Satellite firm pauses imagery after revealing Iran's attacks on US bases
Satellite firm pauses imagery after revealing Iran's attacks on US bases
To me this translates to, “America’s military is being led incompetently and we don’t want anyone to see the real damage being done to it.”
Jesus fucking Christ, this is the stupidest possible way to start WWIII.
Expect to see uptick in posts/comments critical of lemmy/fediverse because it’s critical of the USA.
Generally it’s framed as something else like UI, grammar, content, or people but with the goal of trying to dissuade people from using it.
The imperialists censorship works in multiple ways, by censoring content in their own platforms and also sowing distrust and reservation in platforms they don’t control.
This isn’t new behavior. This is regular western shenanigans. I mean, western propaganda is incredibly effective. The indoctrination process starts shortly after birth, but there’s plenty of information out there to see the west has been evil for hundreds of years, and probably longer.
The US has been involved in some form of war for roughly 230 out of it’s 250 years of existence. It’s what it do. War.
It’s all evil. All of humanity. You can’t possibly tell me forcing women under blankets and not educating them is okay. The genocide in China.
Fuck humans. Fuck the religions that humans made up. Fuck us all.
After Justice.
Which, the longer this goes, the more Justice will need to be served to get there.
Oh I think it’s even standard practice to do just that. But when the bully swings their dick and says there’ll be war if the don’t get their will, what’s the target supposed to do? Just bend over without at least trying something first?
There’s no motivation for the bully to see any reason there, their stance is that if they wanted, they can just take all they want, they are more powerful. Any “peace talks” before actually testing the merits of that assessment in real battle consist entirely of them demanding whatever they want and only path to “peace” is the smaller one just accepting to get fucked.
So, then when the bully comes around, it’s only sensible the one in the right there defending their rights to exist and rights to sovereignty and all.
Just reflecting on Russia vs Ukraine here, but I suppose the same is true for Iran vs Israel/US too.
Satellite services are pretty amenable to hiding sensitive parts of the world: en.wikipedia.org/…/List_of_satellite_map_images_w…
It seems totally on-brand for the US government to request that bits of the war zone be hidden, and it’s entirely on brand for satellite companies to hide them.
The US government: “It’s just a special military operation, absolutely not a war. Hmmm? Department of War, no no it’s always been Department of Defense”.
Meanwhile, Trump: “The war…”
“This is a limited operation”

I mean, you could have that opinion I guess. But the stated reasoning is perfectly valid. After you launch a long distance attack, it is in fact important to know how effective it was. This is a very strategically useful ability. Leaving your adversary in the dark has always worked to your advantage in war.
Look, we all know this war is stupid, there aren’t many who would deny that. But to be perfectly honest, despite the political leadership at the very top, the US military and it’s leadership are actually pretty good at what they do. I doubt they’re trying to cover up a failing war. To me, this looks more like operational security than a cover up.
Well that’s actually a really good point. We already know that Russia is sharing intel with them and even if China wasn’t doing the same, I’m sure they have no problem with sharing that intel at a price.
With this perspective I’m actually relatively convinced that the move could have more to do with outside perception (be it for Americans or for the rest of the world).
Still, there’s no telling what the quality or timelines of the imagery they’re currently getting is like, they don’t need one more avenue to get that data.
That’s completely detached from reality. You could confirm that by talking to anyone in the military.
Probably half of our service members joined up just to pay for college. They’re not in the military because they’re psychopaths… it’s just a viable option for moving up in life. Many Americans hope to pursue advanced careers, but they can’t afford college and don’t have many job opportunities in their home town. Well regardless of what your town is like, the military is always hiring; and the recruiters are convincing. If you’re 20 years old and stalled out in your career, it sounds like a real good deal. Again, that does not make you a psychopath. AND regardless of what you think of service members, the effectiveness of the US military is exceedingly evident, they hardly need me to speak for them.
While I don’t have an answer for your first question, there is a really good answer to the second.
A delay is a perfect solution for eliminating the tactical advantage that its imagery could offer, while still maintaining an eye on the region, not letting war crimes go unnoticed.
The delay rather than a blackout actually reinforces the idea that this is really about not providing intel to Iran. Three day old troop positions are totally useless, those troops are somewhere else now. A delay is totally sufficient to make their imagery non threatening. But if they were trying to hide the actions of either side, a delay wouldn’t be enough, they’d need to hold those images back forever. Meaning, they aren’t trying to hide the truth.
Probably because the New York times article that came out Thursday proved they bombed the school on purpose and refused to do more research and intelligence to confirm their targets.
The administration hates when evidence of their crimes come out, so they most likely threatened every GPS company they could to stop updated images.
For oldies like me, this is like watching the Iraq military operations ‘leak’, like the time they targeted a civilian van with high imapct artillery. That image is burnt in my mind. A white van, two men collecting their things around, than the vehicle is bombed as it is going down a dusty road.
I cannot be willing to fight for any such power. We have freedom to be after all.
The incredibly selective quote makes it sound like the imagery is being held indefinitely, but according to the article it is only being held for 4 days before becoming publicly available as normal. Furthermore, the hold does not apply to imagery inside Iran.
To quote more from the article:
“In response to the conflict in the Middle East, Planet is implementing temporary restrictions on data access within specific areas of the affected region,” Planet said in a statement emailed to Ars. “Effective immediately, all new imagery collected over the Gulf States, Iraq, Kuwait, and adjacent conflict zones will be subject to a mandatory 96-hour delay before it is made available in our archive.”
Imagery over Iran will remain available as soon as it is acquired, the company said. “This change applies to all users except authorized government users who maintain immediate access for mission-critical operations.”
Honey pots. Highly monitored.
Stupid is as stupid does.
Not completely pointless until Russia starts providing the intel to news organizations.
This isn’t about keeping Iran from seeing the damage, it’s to keep the public from seeing it.
Not completely pointless until Russia starts providing the intel to news organizations.
none of the mainstream media would report on that anyway, so it’s still pretty pointless. western media has shown that it’s pretty invested in not covering things that make western nations look bad.
China can easily use this situation to become the new beacon of freedom.
Not saying that’s what they are, but with usa destroying soft power there is an opportunity here for other countries.
The western nations will go along with it. Don’t trust Europe, but the east? I half expect them to come in and shove the dagger in.
Hope it was worth it for… that shitty country i won’t name any longer? Fucking joke.
I hear 200 dead the first day.
The US 5ft fleet base (second largest in the region) was hit multiple times in the first few HOURS of the war. there was a billion dollar radar system there and a large wide building that I saw with a large hole in its roof. Since then it has been hit repeatedly and from what I heard, is basically gone. There were like 9000 troops stationed there.
Ol Petey has been sucking his own farts for too long.
The United States Military undeniably has a technological and financial lead compared to basically every other nation.
He forgot that it doesn’t matter if you have a lead when you don’t have a plan to use any of that shit. You could put a chimpanzee in the cockpit of an F35, that doesn’t mean it can do anything productive with it. That’s Pete Hegseth.
That’s Pete Hegseth
The chimpanzee, or the f-35? One is an intelligent hominid, the other a quintessential example of a military industrial complex boondoggle underperforming for decades
They have an agenda.
Whaaaa? No way!