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Comment by mtgx | Hacker News Reader

> He continued: “The majority of the Russian ad spend happened AFTER the election. We shared that fact, but very few outlets have covered it because it doesn’t align with the main media narrative of Tump [sic] and the election.”

Not a fan of Facebook, but that I can believe.

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This seems like a very relevant piece of information. Why should anyone wish he didn’t say this if it is true? This seems to indicate that the election wasn’t compromised to the degree we thought.

See my comment above.

In the article the reporter indicates that Mueller's investigation states that advertising wasn't the most damaging part of Russia's FB efforts but rather posts shared through users walls.

It seems much more problematic for a platform to control personal posts than to control abuse of advertising and promotion mechanisms. The narrative of NYT and much of the media has been that Russia manipulated the pre election by abusing advertising and promotion mechanisms, and debunking that seemingly false narrative is the point of his post. Am I missing something?

Or it indicates that after better than expected results the Russian government drastically increased the budget for Facebook ads.

There is no conspiracy to keep this information hidden, it's just a story that can be framed 2 ways.

"Russia spent the majority of money on Facebook ads after the election."

"Russia spent money on social media to influence the election. Then after analyzing the performance of their ad buys, they decided to ramp up spending on Facebook ads."

I would agree with you if the conversation topic wasn’t specifically how Russia meddled with the pre election result. People discredit the vote of half of the US people in the belief they were partially fooled by Russia, and if that is not true then discrediting their voice in such a way makes it hard for us to listen to each other’s different values and problems through discourse.

None of what you're saying is a logical argument against any part of my comment.

I showed how this comment "The majority of the Russian ad spend happened AFTER the election." doesn't say anything about the extent Russia was interfering before the election. The only thing that statement supports is that they were interfering even more after the election.

You never refuted that.

>People discredit the vote of half of the US people in the belief they were partially fooled by Russia, and if that is not true

Again a completely invalid counter argument. I said that it likely is true. A valid counterargument would involve "no it's not true because...", not "if it's not true then I'm right".

I think you are missing the point of my comment; the burden of proof is on the entity claiming election meddling, and this indicated that core parts of the evidence need closer scrutiny and that the case is not as straightforward as NYT etal has claimed.

I am saying this as a libertarian that was upset about the election result. I personally thought something smelled fishy earlier given how the evidence was presented and believed what I read in NYT etal.

No you're failing to engage in a discussion.

"the burden of proof is on the entity claiming election meddling"

How does that have anything to do with my assertion that this "The majority of the Russian ad spend happened AFTER the election." doesn't make it any less likely that Russia interfered in the election?

You still haven't showed why "The majority of the Russian ad spend happened AFTER the election." decreases the likelihood that Russia successfully interfered in the election.

You don't seem to be actually reading what I'm writing.

If you want to continue debating please respond with why Russia spending even more money after a successful ad campaign is evidence that they didn't impact the election. If you'd rather not then good day.

You never made a real connection as to why post ad spend means pre-election subterfuge, so your fact is not a fact.

What you are stating is a theory you haven't proven at all, and all your subsequent arguments and defenses don't hold or mean anything. You have no evidence to your claim.

All you have done is make a theory and expect the rest of us to accept it as fact. If you come back with actual proof instead of just a theory maybe we can consider further discourse.

>You never made a real connection as to why post ad spend means pre-election subterfuge, so your fact is not a fact

This shows me that you aren't actually reading what I'm writing.

>You have no evidence to your claim.

What is my claim? Based on the above you don't seem to have any idea.

> This shows me that you aren't actually reading what I'm writing.

> What is my claim? Based on the above you don't seem to have any idea.

After your comment on me not engaging in discussion and not understanding what you said I actually sent this thread to someone that is professionally trained in debating to gain better understanding. There is no point in being right on the internet, and a learning opportunity is always worthwhile.

The professional debater I sent this thread to got the same impression as me on what your line of argument was and suggested I respond in the way I did. If you mean something else then I am therefore not the only one at a loss, and like me I suggest that you introspect so that you can improve. Show this thread to someone you trust to be good at discourse and get feedback. We are all fumbling when formulating our thoughts and that is ok. What is not ok is to act rudely.

I've been debating on internet forums since the late mid 90s, and I'm going to be completely honest with you--this takes the cake for the most absurdly petty debate tactic I have ever seen. This isn't sarcasm I am actually pretty shocked by this.

Seriously? You're right because an unseen "professional debater" agrees with you?

I give up. How did you get that from what I said?

What I am talking about is process to bridge the problem of you saying your viewpoint is not getting across and how I’ve engaged in the same process. I am not saying I am right or you are wrong, I was making a constrictive suggestion on how to further the debate after I had exhausted my options for understanding what you mean by your claims being misunderstood. However, I believe the arguments I thought you made to be entirely unsupported by the facts provided although I have to trust you that your viewpoint is not getting across so commenting on that is irrelevant.

As part of showing you how far I’ve gone to introspect I explained to you the lengths to which I’ve gone. I think it’s unconstructive to take offense to someone telling you how they’ve tried to show empathy and respect your feedback.

Good luck with other debates and peace out.

>I think it’s unconstructive to take offense to someone telling you how they’ve tried to show empathy and respect your feedback.

I'll offer you some feedback. Your previous post came across as incredibly condescending at best and as a completely bonkers debate tactic at worst. If that was a sincere attempt at displaying empathy and respect, I would work on your communication skills--maybe with someone who isn't a "professional debater".

> I think you are missing the point of my comment; the burden of proof is on the entity claiming election meddling

Sure, and the initial evidence implicating specific Russian individuals and organizations in that has been presented to a grand jury which has found probable cause, hence the indictments which have been issued.

We also have at least one guilty plea of a Trump campaign staffer for lying to the feds specifically about attempting to coordinate with the Russians on the election. That's not just an indictment, it's a confession.

And the evidence keeps advancing.

Yes, I am watching that one as well with great interest. It will be interesting to see what evidence comes out of that around any pre-election efforts to manipulate the results.

Because it's misdirection to focus on the timing of ad spend, when the bulk of the Russian influence operation was organic social not paid ads.

The one entity in all of this who knows whether Russia's disinformation campaign is working is Russia itself.

So if Russia is investing even more in spreading disinformation on Facebook after the election, isn't that pretty good evidence that their campaigns are working?

I am not sure I understand. How does someone using a different mechanism to spread disinformation post election indicate success of their pre election mechanisms for spreading disinformation? Both are problems and need fixing, but only pre election disinformation is relevant to the election result.

Seems pretty clear why to me: "Mr. Goldman eventually walked back some of his statements, but it was too late. Mr. Goldman had just given Mr. Trump something that looked like a Facebook-stamped exoneration." The new standard of honest reporting has less to do with whether something is true or not, and is more about whether it fits into the correct anti-Trump narrative. (I even saw one of their well-known writers openly complaining on their popular verified Twitter account about the NYT veering from the narrative a few weeks back.) What's particularly interesting about this case is that the dangerous, divergent narrative which must not be spoken used to be the standard understanding of what Russian propaganda does: it stokes existing internal problems.

Of course, the Times in particular has apparently always seen its role as pushing a narrative; I seem to recall at least one one piece by an ex-NYT employee talking about this made it to HN before.

> we

This detail exonerates no one. After successfully subverting our election, Russia has continued their effort toward the 2018 mid-terms. It’s working so why stop?

The article specifically points out the main thrust of the Russian operation uncovered so far was influencing voters through posts by individuals and pages, not by ads.

I wish I could find it now, but by "majority" he means 56%. Yes true, but not exactly as narrative changing as the quote seems at first.

Here is a NYT article from back in October with exactly those numbers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/technology/facebook-russi...

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