How effective was it?
Always difficult to draw direct causality though.
And "money wouldn't have been spent unless it was deemed necessary"? You have an awfully high opinion of Russian institutions' fiscal responsibility!
I still say what I said right after, and have said for 4+ years: Russian propaganda during the election was probably intended to hobble Clinton with domestic political troubles, not actually for Trump to win.
Russia hasn't stated anything on the subject. The goals are evident in the actions.
> By constructing a timeline of the IRA messages, they found left-leaning IRA trolls posted large volumes of entertainment content in their artificial liberal community and shifted away from political content late in the campaign. Simultaneously, conservative trolls were targeting their community with increases in political content. The effort would have encouraged the right to vote and the left to ignore politics.
> And "money wouldn't have been spent unless it was deemed necessary"? You have an awfully high opinion of Russian institutions' fiscal responsibility!
I'm not claiming it was worth it, I'm saying someone there did think it was, evidently.
So many Americans want to believe that the only way anybody could ever disagree with their beliefs and preferences is through manipulation by malicious foreign actors.
The reality (that half the population disagrees with them and has different values) is completely unpalatable.
Well, there was such a perception
E.g.: "How Russia Helped Swing the Election for Trump"
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/how-russia-hel...
I did not seen this opinion that elections were all about Russia to be frequent fo prevalent or dominating either news or what Americans talk about.
If you give me a reasonable number (less than 10 min of work) I'm happy to deliver.