I’m afraid in that everything other than the first two words are redundant. He isn’t the global leader of anything.
Fair enough, but as Bernie Sanders said (in a different context), “Of course we knew that they were trying to cause divisiveness within the Democratic Party. That’s no great secret.” Newsweek
So, given that the Russians were trying to cause divisiveness, and given that they had the bots and other resources to drive “grass roots” support for Trump, it seems reasonable that some of the efforts to weaken Clinton would have been put towards strengthening Sanders.
I do think there is a danger to think that all the manipulation happens to ‘them’ and that ‘we’ are somehow immune.
(And, a strong Sanders candidacy may well bring the US single-payer health care a decade or so quicker than otherwise. So that’s good!)
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ordinary assertions require ordinary evidence.
reasonable != actual
Citation needed. Really. Enough with the innuendo, it’s obvious. It’s degrading.
It’s not a good look.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I think “deliberate” and “systematic” are different, and I think the difference is important. And I post this deliberately, but not systematically.
I was expecting to be sold a load of cheap crap from CHINA, not Russia.
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And what is the difference in this context?
That’s the point. You could cut Russia off from the internet but the circus of bullshit will still return in 2018.
Please point out where I implied that it overwhelmed other election spending in terms of financial outlay. My point is that exposing 126-million voters to these highly targetted ads (along with various other efforts) in a situation where elections are resolved by both very slim popular vote margins and an Electoral College system that’s known to be broken was a very effective way, in terms of cost and potential result, for Putin to try and push his preferences.
Combine that with the (again well-known) tone-deaf bungling of the Clinton campaign and the corruption of the DNC and it becomes a more effective gamble (I tend to see the entire Russian effort as an experiment that succeeded far beyond expectations). It wasn’t decisive, but every little bit helps.
Fortunately for you, Putin played no part in the Brexit resu … oh, wait.
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Oh, fine. Let me do some googling…
Politico: Russian-funded Facebook ads backed Stein, Sanders and Trump
From Vox.com
So any news story that hit on this theme of rigging was inherently dangerous to the cause of party unity. And the Russians behind it did a good job of using false-flag tactics to frame the issue, raising “rigging” concerns from a Sanders-esque left-wing perspective rather than from a right-wing Trumpist perspective even though the purpose was to help Trump.
From Time:
Clinton also notes in her book that the Russians targeted Sanders supporters online as part of their purported effort to derail her campaign, putting fake news stories on message boards and Facebook groups in favor of Sanders.
From the Guardian:
A pro-Sanders Facebook page with nearly 90,000 followers was run by an Albanian IT expert who, when interviewed by the Huffington Post, appeared to speak very little English, although his page consistently published polished English prose.
[John] Mattes, a former Senate investigator [and part of the Bernie Sanders Campaign] did some digging into the sudden phenomenon of eastern European Sanders enthusiasts…
Because the Sanders online campaign was so open, democratic and relatively unregulated, Mattes says he now realises: “We basically set ourselves up to be victims of an international cyberwarfare campaign. We were pawns in this but very effective pawns.”
Huh. I’m genuinely surprised I hadn’t heard more about this.
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Honestly, I think I’ve lost the thread. But the idea that all political speech is propaganda is seems absurd. So, going by the OED definition, propaganda doesn’t have to be misleading of biased, but it still has to meet a higher bar than just speech “in order to promote a political cause or point of view.”
Just about all speech is deliberate. When I say, “Policy X is a great idea that you should like”, that’s deliberate, but it isn’t propaganda. When I set out my communications plan about how I am going to disseminate pro Policy X information, that can technically be considered propaganda.
When my plan involves misleading you about Policy X in order to get your support, that is a strong case of propaganda (as it meets the ‘especially’ characteristic in the definition) and is typically what is meant when propaganda is used in a negative sense.
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Well, you waited a while to do your cherry picking. Nearly missed the season. Thank Google it wasn’t too late to try to find “proof”.
Albania, for instance. Not russia. Kind of off topic, dontcha think? Unless we know he was on someones payroll he could be like some random Australian who mostly has opinions on US politics. So, enough innuendo.
Glad you satisfied yourself, but could you stop now? Talk to someone else, I’ve totally lost interest in being bullshitted today. Thanks.
Highly targeteed 126 mn? Is this some kind of oxymoron?
You didnt. I just get bored reading that the Russians swung the elections. You could better argue that Obama swung the elections or Foreign Policy or a crap campaign or Robbie Mook or bad weather.
Mostly, the elections were lost cos the black card is not transferable - who knew? - and cos the “deplorables” turned up and voted. But this was a narrow election against a total ffing moron who got a lot of his support in the early phase of his nomination campaign from HRCs campaign. Why does no one ever point that out anymore?
There are a hell of a lot of more obvious people to blame than Vladimir Putin. But I suppose blaming them would be bad for some reason? Whereas blaming Putin? Well its all good right?!
Asking me to believe in the tooth fairy, or Santa or a total perspective vortex. But dont keep telling me that the ffing Russians did it when its patently obvious that the single greatest cause of Trump but a YUUGE margin is the DNC and Dem elites choosing the anointed one as the candidate.
What is the purpose of focusing on one uncertain, unproven and limited factor in determining the elections? Would it be to deflect blame and prevent those who obviously had way more blame in losing the most winnable election? Is it handy in generating funds to promote a new cold/hot war? Does it keep the same old useless hands in government and the same old useless media hacks in jobs too?
Sorry, you are right. Russians did it. And they did Flint too! Nothing else to see round here. Wheel out Chelsea and let me vote for her. And if she loses lets blame the Russians or Haitians or whatever too.
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Excellent stuff! Maladyets as one might say.
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Not if you understand how mass marketing and segmentation works. Facebook does, and so do Putin’s propagandists.
I get even more bored with people who downplay Putin’s involvement in the promotion of right-wing populism in countries other than his own, and those who claim that these ads and other Russian efforts made no difference. Especially when they try to continue to put words in my mouth after failing to do so. For example:
Спасибо. Но не за что.
Maybe you could instead read that the russians had undue illegal influence, that High Officials are UNDER ARREST for that - and not try to apply hyperbole, in this instance? notice i didn’t say try not to. I said not try to.
hyperbole works in comedy. In politics it’s impolitic.
My first post said the problem isn’t limited to the Russians.
My second post said removing the Russians won’t fix the problem.
I think you might have misinterpreted at least one them.
Yeah, I missed the cherry in the next paragraph about how the Albanian account was part of a project controlled out of St. Petersburg. I think maybe you didn’t read the articles you asked me for.
But I’m confused. I was trying to suggest that cherries might exist. Finding a single one is all that is needed. See, a cherry! It exists.
You ask for some citations, I provide a few, and you ask me to stop. Once again, I’m happy to oblige.
It did, indeed, equate russian political speech to american political speech in the context of US federal election law.
You will need to revisit that, to square yourself with reality.
That’s my point.
