SouthFront Team continues its work regardless all the challenges that we faced in the recent months. However, the blatant attacks on our endeavour is not something new. For years, the US State Department and other agencies providing the will of the globalist elites have seen SouthFront as one of their key opponents in the media sphere.
The work of SouthFront is a thorn in the side of those who restlessly try to remove independent coverage from the international media landscape. This has been repeatedly admitted by highest bodies of governments of the so-called ‘democratic world’ in their official documents and reports.
The article below is from 2020. However, it’s still interesting because it provides an insight on efforts of the US State Department & Co to destroy or at least discredit SouthFront Team.
DEAR FRIENDS, READERS, SUBSCRIBERS, AND SUPPORTERS,
We are pleased to inform you about another eye-opening report about SouthFront’s work released by the highest levels of the US government.
In early August, the Global Engagement Center of the US Department of State released a report entitled “Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem”. At least 13 of the 77 pages of this report are dedicated to SouthFront: Analysis & Intelligence as a “pillar” of Russian disinformation and propaganda.
Please find the full version of report on the official website of the US Department of State: HERE
Click to see the full-size image
SouthFront also feels obliged to make some comments regarding the content of this brilliant investigative report dedicated to our endeavour. We do not think that our comments include anything really new, but it will be useful to recall the history of SouthFront’s creation and development.
SouthFront vs Globalists – Episode We Lost Count
First of all, we want to compliment the authors of the report. It has a very straight and useful logic: If some media organization has Russian citizens or people of Russian origin among its members, or, God forbid, other links with Russia, this media is beyond question spreading Russia’s disinformation and is controlled by the Kremlin.
GEC Special Report: Russia’s Pillars of Disinformation and Propaganda
Setting the tone for the depth of the investigation, the part of the report about SouthFront starts by repeating tired tropes about the registration of the SouthFront website domain (southfront.org) by a Russian domain registrar Reg.ru. This is an open secret and we’ve repeatedly said that this was done intentionally in order to secure the domain in the case of an attempt to censor it. Recent developments demonstrate that this decision was well founded.
Then, the US State Department repeats Facebook stories created to justify the censorship of SouthFront’s public page with about 100,000 subscribers.
GEC Special Report: Russia’s Pillars of Disinformation and Propaganda
The reports’ authors took from the claims made by Facebook in “April 2020 Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior Report” what they thought to be the most important part: the allegation that SouthFront was based in Crimea, and used this allegation to associate SouthFront with another organization with a similar name “News Front”. This media organization is in fact based in Crimea and officially registered in Russia.
This cheap trick is presented as if it were the result of an in-depth investigation and itself a great revelation of SouthFront’s roots. Nonetheless, many of our readers and subscribers who have been following SouthFront for years well know SouthFront’s history and there has been no secret made of the fact that a few members of SouthFront are of Russian origin, from Russia or are Russian citizens. There are also members from other post-USSR states. This does not mean that SouthFront, as an international team of independent authors and experts, is based in Crimea or that the SouthFront Steering Committee is located in Crimea. This is a blatant lie and we are ready to prove this in court.
It is easy to see that SouthFront has always provided a platform for the various, sometimes opposing, points of view shared by our members, volunteers and contributors. SouthFront also freely provided its umbrella brand for authors and groups of authors, who share the main principles of SouthFront and stand against mainstream disinformation, global censorship and the enforcing neo-liberal, globalist world order.
The report states that the SouthFront account deleted by YouTube in 2015 included ‘crimeanfront’ in its name and makes far-reaching conclusions using this claim.
GEC Special Report: Russia’s Pillars of Disinformation and Propaganda
This is a clear factual error. Even the screenshot used in the report itself confirms this by quoting the following words: “Our new channel is https://youtube.com/user/crimeanfront”. If that is the new channel, then it is only logical to assume that some other channel was deleted. Right?
So here are the actual facts: The channel deleted in April 2015 had the link ‘https://www.youtube.com/c/southfront’ and was removed due to a suspicious story with copyright claims by NATO-affiliated Nordic Films LTD.
Here is the message then shared by our friends, including The Saker:
GEC Special Report: Russia’s Pillars of Disinformation and Propaganda
GEC Special Report: Russia’s Pillars of Disinformation and Propaganda
After the deletion of that channel, SouthFront volunteers of Russian origin proposed using the already existing YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/crimeanfront. At that time, this channel already had a certain number of subscribers. Therefore, it was useful to employ it instead of creating a new one with a zero base audience.
Unfortunately for the US State Department investigators, the facts go contrary to their conspiracy theories. If the US analysts had really wanted to go into the matter and produce useful material instead of potential toilet paper, they would have found out that that YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/crimeanfront was not deleted in April 2015.
Of course, SouthFront Team is arousing fear among members of the Washington establishment. Nonetheless, the situation itself causes a sad smile.
The next part of the report is based on screenshots showing the redesign of https://www.youtube.com/user/crimeanfront and claims of some person insisting that he created Crimean Front that later became News Front. Using this, the authors of the report claim that SouthFront and News Front are somehow “at least began as sister organizations”.
It is hard to dignify such a superficial investigation with a comment. Even when the SouthFront concept was being created and the like-minded group of people that later created SouthFront: Analysis & Intelligence and evolved into SouthFront Steering Committee first got together, we had no links to the aforementioned organizations.
On top of this, the YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/crimeanfront provided to SouthFront by volunteers was not linked to the aforementioned organizations. This is why they were not using this channel. Instead, SouthFront got it for free over 1.5 years after the developments in Crimea in 2014.
At the same time, there is no secret that in 2015 and coming years, SouthFront, an endeavour dedicated to the coverage of conflicts around the world, was covering developments in Ukraine. It’s easy to find this if one opens southfront.org and checks the category #UKRAINE.
As to the idea of the endeavour that later was named SouthFront: Analysis & Intelligence, it first appeared in 2012-2013 and came about as a result of the rapid deterioration of the international situation around the world, especially in the Middle East.
The developments in Crimea, eastern Ukraine and Syria in 2014 became the turning point that led to the creation of SouthFront: Analysis & Intelligence, the SouthFront Steering Committee and to the main foundations of our work: independence, the commitment to freedom of speech, human rights, and combating media disinformation and censorship.
Trying to link SouthFront with News Front, the State Department report ignored the obvious fact that SouthFront appeared earlier than News Front. This can be seen from the date of the creation of the first Facebook page of SouthFront, and screenshots shared by the report’s authors themselves. Therefore, there are two main versions:
1) SouthFront is an all-mighty Kremlin tool that influences other Russian ‘proxy sites’ and ‘disinformation and propaganda’ on the international scene, and its members are on a first-name basis with Vladimir Putin;
2) In the world of State Department fairy-tales, the use of the word “Front” in the name of an organization indicates a connection to any other organization also using “Front” in its name.
Conspiracy theorists may be surprised to learn that SouthFront is a largely volunteer organization with a regularly changing team composition. So, we want to seize this opportunity and inform the US experts about some realities of modern informational warfare and disinformation.
Dear friends, you may have failed to notice this, but in the modern information society, new network organizations work on principles that are quite different to those employed 10-20 years ago. Lies, double-faced policies and distortion of facts by government-funded media set the basis for SouthFront’s power and influence. It is a high time to understand that this concerns people around the world and inspires them to get an independent point of view.
GEC Special Report: Russia’s Pillars of Disinformation and Propaganda
We can perhaps excuse Department of State personnel for not knowing that when one obtains a domain name via a domain registrar, the registration data shows the physical address of the domain registrar office. However, the inability to notice that SouthFront has always had a PayPal account with a .ru address and that this address has always been public and easily found on southfront.org is beyond our understanding.
Do the authors really think that if SouthFront Team members were to work secretly for the Kremlin or Russian intelligence services (for example, the mighty GRU), we would not have found the time to obtain an address through Yahoo.com or some other non-.ru service?
GEC Special Report: Russia’s Pillars of Disinformation and Propaganda
The next part of the investigation showcases 7 links allegedly confirming that SouthFront “directly aligns with Kremlin talking points and disinformation.” Since the launch of southfront.org, we have released several tens of thousands of articles, videos and graphic pieces. Apparently, the State Department staff spent a lot of time checking them to find these seven posts. In any case, SouthFront has never denied that we provide a platform for all sides interested in a constructive discussion, including the pro-Russian perspective.
It is also interesting to note how the authors of the document described SouthFront articles criticizing the internal situation in Russia and the actions of Moscow. For them, this is just a “tactic” to hide “an ocean of Kremlin-aligned disinformation”. However, if one employs this approach, one would have to find that CNN, the Washington Times, the New York Times and other outlets, which release critical articles about Russia, must also be a part of the sophisticated Kremlin-affiliated disinformation network.
GEC Special Report: Russia’s Pillars of Disinformation and Propaganda
Joking aside, if one checks SouthFront articles questioning the actions of the Russian authorities or criticizing them, one would find hundreds of content pieces. In fact, it is hard to find a southfront.org article that would provide a solely positive view on the current internal political situation in Russia or on the actions of Moscow in the last 1-2 years.
The COVID-19 disinformation part also shows no creativity. We have already stated this on previous occasions, but it bears repeating: SouthFront well understands that the COVID-19 outbreak is a sensitive issue. This is why our articles about the outbreak/pandemic always include links to sources and facts. The fact, which deserves special attention, is that SouthFront articles do not fuel hysteria and fear regarding the COVID-19 spread. We seek to objectively cover the situation.
GEC Special Report: Russia’s Pillars of Disinformation and Propaganda
GEC Special Report: Russia’s Pillars of Disinformation and Propaganda
The report includes 6 examples of supposed COVID-19 disinformation. SouthFront releases about 30 content pieces per day. Articles, videos and graphic pieces dedicated to the COVID-19 outbreak make up less than 1% of the content released by SouthFront in 2020 so far. This is less than a statistical error. Nonetheless, the State Department report reads as if half of SouthFront content is ‘COVID-19 disinformation’ and most of the rest is made up of official statements by the Kremlin.
GEC Special Report: Russia’s Pillars of Disinformation and Propaganda
The part of the paper entitled Niche Graphics Capabilities emphasizes the “professionally designed” SouthFront visual content. We, the SouthFront Team, want to say thank you to the Department of State for its high praise of our work. This will motivate us to even greater efforts in the field to produce even more high quality content.
GEC Special Report: Russia’s Pillars of Disinformation and Propaganda
The conspiracy theory explaining the evolution and redesign of southfront.org’s side bar is a third rate fairy tale.
State Department investigators made several screenshots of the partners section of old southfront.org’s side bar pretending that its changes are something ‘strange’ and need ‘explanations’. It seems that far from everybody in the State Department spent time in university doing something useful. At least, we can recommend that they google “Occam’s razor”.
A small hint for State Department employees reading this article: Occam’s razor is the principle that, of two explanations that account for all the facts, the simpler one is more likely to be correct.
Time is moving on. Life is a complex and variable thing. Conflicts start and conflicts end. The geopolitical game continues, the balance of power in different regions of the world changes. It would be strange to expect that the list of organizations with which SouthFront stays in touch or cooperates would not also change over the years. SouthFront has always provided its content for free, on the basis of the fair usage principle, without any paywalls. Therefore, in 2015, when the conflict in Ukraine was dominating the media and SouthFront was producing at least 10% of its content on the issue, there was one list of media partners. In 2018, when the US-Iranian conflict escalated, the partner list was already different, and included some Iranians.
Meanwhile, the website itself was redesigned and optimized and the southfront.org sidebar made way to create additional free space; for example, for the ‘MAPS & INFOGRAPHICS DATABASE’ banner.
GEC Special Report: Russia’s Pillars of Disinformation and Propaganda
GEC Special Report: Russia’s Pillars of Disinformation and Propaganda
In the end, the content of the report just sinks into a conspiracy abyss allowing no chance for common sense to reassert itself. Likely in an attempt to link SouthFront to Iran or to the ‘bloody Assad regime’, the Department of State quotes a comment sent by SouthFront volunteers to Syrian Free Press. The comment includes a proposal to share videos with that blog, and is signed by SouthFront volunteers, not by the SouthFront Steering Committee.
This fact can only serve as a demonstration of the umbrella (franchising) nature of the SouthFront organizational structure. With the exception of facebook.com/southfronten, all the links mentioned in the comment are de-facto independent branches of SouthFront voluntarily created by groups of motivated people from different countries and affiliated with SouthFront only through their commitment to the SouthFront principles at that moment.
SouthFront is always glad to assist and provide consultancy help to people that stand up for freedom of speech and against the globalist censorship.
What is really strange is that State Department investigators failed to find the still existing independent branches of SouthFront in northern and western Europe. Probably, this could serve as another signal of the ‘depth’ of this investigation.
SouthFront Team is sorry to conclude that the Department of State of the world’s sole super power was unable to provide any facts to confirm their speculations about SouthFront being a front for Russian disinformation. Bogus stories, which have been circulating in various media outlets and think tanks funded by Euro-Atlantic structures for years, do not count. In reality, this likely means that the authors did no research of their own in the field and just copy-pasted and patched together already existing reports made by their friends from affiliated or allied organizations.
Thank God, the authors did not try to link SouthFront to supposed Russian meddling in the US election.
After such ‘high-quality investigations’ in this field, the Department of State would not even have a theoretical chance of saving face.
It would be interesting to get the reaction of the bosses of these staff members and of the leadership of the State Department itself, to find out what they think about such quality of work. It is highly likely that the group of State Department specialists that prepared the report presented it as an exclusive investigation that required a significant amount of time and financial resources.
Proposal to US Department of State
SouthFront proposes the leadership of the US Department of State expert help in the field of covering the work of SouthFront as a pillar of Russia’s disinformation and propaganda network. Exclusively for the Department of State, we are ready to prepare weekly reports about our work with a detailed overview of our content, links to the most interesting articles, videos and graphic pieces, and entertaining behind the scenes content about our work.
We are sure that these reports will be not less professional and entertaining than the paper described above. SouthFront’s direct assistance will also help Mr. Pompeo and his employees to avoid foolish factual mistakes in future (e.g.when somebody is not even able to read their own screenshot).
And last but not least, the State Department would be able to save hundreds of thousands of US taxpayer dollars. The US government would then be able to use these funds to combat the COVID-19 outbreak or help combat veterans.
Please, feel free to contact SouthFront via email: info@southfront.press
(SF’s comment: our previous email info@southfront.org was deactivated in 2023 because SOUTHFRONT.ORG DOMAIN WAS ILLEGALLY BLOCKED by the international domain name registry under pressure from our ill-wishers. MORE DETAILS HERE)
On August 5, the US Department of State also offered Russians $10 million for information about Russian meddling in US elections.
https://twitter.com/RFJ_Russian/status/1291104836201611264
Taking into account the high level of regard for SouthFront work held by the US government, you also can contact us regarding this topic. $10 million would be a useful donation to SouthFront’s budget. The contact email is the same: info@southfront.press
By the way, US government personnel know our email address very well. In previous years, we have received emails from them with proposals for fruitful cooperation.
As to the style of emails sent to SouthFront, we recommend that the staff of the State Department to contact their counterparts in the Department of Defense. They act and write much more professionally and are not too shy to ask about things that are interesting to them.
Using this opportunity, SouthFront wants once again to assure Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Department of State of our highest consideration.
Sincerely yours,
The mighty and intangible SouthFront Steering Committee
A brief look at the history of SouthFront’s relations with official bodies of the United States and the European Union:
- US Department Of State Is Butthurt By SouthFront Work, Once Again – The US State Department is concerned by ‘COVID-19 disinformation’ and SouthFront.
- Propaganda… Again? – The French Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry released a joint report accusing SouthFront of undermining interests of the ‘democratic countries’ in the Middle East.
- Politico Goes Off The Deep End. Identifies U.S. Veterans as Putin’s Fifth Column – Politico released a report in which US State Department and Defense Department officials accused SouthFront and Veterans Today of targeting the US military community and veterans.
- Politico: Veterans Today and SouthFront turn American servicemembers and veterans into a fifth column – Politico released a report in which US State Department and Defense Department officials accused SouthFront and Veterans Today of targeting the US military community and veterans.
- MSM Shares New “Revelations” That SouthFront Targets U.S. Military Community With “Conspiracy Theories” And “Misinformation” – The US House and Senate intelligence committees allegedly investigated SouthFront’s supposed interference in the US presidential election, at least according to The Hill.
P.S. Support the pilar of Russia’s disinformation and propaganda:
For security reasons, we currently accept donations only in crypto currencies. The actual addresses as of September 28, 2023 are here:
YOU CAN MAKE A DONATION IN CRYPTOCURRENCIES WHICH ARE THE SAFEST WAY TO SUPPORT SF
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PAYPAL, WESTERN UNION etc: write to info@southfront.press , southfront@list.ru
For security reasons, we currently accept donations only in crypto currencies.
For the same reasons, we strongly recommend to use ‘COLD WALLETS‘ for making donations to our addresses.
- for BTC: https://electrum.org/#home
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To buy crypto you may use the following:
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- or even this very simple exchange only service: https://prostocash.com/en/
If you face any problems donating funds to SouthFront, please contact us: info@southfront.press and southfront@list.ru
THE WORLD HAS ENTERED THE AGE OF GLOBAL CENSORSHIP. ONLY TOGETHER WE CAN OVERCOME IT AND BRING THE ACTUAL AND INDEPENDENT POINT OF VIEW TO PEOPLE ALL AROUND THE GLOBE.
i had been always exceptical about why western civilization was so corrupt, and so many things to me did not make sense about western history. well, i already get to the bottom of it. southfront is just showing the alternate reality the us empire and lesser little wannabe empires did not wanted us to see. that’s why they attack southfront so much
people in western world looks like they are in some kind of trance, or dream, it’s like they telepathically brainwashed. maybe after wwii with all the experiments us army did on rf signals and behavior on humans, they really can have people enslaved on mind or thought cells. it’s like religion on steroids with rf everywhere, also with genetics and eugenetics. all western world its like an experiment of the us empire.
lsd use is second only to acid reducers in the state dept.
most people here in the west are brainwashed yes, but not all. there is no magic or telepathy about it. it’s a tried and tested system, the göbbels system. it’s göbbels on steroids.
and yes, with it they want to create an everlasting global tyranny, where people will be born into a mind prison that will be impossible to get out of. and yes, it’s a religion too.
at some point you will have to worship this system/religion. many basically already do.
as a french, i confirm that 90% are in trance.
the majority of the u.s. people are purposefully diluted and brainwashed, the historical precedence in which people were forced converted to believe false logic and superstition. the narratives of ethnic religious hegemony are not isolated to a single group. massacring innocent people is so common there are protests supporting terrorism with entire political and media wings devoted to lying and deceiving the already brainwashed u.s. public.
amerikans have always been incompetent crude ugly liars
no way, they’re the most honest people i’ve ever met on the planet. they also want their land back stolen by the english.
your attempts at humor by invoking the native american indians as the most honest people goes over the heads of most readers here. but you are correct.
“the cult of sincerity–amerikans are not sincere; it is a performance”. david riesman
“amerikans have been liars and braggarts for 3 centuries” daniel boorstin
“amerikans are 300 million used car salesmen that have no qualms about killing anyone that makes them uncomfortable”. hunter thompson
“we are never deceived–we deceive ourselves”. goethe….”from the inception of amerika it has been informed by ubiquitous sleaze and hustling”. walter macdougal
the us government calling someone else a source of misinformation and disinformation is just laughable
indeed. i used to break out in just a chuckle but now it’s a roaring belly laugh.
the state department was turned into the us propaganda department a long time ago, it’s a complete joke, and you get to see the clowns perform if you look at it even briefly. those press conferences and spokespeople are absolutely laughable (and completely dishonest).
to put it simply: you know you’re doing something right if the us government considers you a threat. instead of them doing the smart thing and ignoring you: they prove once again how they are children playing chess with adults. us is a young country. a child compared to the old world. and it behaves as such
nope. i did not agree. they are reinfoircing their childs, the reports pilar of russia’s disinformation and propaganda will be used by their minions worldwide to reinforce their own propaganda agenda. us empire is the good guy, everyone else are bad and should be conquered and enslaved to the become a puppet of the western civilization. lay down your head to the mighty empire or you will be banished.
yes but sf is not even widely known in the western sphere. how much traffic does this site actually get? each comment gets a max likes / dislikes of about 35 votes. and that number is probably manipulated by people with vpn’s or dynamic ip’s and by webmasters. by that deductive logic, sf is small fry. and the fact that us government even mentions it by name brings validity and attention/ traffic to sf
they are stupid. all of their policies & geo strategies are amateurish whether they are soft power or hard power. take this as an example: they kicked out government and military personnel for not obliging to the covid (clot) shot. and now they’re asking the very same people they discharged to come back. you still think that they know exactly what they’re doing?
i unpacked my nativity scene yesterday. after removing the jews, arabs, and foreigners — i ended up with a jackass and a bunch of sheep.
they are strongly delusional and criminally insane. it’s infectious too.
agreed. they are stupid for sure. but they only follow orders and they get paid for making the report. not even a tesis from college is so vain like this report.
“democracy is impossible in a capitalist system. capitalism is the realm of injustice and a tyranny of the richest against the poorest.”
hugo chavez
nothing wrong with capitalism. it’s all the fault of western political puke mongers.
plenty wrong with western “capitalism” when sickness and perversion are institutionalized into the system. the abnormal becomes normal, insanity becomes normal, at all levels of governance. this i believe is what hugo chavez was referring to.
i disagree personally, but i could be wrong. capitalism is anti-free market. i’m a free market kind of person. capitalism is a systematic abuse of the system of money, and exploitation of money by a neo-oligarchy, and it corrupts the very foundation of money and free markets, and so it kills both. there are no free markets under capitalism, it’s all manipulated. take money for example, forced inflation, it manipulates the whole market, and is very anti-free market.
“p.s. support the pilar of…” the word ‘pillar’ has two ‘l’s, chaps…..
how do you know? maybe he meant a spanish gal named pilar.
besides, english is the most illogical, rules-absent cacophony of a language on planet earth.
meanwhile, they dutifully regurgitate all the bullshit disinformation coming from kiev.
us stat dept is masterfully becoming a standing joke of its own making.
it”s funny how the fake western mainstream media can call actual combat videos disinformation or propaganda. but we are supposed to believe their lies with no proof of anything they say, if they have videos of something its almost always fake or crisis actors. that”s why no one believes or watches the fake news media anymore.
imagine if their focus was the betterment of all humanity. demonstrating how to do things in a good way for all. fighting the privative impulses of the human soul as the enemy to us all.
keep up the good work southfront !!!!
e o recunoaștere oficiala a importantei stirilor si a informării oamenilor. o alta versiune. o alta preferinta. bravo! zambiti. ne pozeaza c i a eul ;)
i read many many different net papers and think yours is as good as any. i was wondering if you dont get some info on here before the west’s media. also your video’s are very realistic!!
“the cult of friendliness–amerikans are only friendly when they want something”. christopher lasch
i really love this part “thank god, the authors did not try to link southfront to supposed russian meddling in the us election.”… hahaha lol! maybe sf should also be blamed for ufo 🛸 or for biden beign old, or for trump’s hair. you are bad south front.
“obamas job is to lie to a nation of liars”. kiese laymon
“amerikan parents lie to their children; amerikan children lie to their parents–its expected”. geoffrey gorer
“nothing can thrive in amerika unless inflated by hyperbole and gilded w a fine coat of fraud. amerikans cannot think except by means of slogans–they identify garbage as quality…the stupidity and ignorance of ameriakans has long been atopic of hilarity in europe” paul fussell
“the functional illiteracy and ignorance of amerikans has made us an international joke”. morris berman
“amerikans cannot think or feel dialectically—they are unable to tolerate uncertainty—ontological insecurity or ambiguity—-neurosis: univ of wuhan 2020
“the amerikan soul is hard isolate stoic a killer—the amerikan soul has never melted”. dh lawrence
oscar wilde quotes … there is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
origo and yindex must have been included…