubt your claims.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 14 2024, @12:04AM (2 children)
You could make a lot less noise while you "refuse to participate", but you don't. Why?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2024, @12:20AM (1 child)
next time read all the words.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 14 2024, @12:36AM
I did. This is not the first time you've wasted my time with an unsubstantiated accusation that I didn't read the entire post.
Isn't relevant to my observation. If the alleged "total crap" is so time consuming, then you can avoid consuming the time by not bothering at all. Consuming your time with straw men and such aren't my fault.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday March 13 2024, @11:54PM
I don't know about Musk, but for the "many in the GOP, really, truly are on Russia's side" here's something that picked my interest
what happened next: The first act in Trump’s RNC takeover is a major purge [msnbc.com]. What will happen soon: RNC resolution to ban paying Trump’s legal bills is ‘dead’ [thehill.com].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2024, @10:41AM (1 child)
FWIW, I'm not on Russia's side. I'm firmly on the "build a time machine, go back to 2012, and fire the idiot at the CIA that decided installing a pro-NATO government in Ukraine was a good idea." side.
That coup put NATO on Russia's southern border, and they feel the same way the US would feel if Mexico had tried to join the Soviet Union. How many countries did the US kneecap in South America in the last 50 years because we got a whiff of communism from them? Ukraine shares a land border with Russia that makes them closer than any of them.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Thursday March 14 2024, @02:02PM
We're seeing now with Russia's invasion of Ukraine that it wasn't a bad idea then. Instead. it's time to figure out how to stoke democracy in Russia. Maybe promote said idiot and get them working on Russia would be more productive.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 14 2024, @05:00PM (16 children)
Despite all the noise in the thread, no one has yet shown that Musk is truly on Russia's side. There's a word that describe this activity: defamation. My take is that this was just a bike shed detour - using the story to segue into what you really wanted to talk about: crazy Republicans who support Russia. Write a journal about it instead of polluting yet another story.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2024, @06:38PM (15 children)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 15 2024, @12:08AM (14 children)
LOL. But having said that, I did the actual google search and... wait for it... didn't find any pro-Russian quotes by Musk. Funny how that works.
I'm not saying this evidence doesn't exist - though that is a strong possibility given your eternal, weaselly evasions, but it's not as easy to find as you pretended.
This is one of the two reasons why rational people find these things first and link/quote them. So that the "I didn't find it when I looked" problem doesn't happen. The other, of course, is the fact that there's one poster and multiple readers. It just makes sense for the poster who cared to do the work rather than require every reader to repetitively do the same work. What happens in the real world is that the readers don't bother doing the search. Either they've already drunk the kool aid and will believe it without proof or they'll ignore your post without bothering to tell you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2024, @12:31AM (13 children)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 15 2024, @05:00AM (12 children)
My research indicates you didn't. Imagine if you had merely posted the link rather than "tested" an irrelevant process.
This is a matter of expectations. I expect you to be able to support your posts especially when you make wild claims like what was in this thread. When you fail to do so, I won't plead because I didn't ask for the post in the first place. Instead, I state the failure so that you can address it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2024, @02:55PM (4 children)
Win-win. Everyone is happy.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 15 2024, @04:34PM (3 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2024, @04:58PM (2 children)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 15 2024, @05:29PM (1 child)
We only have your word for that and right now, your word doesn't look like it's worth much.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2024, @05:44PM
Nah, just you. ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2024, @03:32PM (6 children)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 15 2024, @04:33PM (5 children)
Context: goal posts moved from digitalaudiorock's "Musk [...] really, truly are on Russia's side" to "controversial public statements on the war". Context: no evidence to support either assertion has ever been made, it's bullshitters all the way down claiming the evidence is easy to find somewhere on the internet, if your heart is pure. Context: DARVOing the critic because he has an alleged "blind-spot".
Where's the evidence? With this context of deception, evasion, fallacies, and refusal to provide evidence, looks to me like the first claim is just false.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2024, @05:36PM (4 children)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 15 2024, @07:50PM (3 children)
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2024, @08:17PM (2 children)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 15 2024, @08:42PM (1 child)
Evidence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2024, @09:18PM