> Given how pro-Hillary and anti-Sanders that sub became overnight
I was there for that too. It literally was flip of a switch speed. One of the big turning points I saw regarding the election.
I was there for that too. It literally was flip of a switch speed. One of the big turning points I saw regarding the election.
Isn't that exactly what you'd expect to happen if a lot of the commenters where Democratic voters acting as rational agents in good faith? If I were a Bernie supporter in 2016 who wanted the Democratic candidate (whoever that might end up being) to win, why would I shit on Clinton after she won the nomination? It'd make more sense to support her, and I think that's what a lot of people did. That's certainly exactly what I did.
Weird, IMHO Hillary and the Democrat party really seemed to be the one's doing the dividing.
The only person HRC has to blame for losing is herself. The amount of actual-fake-news where there was total bullshit made up about her was nearly non-existent, and especially so when compared to the bullshit made up about Trump (paying hookers to pee in a bed Obama slept in, which got REAL mainstream media coverage thousands of times).
Therein lies a good point I routinely use to befuddle, is how do you know these trolls are working on behalf of someone for their benefit, or working on behalf of the opposition as a way to attempt to discredit?
Attribution is hard.
This is so absurd. Given the quantity of bullshit, self-incrimination and self-contradiction coming out of his mouth, it's really hard to imagine feeling a need to make up more...
That's not why Stein is called a Russian asset; they did the same with Sanders, who acknowledged and rejected what they were doing when it was discovered, and wasn't nearly as often labeled that way. Aside from the difference in each candidates response there's other behavioral differences including, well, things like this:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/guess-who-came-dinner-fly...
This has been confirmed with research by independent media analysts like Johnathan Albright.
There's a good summary here: https://slate.com/technology/2018/02/what-we-know-about-the-...
If you look carefully, you might even notice there's not even an attempt to provide any evidence. Like any other article on this topic, it just presents the claims as if evidence has been provided. But there is none, only allegations, and "believed to be" based on easily spoofable attributes.
I'm not denying all of this was the Russians, I'm just pointing out that I've never seen any actual evidence, or encountered anyone who was able to provide me anything that is more than narrative based allegations, completely devoid of evidence.
I in no way expect to change your mind, I am simply stating my understanding of what is actually known (and published) versus what is speculation.
I likely won't be able to reply again due to going against the grain, but if you can post any actual evidence I promise to read it and adjust my beliefs accordingly. If posting a link to a multi-hundred page document, please include some hint as to what page some actual evidence exists on as 100% of the people I've encountered online who have taken this approach have all for some reason decided to not reveal where these shocking proofs that they've certainly personally read can be found in the document, for some strange reason.
If you are genuinely interested in this, then it is easy enough to search out what they're referencing in the article. Even the Albright research (I found it), but I'm not even sure you know what your burden of proof is here.
>>> I'm not sure when you're referencing, but Russian troll farms used Sanders to divide the left on social media websites.
>> This is news to me, are you able to cite any specific evidence? (Not vague allegations or assertions of fact, but rather actual, specific, somewhat confirmable evidence.
> ~you reply with a link to a document which is exactly what I asked you to not reply with.
I expect this is why you were downvoted.
I am downvoted (on this comment, and several others within a span of a few minutes) for not accepting the popular meme. This topic seems to be very strongly identity-related, so logical thinking seems to become very downgraded, replaced by post-hoc rationalization and a variety of other fascinating cognitive quirks.
I mean, think about it - we are on HN, a website full of very intelligent people, and any comment asking for evidence on certain topics will be downvoted. Why doesn't one person ever provide some evidence and utterly crush the "idiot" conspiracy theorists? I believe the reason is, because people literally can't think properly in certain situations. Their heuristics completely overpower their conscious and logical mind, knowingly or not. Hopefully someone starts to notice this and actually studies it, because it seems like it could be very harmful to society.
I believe this is one of the root problems of the day, so I will continue to point it out and take my downvotes in lieu of reasoned disagreement, which never comes.
> If you are genuinely interested in this, then it is easy enough to search out what they're referencing in the article.
I've done so many, many times, and at the end of the trail (if the link aren't dead as some are in the linked article), inevitably the factual proof is always based on one or more articles that I earlier described as "claims with a healthy peppering of qualification or misleadingly speculative terms like "alleged", "according to", "supports the idea", "believed to be", Russian-"linked", etc."
I continue to ask those who assert factual knowledge on the matter, and continue to be disappointed.
> I'm not even sure you know what your burden of proof is here.
I do: none, because I've made no assertion, I've only asked for evidence of yours: "Russian troll farms used Sanders to divide the left on social media websites."
I am quite certain there is only suspicion of this. This is certainly the case with the "Russian" trolls on Twitter, because they said it outright, as well as described their identification methodology. I can't comment for sure on Facebook, because I've never encountered an article that describes the identification methodology.