Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/07/12/the-troll-factory-pwned-us-all.html
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Has anyone connected or at least tried to follow the connection between fake news and the rash of clown attacks right before the election?
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I don’t know if it was Russia, but I found shady Twitter bots back in 2009. They were easy to detect since multiple accounts all posted the exact same thing at the exact same time, and yes many of them directly dealt with political things.
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For all the legitimate complaints we have about Facebook, Twitter is even more hapless and resistant to change.
It’s a mark of the company’s dysfunctional culture that even as employees of Google and other major tech companies refuse to work with ICE or the Pentagon in furthering the regime’s goals there’s not a peep of protest for those who work for Il Douche’s favourite platform.
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Freedom Fart
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Another twist: These accounts apparently never spread misinformation. In fact, they posted real local news, serving as sleeper accounts building trust and readership for some future, unforeseen effort.
Most of what shows up on Fox or RT is real news, too, though. You can manipulate public opinion by cherry-picking the stories you cover and by controlling the tone, framing, and emphasis of those stories. Then you can defend your one-sided jingoistic baloney as fact-based, and that will be true.
It’s possible to create misinformation in the audience’s minds without telling any outright lies.
It’s kind of odd that the story doesn’t even address this.
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What if it turned out that NPR was one such Russian organization. Now that would be a helluva long range plan!
The modern version of the “sleeper cell.” The only question is: are there more still waiting?
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