Announcement

Collapse

Civics 101 Guidelines

Want to argue about politics? Healthcare reform? Taxes? Governments? You've come to the right place!

Try to keep it civil though. The rules still apply here.
See more
See less

Russian interference with the 2016 election

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #16
    Originally posted by lao tzu View Post
    I'm not following this. Is there something that has recently displeased the left that has some connection to the Times event in the o/p? I've found that right wing, well, "known propaganda websites," like to search out left wing fringe sites for outlandish nuggets, but life's too short for me to spend quality time with either of them.
    "Fringe sites" like ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, Washington Post, and New York Times?

    I'm always still in trouble again

    "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
    "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
    "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

    Comment


    • #17
      Originally posted by Tassmoron View Post
      You think! If the Russians are so bad then why has Trump failed to meet a deadline to impose sanctions on individuals who do business with Russian military or intelligence entities? And why has he not directed his intelligence agencies to crack down on Russia given that the senior US intel chiefs unanimously warn that Russian meddling threatens 2018 vote. Doesn't Trump care or does he fear repercussions from Putin?
      Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
      But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
      Than a fool in the eyes of God


      From "Fools Gold" by Petra

      Comment


      • #18
        Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
        Apparently it also salted with a few rumors and innuendos that the Hillary campaign fed to the author so they could be included as well.
        If you're speaking of the information from Blumenthal, it wasn't in the dossier, and the rumors and innuendos begin with Nunes, whose tight-knit relationship with the White House he's in charge of investigating is frankly scandalous.

        Winer has responded.

        Devin Nunes is investigating me. Here’s the truth.
        While talking about that hacking, Blumenthal and I discussed Steele’s reports. He showed me notes gathered by a journalist I did not know, Cody Shearer, that alleged the Russians had compromising information on Trump of a sexual and financial nature.

        What struck me was how some of the material echoed Steele’s but appeared to involve different sources.

        On my own, I shared a copy of these notes with Steele, to ask for his professional reaction. He told me it was potentially “collateral” information. I asked him what that meant. He said that it was similar but separate from the information he had gathered from his sources. I agreed to let him keep a copy of the Shearer notes.

        Given that I had not worked with Shearer and knew that he was not a professional intelligence officer, I did not mention or share his notes with anyone at the State Department. I did not expect them to be shared with anyone in the U.S. government.

        But I learned later that Steele did share them — with the FBI, after the FBI asked him to provide everything he had on allegations relating to Trump, his campaign and Russian interference in U.S. elections.

        The timeline presented by Winer is in conflict with this conspiracy theory.

        By now you should realize that the most convincing lies, the best con jobs, are concocted using as much truth as possible and then twisting it.
        That's precisely Chris Wray's allegation against the Nunes memo.

        Comment


        • #19
          Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
          "Fringe sites" like ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, Washington Post, and New York Times?
          Is there something that has recently displeased the left that has some connection to the Times event in the o/p? In particular, is there something published recently, or even broadcasted, that suggests this?

          Comment


          • #20
            There's a lot more to Nunes' investigation than meets the eye. It seems he has some very big fish caught in his net, and they're thrashing wildly in their attempts to escape. Everything I've read suggests that Nunes is certain of his information. There's a reason he's acting with such methodical confidence.
            Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
            But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
            Than a fool in the eyes of God


            From "Fools Gold" by Petra

            Comment


            • #21
              This NYT article seems material:

              Source: Fake News and Bots May Be Worrisome, but Their Political Power Is Overblown

              How easy is it to change people’s votes in an election?

              The answer, a growing number of studies conclude, is that most forms of political persuasion seem to have little effect at all.

              This conclusion may sound jarring at a time when people are concerned about the effects of the false news articles that flooded Facebook and other online outlets during the 2016 election. Observers speculated that these so-called fake news articles swung the election to Donald J. Trump. Similar suggestions of large persuasion effects, supposedly pushing Mr. Trump to victory, have been made about online advertising from the firm Cambridge Analytica and content promoted by Russian bots.

              Much more remains to be learned about the effects of these types of online activities, but people should not assume they had huge effects. Previous studies have found, for instance, that the effects of even television advertising (arguably a higher-impact medium) are very small. According to one credible estimate, the net effect of exposure to an additional ad shifts the partisan vote of approximately two people out of 10,000.

              In fact, a recent meta-analysis of numerous different forms of campaign persuasion, including in-person canvassing and mail, finds that their average effect in general elections is zero.

              Field experiments testing the effects of online ads on political candidates and issues have also found null effects. We shouldn’t be surprised — it’s hard to change people’s minds! Their votes are shaped by fundamental factors like which party they typically support and how they view the state of the economy. “Fake news” and bots are likely to have vastly smaller effects, especially given how polarized our politics have become.

              Here’s what you should look for in evaluating claims about vast persuasion effects from dubious online content:

              How many people actually saw the questionable material. Many alarming statistics have been produced since the election about how many times “fake news” was shared on Facebook or how many times Russian bots retweeted content on Twitter. These statistics obscure the fact that the content being shared may not reach many Americans (most people are not on Twitter and consume relatively little political news) or even many humans (many bot followers may themselves be bots).

              Whether the people being exposed are persuadable. Dubious political content online is disproportionately likely to reach heavy news consumers who already have strong opinions. For instance, a study I conducted with Andrew Guess of Princeton and Jason Reifler of the University of Exeter in Britain showed that exposure to fake news websites before the 2016 election was heavily concentrated among the 10 percent of Americans with the most conservative information diets — not exactly swing voters.

              The proportion of news people saw that is bogus. The total number of shares or likes that fake news and bots attract can sound enormous until you consider how much information circulates online. Twitter, for instance, reported that Russian bots tweeted 2.1 million times before the election — certainly a worrisome number. But these represented only 1 percent of all election-related tweets and 0.5 percent of views of election-related tweets.

              © Copyright Original Source



              So does this one from WaPo:

              Source: Russia used mainstream media to manipulate American voters


              Russia’s disinformation campaign during the 2016 presidential election relied heavily on stories produced by major American news sources to shape the online political debate, according to an analysis published Thursday.

              The analysis by Columbia University social-media researcher Jonathan Albright of more than 36,000 tweets sent by Russian accounts showed that obscure or foreign news sources played a comparatively minor role, suggesting that the discussion of “fake news” during the campaign has been somewhat miscast.

              Albright’s research, which he said is the most extensive to date on the news links that Russians used to manipulate the American political conversation on Twitter, bolsters observations by other analysts. Clinton Watts, a former FBI agent who is now a disinformation expert at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, said that by linking to popular news sources, the Russians enhanced the credibility of their Twitter accounts, making it easier to manipulate audiences.

              “The Kremlin, they don’t need to create a false narrative. It’s already there,” he said. “You’re just taking a narrative and elevating it.”

              Some well-chronicled hoaxes reached large audiences. But Russian-controlled Twitter accounts, Albright said, were far more likely to share stories produced by widely read sources of American news and political commentary. The stories themselves were generally factually accurate, but the Russian accounts carefully curated the overall flow to highlight themes and developments that bolstered Republican Donald Trump and undermined his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

              Among the tweets Albright studied, the most common links were to Breitbart News, followed by The Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle.

              © Copyright Original Source



              Upshot: Fake news from Russian bots played a minor part in something that probably didn't have much effect anyway.

              MM may or may not appreciate Breitbart being characterized as 'mainstream'.
              Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

              Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
              sigpic
              I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

              Comment


              • #22
                So when are we going to bring indictments against members of the liberal media for their undisguised attempts to influence voters against Trump?
                Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                Than a fool in the eyes of God


                From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                Comment


                • #23
                  My thinking is that most of this fake news crap might be coming from Russia, but not from hackers, but just Russian scammers, regular citizens that want to make money by creating sensationalist stories that people pass along on facebook and twitter and contain tons of ads that they get paid for. It isn't some nefarious KGB plot. And there are such scammers in many countries, including the USA. Heck, half of facebook is people sharing such garbage about any number of topics, from politics to stories about aliens or the dangers of eating meat, to quizzes about what your favorite food is. It's all about numbers of views and numbers of ads served. Advertisers not only pay so much per click-thru but just for displaying the ads.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Apparently, Mueller's investigation has now handed down indictments against 13 Russian individuals and three Russian companies for interfering in the 2016 election, beginning as early as 2014. They were apparently funded to the tune of $1m/month to target swing districts, and emphasize support for Sanders/Trump and against Rubio/Cruz/Clinton. More details here.
                    The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                    I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
                      Apparently, Mueller's investigation has now handed down indictments against 13 Russian individuals and three Russian companies for interfering in the 2016 election, beginning as early as 2014. They were apparently funded to the tune of $1m/month to target swing districts, and emphasize support for Sanders/Trump and against Rubio/Cruz/Clinton. More details here.
                      Thread here:

                      http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...ts-16-russians

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
                        This NYT article seems material:
                        Readers should note this story was included in the list cited in post #2:

                        Originally posted by lao tzu View Post
                        Alternatively, current and historical reporting is available at:

                        Russian Hacking and Influence in the U.S. Election
                        Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
                        Upshot: Fake news from Russian bots played a minor part in something that probably didn't have much effect anyway.
                        Probably.

                        MM may or may not appreciate Breitbart being characterized as 'mainstream'.
                        Not precisely true. "Russia used mainstream media to manipulate American voters" doesn't imply all of the outlets cited were mainstream.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                          Hmm ... I'd prefer the threads were merged, but I don't want to relax my civility rules, so I'll be posting my comments on this issue here.

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Russian troll farm, 13 suspects indicted for interference in U.S. election

                            Independent of the success of their efforts, the indictments against them are useful in pushing back against the suggestion we should not be concerned. Foreign actors actively engaged in undermining our elections need to be held to account.

                            Notably, the troll farm, run out of St. Petersburg, was financed by ...
                            One of those indicted is Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin, who has long been identified in the Russian media as the financial backer of the Internet Research Agency. He is a caterer who has been nicknamed “Putin’s chef” because of his close ties to the Russian president. Concord Consulting and Concord Catering, two Russian businesses also charged by Mueller’s team Friday, have previously been identified as Prigozhin vehicles.

                            I think it's fair to say this effort could not have been undertaken without Putin's agreement, even without further evidence that it was undertaken at his direction.

                            In the TimesEvent cited in the o/p, there was a reference by a panelist to over a 100 million impressions, which I recall from testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, but was loathe to look up for reference due to time constraints.
                            Overall, Facebook acknowledged to Congress that the Internet Research Agency had bought 3,000 ads on its platform that reached 11.4 million users. The agency’s employees also reportedly made many free posts that reached 126 million users. In addition to polarizing online political conversation, Facebook reported that the Internet Research Agency used Facebook pages to organize 129 real-world events that drew the attention of nearly 340,000 Facebook users.

                            ...

                            Twitter has acknowledged finding 3,814 accounts linked to the IRA, which together posted some 176,000 tweets in the 10 weeks preceding the election. The company also found 50,258 automated accounts it said were connected to the Russian government and tweeted more than a million times.

                            While we still don't know how many votes were changed, or perhaps more importantly, how many voters leaning toward Trump were induced to show up at the polls, the reach was sufficient to make a difference in an election that hinged on 70,000 votes. Whether it made a difference is a different question.

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                              My thinking is that most of this fake news crap might be coming from Russia, but not from hackers, but just Russian scammers, regular citizens that want to make money by creating sensationalist stories that people pass along on facebook and twitter and contain tons of ads that they get paid for. It isn't some nefarious KGB plot. And there are such scammers in many countries, including the USA. Heck, half of facebook is people sharing such garbage about any number of topics, from politics to stories about aliens or the dangers of eating meat, to quizzes about what your favorite food is. It's all about numbers of views and numbers of ads served. Advertisers not only pay so much per click-thru but just for displaying the ads.
                              Today's news contradicts this thesis.

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Originally posted by lao tzu View Post
                                While we still don't know how many votes were changed, or perhaps more importantly, how many voters leaning toward Trump were induced to show up at the polls, the reach was sufficient to make a difference in an election that hinged on 70,000 votes. Whether it made a difference is a different question.
                                Your concluding assertions would appear to be directly at odds with the NYT article I posted earlier. Another tidbit which may be pertinent from the articles in my earlier post is that efforts were made to boost both Sanders and Trump. This may have been more an anti-Hillary push than anything pro-Trump per se, which would make sense in light of the fact that Putin didn't much appreciate the Hillary State Department attempting to help push him out of office.
                                Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

                                Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
                                sigpic
                                I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

                                Comment

                                Related Threads

                                Collapse

                                Topics Statistics Last Post
                                Started by little_monkey, Yesterday, 04:19 PM
                                16 responses
                                96 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post One Bad Pig  
                                Started by whag, 03-26-2024, 04:38 PM
                                53 responses
                                282 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post Mountain Man  
                                Started by rogue06, 03-26-2024, 11:45 AM
                                25 responses
                                109 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post rogue06
                                by rogue06
                                 
                                Started by Hypatia_Alexandria, 03-26-2024, 09:21 AM
                                33 responses
                                195 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post Roy
                                by Roy
                                 
                                Started by Hypatia_Alexandria, 03-26-2024, 08:34 AM
                                84 responses
                                356 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post JimL
                                by JimL
                                 
                                Working...
                                X