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Democratic lawmakers are probing SpaceX over Russia’s reported use of Starlink in Ukraine, saying that recent developments raise questions about SpaceX’s “compliance with US sanctions and export controls.”
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk last month denied what he called “false news reports [that] claim that SpaceX is selling Starlink terminals to Russia,” saying that, “to the best of our knowledge, no Starlinks have been sold directly or indirectly to Russia.” But Musk’s statement didn’t satisfy US Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who sent a letter to SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell yesterday.
“Starlink is an invaluable resource for Ukrainians in their fight against Russia’s brutal and illegitimate invasion. It is alarming that Russia may be obtaining and using your technology to coordinate attacks against Ukrainian troops in illegally occupied regions in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, potentially in violation of US sanctions and export controls,” Raskin and Garcia wrote.
Musk has also stated that “Starlink satellites will not close the link in Russia.” However, the concerns raised by Rankin and Garcia are about whether Russia used the broadband service in Ukraine. Their letter said that Ukraine last month “released intercepted audio communications between Russian soldiers that indicated Russian forces had illegally deployed and activated Starlink terminals in certain Russian-occupied areas in Eastern Ukraine.”
Who is profiting from this exactly? I don’t undestand why people keep spreading this disinformation when not a single single article, including the one above, makes no accusations of SpaceX being complicit in it in anyway. The only thing they’re being criticized for, or rather questioned about is wether they’re doing enough to track the terminals near the front lines and making sure they’re not being used by sanctioned parties.
If you actually read the article you’d know that selling Starlink to Russia already is against the sanctions. It does not work in Russia or in the occupied territories. This is why the drone assault on the Crimea failed aswell. Not because Musk disabled Starlink but because it wasn’t enabled in the first place.
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Is this a rational discussion about what may be actually happening here in reality, or is this a circlejerk where everybody just repeats what we already know, which is that Elon sucks as a person? Let’s not become Reddit.
If you actually read what I said rather than what he responded and actually read the link he posted, you’ll see that I didn’t say he deactivated anything, I said he denied the service for an ally.
Elon explicitly denied to activate starlink in locations requested by Ukraine with a bullshit excuse that that would support war, while now making no qualms of Russia using the service for war.
JFC. This mess where Russian forces are using StarLink is exactly why they didn’t want to turn service on in those locations in the first place!
Practically speaking there’s no fucking way to tell the difference between two SL terminals; one being used by Russian’s and the other by Ukrainian’s, when both forces use the same language, are using them for the same things, the terminals are so close to each other, and many of the terminals are being paid for by 3rd parties!
The people that can’t see past the end of their nose were pissing their pants over it last summer so Starlink said “Fuck it, you want it? You got it!” and turned the service on in the areas requested by Ukraine.
Now that same group of diaper wearing mouth breathers are shitting themselves because the Russian’s are SURPRISE…using Starlink.
Do you want the damn system off? Because that’s the ONLY way to guarantee that the Russian’s can’t use it.
That wasn’t my point. I’m just getting sick of seeing “Elon sucks” everywhere with no substance. We fucking get it already. You’re preaching to the choir on the fediverse.
Elon sucks
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What are you talking about? Are you lost in the thread responding to the wrong person? I made no edits to my comment.
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4 hours is how long ago it was made. If it was edited, it would say “edited” on the header, at least it does on Kbin.
Starlink. They sell more groundstations.
So your argument is that it can’t be because it is turned off for specific regions.
Starlink works near the front lines because otherwise Ukraine would not be able to use it either. However the front lines are constantly changing and you can’t expect anyone to be able to accurately track them at the resolution that would be required for SpaceX to make sure it immediately stops working once you move to the occupied side.
Oh no?! Requiring a multi billion dollar company that literally does rocket science, to actually take measures to not have the Russian military use their infra while invading another country. What a bizarre idea, no way this will be possible for these poor corporations.
Maybe stop acting as if a poor company needs protecting. Most large corporations need a firm boot up their ass. Companies owned and operated under space karen need two!
You do not have a clue about the efforts SpaceX is putting into trying to stop this from happening.
So? We can see the effects and conclude… not enough.
It is hilarious I’m getting downvoted for stating a multi-billion dollar company should assure a dictatorial regime should not be able to use their infra to commit warcrimes and invade another country.
Space Karen is a douche nozzle. He actively wants to remove worker protections to be able to exploit workers more, questions the need for NATO… worshipping the billionaire class is not going to help anyone except the billionaires.
You are swimming upstream on this one. People know what they were told by biased headlines on Reddit last summer and they don’t want to hear anything else.
What’s happening right now with Russian forces using Starlink is precisely why SL had the service disabled in the occupied territories and near the front lines in the first place!
Only dead fish swim with the current.
It’s a tough pill to swallow, I give you that. For many people the entire “Elon Musk is Russian asset” narrative is build on this specific event and then any further findings that seem to support this are added on top of it. If a person believing in this narrative would then aknowledge that they were wrong about this one it removes the entire foundation from said belief and it all comes crashing down. It’s no wonder that it causes major cognitive dissonance on people and they then do all kinds of mental gymnastics to hold on to their false beliefs.
Musk is an immature asshole with a Billionaire lifestyle. He was still everybody’s darling, even while playing an IRL Tony Stark, right up until he started working against the agenda of the TOOLs. (Terminally Online and Outraged Leftists).
I’m neither Republican nor Conservative but dealing with the TOOLs that are clogging up every single Online space is exhausting.
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