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Comment by lucb1e | Hacker News Reader

> These are images of the Facebook ads the Russians purchased to try and alter the 2016 U.S. Election. These were released from Congress

And what does congress base this on? Looking through a bunch, they don't seem to favor either Hillary or Donald... is it supposed to prove that the elections weren't tampered with? Or am I missing something?

Edit: managed to find one! Against Donald: https://www.documentingreality.com/forum/russian-ads/2016-Q4...

Edit 2: Oh and 2017-Q3 has a lot in favor of Donald's wall and poses Hillary as satan (for no apparent reason). Perhaps that's the proof? By far the smallest album of them all? I am not saying I don't believe the Russians influenced the elections, but I do not see anything obvious for or against in this dataset, either.

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The goal was to sow division, disrupt the entire process, and in the chaos their preferred candidate could thrive.

I think more division, disruption, and chaos was caused by the people freaking out over Russian influence than by the actual Russian influence.

Even if that’s true, doesn’t it still count?

That's exactly why Russia has done it so openly - to sow greater division and chaos.

Good thing that the media and their multiple layers of fact-checkers and editors didn't fall for the Russian's evil plan. They have learned a lot since the 30's and the Cold War.

> multiple layers of fact-checkers

Not sure if you are being sarcastic or not. One of the worst things to come from modern media is that editors do not fact check because they want to break the story before anyone else and fact checking takes time.

This has lead to tons of quiet retractions.

I was being sarcastic. The media, IMO, has learned little. They are useful idiots.

I dunno, I've seen a lot of ordinary Americans sow more division than images like these would:

https://imgur.com/a/ZjQ3PLS

>And what does congress base this on?

They were created and promoted by the Internet Research Agency, a troll factory run by the Russian government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency

Q3-2017 does seem a little late for influencing the 2016 election.

But not too late for further dividing America under Trump...

This is wishful thinking. Sadly, Trump is consolidating his grip on power while the morons on the "other" side have their heads in the sand. Rs will win complete control of both houses at the federal level and at least 40 states this November. Then they will start churning out awful Constitutional amendments. Will that also be the Russians' fault, or will Ds finally get some accountable leadership that looks forward to victory rather than whinging about past failures?

Oh, didn't even notice that (as I don't follow (American) politics that closely). Seems even more unlikely that this had anything to do with the elections then.

To clear up your question, I believe it was Facebook that identified the ads as being of Russian origin and specifically purchased by Internet Research Agency (and then provided to Congress)

Eh, of course these aren't even supposed to directly champion one or the other. Their point is clearly to amplify the existing "us vs. them" mentality, make people even more entrenched, and to encourage the thinking on both sides that the other side is out to get them. Classic divide and conquer.

But how does this change results? There are still two main candidates. If those leaning toward A lean harder toward A, and those leaning toward B lean harder toward B, no votes were changed as a result of this effort. There is no box to check on the ballot for "I'm really sure, so count my vote twice!"

A great unmentioned step in this whole bizarre theoretical process is the idea that, absent some FB ads, lots of Republican voters would have looked deep into their souls the night before the election and realized that God and/or Rachel Maddow wanted them to vote for Hillary. This idea remains mostly unmentioned because it is really implausible. Those who believe it should examine this belief critically enough to stop believing it.

This wasn’t about trump it was about getting Americans angrier at each other.

It isn't about the candidates - think about the long-con. Heated people in an argument tend to ignore rational reasoning. Heated, divided people tend to ignore olive branches "by the other side", and miss potential chances to talk it out and find the truth in the middle. Heated people tend to cherry-pick "facts" in the news/science to further their own agenda - and once when the populace is divided, it acts as a wonderfully lovely* buzz-saw tailor-made to erode democracy because people who fight to the death for "their side" and ignore others tend to make rather obtuse policy choices/votes over the course of the next few decades. Which in turn, impacts the US's global stance little-by-little.

*/s

>There is no box to check on the ballot for "I'm really sure, so count my vote twice!"

Besides what sibling comments said:

But there is the option of not voting/voting implausible 3rd candidate because screw the main 2.

So theoretically you could have non-influenced reps staying at home, because they dislike both candidates.

Or have influenced dems vote Bernie (or don't vote) because Hillary just isn't good enough, when without influence they'd have pinched their nose and voted Hillary.

Or if you don't insist on it being about who wins, you could imagine it about the loosing side being so riled up, that they hinder the winner and turn the winner into a lame-duck president.

Probably the same ignorance that leads all port scans from Russian VPNs to be labeled as RUSSIAN HAX. Some were paid for is rubles but anyone can do that.

Here is the first image I clicked on at random. What is this evidence of? https://www.documentingreality.com/forum/russian-ads/2015-Q2...

Looks like they're trying to get more subscribers for a group controlled by the Russian government, so that they can start propagandizing.

What do you think that specific image disproves?

Dude, take a breath. You're really pushing your own narrative here. Why so many posts that say the same thing? Seems like you have a point of view that you REALLY want others to share, which seems a little inappropriate in this context.

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