new report on Russian meddling ...

[Mountain Man]

The report https://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-cont...eport-2018.pdf
says that the Russians were doing this since 2013, long before Trump was even thinking about running for President. So how does this tie in with Trump and "collusion?"

And, notably, this happened on Obama's watch. Why didn't his administration try to stop it?

[oxmixmudd]

So, 2 questions:

1) Is it illegal for someone to try to get you out and vote?
2) How do you quantify how many people wouldn't have voted had you not ran a particular ad?

Why do you suppose they run the adds they do? Do they spend money on adds for the fun of it?

What you do is you look at the campaigns that win and you look at what they did to win. They take polls after adds are shown, and they measure the effect of the add on the %favorability towards their candidate. This has been going on for a very long time. So the people that do the campaigns know what works. Do you suppose the Russians did not also look at those sorts of metrics and structure their campaigns around that?

Of course they do. They are trying to convince the undecided that the other side isn't worth voting for because of x issue (more often than not blatantly exaggerating or leaving out critical information), yet again, is it illegal? And how do you quantify how many you convinced?

Claiming that the Russians "energized the base" is nonsensical. There is no way to know if they changed even ONE single vote with their miniscule few ads, so this is a colossal waste of time. It assumes the ads were seen, read, and acted on, which is completely unknowable.

Actually there is. There are statistics that can be gathered after each event to measure the effect of the event. Further, there is an entire areas of psychology devoted to how to sway public opinion. How do you suppose the term 'psychological warfare' came to be? So even if we can't quantify the precise effect, we can know from the number of likes, the number of forwards etc how people are responding to the information. Statiscally, we can know there was an effect.

Jim

[Bill the Cat]

Why do you suppose they run the adds they do? Do they spend money on adds for the fun of it?

That didn't answer my questions.

What you do is you look at the campaigns that win and you look at what they did to win. They take polls after adds are shown, and they measure the effect of the add on the %favorability towards their candidate. This has been going on for a very long time. So the people that do the campaigns know what works. Do you suppose the Russians did not also look at those sorts of metrics and structure their campaigns around that?

Are you assuming they did?

Actually there is. There are statistics that can be gathered after each event to measure the effect of the event. Further, there is an entire areas of psychology devoted to how to sway public opinion. How do you suppose the term 'psychological warfare' came to be? So even if we can't quantify the precise effect, we can know from the number of likes, the number of forwards etc how people are responding to the information. Statiscally, we can know there was an effect.

And it's typically those who already were voting that way confirming their lean. There is no evidence that it made anyone lean in a direction they were not already leaning.

Source: https://www.pressherald.com/2018/10/21/campaigns-dont-change-minds/

Political scientists David Brookman from Stanford and Joshua Kalla of the University of California looked at 40 experiments that measured the impact of different campaign strategies, and created nine more experiments of their own.

ZERO EFFECT
They found that in a general election in which a Democrat is running against a Republican, there is no perceivable effect of any campaign technique. The primaries are more fluid, but once the nominees have been selected nothing changes enough minds to be a factor.

Television advertising, which sucks up billions of dollars in every election and is the main reason candidates have to spend all their time raising money, cannot be shown to sway any votes. The same is true for direct mail, phone canvassing and even door knocking. Essentially, everything you will see candidates do over the next 2½ weeks has been proven to be ineffective at persuading voters.

“Our best estimate of the direct effects of campaign contact on Americans’ candidate choices in general elections is essentially zero,” the authors write. “Our findings throw cold water on the notion that it is easy, overall, for campaigns to persuade voters.”

So what are the campaigns doing out there? It’s more about making sure that your unpersuadable voters show up, and hope the other guy’s unpersuadable voters stay home. It doesn’t make for a lively debate, unless you like math.

© Copyright Original Source

[lilpixieofterror]

I'm sorry MM, but your naivete and lack of capacity to think tactically do not obviate the simple fact that
what was done was a two pronged approach where the goals were to divide and to influence the election in Trump's
favor. As was stated in your own link, the MAJORITY of the actions were pro-trump. That tells you right there
one of the goals is to help trump. The fact there were other actions that had the appearance of being anti-trump
would go more to the secondary goal of dividing, or perhaps and ALSO* just sneaky ways of further motivating Trump's base to
vote for him.

Jim

*one sign of one-dimensional thinking is the incapability of comprehending that the same act can have more than one goal.

Rationalization noted.

[oxmixmudd]

The report https://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-cont...eport-2018.pdf
says that the Russians were doing this since 2013, long before Trump was even thinking about running for President. So how does this tie in with Trump and "collusion?"

byt 'this' you mean trying to get Trump elected?

OF COURSE NOT.

Yes, they have been trying to influence public opinion through social media since 2013. And because they were so good at it, they decided to try their hands at swaying the election in 2016.

Do you guys not think it is possible for programs to evolve, change over time?

The report shows that and what the Russians did to influence the election in favor of Trump. Obviously those specific activities would not precede Trumps candidacy. And somewhat obviously, the fact they were involved with other attempts to influence public opinion on social media before the Trump candidacy does not mean either

1) that they did not gain experience that they could use to better enable their elect trump campaign
2) that they necessarily would stop the earlier operation while the were also targeting influencing the election.



Jim

[oxmixmudd]

Rationalization noted.

typical useless post noted.

Jim

[JimL]

Have we moved from "collusion" to "meddling"?

No, we knew of the Russian meddling, this is just a further report on the extent of the Russian meddling and who it was that the Russian meddling was intended to help win the election. You know, the guy you support.

[Mountain Man]

I'm sorry MM, but your naivete and lack of capacity to think tactically do not obviate the simple fact that
what was done was a two pronged approach where the goals were to divide and to influence the election in Trump's
favor. As was stated in your own link, the MAJORITY of the actions were pro-trump. That tells you right there
one of the goals is to help trump. The fact there were other actions that had the appearance of being anti-trump
would go more to the secondary goal of dividing, or perhaps and ALSO* just sneaky ways of further motivating Trump's base to
vote for him.

Jim

*one sign of one-dimensional thinking is the incapability of comprehending that the same act can have more than one goal.

The underlined part looks suspiciously like a "heads, I win/tails, you lose" assertion.

But tell me, if high-profile anti-Trump rallies that were widely promoted by the mainstream media were really just a sneaky attempt to motivate Trump's base then why wouldn't the pro-Trump/anti-Hillary messaging "sneakily" harden the resolve of Hillary supporters to keep Trump out of office? To suggest that influence only happens in one direction is, ironically, an example of one-dimensional thinking.

[Cow Poke]

...You know, the guy you support.

Whatever you say, NAMBLA boy.

[oxmixmudd]

That didn't answer my questions.



Are you assuming they did?




And it's typically those who already were voting that way confirming their lean. There is no evidence that it made anyone lean in a direction they were not already leaning.

Source: https://www.pressherald.com/2018/10/21/campaigns-dont-change-minds/

Political scientists David Brookman from Stanford and Joshua Kalla of the University of California looked at 40 experiments that measured the impact of different campaign strategies, and created nine more experiments of their own.

ZERO EFFECT
They found that in a general election in which a Democrat is running against a Republican, there is no perceivable effect of any campaign technique. The primaries are more fluid, but once the nominees have been selected nothing changes enough minds to be a factor.

Television advertising, which sucks up billions of dollars in every election and is the main reason candidates have to spend all their time raising money, cannot be shown to sway any votes. The same is true for direct mail, phone canvassing and even door knocking. Essentially, everything you will see candidates do over the next 2½ weeks has been proven to be ineffective at persuading voters.

“Our best estimate of the direct effects of campaign contact on Americans’ candidate choices in general elections is essentially zero,” the authors write. “Our findings throw cold water on the notion that it is easy, overall, for campaigns to persuade voters.”

So what are the campaigns doing out there? It’s more about making sure that your unpersuadable voters show up, and hope the other guy’s unpersuadable voters stay home. It doesn’t make for a lively debate, unless you like math.

© Copyright Original Source

So ... after telling me 'energizing the base' is meaningless you post a study that shows the only measurable effect of campaign ads etc is that it ... energizes the base?


Jim

[oxmixmudd]

The underlined part looks suspiciously like a "heads, I win/tails, you lose" assertion.

But tell me, if high-profile anti-Trump rallies that were widely promoted by the mainstream media were really just a sneaky attempt to motivate Trump's base then why wouldn't the pro-Trump/anti-Hillary messaging "sneakily" harden the resolve of Hillary supporters to keep Trump out of office? To suggest that influence only happens in one direction is, ironically, an example of one-dimensional thinking.

Not going down your rabbit trail. The majority of the efforts where aimed at pro- trump rallies. There was already an operation in place to divide. Those two facts fully explain your 'quandry'.

Jim

[Sparko]

Not going down your rabbit trail. The majority of the efforts where aimed at pro- trump rallies. There was already an operation in place to divide. Those two facts fully explain your 'quandry'.

Jim

Since they were apparently promoting conservatives since 2013, is it possible the Russians would have done the same with whoever became the Republican Primary? That this was more about not Hillary than pro Trump?

[Mountain Man]

Not going down your rabbit trail.

I accept your implicit concession.

[oxmixmudd]

And, notably, this happened on Obama's watch. Why didn't his administration try to stop it?

They did make some efforts. This was a threat that was developing, with debating internal points of view as to its effectiveness and exactly how many inroads the russians had made into the US infrastructure. They didn't do enough. But then again, they didn't know enough about the threat yet either.

Another rabbit trail. Are you conceding the point of the OP?

Jim

[Mountain Man]

Another rabbit trail. Are you conceding the point of the OP?

It's cute how you dismiss any point that undermines your narrow-minded narrative as a "rabbit trail".