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5 Oct, 2018 16:59

Russophobia Digest Part 12: Bots hate Star Wars, Hillary's bitter and Russians with no conscience

Russophobia Digest Part 12: Bots hate Star Wars, Hillary's bitter and Russians with no conscience

It's been a week of well diversified Russophobia, from multi-state cross-border accusations of hacking, all the way down to bots being blamed for the last Star Wars movie getting bad reviews.

Here's a look at the last seven days or so of Russophobia.

Luke, feel the Russophobia

Jedi master Luke Skywalker milked an alien, the plot had more holes than the Mueller inquiry, and if there was any originality present, it must have been in a galaxy far, far away. But a new report has concluded that the poor reviews for Star Wars: The Last Jedi was the fault of "Russian bots and trolls." No one tell C3PO.

Researcher Morten Bay made the accusation in a paper titled "Weaponizing The Haters" claiming to have found "evidence of deliberate, organized political influence measures disguised as fan arguments."

The Russophobia is strong with this one.


Russophobia Internationale

Nothing brings Western nations together like the chance to have a go at Russia. This week the US, Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and Canada all joined together to accuse Russia of being behind a string of hacking attacks against… well lots of things.

Governments will do what they do, but it takes some serious state-level Russophobia to put this much work and effort into it, and Canada looks like it joined in just for the fun of it.

READ MORE: US & allies hit Russia with coordinated avalanche of hacking accusations. Here are the allegations

Get over it Hillary!

Hillary Clinton is still coming to terms with the fact she's not president, but is still not willing to accept that maybe she lost because people don't like her. Instead she's sticking to her story that Russia did it… and in fact she's decided to escalate it.

Speaking at the Atlantic Festival in Washington she compared allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election to 9/11. This is a new theme being developed in the Russophobia bubble, so keep an eye out for it.

Clinton said: "I mean, it's a horrible example, but after 9/11, [if] George W. Bush said, 'Well, I don't have time to meet. I don't have time to worry about this. It was terrible. We feel sorry about it. We'll rebuild New York and the Pentagon, but we're not going to worry about it.' Well at a certain point, that's what this is turning into. The evidence continues to accumulate."

So what, she wants cruise missile strikes on Moscow? Good job she's not in the White House.

Don't let your conscience be your guide

At the Conservative Party conference, embattled British Prime Minister Theresa May made use of some Russophobia to smear the leader of the opposition Jeremy Corbyn.

She hit out at Corbyn's policy of only approving military action if the UN Security Council agrees, by saying Britain should not "outsource our conscience to Kremlin." In other words she accused Russians of having no conscience, then outlined how she would never let a little thing like international law get in the way of a good war if she fancied it. That's the logic of Russophobia.

If at first you don't succeed…

Remaining in the UK, Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson wants the UK to hold a 'Mueller-style' inquiry into allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

READ MORE: Labour’s deputy leader calls for ‘Mueller-style’ investigation into 2016 EU referendum

If he means wasting a load of time failing to find evidence of anything, then someone should tell Watson a full parliamentary inquiry has already done that.

Let's save Watson some time: Twitter and Facebook have looked for signs of interference and didn't find any. Researchers have looked for interference and didn't find any. Russophobia won't take no for an answer.

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