"Truth is always the first causality of war"

-Me, probably, or someone else or whatever

Two sides of a conflict lying about their victories and accomplishments is nothing new.

A few things that have changed however.

Journalism becoming all of the suck. In ages prior it wasn't uncommon for media of all stripes having foreign offices crewed by locals and others familiar with the culture/country/region. In the great layoffs that happened in journalism about a decade ago, lots of those types of offices got shuttered (if not all).

That's resulted in a few outcomes. The first being a huge disconnect between where the news was happening and who was reporting the news. Disinterested "tourist" reporters visiting where the news was happening would spend upwards of a few weeks on location and figure that a one month gig was comparable to a lifetime of living in the area being reported on. It isn't.

The second is an outsized reliance on social media. And I mean outsized. Whereas social media reporting used to be the realm of trash publications, almost everyone now uses social media posts as prima facie proof of a multitude of things including troop movements, heroic actions, war crimes, and battle footage. And while some of it may be true(and I'm really stressing the word some), the vast majority is bullshit.

And in really stressing how everyone has been using social media to derive information. Think tanks, respectable ones even (maybe not so much now), have used random social media posts as proof positive or as "news from the front" for many events that never happened. I've mentioned it before here, but I've got to say it's hard to get any good information about what's happening in Ukraine.

Ultimately, I believe this is an evolution of how Syria and Libya was reported on. Low budget filming of attacks and defenses by militia fighters in both theaters were popular across the internet, and what started as a "amateur porn" type lens into warm evolved more into a "Bang Bros" type deal where different organizations fought propaganda wars with each other on the internet using staged combat footage. With more money on the table, both Russia and Ukraine are pumping out anything that can stick.

And it's all very "Bang Bros" if you ask me.

"Truth is always the first causality of war"

-Me, probably, or someone else or whatever

Two sides of a conflict lying about their victories and accomplishments is nothing new.

A few things that have changed however.

Journalism becoming all of the suck. In ages prior it wasn't uncommon for media of all stripes having foreign offices crewed by locals and others familiar with the culture/country/region. In the great layoffs that happening in journalism about a decade ago lots of those types of offices got shuttered (if not all).

That's resulted in a few outcomes. The first being a huge disconnect between where the news was happening and who was reporting the news. Disinterested "tourist" reporters visiting where the news was happening would spend upwards of a few weeks on location and figure that a one month gig was comparable to a lifetime of living in the area being reported on. It isn't.

The second is an outsized reliance on social media. And I mean outsized. Whereas social media reporting used to be the realm of trash publications, almost everyone now uses social media posts as prima facie proof of a multitude of things including troop movements, heroic actions, war crimes, and battle footage. And while some of it may be true(and I'm really stressing the word some), the vast majority is bullshit.

And in really stressing how everyone has been using social media to derive information. Think tanks, respectable ones even (maybe not so much now), have used random social media posts as proof positive or as "news from the front" for many events that never happened. I've mentioned it before here, but I've got to say it's hard to get any good information about what's happening in Ukraine.

Ultimately, I believe this is an evolution of how Syria and Libya was reported on. Low budget filming of attacks and defenses by militia fighters in both theaters were popular across the internet, and what started as a "amateur porn" type lens into warm evolved more into a "Bang Bros" type deal where different organizations fought propaganda wars with each other on the internet using staged combat footage. With more money on the table, both Russia and Ukraine are pumping out anything that can stick.

And it's all very "Bang Bros" if you ask me.