More than 200 shells, folks sheltering, and evacuation called for three islands.

(These islands are out to the west of South Korea and isolated/remote a ways form mainland South Korea just south of the "line" between North and South Kore)



https://breakingthenews.net/Ar...-west-coast/61226785



"K-Billy's Super Sounds of the 70's weekend just keeps on comin'..."

Concerning. Thanks for posting.

Multiple things going on at once is how a war starts. Definitely not invigorating. I pray for those South Koreans.

Not the first provocation with YP-do but let’s see how this plays out.

Yep.

That’s not good. Thanks for posting. I’m sure I will hear all about this from my wife. This explains why her phone has been chiming all morning.

Mrs Q was unconcerned, when I told her about this last night. She said, eh, nothing new.

If Mr Trump was in office we wouldn’t be seeing this crap.

Posturing.

All 200 North Korean shells reportedly fell into the ocean in the buffer zone between the two countries, with none landing on the island or even within South Korean territory.

South Korea responded with similar artillery drills.

North Korea has a long history of posturing/provocation like this, firing artillery and ballistic missiles towards South Korea, but not at South Korea. (Though they did actually land dozens of shells on this same island back in 2010.)


From https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-67889551

quote:

North Korea has fired more than 200 rounds of artillery shells off its west coast, towards the South's Yeonpyeong island, Seoul's military has said.

South Korea ordered civilians to seek shelter on the island before holding live fire drills of its own.

The South called it a "provocative act", but the North denied the islands were in danger from its firing drills.

The artillery shells fired on Friday, between 09:00 to 11:00 local time (00:00 to 02:00 GMT) did not enter South Korean territory as they all landed in the buffer zone between the two countries.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the incident caused "no damage to our people or military", but added that the act "threatens peace on the Korean peninsula and raises tensions".

quote:

All 200 North Korean shells reportedly fell into the ocean in the buffer zone between the two countries maritime territory, with none landing on the island or even within South Korean territory.

This doesn't match up with the pic SigMonkey posted. Odd.

quote:

Originally posted by Shaql:
This doesn't match up with the pic SigMonkey posted. Odd.

That's a photo from the 2010 bombardment.

Intentionally misleading. (Not necessarily by sigmonkey, but by whatever site he sourced it from.)

See https://www.pbs.org/newshour/n...rth-korean-artillery

Or https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne...rs-mourn-deaths.html

Or https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50808326

Or https://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINI...artillery/index.html

Or https://www.aljazeera.com/news...eas-risk-calculation

Or http://armchairgeneral.com/kor...es-for-a-new-war.htm

Etc.

All old news stories showing that photo is from 2010.


This is one of the big dangers of the internet. Images that are out there on the internet can easily be snagged and used out of context to fit whatever agenda you're trying to push. (Or just to generate clicks/revenue.)

Don't believe everything you see on the web. For example, it's relatively simple to do a reverse image lookup and often find greater context.

At least they're just harmlessly splashing in the ocean like their missiles frequently do. I imagine it doesn't seem very harmless to the island residents or the military personnel spooled up.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-67889551

At least this article told the reader the number of people on the island and their is a military base. The first article just said inhabitants so the reader is left wonder whether it's 2, 2 hundred, 2 thousand, or 2 hundred thousand.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
That's a photo from the 2010 bombardment.

The photo is not even in the article sigmonkey posted.

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:
The photo is not even in the article sigmonkey posted.

It very well may have been at the time that he saw it 12 hours ago.

The title of this thread might have even been the title on that website at the time that he linked it.

But if so, they have since been edited by that website, to a stock photo of an artillery piece and a generic title of "North Korea fires artillery shells off west coast".


News sites, reporters, and social media "influencers" want so badly to be the first to share that breaking news that it's often wildly inaccurate at first. But all they have to do is edit it once the rest of the details come out, and it looks like they knew what they were talking about all along.

But how many people had already reposted/forwarded/talked about the initial inaccurate information? How many of those then follow up to see that the initial information was wrong, and has been corrected, and bother to share that too? This is how inaccurate information gets spread like wildfire, often with wider reach than the later actual facts.



And as expected, that same photo and others taken from 2010 are currently making the rounds on social media (especially Twitter) as "evidence" that North Korea shelled a South Korean island today.


Which one is more likely to generate hysteria/fear/outrage and result in clicks/forwards/reposts:

"North Korea fires artillery into the ocean, again" with a photo of a normal island, or a generic artillery piece

or

"North Korea attacks South Korean island!" with a photo of an island smoking from multiple artillery strikes (either conveniently omitting or not even bothering to check that the photo is 14 years old)


In today's news/social media environment of manipulation, knee-jerk reactions, obfuscation, and obsession with "breaking news", it's important to fine tune that bullshit meter, and do due diligence before buying into something hook, line, and sinker. Or especially before sending it on to others.

Harken back to the old days of Sigforum in the 2000s and a rule was instituted against posting email forwards (lead smelters, FEMA camps, gun registration on tax returns, et al), all of which were inaccurate or outright false, yet plenty of people would immediately post/forward them without any verification, simply because it worried them, or it made them mad, or it matched their personal beliefs.

Breaking news reports and social media posts are the new email forwards.

(I'll get off my soapbox now. )

I had gotten a text from a friend who's mother is South Korean (his dad was USAF). He worked for me about 20 years ago.

I normally do better at checking things, so I accept I got "taken in" on this.

Thanks J for posting the correction.

Jr. is flexing his muscles again . Winter is coming . He needs fuel oil and food . He'll get it .

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
Thanks J for posting the correction.

It wasn't my intention to lecture or belittle you specifically, friend. So I truly hope it wasn't taken that way. Just some musings in general on the current state of (mis)information transfer.

Not at all.
I did not take it as such. Even the "real media" is so full of garbage, (I hardly ever follow it) it's a challenge to sift out everything, but this was a big miss on my part, and I embarrassed myself.

The footprint on my pecker matches my shoe.