Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia
fathom.info
fathom.info
Example: This ad targeted people interested in same-sex marriage and 12 more.
We speak for all fellow members of LGBT community across the nation.
How is this influencing anything, all it does is advertise a group to people who would be interested in that group? They aren't stoking the flame or promoting racism/etc.
Also, the image data is missing. A lot of these are non-sequiturs without the picture.
The south rising again is a giant confederate flag. Etc.
You know what I want to hear about? The wealthy Americans who used Facebook to influence the US election. If Facebook can be used in this way, I think looking at what Russia did is interesting, but it’s not the only story! The story is, people are subtly and quietly influincing our elections! Shouldn’t we look closely at everyone who did that? Not solely the Russian bogeyman?
A hostile foreign government’s operations to propagandize Americans about politics is important to analyze.
Original: I’ve seen plenty of concern over citizens United and the unfair influence of money in politics, so you might want to broaden your sources. Your posts remind me of basically what Trump is saying, that evil things that other countries do are fine because we are hypocrites, or other countries attacking us is okay because it’s our fault we’re vulnerable.
Supports my first point. From The Chicago Sun Times, with links: https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/president-donald-tru...
And to support my second point, here you go: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/15/trump-russia-hack-...
“The DNC should be ashamed of themselves for allowing themselves to be hacked. They had bad defenses, and they were able to be hacked,” Trump said
Almost verbatim what I said, isn’t it?
If you haven't heard the hand-wringing over the influence of money in politics in the US, you've literally paid zero attention to any US politics for at least the last, oh, half century. (And the hand-wringing didn't start then, it's just been ubiquitous for about that long; it's really older than the US, since the main line of complaint in the US on that score is basically a continuation of a complaint about the political influence of moneyed special interests that has been repeated fairly consistently, in every generation, since it appeared in The Wealth of Nations.)
OTOH, the problem, while widely viewed a significant, is also widely accepted as a routine and perennial feature of liberal democracy, whereas a foreign influence operation deeply bound up with a domestic Presidential campaign is still considered unusual and extreme.
I've spent more than the Russians did on Facebook ads, to think that amount of money was a deciding factor is pretty absurd.
Not a US voter, no skin in the game myself (and I would vote neither D nor R anyway), but I find all these excuses to a lost election unconvincing.
... How is this influencing anything, all it does is "
I agree with your impressions, but I think that it 'communicates' the most important thing of all: Data without much spin, without excessive interpretation and cherry picking.
My takaway is: The Russian sponsored ad campaign is not as serious as some would like us to believe.
So what about their hacking of state and national elections systems, hacking into voter databases, voting machine software companies? There have been a wide variety of warnings from wide variety of national security agencies concerning Russian activity that goes far beyond advertising propaganda.
Maybe they weren't trying to do that. I know it's uncommon these days, but maybe they just wanted to present the facts, and allow us to deduce whatever we wanted to deduce from them.
Otherwise, you may see it for what it is, $100k worth of ads that don't really do anything, some pro-Clinton, some not.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17546138
TL;DR - The point of the Russian campaign is classic psyops[1]. Sow division, discord and disbelief in authorities and institutions.
One might well argue that the US was “primed” for such a campaign by the recent history of cynical manipulation of the public for political ends.
At this point, I find myself asking, “under what possible circumstances could the majority (irrespective of ‘sides’) ever regain trust in their elected officials?”
I can’t come up with an answer. There is now sufficient disbelief that any attempts to regain trust would invariably come across as further attempts to manipulate.
If, like me, you believe that “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others”, then this is pretty depressing.
[1] https://www.corbettreport.com/psyops-101-an-introduction-to-...
There are unethical things discovered from the Clinton campaign in the wake of a spear phishing attack. How can I be more mad at the messenger than the people who did the unfavorable actions in the first place? Why should I believe a guy with "P@sswor0d" was hacked by Russian Intelligence vs any one of the other thousand people looking for credentials on this guy?
But...that narrative doesn't exist, it's a strawman.
No one that attributes any significant impact on the election to the Russian information warfare operation limits their description of the operation to $100K in Facebook ads. The Facebook part of the operation involved ads designed (among other purposes) to draw audience to false-flag Pages, that then distributed non-ad propaganda which would be relayed by the followers of the group, who were dupes of the operation, including organizing meat-space events designed to foment conflict and draw conventional media attention. The $100K on ads wasn't the operation, it was an expenditure to recruit unwitting agents for the operation.
And that broader Facebook angle itself wasn't the whole operation, either, there was also the targeted hacking and information release aspect, as well as other channels through which influence was (or was attempted to be) exercised. Like the NRA.
You are technically correct. The $100k part of it is stripped out before the "Russian Facebook hacking to steal the election" is reported over and over in the media, absent of any details. And that is how the majority of the public is absolutely certain of something, even though almost none of them know any of the details.
It'd be hard to recruit for a cult that starts with poison kool aid on day one.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/10/congress_russian_fa...
The depth and breath of these ads almost feels like this might have as much been a research project as much as a process to impact the US elections or to create discontent among the voters.
I wish there was more info or better clustering on other filters on these ads like locations, age, etc. It would tell us how they were approaching this.
Not a single person voted for him because of ads. Not TV ads, not print ads, not radio ads, not internet ads, not beach banners towed behind a Cessna.
I know it’s not a popular narrative, but no one was “fooled” into voting for Trump. They knew what they were voting for. Most of those people liked his anti-PC rhetoric. Which is why doubling down on PC is a bad strategy for Dems.
Also, this is just digital propaganda. The US gov. and media outlets do it too.
First, I thought "the Russians" supposedly "hacked" Hillary Clinton's private email server. Or was it Podesta's email account? No, it was neither of those, Russia actually "compromised" some voting machines, maybe? Wait, wasn't there a series of stories, all from that same time period, about how "Russian hackers" managed to "break into but not quite gain control of" an Ameriacn hydroelectric dam, or something? Or perhaps none of that was true and maybe some "Russians" (the government? or not? who knows!) bought a bunch of Facebook ads--all far more innocuous than any of the rhetoric being spewed by Americans during the 2016 election season--for $10,000, and that is supposed to, uhm... have significantly swayed peoples' opinions such that they voted Trump into office? (Because if there's one thing I saw during 2016, it was vehemently anti-Trump people do a full 180 on their opinions! /s)
Until somebody does some actual reporting and breaks down the whole "Russia hacking/meddling with the election/our democracy" narrative in a way that not only I can understand, but the average American voter can understand, I see little choice but to believe that the entire thing is a confluence of several media-spun narratives that were repeated to us over and over until it was "common knowledge" that "Russia hacked the election" (whatever that means?) and/or "Russia meddled with our democracy" (whatever THAT means??).
Many of the accusations I see flying around social media and news sources sound incredibly dire, and something I should be freaking out about (not that anyone would have any ulterior motive to get myself and the rest of the American electorate to freak out about political matters, of course!)-- if that's the case, how is this information not yet out there in a clear, easily-understandable format for all to see?
If anyone wants to break down their understanding of the situation for me--WITHOUT consulting any sources, just your own current internal understanding of the situation is--I'd be grateful, because this whole thing seems to be one of the least-clear political issues in recent memory, and it seems to me that certain political and media forces are just trying to scare everyone with vague, often contradictory claims that intentionally muddy the real underlying issues at play.
But no, they rather blame others, be they foreign or even within the party: right now the Dems can’t decide if they are 1980s Dems or 1920s Workers Partiers.
If I remember correctly, it wasn't so much that many people switched parties, but that typical Democrat voter turnout was low, reflecting some amount of disillusionment.
Also, what you say about the Democrats' identity crisis seems to mirror what's been happening with Labour (the left party) in the UK.
Disillusionment through propaganda and well-timed leaks of stolen documents by a foreign, hostile power.
You could ask yourself why the Russians penetrated the RNC but decided not to release any dirt. Perhaps you could ask yourself if this has any bearing on Trump's Russia stance? Could he be unable to admit meddling for fear of undermining his very legitimacy? As a result of this is the head of state feuding with the unanimous conclusion of his (+allies) intelligence agencies good for anyone? Who would that be?
This is why the source matters. Because things are always leaked with intent, and by missing that intent and being distracted by shiny talking points you're missing the whole story. Both matter, equally.
Why do we have to "presume" they do about Trump and "know" they had some goods on Hillary?
Switching was (as always) much less significant than turnout.
And the previously absolutely dominant neoliberal faction of the Democratic Party hasn't made a lot of substantive (and even more symbolic) concessions to the anti-establishment progressive faction of the party because of a sudden outburst of generosity.
Just because Democrats (and plenty of Republicans, though mostly it's only the ones not currently in elective office, or on their way out, that talk strongly about it) notice and are outraged about foreign interference doesn't mean that they aren't aware of and actively seeking to address other issues that hurt them in 2016. There's nothing stopping them from doing both.
Whataboutism doesn't change the facts at hand, do they? A hostile foreign state orchestrated an intelligence operation to elect a specific person to further their own geopolitical goals. Every single person in this country should be alarmed by this.
And also anybody that has been paying attention to the situation in Ukraine and Syria.
>In the United States: Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics".
They've had resounding success with this strategy thus far.
If you think the ~15 other posts here saying "I don't get it, these aren't election meddling" are adding more to the conversation than my comment because you were offended at the word, then I think perhaps you should continue reading the rest of it. Psyops is real, Russia does it, the US does it, and sowing dissent and funding extremist political groups in our country is a known part of Russia's global political strategy.
> The book emphasizes that Russia must spread Anti-Americanism everywhere: "the main 'scapegoat' will be precisely the U.S."
Whether Putin has no influence over Trump, total control or anywhere in between - his actions and rhetoric during the campaign guaranteed this outcome if he were elected.
I'm sure the info was enlightening, but totally unreadable to me.