Emrys
Emrys's JournalThere's so much unexploded ordnance left in Ukraine after Russian attacks
that it's been necessary to issue decks of cards so that people can identify them. Such programmes have been going on for years, and the latest has its own Twitter account and JustGiving page:
https://twitter.com/UkraineCards/status/1620471773690212353
@UkraineCards
Please have a read and a retweet. We have now distributed 40,000 packs of our hazard awareness cards within #Ukraine together we can raise awareness. Awareness saves lives.
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/ukraine-hazard-awareness-cards
Story
This is our new page for the second round of fundraising following the successful funding of the first 20,000 packs.
The war in Ukraine has left vast quantities of abandoned and unexploded ordnance (bombs, grenades, landmines, missiles, rockets, shells etc) scattered across the country. These munitions pose a major risk to everybody living and working there, including local people, aid workers and soldiers. Awareness cards can help save lives.
Five million refugees are expected to return to Ukraine when the war ends. These people will encounter ordnance in and around their homes and workplaces, including the fields essential to the agricultural industry. Clearance will take years, during which time people will be exposed to danger from a wide variety of ordnance on a daily basis.
Risk awareness is simply the most cost-effective solution to saving lives and limbs.
Fenix Insight is an explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) company that works all over the world and has close ties with the EOD community in Ukraine. Their extensive knowledge of the weapons used there has allowed them to assemble these cards, showing the primary threats from the many types of ordnance known to be present.
Fenix pioneered the use of playing cards for explosive hazard awareness and has proven them to be effective in many post-conflict situations, ranging from Afghanistan to Yemen. Playing cards are cheap, portable and always popular, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity or background.
These cards have text in both Ukrainian and English, with each pack showing around 60 different items of ordnance. Additionally, each picture has a QR code in the corner, that will take you (via a smartphone) straight to the Fenix Online technical record, where you can learn more about each munition. Not only does this allow people to recognise threats, but it also means that they can report them accurately to the authorities that will clear them.
Fenix has self-funded the design and production of the first 10,000 packs, and raised enough money for another 20,000, but many more are needed. They want to provide at least a further 20,000.
The cards that have already been funded and printed have already made it to the frontlines of Ukraine, going on to help aid workers, civilians, de-mining teams and even children who have been using them as training aids in schools.
One pack of cards, costing less than £2, could potentially save the life of a child – or possibly an entire family. So any contribution you can make will be greatly appreciated.
Colin King
We recently received this image of a group of Ukrainian women learning about hazard awareness through interactive play with our Explosive Hazard Awareness cards.
Colin King
Our team has been diligently working on distributing our Explosive Hazard Awareness cards to communities in need throughout Ukraine. Despite various challenges, we have made significant progress in educating individuals about the dangers of unexploded ordnance. We are pleased to share some photos of our cards being used effectively. We are deeply grateful for your continued support, which allows us to carry on this essential work.
Colin King
Colin and Jip recently returned from work in Kharkiv and Izium, eastern Ukraine, where they also distributed cards to soldiers, Ministry of Emergency bomb disposal teams and mine clearance NGOs. Response to the project has been overwhelmingly positive. Civilians and soldiers are using the cards to identify and report unexploded ordnance to the correct authority, allowing a safer more effective response. There is little doubt that lives are being saved by this initiative.
Only the Russian administration could expect anyone to swallow their blatant self-serving bullshit.
Who is this "we" you're invoking?
"We" are not on Ukrainian soil.
"We" are not facing literal genocide, which is what Putin has in mind unless he's just kidding the whole world on.
"We" are not in a defensible position to sit on high horses from afar and draw red lines and second-guess the Ukrainian military which has proven itself extremely competent so far in judging what it needs for the battles essential for winning this horrible existential war
"We" are not sat in an armoured car waiting to assault a Russian trenchline across uncertain mined land with the prospect of seeing our comrades die horribly or meeting death ourselves without any of the air cover which NATO forces can usually rely on when mounting such assaults.
""We", if that, incredibly presumptiously, includes Ukrainians, are indeed in deep trouble, and I don't have to imagine it.
Munition depletion has been a constant theme throughout this war - it's the very reason why this latest tranche of supplies has even been considered.
Time equals lives - innocent Ukrainian civilans trying to muddle through in their homes, brave soldiers who are going though horrors that they'll revisit for the rest of their lives, relatively blameless Russian conscripts caught up in a war they didn't choose, but are helpless to escape because they lack the opportunities or imagination or bravery, it's not for me to judge. And bloodthirsty assholes who just want to rape, pillage, mutilate and kill any Ukrainians who cross their paths.
I have no idea how you can claim that, let alone prove it. The Ukrainans need to clear trenchlines to advance and repel the invaders to the extent that they eventually die or get to go home. Those trenchlines are incredibly densely packed with minefields
Or would you prefer that land to be saturated with Ukrainian blood? Because in the absence or adequate air cover or the munitions the Ukrainians know they need and are now being supplied with, that's what you're asking for.
They've shed more than enough already while the West prevaricates.
Well, at the moment it's coasting on the PR hype of mass signups from Instagram,
which are vastly inflating it's numbers (and not necessarily with people you or I might be bothered hearing from), so I do think it may be a bit of a flash in the pan, though no doubt a permanent fixture.
As for changing, this is a long-term strategy of Zuckerberg's and Meta's, so I don't think it will:
https://twitter.com/LibrarianCap/status/1677080064855293952
@LibrarianCap
Reminder: Zuckerberg has said clearly in the past that he wanted to reduce the amount of political content on $META services
“People don’t want politics and fighting to take over their experience on our services” - Q4 2020 call
Threads may not be designed to be news-friendly
Here's the view from Adam Mosseri, the Head of Instagram:
https://twitter.com/faineg/status/1677383144981291034
@faineg
Threads explicitly does NOT want news and politics posting.
Instagram’s new Threads app is “not going to do anything to encourage” politics and “hard news,” Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said in a Threads conversation with The Verge’s Alex Heath.
The additional scrutiny, negativity, and integrity risks that come with politics and hard news aren’t worth the “incremental engagement or revenue,” Mosseri wrote. “There are more than enough amazing communities — sports, music, fashion, beauty, entertainment, etc. — to make a vibrant platform without needing to get into politics or hard news.” (Mosseri’s strong point of view here is likely informed by his time running Facebook’s News Feed.)
In recent years, Meta has distanced itself from news and politics, including reducing the amount of political content that users see on Facebook. It even dropped “News” from the name of the Facebook Feed last year. The company also responded to a new Canadian law that would require it to pay for local news by saying it will yank news from Facebook and Instagram in the country.
...
Still, it seems inevitable that politics and news will trickle onto Threads in some way, especially if politicians and journalists use the platform during the 2024 presidential election cycle. And Instagram is working on a feed just for people you follow and a chronological feed, which, at least for me, should make Threads a much more useful place to find news. But it sounds like Instagram won’t be going out of its way to make Threads what Twitter once was — so don’t get your hopes up for some kind of Thread-Deck.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/7/23787334/instagram-threads-news-politics-adam-mosseri-meta-facebook
What's also (grimly) hilarious is that I can't imagine multiple posts here avidly promoting Facebook
or Instagram, or any other personal data hogs with proven past records of serious malfeasance, and cheering them on to the rafters.
It's as if Cambridge Analytica, stretching from 2013 to 2018 and seriously compromising the politics of at least two major democracies, never happened!
Lots of whoops about Threads has gazillions of signups, maybe Meta learned its lesson from the CA affair and its slapped wrists and billion-dollar fines - well, yet another Facebook scandal in 2021 involved the theft and abuse of data from half a billion users!
Anyway, in a few weeks I can imagine seeing the same sorts of complaints here about Threads content that we've been seeing for so long about Twitter content.
Still, if any of it means Musk marginally improves on being such an absolute dickhead on a daily basis, it's no bad thing.
Threads is All The Worst Parts of Twitter And Instagram in One Very Bad App
It’s no secret that Twitter has been imploding ever since being taken over by billionaire cringeposter Elon Musk. So it should be no surprise that Facebook parent company Meta is now launching its own Twitter clone, Threads, which promises to suck in slightly different ways than the blue bird site.
The myriad problems with Twitter have been well documented, and the launch of Threads is proof that Meta smells blood in the water. The app is a direct response to the mass-exodus of advertisers under Musk, whose increasingly blatant transphobia and racist conspiracy-peddling has left many users of the dying platform pining for a social app that is not overrun with Nazis and QAnon conspiracists.
Meta’s sales pitch for Threads seems to be simply that it’s not Twitter. It’s a text-based social network that is not actively falling apart, created by a monopolistic tech company known for privacy abuses and run by the second worst guy on earth. Even by these extremely low standards, it is not good.
Threads has all your favorite social media users, such as corporate brand accounts, annoying Instagram influencers, and minor internet celebrities who aren't funny.
...
So far, Meta’s biggest advantage is that it’s drawing from the 1.6 billion users it already has on Instagram, which is captively tied at the hip to Threads in a way that prevents users from deleting their Threads account without also deleting Instagram. Currently, the most active users are celebrities, corporate brands, self-promoters, and cringey TikTok influencer types—the exact kind of annoying people many of us used to go on Twitter to avoid. In an ideal scenario, it would keep those users away from platforms like BlueSky, where discourse is sparse and most users just want to have fun posting with their friends.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/epvp8j/threads-is-all-the-worst-parts-of-twitter-and-instagram-in-one-very-bad-app
A counterbalance to some of the overwrought reception of the launch of Threads.
It depends whether you want to share posts about political issues and news
It sounds like that's nowhere near a priority for Threads' admin:
https://twitter.com/faineg/status/1677383144981291034
@faineg
Threads explicitly does NOT want news and politics posting.
Mosseri is Head of Instagram.
Instagram’s new Threads app is “not going to do anything to encourage” politics and “hard news,” Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said in a Threads conversation with The Verge’s Alex Heath.
The additional scrutiny, negativity, and integrity risks that come with politics and hard news aren’t worth the “incremental engagement or revenue,” Mosseri wrote. “There are more than enough amazing communities — sports, music, fashion, beauty, entertainment, etc. — to make a vibrant platform without needing to get into politics or hard news.” (Mosseri’s strong point of view here is likely informed by his time running Facebook’s News Feed.)
In recent years, Meta has distanced itself from news and politics, including reducing the amount of political content that users see on Facebook. It even dropped “News” from the name of the Facebook Feed last year. The company also responded to a new Canadian law that would require it to pay for local news by saying it will yank news from Facebook and Instagram in the country.
...
Still, it seems inevitable that politics and news will trickle onto Threads in some way, especially if politicians and journalists use the platform during the 2024 presidential election cycle. And Instagram is working on a feed just for people you follow and a chronological feed, which, at least for me, should make Threads a much more useful place to find news. But it sounds like Instagram won’t be going out of its way to make Threads what Twitter once was — so don’t get your hopes up for some kind of Thread-Deck.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/7/23787334/instagram-threads-news-politics-adam-mosseri-meta-facebook
Threads censors support for Ukraine [includes some tweets + transcripts]
https://twitter.com/konrad_it/status/1676908612894040064Faine Greenwood
@faineg
What’s this I hear about Threads stifling Ukraine discussion?
konrad iturbe
@konrad_it
Meta's Instagram has always censored posts by Ukrainians showing the atrocities committed by russian invaders. This same censors are carried over to Threads.
https://twitter.com/MrKovalenko/status/1677284407105683456
@MrKovalenko
The new Zuckerberg's microblog #Threads (declared grotesquely as a "killer of Twitter"
doesn't welcome #Ukrainians and/or those who support #Ukraine. The journalism investigation quickly done by the Ukr. news website @GLAVCOM_UA showed that the Threads censors (former employees of Twitter) remove posts with photo/video from the Russian war against Ukraine as well as unfavorable / negative mentions of the Russians and Russia. [Link to the article] https://glavcom.ua/techno/telecom/-ubivtsja-twitter-shcho-vidomo-pro-novu-sotsmerezhu-threads-i-chomu-vona-ahresivna-do-ukrajintsiv-940092.html
#NAFO
https://twitter.com/Talula_Pi/status/1676980278269562880
John Paul
@StanleyGhoul2
Replying to @Talula_Pi
are you on Threads?
Talula Pi 🐦?⬛🇺🇸🌱🌹 🟧 🟦 🇺🇦
@Talula_Pi
No.
Why would I go to threads?
Zuck is way worse than Musk and that’s saying a lot.
Threads isn’t allowing Ukraine/Russia news and several countries are blocking it due to privacy issues.
These tweets were collected in a minute or so by searching for Ukraine Threads on Twitter. There are many, many more.
Those "several countries" mentioned above currently include the whole of the European Union, which objects to Meta's utterly cavalier attitude to the handling of personal data, so Threads has not launched there.
A consequential side effect of this is that Threads cannot cater for those in many European countries who care about what's happening in Ukraine and frequently contribute to essential humanitarian fundraising etc.
Some of us in the UK will never forgive Zuckerberg for Facebook's scandalous role in warping public debate about Brexit, for instance.
Before people cheer too loudly for Twitter's supposed demise and Threads' current ascendancy, they should be careful what they wish for.
You've expressed enthusiasm for Threads and predicted Twitter's demise over many recent DU posts
I think you're being premature.
Threads has indeed had a large influx of sign-ups, no doubt mainly from Instagram users. To give that a little bit of context, I read yesterday that the account with the most follows on Threads is Selena Gomez.
Now, she's undoubtedly a prominent public figure, and all power to her, but not relevant to why many people use social media, and Twitter in particular. I suspect various other fanbases have also signed up en masse.
What hasn't happened yet, and certainly won't while many of Threads' capabilities remain vapourware, is a wholesale migration of the various communities that have built up on Twitter over many years, and not least during the current conflict in Ukraine. I've seen quite a number of Twitter users reporting they've signed up to Threads, but currently they see that as insurance in case Twitter suddenly goes *poof*. In fact, I've seen a fair bit of buyers' regret from some who kneejerk signed up to Threads and now already regret it for various reasons. There's inevitably going to be a high degree of churn and quite a lot of Threads accounts that will remain dormant.
Add to that the fact that Threads has not been rolled out in EU countries, and won't be while the EU has qualms about Threads' use, processing and marketing of users' personal data. That's a large and fairly influential chunk of the world's population that can't and won't participate at the moment.
My own prediction? Twitter will rumble on and survive. Musk will bask in misery and no doubt provide some entertainment as he thrashes about trying to address the situation, and many will enjoy seeing him receive repeated kicks up the ass.
Meanwhile, Twitter life will go on much as normal for most Twitter users, with a few marginal inconveniences and annoyances.
Another serious answer:
Yes, for some people it can be literally life or death.
Rightly or wrongly, Twitter has a vital public service role in helping to respond to physical emergencies, from wildfire alerts to storm and adverse weather and other environmental threat warnings to people dealing with severe immediate oppression at the hands of their governments or adversaries.
It's easy to sit in the comfort of armchair lives not at the moment facing those challenges and disparage it. Among all the crap, which can fairly easily be filtered out for most of us, Twitter is so intrinsic to many lives that if it didn't exist, it would have to be invented. As it is, it developed organically from myriad people's efforts over many years.
It's a shame that Musk is incapable of realizing that or respecting it. It's also a shame that those who barely or never use it, often very vocally, fail to understand its importance.
There's No Such Thing as a Great Power: How a Dated Concept Distorts Geopolitics
In the lead-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, most Western analysts saw Moscow as a great power and Kyiv as a lesser one. Diminished though it was from its Soviet heyday, Russia still retained a large conventional military and a vast nuclear arsenal, earning it a spot in the top echelon of global powers. In January 2022, as Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s borders, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley warned that Moscow was capable of dealing a “horrific” blow to Ukraine. Michael Kofman, head of the Russia Studies Program at the Center for Naval Analysis, argued that Russia had “the power to challenge or violently upend the security architecture of Europe” and “the conventional military power to deter the United States.”
This view of Russian power was widely held in the United States and Western Europe, and it prompted many analysts to argue that the United States and NATO should either stay out of a conflict between Russia and Ukraine or strictly limit military aid to Kyiv. For instance, the realist scholars John Mearsheimer, Barry Posen, and Stephen Walt all labeled Russia a great power and argued that Moscow’s need to dominate Ukraine should be indulged. Posen went even further, suggesting that Russia had the military might to impose its desired outcome. As he put it just days before the Russian invasion began, “Ukrainian units would no doubt fight bravely, but given the geography of the country, the open topography of much of its landscape, and the overall numerical superiority that Russia enjoys, it is unlikely that Ukraine will be able to defend itself successfully.”
But once Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed his war machine, that narrative of Russian power swiftly unraveled. The Ukrainian army, supposedly outgunned and with little chance of resisting conventionally, fought back with brains and ferocity. And Ukrainian civilians, whom many experts thought to be divided over the question of the country’s relationship to Russia, rallied to defend their homeland. Meanwhile, Putin’s military floundered. Its weapons and doctrine proved to be lackluster at best, and its soldiers performed far worse than expected, thanks in part to corruption and poor training. Hundreds of thousands, maybe more than a million, Russian men of military age fled the country to avoid conscription. And just last week, the Wagner paramilitary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin briefly seized control of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and threatened to plunge the country into civil war, sending his mercenary fighters to within 120 miles of Moscow.
This stunning revelation of Russian weakness calls into question not just Moscow’s status as a great power but also the very concept of a great power. Even realists who frequently use the term have never provided a clear and convincing definition of what makes a power great. Rather, they tend to use the term to describe everything from true superpowers such as the United States and China, which wield the full spectrum of economic, technological, and military might, to better-than-average military powers such as Russia, which have nuclear weapons but little else that would be considered indicators of great power. Such imprecision not only distorts analysis of state power and its use in war but can also make countries seem more militarily threatening than they really are. For these reasons, analysts should stop asking what makes a country a great power and start asking what makes it a “full spectrum” power. Doing so would have helped avoid overestimating Russia’s might before February 2022—and will help avoid exaggerating the threat posed by China, going forward.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/theres-no-such-thing-great-power
Profile Information
Gender: Do not displayCurrent location: Scotland
Member since: Mon Sep 7, 2009, 12:57 AM
Number of posts: 7,232
