I'm not sure it's the "best" way, but it's a solid alternative, and receives rapid updates when YouTube moves to break things.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/15571129

I'm using this all the time myself. There is no login to YouTube required and it supports adding subscriptions and doing everything important you can do on YouTube.

And the best part is no ads whatsoever.

Russian state TV saying the quiet part out loud - if they can't vassalize Ukraine, they want to "liquidate" it.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/26886216

A war of annihilation

It is firmly stated by leading Russian voices that the war is holy, against not only Ukraine but also the West, and a matter of the survival of the Russian state, as Kremlin pundits have suggested for some time. The wanton destruction in Ukraine of infrastructure, power stations, dams, harbours, grain storage facilities etc. is clearly intended to break the spirit of Ukrainians and bring civil life to a standstill especially during the coming winter.

By summer 2024, the war had moved further into a campaign of annihilation of all that is Ukrainian; the Ukrainian state, culture, identity, and anything which defines it as a nation or state.

Now, supposedly, ‘the only solution is the total liquidation of Ukraine’.

This blunt assessment is not ours. It is the key message in leading, Russian state-controlled outlets, like the main TV channels, or the RT-Sputnik network, reaching global audiences and indicating the political direction.

It expands on Putin’s erroneous claim from July 2021 that Ukraine is an artificial creation. But there is a considerable distance from Putin’s semi-philosophical, yet ridiculous, concept that Ukraine should in theory not exist, to loud and clear calls for the liquidation of all that is Ukrainian. A precise quote from Sputnik illuminates this imperialist, revisionist position.

“Стратегически может быть достигнуто одно – единственное решение, связанное с Украиной, это полная ее ликвидация как самостоятельной структуры”

Our translation into English:

“Strategically, one thing can be achieved – the only solution related to Ukraine is its complete liquidation as an independent entity”

The words came from the Russian parliamentary deputy, political advisor Anatoly Wasserman. He may not be the most prominent speaker, but his words and similar calls by others are condoned and promoted. Having less prominent speakers push the boundaries of mainstream communication and perceptions is a Kremlin tactic we have already documented.

Don’t be deceived.

Swedish authorities have warned of a heightened risk of Russian sabotage, in particular of weapons facilities, as the defence industry said it was being increasingly targeted.

Security companies in Sweden reported a rise in sabotage attempts, including using drones over defence company facilities to document and map them, “more aggressive” espionage, cyber-attacks and misinformation.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/26473218

23 August is a special day for historic events in Europe. The European Day of Remembrance, also known as Black Ribbon Day, honours the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.

On 23 August 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany concluded the so-called Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with its Secret Supplementary Protocol that carved up Central and Eastern Europe into spheres of control between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Days later, on 1 September 1939, the Second World War began in Europe.

Persistent attempts, both in the USSR and in present-day Russia, have tried to deny the Pact’s Protocol. When forced to recognise its existence, the Kremlin diminishes or relativises its importance by saying that almost everybody had a pact of non-aggression. Well, not everybody sliced up Europe into ‘spheres of influence’, disregarding other national sovereign governments.

Putin and the Pact

In recent years, Putin has prominently resurrected the Pact and praised its geopolitical value. In fact, it allowed the USSR and Nazi Germany to help each other. Putin omits saying that as pact-partners, the two countries exchanged vital material support, fuelling the destruction of Europe for 22 of the 64 months of war (almost two years or one-third of the time). The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact included a credit agreement between Germany and Soviet Russia, cooperation on trade, military technology and cultural exchange. It even provided for USSR sending Jews to Nazi Germany.

Outrageous claims of historical revisionism have surfaced in Russian state and other pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets. We have examined in detail the many attempts to play ping-pong with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact or manipulate it so nobody remembers what is up and down.

Currently, our EUvsDisinfo Database has 265 cases with examples of pro-Kremlin disinformation where the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact plays a key role or is a reference. Some of the outrageous claims are: ‘The Secret protocol never existed’, ‘The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is not an “unusual” document’, ‘Poland and the West forced the USSR to sign a Pact with Nazi Germany’, and ‘In 1940, the Baltic States asked to be incorporated into the USSR’. Putin even claims that ‘Hitler offered Poland peace and a treaty of friendship and alliance’ but ‘Poland pushed Hitler too far by attacking’ or ‘Poland started World War II’.

23 August has gained a new dark relevance with Russia attempting the annihilation of independent Ukraine and developing authoritarian rule at home.

Freedom from totalitarianism and authoritarianism is not a given. Don’t be deceived.

Edit: Fixed missing link

My FreeTube stopped working today, so I figured others would also be affected.

The devs posted a temporary workaround on GitHub:

• Set Primary API to Invidious in the General Settings

• Select an Instance that is near to you, see https://api.invidious.io/. Make sure to pick one that has a checkmark in the API field. Also make sure you start typing the instance name with https:// and it should list instances as suggestions.

• Disable Fallback to Non-Preferred Backend on Failure in the General Settings

• Disbale Proxy Videos Through Invidious in the Player settings

This seems to be working for now, until the (awesome) devs release an update to fix the issue.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/24353606

I'd like to introduce a new Lemmy community intended to help keep Fediverse moderators and users informed about current/trending disinformation campaigns.

I'm currently seeking to compile a list of reliable sources related to political/social/corporate disinformation campaigns. If anyone has any recommendations, I'd love to hear about them in the comments. Once I have a curated list, I'll publish it in the community sidebar for reference.

To get things started, I've already reposted a few articles from https://euvsdisinfo.eu/, which was the main inspiration for this community.

My hope is that, alongside the excellent projects developed by @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com (such as fediseer, fedi-safety, and threativore), this community will play a small part in making the Fediverse a better place to visit.

From the community sidebar:

Propaganda and disinformation are a big problem on the internet, and the Fediverse is no exception. [...]

By equipping yourself with knowledge of current disinformation campaigns by state actors, corporations and their cheerleaders, you will be better able to identify, report and (hopefully) remove content matching known disinformation campaigns.

One of the clearest demonstrations of how copyright is actively harmful is the lawsuit that four of the biggest publishers brought against the Internet Archive. As a result of the judge’s decision in favour of the publishers – currently being appealed – more than 500,000 books have been taken out of lending by the Internet Archive, including more than 1,300 banned and “challenged” books. In an open letter to the publishers in the lawsuit, the Internet Archive lists three core reasons why removing half a million ebooks is “having a devastating impact in the US and around the world, with far-reaching implications”.

Cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17259314