<story><title>Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain</title><url>https://swp.org.uk/press-release-facebook-shuts-down-major-left-wing-group-in-britain/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>adventured</author><text>&amp;gt; Even as our nation spent years outraged over Russian interference&lt;p&gt;Only a minority of the country was (supposedly) outraged about the mostly non-existent Russian interference.&lt;p&gt;Most of the US knew it was bullshit the entire time, the Russians had near zero impact on the prior election (amazing how they didn&amp;#x27;t somehow swing this latest election, given their apparent god-like powers, despite how close it was). Trump&amp;#x27;s vast popularity showed up again in this latest election, they couldn&amp;#x27;t even try to hide it behind fake Russian interference. It was nothing more than a politcal ruse, a frame to hold Trump in, which the media almost universally played along with (and simultaneously they won&amp;#x27;t tag Biden as being controlled by China despite Biden having far closer ties to China than Trump does to Russia). It&amp;#x27;s the exact same thing they did to Tulsi Gabbard when she dared to go against their agenda. We&amp;#x27;re all owned by the all-powerful, magical Russians if we go off the acceptable message.</text></item><item><author>boomboomsubban</author><text>&amp;gt;How is this not foreign political interference?&lt;p&gt;America doesn&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;interfere&amp;quot; in elections, it gently persuades people to follow the true democratic path.&lt;p&gt;Truthfully, it is nothing more than American exceptionalism. Even as our nation spent years outraged over Russian interference, we continued both private and public interference in elections worldwide.</text></item><item><author>kypro</author><text>How is this not foreign political interference?&lt;p&gt;The UK media has been preaching to us about dangers of Russian election interference for years at this point, but simultaneously they seem completely unconcerned that a handful of wealthy Americans how the power to censor popular media outlets, entire political movements and political activists at a whim.&lt;p&gt;The SWP is massive. I don&amp;#x27;t know for sure, but I suspect they had millions of followers on Facebook. This isn&amp;#x27;t some fringe, extremist group by any sane interpretation of those terms.&lt;p&gt;It seems we&amp;#x27;re now quickly moving on from just censoring those with extremist political views to simply censoring anyone who who dares express a non-establishment political view online.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>simonh</author><text>If I was American and there was clear proof that Russia had interfered in elections, I don’t care how ineffective it was. I’d want it investigated and stopped.&lt;p&gt;I’d also rain fire and fury on anyone who interfered with or obstructed those investigations. But that’s me. I suppose caring about free and fair elections in the US is now a partisan issue over there.&lt;p&gt;For a British conservative that grew up under Reagan&amp;#x2F;Thatcher it’s all desperately sad and disappointing.</text></comment>
<story><title>Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain</title><url>https://swp.org.uk/press-release-facebook-shuts-down-major-left-wing-group-in-britain/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>adventured</author><text>&amp;gt; Even as our nation spent years outraged over Russian interference&lt;p&gt;Only a minority of the country was (supposedly) outraged about the mostly non-existent Russian interference.&lt;p&gt;Most of the US knew it was bullshit the entire time, the Russians had near zero impact on the prior election (amazing how they didn&amp;#x27;t somehow swing this latest election, given their apparent god-like powers, despite how close it was). Trump&amp;#x27;s vast popularity showed up again in this latest election, they couldn&amp;#x27;t even try to hide it behind fake Russian interference. It was nothing more than a politcal ruse, a frame to hold Trump in, which the media almost universally played along with (and simultaneously they won&amp;#x27;t tag Biden as being controlled by China despite Biden having far closer ties to China than Trump does to Russia). It&amp;#x27;s the exact same thing they did to Tulsi Gabbard when she dared to go against their agenda. We&amp;#x27;re all owned by the all-powerful, magical Russians if we go off the acceptable message.</text></item><item><author>boomboomsubban</author><text>&amp;gt;How is this not foreign political interference?&lt;p&gt;America doesn&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;interfere&amp;quot; in elections, it gently persuades people to follow the true democratic path.&lt;p&gt;Truthfully, it is nothing more than American exceptionalism. Even as our nation spent years outraged over Russian interference, we continued both private and public interference in elections worldwide.</text></item><item><author>kypro</author><text>How is this not foreign political interference?&lt;p&gt;The UK media has been preaching to us about dangers of Russian election interference for years at this point, but simultaneously they seem completely unconcerned that a handful of wealthy Americans how the power to censor popular media outlets, entire political movements and political activists at a whim.&lt;p&gt;The SWP is massive. I don&amp;#x27;t know for sure, but I suspect they had millions of followers on Facebook. This isn&amp;#x27;t some fringe, extremist group by any sane interpretation of those terms.&lt;p&gt;It seems we&amp;#x27;re now quickly moving on from just censoring those with extremist political views to simply censoring anyone who who dares express a non-establishment political view online.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>phs318u</author><text>&amp;gt; mostly non-existent Russian interference&lt;p&gt;This is not true. The Republican-led, bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee found, over the course of their 3.5 year investigation, that there was in fact Russian interference. You can find the actual report (all 5 volumes) here [0]. Alternatively, a TL;DR summary can be found here [1].&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; amazing how they didn&amp;#x27;t somehow swing this latest election&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#x27;s for a moment, assume that the Russians were indeed behind the interference campaign. Having experienced many Democrat and Republican administrations, they would know that neither side of politics has historically been favourably predisposed to firstly Soviet and later Russian geopolitical ambitions. So, why would you bother getting a particular party in power, if both parties present have always been on a unified ticket against you? Answer - you wouldn&amp;#x27;t. It was never about getting a particular party in power, rather it was about weakening your enemy&amp;#x27;s unity. In this case, Vladimir Putin can absolutely pat himself on the back, and more than any other world leader in recent decades, truly declare, mission accomplished (if it was indeed a mission). For all Biden&amp;#x27;s talk of unifying the nation, there is no way that the all of the millions of Qanonistas left scratching their heads over the absence of &amp;quot;The Storm&amp;quot;, are going to go back to quietly accepting a two-sided status-quo. The chaos monkey in chief has successfully taken the raw material of a discontented working class, and using tried and true methods [2], shaped a potent political weapon, who importantly now realise they have power. There are now millions of chaos monkeys at loose within the Republic. If that&amp;#x27;s not a win for enemies of the US, I don&amp;#x27;t know what is. Do we know for sure whether this was part of a Russian long-term psyops play? I doubt we&amp;#x27;ll ever know. It&amp;#x27;s my view that the vast majority of those at the top of the power pyramid in place over the last four years, are almost certainly not Russian operatives or plants or had anything to do with Russia. What they were (and are) is hungry for power. Seeing an opportunity to implement their wet dream neo-neo-con agendas by riding the dragon, they went all-in weakening people&amp;#x27;s trust in institutions, science, evidence, truth. They were, as Putin might smilingly say, useful idiots. This is my view. I don&amp;#x27;t believe I&amp;#x27;m alone in holding this opinion. But at the end of the day, it&amp;#x27;s speculation - another conspiracy theory. It&amp;#x27;s entirely possible that this was a coincidental but very happy set of circumstances for Putin. Either way, it&amp;#x27;s an outcome that reflects the fact a significant number of people close to the levers of power, played themselves into a position that suited them, and also conveniently suited someone else.&lt;p&gt;[0]  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.intelligence.senate.gov&amp;#x2F;press&amp;#x2F;senate-intel-releases-volume-5-bipartisan-russia-report&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.intelligence.senate.gov&amp;#x2F;press&amp;#x2F;senate-intel-relea...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1]  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reuters.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;us-usa-trump-russia-senate-findings-fact-idUSKCN25E2OY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reuters.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;us-usa-trump-russia-senate-f...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2]  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.azquotes.com&amp;#x2F;author&amp;#x2F;5626-Joseph_Goebbels&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.azquotes.com&amp;#x2F;author&amp;#x2F;5626-Joseph_Goebbels&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2 Note]: This is not a glib Nazi reference. I believe that many of these quotes represent political axioms, and that those that understand them and are willing to implement them, can, and historically have, achieved great power.</text></comment>