Russian Government Edits Wikipedia On Flight MH17 667
An anonymous reader writes A political battle has broken out on Wikipedia over an entry relating to the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, with the Russian government reportedly removing sections which accuse it of providing 'terrorists' with missiles that were used to down the civilian airliner. A Twitter bot which monitors edits made to the online encyclopedia from Russian government IP addresses spotted that changes are being made to a page relating to the crash. All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK) changed a Russian language version of a page listing civil aviation accidents to say that "The plane was shot down by Ukrainian soldiers." That edit replaced text – written just an hour earlier – which said MH17 had been shot down "by terrorists of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic with Buk system missiles, which the terrorists received from the Russian Federation."
It gets worse... (Score:5, Funny)
They tried to edit slashdot to make this the first post
Re:I don't see the problem. (Score:2, Funny)
Wikipedia doesn't care about the truth. They just don't want original research [wikipedia.org].
Re:I don't see the problem. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I don't see the problem. (Score:5, Funny)
I feel like I just read a Soviet era Pravda article.
Re:lol (Score:3, Funny)
But still, interpreted literally the new statement is far more factually correct and unbiased than what it replaced. Whoever shot down the plane, they were "soldiers" or fighters of some variety and almost certainly can be described as Ukrainian, given that everyone seems to agree that the fighters are actually eastern Ukrainians and at most Russia is supplying weapons to them.
Not exactly. There is a distinct difference between a soldier and a combatant. A soldier is trained and is a member of a standing military. The separatists can at best be described as "irregulars", or insurgents or rebels if you want to go with slightly more charged terminology. And who exactly is this "everyone" who are agreeing that they are all Eastern Ukranians? I have yet to see any reputable source make that claim. And Russia is not just supplying small arms to these groups. They are giving them tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, and anti-air systems (both MANPADS and tracked systems). You don't just pick these systesms up and start using them. They are recieving training, either in Russia or locally from trainers that Russia has moved into Ukraine. And given the fact that the missiles were launched from inside territory controlled by the rebelsis a very important detail. Why would the Ukrainians have anti-air equipment deployed in an area they do not control, against an enemy with no air power? All evidence points to the missiles being fired by the separatists, which means Russia had a hand in at the very least training them on how to use the equipment if not providing that equipment as well as continuing to use their influence to keep the conflict going.
Even common sense kind of makes it obvious it was the separatists. This whole mess reeks of something that only an undisciplined mob of rebels would do. Why would the Ukraininans blindly shoot down an airliner with a tactical SAM when they have a multi layered air defense system and modern jet fighters at their disposal? Surely their military radars are capable of reading civilian transponder signals and they could have sent up a pair of MiG-29s to fly rings around MH17 if they'd had reason to suspect it of being something other than it's ID data, transponders and flight plan said it was. As for the conspiracy theory that the Ukrainians drove that Buk launcher into separatist territory to 'frame' the separatists, they'd have had to drive a tacked vehicle with four bigass missles sitting on top of it deep into separatist controlled territory unnoticed. The stories coming out of Russia trying to blame this on the Ukrainians are just plain ridiculous.
It gets worse... (Score:4, Funny)
In Soviet Russia, 'First Post' gets you!
I went there. I'm not proud.
Re:I don't see the problem. (Score:2, Funny)
You speak in ignorance, look at the control panels for the system and then come back to us.
Re:I don't see the problem. (Score:5, Funny)
This is way out of Bob the arms dealer's league.
Bob9113 here. Don't tell my potential customers what I can and can't supply. You don't know my inventory, nor my procurement abilities. Though you are right that the price would be substantially above $50,000.
Re:I don't see the problem. (Score:5, Funny)