Russia targets WhatsApp as it pushes homegrown messenger app

The Meta-owned company calls the move by Moscow “a backwards step.”

POLITICO
Operation Overload: An AI fuelled escalation of the Kremlin-linked propaganda effort - CheckFirst

The Russian propaganda operation targeted at media organisations and fact-checkers is still going strong.

CheckFirst

Арт-менеджерка Елизавета Фролова: «Я вижу тренд на возвращение к академическому искусству в международном арт-сообществе, мне кажется, что спрос на это есть и будет». https://www.theartnewspaper.ru/posts/20250918-nlik/ #ElizavetaFrolova #oldmansbackagain #neostalinism #neoclassicism #greatreaction #artmarkets #autocraticart

Смешно. #stalinismtoday

Елизавета Фролова: «Я вижу тренд на возвращение академического искусства»

Основатели «Арт России», президент корпорации «Синергия» Вадим Лобов и искусствовед Елизавета Фролова, проведут ярмарку академического искусства. Елизавета Фролова рассказала нам о намерении поддерживать традиционные художественные практики

The Art Newspaper Russia

"Domenico Losurdo, whose neo-Stalinist approach to philosophy is the focus of the present inquiry, offered his own polemical appraisal of Western Marxist theorists some forty years after Anderson and Jacoby. An English translation of this work, entitled Western Marxism: How it was Born, How it Died, and How it can be Reborn, was released last year by the publishing house attached to Monthly Review, a journal long known for its sympathy with actually-existing socialism and developmentalist regimes on the periphery of capitalism. Losurdo’s main complaint against the odd assortment of figures collected in that book is that they ignored anticolonial struggles.

Once his concrete engagements with individual Western Marxists have been fleshed out, it will be possible to challenge Losurdo’s abstract overarching framework. So as to better organize what follows, however, the various theorists he castigated in Western Marxism will be divided along roughly national lines. Della Volpe, Tronti, Timpanaro, and Negri will be grouped together as dissident Marxists in Italy. Sartre, Althusser, and Badiou will fall under the rubric of French Marxism. (For the purposes of this essay, Žižek will be thrown in here, given his debt to Althusserianism.) Adorno, Horkheimer, Bloch, and Marcuse will of course count as German Marxists. Not all of these figures will be defended with equal vigor; not all are equally defensible. But all of them deserve better than the treatment they receive at the hands of Losurdo. Finally, his gloss on non-Marxists such as Arendt and Foucault will be covered, along with his challenge to Anderson. His slack scholarship will be seen to extend to his work on Nietzsche and Stalin as well. This will then lead in the third part into a broader examination of the historic failure of international revolution and a reassessment of the role of the state..."

https://newintermag.com/losurdos-lies/

#Losurdo #CriticalTheory #Philosophy #History #Marx #Neostalinism

Losurdo's Lies

His readings are so tendentious as to strain credibility.

New International
Russia restricts calls via WhatsApp and Telegram, the latest step to control the internet

Russian authorities have announced partial restrictions on calls in messaging apps Telegram and WhatsApp. This is part of a long-standing effort to control the internet. Roskomnadzor, the government’s media and internet regulator, claims the measure is needed to fight crime. It alleges that calls in these apps are used for scams and terrorism. The authorities have intensified internet control this summer with widespread shutdowns of cellphone internet. They’ve also threatened to target WhatsApp and are promoting a new national messaging app called MAX. Reports of disrupted calls on WhatsApp and Telegram surfaced earlier this week, with users experiencing problems.

AP News
Shutdowns of cellphone internet links sweep Russia, further limiting net freedom

In the last two months, dozens of Russian regions have been hit by cellphone connectivity outages

ABC News
Russian hackers are interested in chaos and money, says NATO CCDCOE director

The world is in a cyberwar in every sense except a legal one because no side has declared war, said Mart Noorma, director of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (CCDCOE) in Tallinn. Russian hackers' goal is to sow chaos and steal money, he said.

Eesti Rahvusringhääling | ERR
A very interesting article by independent socialists on the reemergence of Stalinism or neo-Stalinism online.
https://independentleft.ie/rebirth-of-stalinism/
#Stalin #Stalinism #neoStalinism #Marxism #socialism #china #USSR
THE STRANGE REBIRTH OF STALINISM - Independent Left

How is it that some 'leftists' argue anti-working class, anti-human politics? The answer is to be found in the re-emergence of Stalinism.

Independent Left
Russia is conducting ‘state-sponsored terrorism’ against Europe, EU chief diplomat warns

Investigation showed pro-Russia groups were offering crypto payments in exchange for hybrid attacks across Europe.

POLITICO