To What Extent has PF been used as a Russian Propaganda Site

i don't know about russian propaganda but we definitely had paid hillary posters during the election cycle.

it was amazing how they'd all disseminate the exact same talking points, at the exact same time. as if they were all getting their info from the same place.....

 

It isn't about you. Every time I make this point, right winger miss the point and think its about them.

I have hard core Trumpster friends who spent most of last year quoting RT and Sputnik, and spreading BS news about Clinton from fake news sites day after day.

These campaigns weren't targeted at me. They were shared among friends. A constant drumbeat of this puts trash media like Breitbart and Infowars (both of which the Russians actively used bots to boost) in front of people who would not ordinarily read their content.

The objective is to sow doubt and confusion among people who don't pay attention to politics or were disengaged. The object is the get them out for Russia's man (Trump) or get them to be disgusted and stay home (same outcome).

You were never the target. They assumed they already had you.

The target was people in your cohort.

 

there were several individuals who were indeed paid to spread non-stop anti-Western and anti-American propaganda.

i wont name them but many of know who they were.

one even claimed to be able to discover my IP address and name my area where I live

 

I guess you don't want to know.
Russians promoted conspiracy theories and far rigth wing propoganda sites. They even set up events.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/09/rus...ests-inspired-by-infowars-and-breitbart-news/

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article139695453.html

The FSB was directly involved.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html?mcubz=0&_r=0

 

nonsense.

we did have one guy who was clearly a paid Russian troll.

 

wikileaks proved that hillary had paid posters.

they were definitely here.

 

this thread is not about Hillary.

take the HDS elsewhere.

 

I do not think we will ever know, but I think we had a few

 

if it's government run, it's government propaganda to influence a US election

but when you know it's government run, you can make a informed decision....

the Russian propaganda was disguised like Trumps alter ego's, John Miller and such

 

ALLLLLLLLLLLLL the right wingers were IN on it. When the Russian propaganda said Hillary is dying, they all heaped ashes upon their heads, in SINCERE concern trolling. They go with what they THINK is the LIE du jour. All lemminglike. All these guys know EXACTLY what they were doing when they went all CANKLES on GRANDMA.

 

Had a beautiful GENIUS 20 years younger girlfriend about 8 years ago, she underwent the MOSt rigorous computer training available in Denmark. Then when I was visiting with her a year later, she said they shut down I believe it was Iceland.

They had NO fear of being revealed. And NO remorse for killing productivity. And I am QUITE sure that is not the last place they shut down.

The true THREAT, is that Russia INSTALLS programs that compromise the computers in our infrastructure. That only come alive when they say so. I believe WE do it too.

If we ever REALLY went to war etc, the disfunctions would become apparent. They are ready to go, only await the UNSAFE WORD.

 

that is a norm, we had posters from all parties candidates, we expect that, but what is not the norm is for another government to interfere with our election

I do think it would be good though to also make it a felony to pay people to post propaganda about a candidate without a disclaimer on every post saying who paid for said post

I wonder how many "John Miller" accounts Trump had

 

How do we stop the Russians moving forward then? They did it, the intelligence community says they did it. Okay, the next step is to prevent it from happening again. We should address these concerns to the Hague(the international criminal court.). We should make it prohibitive for any country to interfere with any other country's elections.

 

...and they vanished about the same time too...

 

"Donald Trump volunteers have to sign nondisclosure agreement promising to never badmouth GOP front-runner or his company"

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-volunteers-badmouth-company-article-1.2565903

.... lol, this is why his talking heads look like idiots when they try to defend him when he flip flops to both sides of a issue

even got a gag order on his ex-wife from what I heard

 

I don't think that is proven... even if there were people spouting the same talking points.... which is common place these days without being paid to post

That said, it would not be at all surprising if there was a paid or Organized volunteer social media effort by the clinton campaign..... doh!!

That said... the point is not whether the new campaign orgs have a social media component
The point is whether or not there are significant foreign efforts to intervene in our politics

Is is inconceivable that some nation might do this? Nope
Actually it is virtually certain we ourselves have engaged is such activity in many different countries over many years

Is it conceivable that Russia has thought about how to do this and developed expertise to do so?
It seems likely

Is there evidence that Russia has deployed these tactics in other countries? Yes

Is there any reason Russia would not deploy their known expertise against us? No

Is there reason to believe they DID deploy their known expertise against us?
Yes

Do we think trump or any other candidate would turn away from any potential source of advantage?
I suspect that most politicians would accept such help... either tacitly, or actively

Do we care?
That is the question we are trying to come to terms with

 

it would be interesting to see a list of posters that never posted again after the election and what party they belonged too

we know Nixon did not turn away the dirt from the burglary.... and then tried to cover it up

the coverup is what gets you....

 

I get your point, and the satire.

But they weren't really in on anything.

We've all see the heavy confirmation bias of many of our conservative friends.

We've all see them jump on and parrot stories that stoked their outrage or matched their world view. It still goes on.

Funny, but we're pretty far down this thread and no one seems to have pointed out that the epidemic of fake news sites seems to have all but stopped. We all saw it. These were sites that came into existance in the wink of an eye, floated an outrageous made up story that got passed all around the right wing fever swamp as fact, only to vanish in a week, unnoticed and unremarked on by the target audience.

The Russians knew their audience. Anyone who has studied the pattern by which right wing memes are promoted by conservative media, and how they get passed around on forums like this and social media can see it. The Russians set up a cottage industry to supercharge what was already there.

They knew that the target audience won't ask questions. It won't wonder who the source is as long as the source tells them something they want to believe. The target audience is also not well informed and none too sophisticated. Selling Comet Pizza or Seth Rich to people who cling to birtherism isn't hard. It's just telling them something they are already disposed to believe. It doesn't have to be true, either.

But if you channel it, even gently, you can influence the influencers, and spread a poisonous message even outside that cohort.

That's what the Russians did.

Oddly, even though Donald Trump wasn't involved in these efforts, he attacked the allegations anyway.

 

A paid social media componant of the Clinton campaign is one thing.

A formal organization run and staffed by the intelligence agencies of a rival power and operating in secret to influence the politics of the US is another.

"Do we think trump or any other candidate would turn away from any potential source of advantage?
I suspect that most politicians would accept such help... either tacitly, or actively"

Tacitly indeed.

Actively, is a different matter. Active knowledge and participation is collusion with forces taht are hostile to the interests of your country.

Moreover, the Russian campaign was clearly intended to aid Trump. Trump did not need to participate to get the reward. Indeed, he would be putting himself in potential jeopardy by particpating.

But neither Trump, nor a lot of people around him really expected him to win. They were all in for the game, and for whatever they could get out of it in the short run. They didn't care.

 

I hear Queen Elizabeth may be a dude in drag too.

Possibly a RUSSIAN dude!

 

You hear the strangest things!