Are We Seeing Propaganda About Russian Propaganda? (rollingstone.com)

MyFirstNameIsPaul was one of several readers who spotted this disturbing instance of fake news about fake news. An anonymous reader writes: Last week the Washington Post described "independent researchers" who'd identified "more than 200 websites as routine peddlers of Russian propaganda" that they estimated were viewed more than 200 million times on Facebook. But the researchers insisted on remaining anonymous "to avoid being targeted by Russia's legions of skilled hackers," and when criticized on Twitter, responded "Awww, wook at all the angwy Putinists, trying to change the subject -- they're so vewwy angwy!!"

The group "seems to have been in existence for just a few months," writes Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, calling the Post's article an "astonishingly lazy report". (Chris Hedges, who once worked on a Pulitzer Prize-winning team at the New York Times, even found his site Truthdig on the group's dubious list of over 200 "sites that reliably echo Russian propaganda," along with other long-standing sites like Zero Hedge, Naked Capitalism, and the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.) "By overplaying the influence of Russia's disinformation campaign, the report also plays directly into the hands of the Russian propagandists that it hopes to combat," complains Adrian Chen, who in 2015 documented real Russian propaganda efforts which he traced to "a building in St. Petersburg where hundreds of young Russians worked to churn out propaganda."
The Post's article was picked up by other major news outlets (including USA Today), and included an ominous warning that "The sophistication of the Russian tactics may complicate efforts by Facebook and Google to crack down on 'fake news'."

Comments

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny when the Right screams voter fraud, the left calls them all stupid because they have no evidence.

When he Left screams voter fraud from Russian hackers that they have zero evidence of, we have to waste millions of taxer payer money with lawsuits and recounts.

Re:Yes

[admin7087]

Right vs. left, just stop that nonsense. There has been no right and no left for at least a decade. The divide is between extremists and people who stand with both feet on the ground. Unfortunately, it looks like extremism has become more popular.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

The best part is so far the Wisconsin recount has found a few examples of fraudulent votes - all of them for Hillary. Her vote count is now down by something like 15 in WI.

Re:Yes

[meta-monkey]

Actually it's anti-establishment nationalists vs. establishment globalists.

Re:Yes

[buss_error]

Right vs. left, just stop that nonsense. There has been no right and no left for at least a decade. The divide is between extremists and people who stand with both feet on the ground. Unfortunately, it looks like extremism has become more popular.

I'm not sure I agree with you completely. I agree that extremism is more easily found, I'm not sure if that's because it's more popular or if it's simply because more individuals are willing to express it.
I do believe that both the right and the left engage in logical facilities (you should pardon the pun) left and right. A few examples:

Death penalty and abortion

Reducing taxes and budgets passed

Objecting to "nanny state" (vis a vi public support) by calling it racism, bemoaning food assistance while cutting access to birth control (Family Planning funding)

Loss of constitutional freedoms vs. gun legislation vs. disenfranchisement

Effectively limiting consumer protections (by Strengthening monopolies) while claiming to be pro-consumer

Preventing private right of action and forcing consumers to use binding arbitration (Might as well not even bother, you're not going to win even if you are right)

and on and on and on. I think the average US person has simply either gone nuckin' futz or they are lied to so completely and pervasively as to have no worthwhile information to base a rational decision on. It's so bad that I don't even bother talking to people anymore (haven't for the last 20 years). It's so bad that I am seriously limiting even discussion in fora such as here. Worse, it's no better in other countries, and even worse in some.

I blame it on the commercialization of journalism, actions by special interests, and the lack of critical thinking skills being taught in public (and many private) education. The only answer I've found so far is to simply smile, nod, and back slowly away from the more vitriolic of them, and to not bother with media news outlets anymore.

NPR, PBS, BBC and a few others are attempting to get people talking to each other. So far, I've witnessed this devolve into brutal beatings twice. Yeah. Like I'm going to go "have a reasonable discussion with someone I don't agree with".

Re:Yes

[zapadnik]

Not really.
The Left is all about Big State solutions, which comes under the rubrik of "Statist Collectiivism" at the state level and "globalism" at the international level.
The Right (at least in the US, but increasingly internationally) is all about Individual Liberty. Since there can be no Individual Liberty without decreasing State power it means the Right is about limiting the power of government and letting citizens and the Free Market of voluntary exchange work out solutions. This is because power (the ability to enforce your will on the unwilling) is a zero sum game - the State only gets power by taking it from individuals, and vice versa

Of course there is a consensus that all States now require governments that can use force and coercion to take the wealth of the citizens. In this sense there is a "Uniparty" where political parties clothe themselves in the rhetoric of "Left" and "Right" but the implementations always require more taxation and more power for the State - which means the Uniparty has been drifting further and further Left. To dissent with this and assert citizens should be in charge is labelled "extreme".

What is considered "extreme" merely reflects what is outside of the fashions of the self-selection sociopaths who are the State (the State is an abstract entity, what the term actually means is the group of sociopathic 'elites' who claim the mantle of "State" to impose their will on others). The divergence between what the 'elites' (and their media sychophants) consider "extreme" and the bulk of the citizenry consider "extreme" has been increasing rapidly as the State moves further and further to the Left (Big State solutions). To the 'elites' and media who consider themselves to have transcended such things as family, borders, traditional culture, conventional morality, national sovereignty anyone who believes in these things is "extreme" - but only of they are Westerners. Any other nationality wanting these this is considered normal, just not for Westerners.

Hence we have the phenomena of Brexit and the latest US Presidential election where the 'elites' and media have views vastly different from those of the general population. What the elites consider normal and desirable (dissolution of nation states and creation of a single World government which pushes their agenda) is considered "extreme" by at least 160 million Americans, and conversely the media and 'elites' consider the desire for preservation of national sovereignty and individual choice that dissents from the elite's views to be "extreme". As always it is simply a matter of perspective.

Is the West being propagandized? yes, massively. Western media's best and most subtle propaganda technique is not in telling direct falsehoods, although that has become increasingly common, but more in what facts they choose to omit, They include any facts that follow their chosen 'Narrative' and leave out any facts that would shred that Narrative. Hence, reasonable people who don't check all points of view based their conclusions on half the facts and end up believing the media perspective (the perspective of the ruling 'elites'). Those that read more widely or have alternative sources of information that give more of the facts end up with different conclusions - mostly against the memes of the media and 'elites'. Once you understand that the propaganda comes through what is chosen to be talked about and more importantly what is not said, then you see an extremely consistent pattern - which means this is deliberate. Unfortunately this is invisible to most people, so they end up adopting the media and globalist positions very stridently and attack their fellow citizens, when it is the latter that is in possession of the more relevant facts.

So yes, the "Russian propaganda" meme comes from the media and elites. It may or may not be true, that is actually irrelevant. What it does is reinforce the chosen Narrative of the media and elites and provides them the excuse they want to crush

Re:Yes

[zapadnik]

The attack by the globalist order was to advance the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as give Hillary Clinton a foreign policy "success" for her planned presidential run. The Muslim Brotherhood is allied with the transnational Left because the Brotherhood wear ties and suits and call themselves "moderates", and the transnational believe them and are too lazy to look up the Brotherhood's true beliefs in Arabic. We truly have incompetent people running politics (they spend 4 or 5 years in college, never had a real job, and think they are smarter than the other 7 billion people so should dictate what you can and cant do - such arrogance !).

Once Libya fell the massive arms stores there were transferred via Turkey to Syria - again to advance the Muslim Brotherhood agenda, and also to counter the expansion of Iranian influence. Of course, the exact opposite has happened and Iranian influence has increased massively.

The arms coming via Benghazi, as well as the $11 Billion of arms the Obama Administration sold to Qatar went to groups like Al Nura (AL Qaeda in Syria), Muslim Brotherhood groups, and eventually to the Islamic State. Arms also sent to Lebanon are used to equip Hezbollah.

A proper investigation of the activities in Benghazi, which was highlighted by the disgraceful lack of leadership and outright lying about the cause of the attack, would have exposed the Obama/Clinton policy of arming violent jihadis with Billions of dollars of arms.

The Benghazi scandal is not propaganda - the suppression of the facts around it are the propaganda. Besides the obvious propaganda of repeated memes the most invisible propaganda are the facts that the propagandists work to distort or outright hide from you. You are being lied to about Benghazi and its massive significance as the Obama/Clinton Administration tried to hide its involvement in the moving of weapons to arm Al Qaeda in Syria and eventually the Islamic State as they battle Iranian influence at the behest of the Saudis.

If these facts are new to you then your news sources have been feeding you propaganda and pretending Benghazi was less significant than it really was. Don't stand for this ! get news sources that will tell you the whole story - or else you will continue to be propagandized.

Re:Yes

[__aaclcg7560]

Serious question: is any of the money used to pay for the lawsuits and recounts actually taxpayer money? I thought it all came from Stein's campaign (donations).

From what I've been reading, there are direct costs and indirect costs. The donations are paying for the direct costs. The taxpayers are paying for the indirect costs of the extra people that the counties may need to hire to get the recount done in a timely fashion, especially if the ballots are being counted by hand. The recounts have to be done before the electors meet in two weeks.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think there was no wrong doing and that the lives lost were not worth the investigation. I would suggest that you watch the videos on youtube of the congressional investigation of this . Real eye openers.

Be objective, gather information, and think for yourselves. Don't let the MSM think and come to conclusions for you.

Re:Yes

[Kohath]

Ahh yes. "My side is sensible. The other side is extreme/insane/[insert slur here]." That's some well-reasoned analysis there.

Does your side actually do things to help the people whose votes you want? Maybe telling them to vote for you because you helped them might work better than telling them to vote for you because otherwise you'll call them names.

Re:Yes

[Darinbob]

The biggest sign of extremism for me is when someone takes a stand and declares their side to be the right one and the other side to be the wrong one. Loyalty to a party of faction should come dead last in priorities, Put loyalty to fellow citizens first, even if they have different political stances.

Re:Yes

[Darinbob]

Not anti-establishment, but those who want to establish their own establishment.

Re:Yes

[Darinbob]

Trump said there were millions! We know he never lies or exaggerates. So where are they?

Re:Yes

[Darinbob]

Seriously, drugs have a use-by date, after that you should be tossing them out.

Re:Yes

[Tyler Durden]

I think you no longer have the right to call yourself "anti-establishment" when your man is about to be POTUS and his party will have majorities in the House and Senate.

Re:Yes

[Kohath]

Like I'm going to go "have a reasonable discussion with someone I don't agree with".

How would anyone know whether they disagreed with you? A "reasonable discussion" requires explanations of your thoughts. A list of half-articulated observations isn't something people can "reasonably" discuss.

I'm sure some people will react and emote with you though. And congratulate themselves for being righteous because ... well, mostly because they enjoy thinking they're righteous and better than other people.

Re:Yes

[meta-monkey]

Eh. "The establishment" is the corporate/government/media complex. The corporations pick the policies, their bought politicians enact them, and then their media networks propagandize the populace as to why things that are clearly not in their best interest, like the mass importation of semi-retarded 3rd worlders for cheap labor for the corps, is actually right and moral and good and anyone who disagrees is stupid and evil. Anyone who's opposed to that system can still call themselves "anti-establishment."

Re:Yes

[admin7087]

I totally agree with you. I've actually more or less given up on public forums except for hackernews and a bit of reddit surfing (but not discussing). This is just another throwaway Google account after I deleted several /. accounts, all with excellent karma; I'm coming here less and less often, because the discussions have become too vitriolic - and I'm saying that as a Usenet veteran.

Re:Yes

[Bodhammer]

60,000 of them are in Virgina where Terry Mcalaugh illegally gave convicted felons the right to vote.

http://www.courts.state.va.us/...

Re:Yes

[meta-monkey]

What's the difference?

Re:Yes

[Darinbob]

Convicted felons can have the right to vote, it's up to the individual states. The right to vote is more important than the right to prevent people you don't like from voting.

Re:Yes

[Darinbob]

It's all the same thing. Globalists who want their global powers to be in charge, and globalist who want a different group of global powers to be in charge. And conspiracy theorists who claim even other global powers are really in control, but really it's which corporate powers you want to be in charge.

Re:Yes

[Tyler Durden]

That's horrible. Why anyone would judge someone talking bout "the mass importation of semi-retarded 3rd worlders for cheap labor for the corps" as stupid is beyond me. Clearly your are the voice of level-headed insight and reason...

Re:Yes

[fredgiblet]

They don't really know themselves either.

Re:Yes

[meta-monkey]

I don't care what you judge me as. Am I right or not? If not, why not?

Re:Yes

[butchersong]

Trump swept the Republican party into majorities but don't make the mistake of placing them together. The "establishment" is still fully entrenched. It remains to be seen whether Trump and his administration will make much headway in dismantling the infrastructure of cronyism and blackmail (carrot and stick) that pervades Washington.

Re:Yes

[butchersong]

Yes but in this case the democrat governor tried to do an end run around the legislature of the state. He essentially interpreted his power to pardon to nullify the law preventing felons from voting. Just in time for the election:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/virginia-felon-disenfranchisement-mcauliffe/496898/

Re:Yes

[Grieviant]

I've actually more or less given up on public forums except for hackernews and a bit of reddit surfing (but not discussing). This is just another throwaway Google account after I deleted several /. accounts, all with excellent karma; I'm coming here less and less often, because the discussions have become too vitriolic - and I'm saying that as a Usenet veteran.

Hackernews is an extreme left Silicon Valley wankfest where, much like Ars Technica, they're very intolerant of any opinions viewed to be insufficiently progressive. You often hear the regulars chirping about how insightful the discussion is compared to so many other "toxic" websites, but this simply isn't supported by any objective appraisal of the commentary. Spending years living in an echo chamber distorts one's view of reality.

Take your concern trolling elsewhere.

Re:Yes

[zapadnik]

This is not an argument. Of course, if you are ignorant of what has been going on then the facts seem strange to you. It is best that you quit the drugs entirely and pay attention to what the bad guys are doing around the World. You may not be interested in the Muslim Brotherhood and its global jihad, but the global jihad is interested in you. Being as ignorant as an ostrich is not a useful survival strategy.

Re:Yes

[harvey the nerd]

Many of dem don't work themselves.

Re:Yes

[Darinbob]

So all the ex convicts voted as a bloc?

Re:Yes

[Tyler Durden]

Well first of all, the word "cuck" is nothing more than modern code for "nigg3r-lover"*. It would be more honest if you used that term instead. No idea how sense that makes though. Anyone who criticizes Trump must be a nigg3r-lover? Seeing African-Americans as equal human beings is a no-no again? No clue.

I wasn't meaning this as a criticism for Trump anyhow. My only point is people who are in, or soon to acquire, a great deal of power have no right to say they are anti-establishment. I would hate to see this phrase used for Trump and his fellow Republicans during their reign. Because then they'd be making excuses whenever their choices were harmful for the country saying, "It wasn't us, it was that durn establishment!" Nigg3r please.

Judging by Trump's appointments full of people who are mostly unqualified or downright offensive, and continued tweets that indicate every criticism of him is taken personally - it doesn't look good. (I swear he thinks the most brilliant person he ever talked to is the last individual who happened to compliment him - LOL). The only good I saw was nominating James Mattis to Secretary of Defense. I also liked the fact that he talked to the leader of Taiwan, although most foreign affairs experts say this is a big no-no.

* Apparently the lameness filter is flagging the N-word, otherwise that's what I would have used. Goddammit.

Re:Yes

[fredgiblet]

I'm curious to know which sources you use regularly. I've been dimly aware of this issue for some time, but haven't had much luck finding a real valuable news source.

Re: Yes

[coteriescavenger]

You think that sounds crazy? When you finally get wind of how boldly they've been suppressing critical facts lately, you'll throw up.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Not from the US, but 60 million appears to be about accurate.
Considering your post you'd probably be surprised at how many would say something retarded beginning with "I'm not racist but..."

Re:Yes

[gustygolf]

I didn't read his post at all like that. I read his post as "there are moderates, and there are extremists"

And that both republicans and democrats (assuming the US here) are diverging towards extremism.

In other words, there are three sides here. He is in the "middle side", if that makes sense.

Re:Yes

[Blaskowicz]

The Left is all about Big State solutions, which comes under the rubrik of "Statist Collectiivism" at the state level and "globalism" at the international level.
The Right (at least in the US, but increasingly internationally) is all about Individual Liberty. Since there can be no Individual Liberty without decreasing State power it means the Right is about limiting the power of government and letting citizens and the Free Market of voluntary exchange work out solutions. This is because power (the ability to enforce your will on the unwilling) is a zero sum game - the State only gets power by taking it from individuals, and vice versa

I find this to be a weird narrative, although very common in the US it seems. What if the State wrestles power from corporations and other supranational or transnational entities? E.g., let's say the State takes over the healthcare industry and cleans it up big time, slashes costs dramatically, gets closer to universal coverage (like, you can get Medicaid if you earn under $200k, I don't know, that's an example).
I would say this gives more power both to the State and the individuals. (there's always more supplementary coverage to buy, anyway).

Also, that the Left is both collectivist and globalist is weird, perhaps you can pull that off in the US but in other places these are entirely at odds (e.g., globalism in the form of treaties, EU etc. dictates you privatize most assets like dams, rail ways and other).
More likely you have an "official" Left or "governing" Left (like the US democrats) that is actually right-wing and thus, globalist.

Re: Yes

[Type44Q]

How about we compromise with a harsh but nevertheless accurate "culturally retarded?" Not that it's their fault... not that our society should be undermined and destroyed by their mass-importation, either.

Re:Yes

[mjwx]

Not really. The Left is all about Big State solutions, which comes under the rubrik of "Statist Collectiivism" at the state level and "globalism" at the international level. The Right (at least in the US, but increasingly internationally) is all about Individual Liberty. Since there can be no Individual Liberty without decreasing State power it means the Right is about limiting the power of government and letting citizens and the Free Market of voluntary exchange work out solutions. This is because power (the ability to enforce your will on the unwilling) is a zero sum game - the State only gets power by taking it from individuals, and vice versa

And other such fantasies.

The "right" have been more responsible increasing government size and welfare than the alleged "left" in the last 20 years. Mass surveillance programs draw their origins to the Bush govt in the US, Howard govt in Australia and all the way back to the Thatcher govt in the UK.

Re:Yes

[AmiMoJo]

The "anti-establishment" people voted for millionaire elites and career politicians. Trump, the people he has appointed to his team, and in the UK we have Gove, Johnson and Farage.

In fact the UK managed to get rid of its democratically* elected leader and replace him with an unelected one, who is of course a rich career politican too. She was chosen by the establishment.

It's more like "post truth nationalists" vs. everyone else (globalists, people who aren't post-truth, socialists etc.)

* by UK standards

Re:Yes

[AmiMoJo]

Of course there is a consensus that all States now require governments that can use force and coercion to take the wealth of the citizens. In this sense there is a "Uniparty" where political parties clothe themselves in the rhetoric of "Left" and "Right" but the implementations always require more taxation and more power for the State - which means the Uniparty has been drifting further and further Left. To dissent with this and assert citizens should be in charge is labelled "extreme".

Well, as a simple matter of fact the position that the state should have no power to compel taxes is rather extreme on the political scale. And it's not really fair to say that both parties are as one because they don't disagree on that position, because otherwise you could claim they are as one because of agreement on any number of highly unpopular, fringe ideas.

Hence we have the phenomena of Brexit and the latest US Presidential election where the 'elites' and media have views vastly different from those of the general population.

Brexit was won by the elites. The people heading the campaign to leave were Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, all career politicians and millionaires. In the US, Trump is part of the elite and has demonstrated his lack of concern for the common man on many occasions.

No, what Brexit and Trump demonstrate is that people will vote for demagogues, especially now we have reached a state of post-truth politics. The rebellion against elites was just a scam, created by other elites to get votes.

Re: Yes

[meta-monkey]

Sure, but I'm also saying the people who are staggering across the border, or the people we're dragging in from Somali to work cheap and vote Democrat...these are not doctors and engineers. These are people coming from places where the average IQ is in the 80s. I would consider that "semi-retarded."

Re:Yes

[meta-monkey]

Keep this crap up, yo. Democrats will never win another election.

Re:Yes

[Kirth]

I think you're pretty much right in regards of the analysis what is happening, but you've subscribed to some propaganda on who is doing what. Because the forces at play in the US are first and foremost authoritarian and to the right (the latter of which doesn't really matter in the scheme of things).

I think this here shows this neatly:
https://www.politicalcompass.o...

"left" and "right" are solely economic points of view. You could also call them "socialist" and "capitalist". There's nothing in there about "liberty".

If you think there is some great conflict between "authoritarian" and "libertarian" at play there (or even "the Left" or "the Right" are on the side of "liberty"), you've just become the playball of propaganda. Because the only side here that's even playing is authoritarian, and it has won, it sets the policies, and orchestrates the propaganda. Of course it's nice to be able to constantly blame "the other side" for the shit you're doing. Which is what happens. Even if the other side happens to be firmly in your own camp.

Yes, there are people in the US fighting for liberty, but they're not "the Left" or "the Right", they're the ones that don't run your country. At all.

Re:Yes

[Toonol]

The state can make a law requiring you buy their product; a company can not. (In fact, this is what happened with Obamacare.)

The state can forbid competitors; a company can not.

The free market is far more consistent with a political philosophy of individual rights.

Re:Yes

[kristianbrigman]

The most accurate division I've seen between 'left' and 'right', at least in the US, is the balance between mercy and justice - the left (=Democrats for the purpose of this article) prefers mercy to justice, the right (=Republicans) prefers justice to mercy. Some issues don't fall on this continuum (and many of them end up being about who receives mercy or justice), but a suprising number of them do.

Neither party has a monopoly on overspending, overregulating, corruption, etc. in pursuit of those goals... you will see general guidelines that are different (e.g. R = small government, D=social programs) but both will bend in pursuit of their overall goals... Politics is mostly how this gets worked out in the real world.

Example: Capital Punishment. Ds are the party of eternal hope - if there is any chance that even one killer could be rehabilitated, give them that chance, so it never makes sense to execute someone.
Rs are the party of avoiding more victims - giving someone a chance to be rehabilitated, means there is a chance they could kill again. That person's life should not be sacrified for the killer's mercy.
Both have merits IMHO. Currently, we balance this by allowing executions, but having them be somewhat rare - out of more than 15,000 murders (including manslaughter) in the US in 2015, there were 28 executions.

Re:Yes

[Toonol]

So all the ex convicts voted as a bloc?

Well, pretty close to it, or else the governor wouldn't have cared. http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000662

Re:Yes

[chihowa]

Thanks for saying this, as I was just about to say the same. His analysis is pretty good except for the attributions.

Re:Yes

[Wycliffe]

Yeah. Like I'm going to go "have a reasonable discussion with someone I don't agree with".

I have reasonable discussions with people I disagree with all the time. I can have conversations with far left liberals and far right conservatives with no problem. Now there are some that I can see are violently opposed to a different opinion and I quickly end those conversations or steer to more neutral ground. If someone thinks republicans are evil and mentioning John Stossel causes smoke to come out of their ears then you need to back off and pick at the edges as you aren't going to have any meaningful conversation trying to go head on but most people can discuss issues they disagree with without going postal. I personally like to talk to people with opinions different than me because I like to understand how the other side thinks.

Re:Yes

[cfsops]

No, he tried to apply a blanket restoration in contravention of the Virginia Constitution. The Virginia Supreme Court ruled that he could not do such a thing, but had to rely instead on performing individual restoration of rights as the Governor is permitted to do. So, the roughly 200,000 people whose voting rights were unconstitutionally restored had their voting rights revoked. Since that ruling and revocation, the Governor individually restored the voting rights of more than 60,000 in accordance with his powers under the Virginia Constitution.

Re:Yes

[cfsops]

You have laid out a grand series of assertions, with absolutely nothing to back them up. And then say that, if we don't simply believe what you say, then we are hopelessly stupid sheep fattened by the feces of propaganda. My friend, you are bizarre.

:P

Re:Yes

[painandgreed]

Actually it's anti-establishment nationalists vs. establishment globalists.

Actually, it's those that realize that politics are more complicated than dualistic descriptors can describe vs. those who don't.

Re:Yes

[Darinbob]

Does it matter? This is bringing in partisan politics. It's a disgrace in this country, and most countries. We should care about the citizens, not whether our side won or their side won. Ie, the decision about what to do should always be "is this the right thing to do" and never "which team is going to gain an advantage?"

As I see it the decision to do this may likely have been based on choosing teams; but the criticism against it is also about choosing teams. Where are the ones asking whether or not it's the right thing to do?

Re:Yes

[david_thornley]

The Benghazi scandal is not propaganda - the suppression of the facts around it are the propaganda.

I'm going to pick this out.

A hostile Congress launched several expensive investigations into what happened at Benghazi. They were not disposed to suppress facts against Clinton. They all found no wrongdoing on Clinton's part. This is very good evidence that Clinton is not at fault. Personally, I'd blame the Republican Congress who reduced the budget for embassy and consulate security to much less than Clinton asked for.

You made a lot of assertions that, as far as I can tell, are baseless, but this one is definitely wrong.

Re:Yes

[david_thornley]

The Stein campaign was complaining bitterly about the cost of asking for the Wisconsin recount, so I'd be surprised if there were significant additional costs there. The costs in Michigan and Pennsylvania were considerably lower, so there are likely indirect costs there. Last I looked, her campaign had not raised about $10.5 million.

Personally, I consider verification of close votes to be worth spending my money on.

Re:Yes

[AutodidactLabrat]

What part of "Tracked facebook links to Russian Propaganda outlets" is not evidence?
As opposed "No I won't show my data set on illegals I claim voted"?

Re:Yes

[__aaclcg7560]

The Stein campaign was complaining bitterly about the cost of asking for the Wisconsin recount, so I'd be surprised if there were significant additional costs there.

I came across an article that suggested that the powers to be are jacking up the costs to discourage the recount. Meanwhile, a Republican in Nevada requested a recount and it got done with minimal amount of fuss.

Re:Yes

[TheRaven64]

The US has been fed a dichotomy of two opinions for several decades: One side believes that the government should have the power to oppress the people. The other side believes that this is inefficient and that oppression is better handled by multinational corporations. The two main parties flip between these two ideologies depending on who controls the government and who looks more attractive to big corporate donors.

Cave

[NotInHere]

We are all in a cave, strapped to a stone. Everything is an illusion.

Re:Cave

[vsavkin]

> We are all in a cave, strapped to a stone. Everything is an illusion.

That's what Russian propaganda wants you to believe, and you are spreading it, being a Putin's "useful idiot". According to this anonymous study, of course.

Re:Cave

[cfalcon]

> We are all in a cave, strapped to a stone. Everything is an illusion.

Right, but my iStone is smoother and thinner than yours.

Re: Cave

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the Allegory if you leave the cave you are enlightened but you can't convince anyone else to leave the cave because they don't understand you anymore and know no better life.

Re:Cave

[msauve]

You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.

Re:Cave

[meta-monkey]

It would be very painful.

Re:Cave

[serviscope_minor]

Right, but my iStone is smoother and thinner than yours.

My note 7 stone is warmer than yours.

Re:Cave

[Toonol]

You're a big guy.

Re:Cave

[drinkypoo]

My note 7 stone is warmer than yours.

Since you're strapped to it, it should keep you warm for a lifetime.

Re:Cave

[meta-monkey]

For you.

Re:Cave

[Oswald McWeany]

My windows phone works better as a brick!

Examples?

[meta-monkey]

It would be really amazing if someone could show me a single piece of this propaganda they can trace to the Russians. Where is the evidence?

Re:Examples?

[cfalcon]

I mean, it's bullshit for the reason the summary said- they basically accused Ron Paul of being a KGB agent. If the Russian propaganda machine is secretly vigorously promoting conservative libertarians, free market libertarians, and every right wing blog they can name, give me a fucking break. Just like when they made a list of "fake news" sites that somehow included every single right wing website except fox news, and it was some liberal professor who made the list. Just because the right has loonies doesn't mean that the left loonies should be dug up and given a grand platform to blather.

Re:Examples?

[meta-monkey]

The only fake news site (besides CNN el oh el) I saw this election paraded around was the same one NPR talked about after the election. I think it was abcnews.com.co, and it's actually made by a lefty to "prove" how right-wingers will fall for stupid shit. Now, I am a right-winger, and when you sign up for the right your welcoming kit includes a firmly affixed tinfoil hat. So every time I saw something from that site posted to a right-wing forum or comments section, immediately people would respond "that's fake, don't spread that around." So lefty makes fake news, posts it to right-wing sites himself, right-wingers reject it, and then he goes to NPR and says "lol right wingers are dumb because I posted my fake news on their forums." It's the "hurr durr I was just pretending to be retarded" meme.

You would think if this evil russian propaganda were so widespread one could post a screenshot of one of the fake stories and give us some context. "Oh, Putin wants people to think X, so here's his fake site where he posted this story, and here it is being propagated around the net..." Nope. I wonder why they can't show us anything like that? Really gets the old noggin' joggin', huh?

Re:Examples?

[dave562]

I would not be so skeptical. I used to read a lot of Zero Hedge. I still read RT.com from time to time. If you accept that ALL news has a bias, it becomes apparent. In the case of ZeroHedge, their bias is that economy is about to crash, again. And the price of gold is about to skyrocket, any day now. And the American political system sucks, which they are actually correct on.

Propaganda is entwined with the reality of nation states. The United States puts out propaganda about Russia. They do the same in return.

With the internet, the propaganda is more obvious and easier to spread.

The older I get, the more I realize that everyone has an agenda. Zero Hedge has an agenda. The Washington Post has an agenda. The Communist Party of China has an agenda.

The thing is, life is short. At this point, I do not have time to focus on other people's agendas unless they intersect with and further my own.

This whole "Russian Hackers Fucking with Democracy" is the greatest propaganda coup of all time. It still blows my mind that the media managed to completely obfuscate all of the evil shit that the Democratic party and Hillary Clinton were up to by bringing the Russian bogey man out of the closet. (Not that it matters, but I didn't vote for Clinton or Trump).

In my brief 40 years as an American, I was born into a world where we were supposed to be scared of Russians. To being told that the Russians weren't a threat. To being told that the Islamists that the CIA funded to fight the Russians were the threat. To now being told that the Russians and the disciples of those we trained to fight the Russians are a threat.

To be honest, I think the biggest threat to America at this point is America. Between the ignorance of the electorate and the iron grip that the military industrial complex has on the economy and the government, we are like the big, retarded bully who doesn't even know why he's angry, but sure as hell is going to beat the shit out of anyone who calls him retarded.

Re:Examples?

[Beeftopia]

In my brief 40 years as an American, I was born into a world where we were supposed to be scared of Russians. To being told that the Russians weren't a threat. To being told that the Islamists that the CIA funded to fight the Russians were the threat. To now being told that the Russians and the disciples of those we trained to fight the Russians are a threat.

"We have always been at war with Eastasia." -- George Orwell, "1984"

Re:Examples?

[astrosmurf]

This is a single piece of propaganda easily traceable to the russians.
Enjoy.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-...
P.S.
Posted this as anonymous coward, but suddenly remembered my old login.
D.S.

Re:Examples?

[Rockoon]

Looks more like a story claiming there was "propaganda" on a Russian news outlet.

Pretty sure a Russian news outlet isnt targeting any propaganda at Americans, and in this case the "truth" behind the "propaganda" is that the girl in question was merely the victim of child abuse instead of..... rape?

I'm going to assume that your citation categorically represents what someone would find if they tried really hard to find evidence via google, and that everyone that tried really hard, but you, realized that they couldnt find any.

Re:Examples?

[knorthern knight]

> Russia stands to gain a lot from Trump's election. Scaling back NATO,
> the US looking inward and playing a smaller role internationally etc.

You realize how Reagan destroyed the USSR? He goaded them into a very expensive anti-missile defense race, and the USSR bankrupted itself. The US military industrial complex is threatening to similarly destroy the US economy. Diverting some of the useless overkill into the civilian economy might help the average person.

Re:Examples?

[William Baric]

So a 13-year-old girl declared she was gang rape. A journalist picked up the story and some Russian TV channel talked about it, without making sure the rape was real. This kind of sloppy journalism is common everywhere. I live in Quebec and here absolutely all mainstream media will do it (the only difference is our media will hide the ethnicity of the alleged rapist if he's black or Muslim).

Then Russia's Foreign Minister made a comment implying the German police could try to minimize the case to protect asylum seekers. Considering the German police did exactly that after the Cologne attacks (as well as other multiple attacks in other German cities), also considering that the police admit it was at least statutory rape, yet try to minimize this as "child abuse", I'd say the comment was justified.

Then, the BBC decided to use this story about this sloppy journalism and a somewhat legitimate comment from a Russian Minister to try to spin it into some kind of "Russian propaganda".

The truth is this article is an example of anti-Russian propaganda, not an example of the supposed Russian propaganda. This BBC story is an example of the typical "fake news" that plagues our mainstream media. And the fact that you can't see it is frightening.

Re:Examples?

[guruevi]

How is that propaganda?
A) A 13yo disappeared for a full day and got raped
B) The police considers it consensual so it won't investigate
C) Parents and neighbors are outraged and protest

Unless you want to believe this:
A) An adult having sex with a 13yo is rape, unless they're immigrants.
B) The police is right in not investigating this and only considering this as an instance of child abuse
C) If white people are protesting, they're neo-nazis.

Re:Examples?

[dunkelfalke]

Reagan just took credit for the breakup. The actual reason was that the USSR was a multi - ethnic state and when the central government stopped suppressing speech, the resulting wave of nationalist unrest broke the country up among ethnic lines causing several wars between former soviet republics. The first of these wars actually started before the breakup and the last one is the ongoing conflict in the Ukraine - that one used to be a cold war for over two decades.

Re:Examples?

[meta-monkey]

The older I get, the more I realize that everyone has an agenda.

Exactly. Everything is propaganda. Bias is a part of human nature. I prefer when people clearly state their biases as it's easier to see where they're coming from. I think a large part of the problem we face is people who believe that such a thing as "unbiased journalism" exists. There are people who don't think CNN has an agenda. And that agenda is not always congruent with the best interests of the viewers.

This is turning into a real problem. When Trump won the NH primary Huffington Post's cover page said "NH GOES RACIST, SEXIST XENOPHOBIC!!!" Literally that. All caps. I wondered what would happen if Trump wins the whole thing. Will people who believe Huffington Post wake up and realize "Oh, people in New Hampshire voted for Trump because they're tired of $10 heroin on their streets, not because they hate blacks and Mexicans and women, and Huffington Post has been lying to them." Or will they freak the ever loving fuck out because they believe there are secret nazis EVERYWHERE! From my FaceBook feed, the answer is the latter.

People need to read the narrative, read the counter-narrative, check the sources, and see who's lying about what in which cases. But instead here we've got the mainstream media trying to propagandize the people that anything that doesn't come from them is "fake news." Stay in that bubble kids! Never look for an alternative point of view! Do what we tell you vote how we tell you!

Re:Examples?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's 2+2? And don't tell me 4!

Re:Examples?

[dave562]

And all of the above comes from people lacking discipline and integrity. If they had their own agendas, they would fact check the alternatives being offered to them.

The issue is, that for them, what is being offered to them are not alternatives. They are REAL. Teh intarwebz are reals. CNN is Double Plus REALS!!! What they see on the screen, and listen to on the radio in the car, and watch on television are the only reality that they know.

Nobody wants to admit that their buttons are being pushed. Nope. Not in America. The land of free will and freedom of choice.

Re:Examples?

[wyHunter]

You told them about the tinfoil hat! Just please, don't mention the aluminum jock strap.

Re:Examples?

[wyHunter]

No, it's because Obama is far to the left of Putin and Putin thinks he's an idiot.

No, comrades, it's doubleplusgood

[Theaetetus]

... at least, according to the people who stand to make $160 million over the next two years "fighting propaganda" by reading blogs and blacklisting any they disagree with.

Fortunately, they won't come for Slashdot. This is News for Nerds, we never discuss things like politics or rights or surveillance...

Russians didn't cause Hillary! to lose

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just another "Not our fault!" lie from Hillary! supporters.

"Look! a RUSSIAN squirrel!!!!"

Hillary! lost 2008's Democrat nomination to an upstart from nowhere despite the process being rigged for her.

Hillary! damn near lost the 2016 Democrat nomination to someone who wasn't even a Democrat despite the process being rigged for her.

Hillary! lost the 2016 Presidential election despite the media doing its damndest to help her.

Hillary! might have had a chance had if she weren't an unlikable corrupt harpy and if she had some accomplishment to her name other than marrying Bill.

Re:Russians didn't cause Hillary! to lose

[0100010001010011]

One of her campaign was on Chuck Todd this morning. He ran down a list of things Clinton and the Media have blamed the loss on.

He asked point blank if they ever considered blaming themselves.

And the answer was the longest possible way to say "No".

Some people are so inside their own bubble of a bubble they have no clue what is going on. Look at how many staged "OMG Clinton out Grocery shopping" social media things we got.

I'm over Red Scare.

My grand parents were told to be scared of the russians, but it's not what killed them. It was tobacco companies saying "Eh, nothing to see here".

My parents were told be scared of the Russians but it was a lack of access to cancer treatment that killed my dad.

I'm being told to be scared of the russians. I got other shit to do. (And the same goes for the average Russians guy like me being told the exact opposite).

Re:Russians didn't cause Hillary! to lose

[cfalcon]

Well, Americans didn't stay home.

CNN right now says Trump has 62,693,993 votes in the popular vote. That's more than any Republican has ever gotten in the popular vote (closest was George Bush in 2004, with 62,040,610). Obviously, these numbers are influenced by there being more Americans than before, and Trump is at 46.3% of the popular vote, while GWB's reelection was 51%. It is off by a few percent only, however- whatever the magnitude of Trump's thing, it still only affected a couple voters out of every hundred.

For comparison, Obama got 69.5 million votes in 2008, and 66 million in 2012, to Clinton's 65 million.

I feel that the solid performance of the 3rd parties this time around is the big thing not being talked about. Gary Johnson in 2012 set yellow team records for a Libertarian with 1.3 million votes. In 2016, he got over 4 million votes- Wikipedia says it is "more votes than the previous eight Libertarian presidential tickets combined", and was over 3%. The Greens got .36% of the vote in 2012, and 1% of the popular vote.

The reason that the 3rd party tickets are interesting is that *both are the same candidates as in 2012*. It is implausible that Johnson and Stein quadrupled and tripled in popularity- it is much more likely that many voters who consider themselves leaning towards the libertarians or the greens, but who usually vote for republicans or democrats, instead did not, driven away by the candidates.

America didn't seem to stay home, is my point- they definitely chose third party options a lot more than normal, though.

Re:Russians didn't cause Hillary! to lose

[meta-monkey]

True. Very few people bother to come out to vote against someone. They come out to vote for someone. The only arguments I could ever get from Hillary supporters was "she's not Trump" and "experience."

Re:Russians didn't cause Hillary! to lose

[Rockoon]

I think if the Libertarians had put up Nicholas Sarwark, their party chair, instead of Gary Johnson then they would have done much better.

The guy leaves a very good impression.

Gary Johnson was a good Governor (the only reason he isnt still governor of New Mexico is term limits) but a bad candidate. Sarwark would be a good candidate.

Re:Russians didn't cause Hillary! to lose

[cfalcon]

It's possible the Libertarians would have done better with someone else, but given that Johnson has done the best of any Libertarian in the history of the party (twice- his 2012 run was a record for the party too), it seems a bit of an odd argument. I know, I know, the main party candidates are the big drivers here, but performing well in 2012 is still a legit mark in his favor regardless.

Re:Russians didn't cause Hillary! to lose

[Oswald McWeany]

True. Very few people bother to come out to vote against someone. They come out to vote for someone. The only arguments I could ever get from Hillary supporters was "she's not Trump" and "experience."

I have always voted third party for President. I didn't like any of the third party candidates this time. Better than Trump and Hillary, but I still didn't like them. I was rather ambivalent about our local elections, none of them bothered me enough to want to vote (kinda pointless here anyway, the same party wins everything).

If I had to pick my favourite candidate it would probably have been Evan McMullin, he was the only guy who I saw as not dangerous for the job. Seemed to not be an ideologue, but based his ideas on common sense. I think he would have been the best candidate that would have made the most people happy. Still, he didn't get me out to vote...

What made me vote? Trump, not for but against! I consider him a potential threat to democracy itself, I wouldn't be surprised if elections were "put on hold for our safety" in 4 years time. I considered voting for his main rival, Hillary, therefore, a civic duty. I really don't like Hillary. Bill was probably the best president America has had in recent years, but I don't like Hillary one bit. I probably would have voted almost anyone else other than Hillary given another option, I consider Trump that bad.

So yes, in my case (and I'd be surprised if not many more cases) I voted to vote against someone (Trump) not for someone. I don't think it's as unusual as you think, lots of people show up to vote to vote against someone not for someone. You are correct about the only reason I voted for Hillary was she is not Trump though.

Re:Russians didn't cause Hillary! to lose

[interkin3tic]

>Hillary! might have had a chance had if she weren't an unlikable corrupt harpy and if she had some accomplishment to her name other than marrying Bill. You're right. If she had accomplishments like, say graduating from Yale law school, spearheading the clinton health care reform effort, surviving 30 years of ruthless attacks by conservatives, being a senator, being secretary of state, running the Clinton foundation which helped to lower HIV treatment to affordable levels among whatever else it does, and winning the democratic primary by a large margin, she might have, I dunno, won millions of more votes in the presidential election!

/s Seriously? Lack of accomplishments when compared to Don Trump? +4 insightful? "Unlikeable harpy?"

I think it's wildly optimistic to suggest that Russian propaganda is driving this unfortunately. I would prefer to think there weren't people out there this badly deluded, but I can't, Americans really are so stupid they think the DNC rigged it against Sanders and the electoral college overturning the vote is totally 100% fair.

Re:Russians didn't cause Hillary! to lose

[Mike Van Pelt]

I suspect the Libertarians and Greens did better is that 1) they were on the ballot, and 2) were not the malign Ooma-Loompa, and 3) were not the evil shrill harpy. (The LP is generally my "A Plague on Both Your Parties" vote, and that's basically why I voted for Johnson this time.)

No, I was not "throwing away my vote". In California, I didn't have any meaningful vote to throw away; Hillary was going to get over 60% of the vote no matter what. Might as well use what little vote I had for someone who, though with lots of his own problems, didn't make me want to call for an exorcist.

Recursion

[Gunfighter]

Wait.... how do we know whether or not this /. post is propaganda about propaganda about propaganda?

This recursion stuff gets confusing sometimes.

Re:Recursion

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry. It's fake reporting all the way down.

Re:Recursion

[__aaclcg7560]

Sorry. It's fake comments all the way down.

FTFY

Same old tune.

[Charcharodon]

One man's propaganda is another man's truth.

Propaganda, insider information, hate facts. Who cares. More power to the Russians if they can disrupt a bunch of corrupt people from getting their way (DNC). I'd love for them to start poking at the Republicans next.

Sun light sanitizes all things. Keep dragging the truth from all the dark holes it is hiding in.

PropOrNot

[Rockoon]

The secret group PropOrNot also listed as "allies" many journalists and publications that have never heard of the group before the article. as is evidenced by their twitter responses.

When this came to light, PropOrNot edited their web page to list them only as "related projects."

To translate what really happened here is:

The Washington Post was duped by a fake article about fake news, and then other publicans were duped by the Washington Post's article about the fake article about fake news.

Journalism is now completely dead, or at least the kind the mainstream media used to produce. Its all now just lazy he-said she-said bullshit where the only filter is the bias of the Journalists and Publications.

Investigative journalism is now only done by independent folk with hidden cameras, and released on youtube. Thats what exposed Clinton's campaign tactics and voter fraud methods, its what exposed and subsequently destroyed ACORN, and so on.

Re:PropOrNot

[alvinrod]

Its all now just lazy he-said she-said bullshit where the only filter is the bias of the Journalists and Publications.

If the last decade has shown us anything, it's that this is what people actually want to consume. Even prior to the rise of new media, most papers or news networks had some form of political slant. All we're seeing now is a magnification of this. Most people only want something that conforms to their existing beliefs, not an objective account. Knowing that we've gone from the media producing slanted views of stories towards opinion pieces about events and are now heading towards fabrications or opinionated hyperbole to the point of absurdity.

If most consumers don't care about much beyond whether a news story supports their beliefs, it's far easier just to invent something that does that than it is to take a real story and add spin or to try to produce an objective and neutral report. To some extent we've always had this, and one needs look no farther than the tabloids in most grocery stores to see that this is not a new phenomena, but has always been around. The difference is that people haven't adopted to tabloids being available in web form. To the untrained eye they look essentially the same as any other news website, whereas most people wouldn't make the same mistake with a traditional paper and a tabloid.

With traditional media, the barrier to entry was high enough that it wasn't easy for huge number of tabloids to survive at one time. There was a physical cost to printing and you likely needed an advertising department on its own which adds further cost. The internet has removed most of those problems. Almost anyone can set up a website now and there are plenty of frameworks that make it easy for even unexperienced individuals to have something that looks reasonably professional, third party ad networks make it trivial to add to your site and no needed to have someone handling the customers, and social media has made it incredibly easy to have your site brought to a wide audience almost overnight due to network effects and ease of sharing that weren't present before. The great democratizer of the internet has made it possible for the everyman to have a printing press and the same reach as a big corporation. Unfortunately most people are idiots. This result doesn't seem terribly surprising in retrospect.

Re:PropOrNot

[GameboyRMH]

After all those putdowns of the "mainstream media" you praise the doctored and misleading videos that shut down ACORN? Credibility = 0.

Re:PropOrNot

[Dutchmaan]

Conservatism 101: If you can't discredit the information itself, then discredit the messenger.

Re:PropOrNot

[quantaman]

To translate what really happened here is:

The Washington Post was duped by a fake article about fake news, and then other publicans were duped by the Washington Post's article about the fake article about fake news.

Not quite a "fake article", but an article based on a report that used a questionable method for identifying "Russian propaganda".

Basically a site was labelled as distributing Russian propaganda if it regularly posted articles that reproduced current Russia propaganda narratives.

That sounds legit, but the problem is that a lot of anti-establishment sites push the same kind of narratives. A story getting pushed by RT as Russia propaganda might also be pushed by an independent site as their own fight against the establishment. And they get labelled as promoting Russia propaganda, which they technically are, but that wasn't their intent.

Journalism is now completely dead, or at least the kind the mainstream media used to produce. Its all now just lazy he-said she-said bullshit where the only filter is the bias of the Journalists and Publications.

You know I actually thought you were being sarcastic when you wrote that first sentence.

The WP article got some secondary reporting, and then it got questioned, typically by those same secondary sources.

Note the first publication in the summary, Rolling Stone, is considered pretty damn progressive. The WP themselves even commented on the matter, though it a much less direct way than I'd like (hopefully their still refining their follow up piece).

Investigative journalism is now only done by independent folk with hidden cameras, and released on youtube. Thats what exposed Clinton's campaign tactics and voter fraud methods, its what exposed and subsequently destroyed ACORN, and so on.

Ahh, so when you say "investigative journalism" you mean actual fake news.

Re:PropOrNot

[guruevi]

Black people aren't the only ones with camera's you racist shithead.

The problem is indeed that the mainstream does very little to no original journalism, all the stuff about police abuses in the last few years have not been "reported" on by journalists but rather grew on social media into the news articles.

Same goes for this election, neither side had any 'investigative journalists', just a lot of digging up dirt on both aisles but very little substance as far as policies that either candidate had. Pretty much all news sites were just copy-pasting the political promises from their respective web sites which were proclaimed to be an unbiased source of information.

Re:PropOrNot

[penandpaper]

Journalism is now completely dead, or at least the kind the mainstream media used to produce. Its all now just lazy he-said she-said bullshit where the only filter is the bias of the Journalists and Publications.

This is probably why 'news' has turned into 3rd party twitter feeds."Did you see what this person said on ze Twitters! ZOMG, You should feel how we think you should feel about this."

It really seems that those outlets really don't know how to handle Twitter and the like when there is nothing to report on in a 24 hour news cycle.

Rolling Stone not exactly credible.

[Anonymous Coward]

They lost a multi-million dollar lawsuit by publishing an article that wasn't fact checked at all, and turned out to be completely fabricated, and written by a hack "journalist" with an axe to grind.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-rolling-stone-loses-lawsuit-20161104-story.html

So I wouldn't exactly put "Rolling Stone" in the category of credible news sources, since they themselves have been a source of "fake news".

Re:Rolling Stone not exactly credible.

[Toonol]

Everyone is accusing everyone of being fake news.

That may be the best possible outcome. Extreme skepticism is preferable to extreme gullibility.

Wait...

[Rick Zeman]

...could we be seeing propaganda about propaganda about propaganda?

Re:Wait...

[Kohath]

Never fear, Mark Zuckerburg is working on it now! Soon all those propaganda stories will be replaced with paid advertisements.

Somebody mod this story down

[smooth wombat]

This story presents facts about Russia's troll factory in St. Petersburg, just as I have done in numerous previous postings and got hammered by the Russian trolls. Go ahead, check my most recent postings to see how the trolls mindlessly mod me down for reporting facts about this troll factory, about the continuing shipments of cargo 200 from Ukraine (i.e. dead Russian soldiers), the terrorists in Ukraine who openly admit Russian soldiers are fighting there and supplying them with arms and munitions, or the Russian soldiers who state they have been sent to Ukraine and have fought there, and finally, the law which Putin signed which bars Russian mothers from talking about their sons who have died while fighting in Ukraine or even talking with other mothers about these deaths. Or course the graves of these dead Russian soldiers say otherwise, as do reports from eyewitnesses and families.

This story need to be modded down in like fashion. Wouldn't want the Russian trolls to have to see the facts of their dear leader's propaganda industry.

Re:Somebody mod this story down

[Anonymous Coward]

You for got to add the obligatory "Wake Up Sheeple" like all good nutcase conspiracy theorists.

Re:Somebody mod this story down

[cfalcon]

That there are Russian shills on the internet is an undeniable fact. That they are on forums steering the conversation when they can is almost assuredly the case- I've seen such cases myself. But that doesn't mean that every piece of right wing journalism is magically fake news nor Russian spies.

Re:Somebody mod this story down

[smooth wombat]

No, not every piece of right wing journalism is fake, but enough that stories from them should be suspect.

Further, neither did I say anything about Russian spies. I said Russian trolls who, as you pointed out, deliberately try to insert enough fake "news" or falsify factual stories to divert attention or obscure facts. As I pointed out in my original post, Russian trolls will mod me down to try and prevent people from seeing the truth of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. When confronted with the truth they go into overdrive in St. Petersburg in attempt to do everything to discredit the facts, most specifically going after either the person posting the facts (me) or where the story comes from.

Even when Putin admitted he sent Russian troops into Crimea to steal it, Russian trolls still denied their dear leader's own words. They made every excuse for why the story was fake EXCEPT for the fact those are Putin's own words. In other words, even facts coming out of Putin's mouths are lies in the world of Russian trolls.

And that is what this about: countering blatant lies with the truth. Using facts to pummel trolls, get them to twist themselves into such a ball of anger they climb over themselves in a vain attempt to extricate themselves from the ball of lies they've spewed. It's quite funny to watch them first deny the facts, then attempt to deflect, then finally come full circle and deny their own words. What's especially funny is they're so simple minded it's very easy to get them to admit they're Russian trolls. Since they're all using the same script handed to them from their handlers, they use the same words and phrases in every post so their comments stick out like a sore thumb.

Re:Somebody mod this story down

[cfalcon]

> As I pointed out in my original post, Russian trolls will mod me down to try and prevent people from seeing the truth of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

I'm personally totally convinced that this happened, because I saw it happen in real time as did you. Even slashdot wasn't immune to this, IMO, and I absolutely saw it on other forums.
This is *totally separate* from the "Russians helped Trump" claims, however. Trump has huge organic support among his base, as witnessed in the primaries. I did see a bunch of Russians (who identified as such), saying that they really liked Trump. Trump enjoys huge popularity in Russia (and a lot less popularity in some other parts of Europe). So finding openly Russian posters endorsing Trump or shitting on Clinton was no more surprising than finding a British poster who endorses Hillary and shits on Trump. The idea that the Russian government is successfully feeding disinfo to constitutional conservatives is left wing conspiracy tier claims.

> It's quite funny to watch them first deny the facts, then attempt to deflect, then finally come full circle and deny their own words.

I'm glad you're amusing yourself, but the simple fact is that you can't meaningfully fight shills by playing by the rules. I respect that you try, however. Here's a standard exchange, going exactly as you stated:

(post on a topic)
(shill comes in with shill points)
(you argue with shill)
(shill flatly denies stuff)
(you link to sources)
(shill deflects implications)
(you demonstrate the deflections are invalid)
(shill flatly denies their above words)
(you demonstrate their own logical incoherence, prove that they are a liar, and move on)

And here's how every forum on the internet displays it to all users except the ones who have way too much time on their hands:
(post on a topic)
(shill comes in with shill points)
(you argue with shill)
(shill flatly denies stuff)

The point I'm making is that shills make use of posting tricks that use the mechanisms of the discussion boards against the other users. This means that by the time you get down into the weeds, the shill has succeeded. You aren't going to convince a shill, especially not a foreign government shill. Your entire goal should be to succinctly argue enough that anyone who cares will not accept the shill arguments uncritically, and maybe even do research themselves. Shills are fighting for mindspace of readers, they'll yield any battle that doesn't gain them ground in that one area, because they aren't fighting that battle.

Re:Somebody mod this story down

[quantaman]

That there are Russian shills on the internet is an undeniable fact. That they are on forums steering the conversation when they can is almost assuredly the case- I've seen such cases myself. But that doesn't mean that every piece of right wing journalism is magically fake news nor Russian spies.

There are paid Russian shills for sure, but no matter how extreme I'm always skeptical that any particular poster is a paid Russian shill. As the saying goes, never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity, and there is no shortage of stupid people on the Internet.

Re:Somebody mod this story down

[david_thornley]

My big surprise was finding that Russia thought Slashdot worth sending shills into.

I'm not claiming that all the pro-Russians were shills, but there were several accounts on such subjects as the Russian Anschluss in Crimea or the Russians shooting down an airliner that seemed to be awfully doctrinaire, had a slightly distinctive style, and had even less justification than the typical Slashdot troll.

Wait a minute

[willoughby]

I admit I don't keep up with this stuff. I thought the North Koreans were the bad guys I was supposed to be terrified of. Now it's the Russians? The vodka people? Damn, I only have so much time to be afraid. Make up your minds.

Re:Wait a minute

[Kohath]

It's all Eastasia. We've always been at war with Eastasia.

"now" ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now? You mean by "now" the last 100 years ?

"I admit I don't keep up with this stuff." - an understatement if ever.

immune system flanked

[epine]

Who knew that fact checking was an essential component of the human immune system?

Unbeknownst to him, all is not well in the harem. His wife and one of his mistresses are independently plotting his demise. The wife poisons the water in his canteen, while the mistress punctures the canteen so that the water slowly leaks out.

The Sheik sets out on the journey. After a few miles he feels parched. He unscrews the cap on his canteen and finds, much to his displeasure, that it is empty. He soon dies of dehydration.

Question: who caused the Utahan fracker's death, the wolf-calling media bias Republican or the relative-identity-politics Democrat?

Moral of the story: no time like the present to grease the squeaky wheels. And if that doesn't work, concrete shoes.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Yes, so much depends upon one yellowish-green wheel to muck the mules, situated at the goddamn factual (and spectral) midline.

Hillary lost because people don't like her

[Kohath]

The "fake news" narrative is getting old. She didn't lose because of "fake news", she lost because people don't like her and because poor folks don't see Democrats in power and think "my problems will be solved" any more.

No one is going to vote any different based on telling stories about Russian influence, even if they're true stories. And you won't be able to censor the Internet effectively. If you try to, it will backfire on you.

If you want the next Democrat candidate to win, here's a suggestion for Democrats: help people. Don't just pick fights. Don't just point and jeer. Actually do something to genuinely help. Do it with a motivation to help rather than to get even with people you hate and maybe help someone in the process. Help Americans to get votes from Americans. Help a broad, inclusive population of people if you want votes from a broad population of people.

If you don't want Democrats to win, then just keep fighting. Keep calling everyone a racist or some other name. Cater exclusively to SJW crybullys who want to scream about transgenger microaggressions and cultural appropriation. Keep doing nothing for regular people. And keep telling yourself you lost because of "fake news".

Re:Hillary lost because people don't like her

[elrous0]

^ A million times THIS

Re:Hillary lost because people don't like her

[Rockoon]

She didn't lose because of "fake news", she lost because people don't like her and because poor folks don't see Democrats in power and think "my problems will be solved" any more.

As has always been the case, its the economy, stupid!

You don't get voted in when people are getting fucked by the things you support.

Re:Hillary lost because people don't like her

[thrich81]

What you said is true, but at the risk of igniting derision in many subsequent comments, Hillary also lost because the American system of presidential elections (for better or worse) weights some votes more than others so that the winner of the popular vote loses the election. This has been endlessly 'litigated' on /. but the fact remains that some people's votes don't count as much as others in the presidential elections and Hillary got the majority of the lower weighted voters. In total more people 'liked her' than they did the 'winner'. And no one rational says those were 'millions of illegal votes'.

Re:Hillary lost because people don't like her

[Kohath]

Given a different system, people might have voted differently. Hillary might or might not have won in that case. Anyone can make up whatever story they want about something that might have happened but didn't.

She still lost because people don't like her -- the "more than" or "less than" someone else doesn't change that.

Re:Hillary lost because people don't like her

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Hillary also lost because the American system of presidential elections (for better or worse) weights some votes more than others so that the winner of the popular vote loses the election.

Oh, I get it . . . you're talking about the Superdelegates' votes, right . . . ?

Re:Hillary lost because people don't like her

[Anonymous Coward]

The Hillary angle is getting old. Fake news isn't a problem because Trump won, it's a problem because it's being systematically and purposely used to poison discourse and destroy the entire political system of your country (which is based on a degree of mutual respect and confidence that there really is something called 'truth', even if it may be hard to determine sometimes).

Fake news is a massive problem in its own right. Hillary vs Donald was a sideshow. (A cataclysmic one, for which the whole world will pay dearly. But still a symptom, not a root problem.)

Re:Hillary lost because people don't like her

[Kohath]

Fake news ... it's a problem because it's being systematically and purposely used to poison discourse and destroy the entire political system of your country

For a lot of us, it was poisoned to death at least 10 years ago. And we said so at the time, and no one cared.

A cataclysmic one, for which the whole world will pay dearly.

Speaking of "truth", please explain how you know the future.

Re:Hillary lost because people don't like her

[david_thornley]

There's no comparison between the nomination campaigns and the general election. The primary obligation of the DNC and RNC was to pick good candidate (how successful they were is another question). That does not necessarily mean the most popular candidate. I speak as one whose first Presidential vote was for McGovern in 1972.

The general election is supposed to be impartial, which is an entirely different thing.

Re:Hillary lost because people don't like her

[wyHunter]

Oh, but wait, globalisation is GOOD and the fact that you lost your $50 per hour job and are now making $10 is just 'collateral damage.'

Re:Hillary lost because people don't like her

[wyHunter]

Yes, the electoral college. Why those of us in smaller states don't get ABSOLUTELY screwed over by California and New York , just MOSTLY screwed by them. Look a the counties she won and you'll see why it's a great system we have.

Fatal flaw of Democracy

[Tempest451]

It is an idealistic notion of one-man, one-vote until you realize that the person who studies the issues, understands the world views, and makes an educated choice has the same vote as a person who makes their choice based on rumors and colorful advertisements. Clearly being liked is far more important to far more people than being qualified for elected office.

It's simpler than that

[argStyopa]

"The group "seems to have been in existence for just a few months"

You mean, roughly coinciding with HRC's failure to mobilize her base, and dawning recognition that she wasn't simply going to ascend the throne as planned?

Rather than invent a giant Russian hacking cabal, it's simpler to recognize:
- fake bullshittery news has been with us on the internet since...the internet. Election seasons in particular have always been rife with "did you hear" watercooler talk.
- its far easier to blame "them" on the internet than to accept that "Liberalism Ascendant" wasn't perhaps as inevitable as some thought, and a really shitty candidate CAN still lose an "in-the-bag" election
- not every story that HRC (note that all the 'false news' stories are one-sided; apparently nobody spread false tales about Trump? Really?) claims was fake was, ipso facto, fake. We seem to have quickly and conveniently moved on, for example, from what was obviously some serious seizure issues that have been hand-waved away as "fake news"

Re:It's simpler than that

[Tempest451]

It was never one thing. The GOP had 8 years to craft a strategy against HRC. They knew she would be running after Obama and keeping the negative spot light on her was second only to discrediting the Obama administration. Clinton was no "shittier" than any other politician, so the only way for the GOP to win was to indict politicians as a whole. This lead to Trumps win and even thought it was not the way they wanted it, they were more than willing to jump on the bandwagon.

Re:It's simpler than that

[butchersong]

Clinton was no "shittier" than any other politician

If you do a bit of googling you'll see that most (all?) of the secret service agents assigned to Hillary had a poor opinion of her. Agents were instructed to avoid making eye contact for example lest they feel her wrath... Most politicians can at least put on a jovial and endearing affect -this is what makes them successful politicians. Even given that we are talking about a very low bar, that she failed to endear those around her to her, that she instead tended to alienate and offend those who spent time with her does in fact at least in my view make her "shittier" than the average politician in my view.

Re:It's simpler than that

[david_thornley]

Being nice to Secret Service agents is almost completely orthogonal to being a good President. Do you think Jimmy Carter was a good President? He was certainly the best human being to become President in my lifetime.

Re:satire is dead

[meta-monkey]

"They're looking at someone else's fake news instead of our fake news! It's not fair!"

In Soviet America

[dave562]

Propaganda Russianizes You

Most likely.

[Qbertino]

I know from personal sources what US intelligence black-ops and their propaganda moves are capable of and have pulled of in the past to manipulate the public, so I'd say it's pretty likely.

Then again, that doesn't make Mr. Putin a nice guy or his regime an oderly one. It's just that the public US debate gives the Russians to much power and their own system to much credibility IMHO.

Re:Bah! They lost Michigan recount &...

[unixisc]

Once they gave up on PA, the exercise is worthless, since it still won't be enough to overturn the results. Jill Stein is running a scam and is successful doing it - she can keep all the $6-7M that leftist dupes give her.

Yes we are ...

[CaptainDork]

... always blaming Russia.

"Honey, I took the garbage out like you said, but the fucking Russians put it back!"

We can't comfortably blame China, because we need them.

Anyone will buy into the narrative that "Russia did it."

We knew it was bullshit when the US said, "It's Russia, but we don't know if it's state actors or an individual or individuals."

Any of us can "be" Russia at any time.

--

In any case, the elephant in the room is, "Why can't the US protect the data it owns?"

This Russia narrative directs criticism away from the real problem.

And ...

The DNC leak was an inside job.

They only got EMAIL!

Anyone who could have gotten to the other stuff: donor lists, employee personal data, SSN, ground strategy, candid political assessments, etc., would have done so.

Russians my ass.

Re:Bah! They lost Michigan recount &...

[serviscope_minor]

Jill Stein is running a scam

Liar.

Jill Stein has said precisely what the excess will be used for. It's not a scam if the money is going where she says it's going.

Media concern about fake news ironic

[Beeftopia]

Only after the election, after months of telling us Clinton had a lock on the election, NOW the MSM is suddenly howling about "fake news."

Methinks they doth protest too much.

Re:Media concern about fake news ironic

[Dutchmaan]

From what source do you get reliable information?

Re:Media concern about fake news ironic

[Beeftopia]

About events without a political implication? Local, established media is best.

About events with political implications? It requires consulting multiple sources, with the MSM as one of those sources.

Re:Media concern about fake news ironic

[Dutchmaan]

with the MSM as one of those sources.

OK.. so what are some of the other non mainstream sources for political implications?

Re:Media concern about fake news ironic

[Dutchmaan]

...ya, didn't think you'd answer...

They let the ban on propagandizing citizens expire

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Three and a half years ago the US government, under the Obama administration, let the ban on propagandizing US citizens expire - and immediately began writing and spreading "fake news".

From an FP article dated July 14, 2013:

U.S. Repeals Propaganda Ban, Spreads Government-Made News to Americans

For decades, a so-called anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. governmentâ(TM)s mammoth broadcasting arm from delivering programming to American audiences. But on July 2, that came silently to an end with the implementation of a new reform passed in January. The result: an unleashing of thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs for domestic U.S. consumption in a reform initially criticized as a green light for U.S. domestic propaganda efforts.

So the only thing new here is US citizens noticed one of the government's renewed, official, domestic propaganda operations.

Re:Bah! They lost Michigan recount &...

[jbn-o]

Jill Stein is running a scam and is successful doing it - she can keep all the $6-7M that leftist dupes give her.

Evidence? Ironic and sad that in a story centered on a lack of evidence (Democrats have yet to prove any Russian voter interference) you'd raise this accusation without proof.

Get Your Meta On

[jbond23]

It was the Russians who did it. Nope, 4chan. Right, Russians on 4chan. Lulz!

Re:Bogus downmods anyone? lol... apk

[__aaclcg7560]

Doing unjustifiable downmods to hide truth on YOUR PART is weak & you know it

I don't moderate on Slashdot. That makes your statement FALSE.

* So fuck off, ok?

You need to something about your anger issues. Venting in public is not healthy.

P.S.=> ANYTHING I wrote is easily substantiatable fact - which just KILLS "your kind" doesn't it? Yes & that's why you tried to "hide it" w/ downmods (which I can post in UNLIMITED FASHION easily to get you to "run dry" of those unjustifiable downmodpoints - lol, you can't even WIN AN ELECTION - do you think you can win vs. me? NO way)... apk

I'm a moderate conservative. We're difficult to kill.

Propaganda of propaganda of...

[amanaplanacanalpanam]

In accordance with the customary scandal du jour naming meme...this shall henceforth be known as Propogate!

Re:Propaganda of propaganda of...

[amanaplanacanalpanam]

Or of course the (more accurate) alternate spelling, Propagate

Re:Bah! They lost Michigan recount &...

[unixisc]

Okay, so PA won't be recounted - they've passed the deadline. MI's AG has said he'll move to block the recount, so nothing will happen there. W/o PA, recounting MI and WI is worthless: even if they flip those 2 states to Hilary, it won't change the overall results.

So does Jill Stein have any mechanism and plan to return these donations when the recount ends? Answer is no: she's said that their costs are running higher, but the recounts ain't even happening in PA. Which is a way of disguising the fact that she plans to pocket the cash for the Green Party once the recounts end/get rejected/aborted.

Re: Yes (Voter Fraud vs. Election Fraud)

[Ranger]

It's funny when the Right screams voter fraud, the left calls them all stupid because they have no evidence.

When he Left screams voter fraud from Russian hackers that they have zero evidence of, we have to waste millions of taxer payer money with lawsuits and recounts.

There is a difference between voter fraud and election fraud. Voter fraud is when an individual is able to cast a vote they are not supposed to. So far there has only been 4 cases of actual voter fraud this election. Election fraud is on a massive scale where hundreds or thousands of votes are changed or suppressed. It is easier to change the outcome of an election with a rigged election. Republicans falsely claim that voter fraud is a massive problem, so when they control state legislatures, they gerrymander districts and pass onerous voter ID laws that make it difficult or impossible for people who don't generally vote Republican (usually people of color) to vote (they don't need Russian hackers). This is a form of election fraud (but legal). Other forms of election fraud are tampered with ballot boxes like that has been reported in the Wisconsin recount. Democrats claim election fraud. They are not the same or equivalent. Election fraud can be harder to prove or do much about.

We need a balloting system that is auditable. A recount isn't an audit. An audit checks to make sure the system is working as it is supposed to and that votes are counted and reported accurately. This usually means some sort of paper trail. You can still use electronic voting machines as long as it prints a record that can be viewed.

As a side note, I favor an instant-runoff balloting system so that voter preferences are recorded, so that a candidate in a multi candidate election, a candidate doesn't win with a plurality of votes (Candidate A gets 39%, Candidate B gets 37%, Candidate C gets 24%. Candidate A wins but 61% didn't vote for him).

Extremeism lost

[SuperKendall]

Unfortunately, it looks like extremism has become more popular.

Not from where I'm sitting. From everything Trump has said and done after the election, he's actually been quite reasonable - it's Clinton supporters that have gone insane, and during the election were pulling every dirty trick possible to win. Reasonableness triumphed over extremism for once, I'm hoping it's the start of a trend.

Re:Extremeism lost

[david_thornley]

Relatively few Americans consider Trump's cabinet choices reasonable, and only some of what Trump says is reasonable. (Wanting the theater to be a safe space for politicians?). The biggest dirty trick of the election was Comey's bringing up Clinton emails near the end of the campaign, and that was anti-Clinton (I don't know if it was really pro-Trump, but definitely anti-Clinton), and that's probably what gave Trump some of the states he carried. There is some statistical evidence that certain voting machines may have been tampered to change votes to Trump, enough to justify investigation. The leaders in voter disenfranchisement have generally been Republican (I'm not saying that all Republicans are in favor of it, or that Trump was, but that when it happens Republicans tend to do it).

Re:Bah! They lost Michigan recount &...

[serviscope_minor]

So does Jill Stein have any mechanism and plan to return these donations when the recount ends? Answer is no:

http://www.jill2016.com/how_wi...

By no, you mean of course yes.

Re:Explain the downmod then

[__aaclcg7560]

See subject: Nobody disproved my points (they're easily proven FACTS is why) so I'll do as I please & watch "your kind" RUN DRY of 'downmodpoints' as always, lol... too bad for you & "your kind" ('soros losers', lmao).

I've already told you that I'm not a moderator. I don't have mod points to waste.

* :)

I'm sorry to see that you have a bump on your head. Yes, that would explain a lot.

Also - do yourself a favor before you play "SiDeWaLk-ShRiNk of /.' - get a psychiatric sciences degree, a formal examination of myself given in a professional psychiatric environs & a license to practice it 1st before you make a BIGGER FOOL OF YOURSELF showing your "delusions of grandeur" @ being a psychiatric pro with WEAK off topic illogical ad hominem attacks that fail vs. me (just like your downmods ALWAYS do).

Let me guess... you're an L. Ron Hubbard fan.

P.S.=> You're easy to kill - you do it to yourselves everytime thinking you can "push me around" when I shit ALL OVER YOU easily negating your bs... apk

So what?

You're very clever young man

[rdelsambuco]

"Very clever," said the old lady. "But it's fake news, all the way down." AKA: Postmodernism eating itself.

Re:They let the ban on propagandizing citizens exp

[vel-ex-tech]

Maybe I'm dense, but isn't it Congress' job to renew laws that have expiry dates? I skimmed the article but it didn't seem to clarify what I'm confused about. Is it the case that the R team did their right honorable duty as true statesmen to renew that law and Obama failed to sign it? The R team did have a majority in at least one branch of Congress in 2013, didn't they? My memory is hazy.

I mean, good grief. The president isn't a dictator. That's also why I'm not very worried at all about Trump! Trump! Trump! or even Darth Pence.

Also a good reason to have contempt for the D team when it had control of both houses of Congress 2008-2010. They could have passed something less corrupt than Obamneycare.

Re:"Rinse, Lather, & Repeat"... apk

[__aaclcg7560]

* Wasting your own time is your business - it's inefficient & wasteful, mine isn't....

Slashdot exist to keep me amuse while I'm waiting for a script to finish at work. I also love trolling the trolls on Slashdot. Thank you for participation!

No greenbacks for the Greenies?

[unixisc]

I'm assuming that you'd buy a bridge in Boston, provided the salesperson was a Leftist of some hue

Re:No greenbacks for the Greenies?

[serviscope_minor]

Right so someone asking for money to do something and telling what they'll do with the excess is a scam because...?

A scam involves deception. There is no deception here.

Ooooh I see why you're calling it a scam! Trump called it a scam and so you're copying: monkey see monkey do just like a good little trumpanzee.

Re:No greenbacks for the Greenies?

[unixisc]

She wants money to do a recount. Which is fine, if the recount is gonna change the results: they concede that it won't. Besides that, if there is cash left over after the recount is done, she ought to return it to the donors. She won't, but she can't tell people that she'll pocket it for the Green Party, so she creates this bs tale of 'election integrity efforts and to promote voting system reform.' Why will election officials anywhere - Republican OR Democrat - do those things her way, rather than whatever way works for them?

Re:No greenbacks for the Greenies?

[serviscope_minor]

Besides that, if there is cash left over after the recount is done, she ought to return it to the donors.

Nope. Not if she said up front what she'd do with it. Which uh... she did! There's no deception. And it's not a scam simply because she isn't meeting some arbitrary criteria that you insist she must meet, but the donors seem quite happy for her not to meet.

Just more monkey see monkey do from a Trumpanzee.

ooo ooo eee ooo

Re:No greenbacks for the Greenies?

[david_thornley]

The donation page was very straightforward about what the donations were to be used for. She explained why she was going to run recounts in as many of those three states as she could, and what would be done with the leftover money. She should do exactly what she said she'd do with the money, and that is push for recounts and use the rest to push for clean elections rather than return it. Anything else would be a breach of faith with her contributors.

Possible uses for the money are to file lawsuits asking for certain practices to be started or stopped, running informational campaigns, and possibly even helping counties replace voting machines that do not keep a paper trail.

Re:No greenbacks for the Greenies?

[david_thornley]

The three states that Stein picked for recounts have statistical disparities that appear to depend on the type of voting machine in use She wanted those investigated. Minnesota does not use machines that don't leave a paper trail. (I don't know about New Hampshire.)

Stein claimed (I haven't verified) that Michigan was still in doubt when she announced her intention to seek recounts there.

Jill Stein is running a scam

[Anonymous Coward]

Jill Stein raised $7 million. $3.5 million went to Wisconsin recount, check.
PA asked for a $1 million bond deposit to hear her case, she said they don't have it.
Bullshit!
Now Jill is going to sue PA in federal court (remember elections are state run, not federally) because the state of PA looks like it will reject her arguments.
Bullshit x2!
Jill says she is recounting the 3 closest states. NH is closer than PA, but Clinton won NH and there is no reason to recount it.
Bullshit x3!

Jill Stein is running a scam, period.

The sink not the source is the problem

[lfp98]

The key to the success and of fake news and the main determinant of its content is not its sources but its consumers. What social media companies have discovered is that giving people whatever news they personally want to hear, regardless of its accuracy, can be a highly lucrative business. Just set up the algorithms, watch the news sources arise like magic, see the subscribers rack up clicks, and let the ad revenue roll in.

Re:You've admitted you're a troll, lol... apk

[__aaclcg7560]

Speaking of amusement - I always find it amusing crushing wannabes & pseudo intellectuals like you via easily verified facts you cannot validly overcome.

You're still here? How tiresome. Go play in the street.

You're confused

[Anonymous Coward]

"So you mean The Right will support a woman's right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy?"

No, she can do what she wants to HER body, but killing another human being (her baby) is an entirely different matter. Incidentally: the right ALSO opposes an y father murdering his kids too.

"Or my right to consume mind-altering substances?"

Actually, most on the right would be fine with you using your drugs IN PRIVATE, as long as you do NOT endanger any other person AND you do not render yourself incapable of supporting yourself and then start demanding government checks (OTHER PEOPLE's HARD-EARNED MONEY, TAKEN BY FORCE)

"Does it protect the rights of individuals to worship their own god (or worship none at all)..."

Sure. The right in America DEMANDS this, and that generally also includes the idea that government cannot force you to support somebody ele's perversion of the thousands-of-years-old definition of "marriage"

"...by not placing icons of particular religions on federal buildings or force students to acknowledge a particular deity or by plastering worship of a particular deity on our currency?"

Sorry, but government acknowledgement of the religious beliefs of the majority and historical/cultural associations does not in any way force you to worship some particular entity nor does it prohibit you from having your own beliefs. You are free to worship, or not, and only an SJW snowflake thinks that having the national motto ion the currency is "oppression"

"Do they protect the right of two adults of the same sex to enter into a marriage contract with one another?"

Every right winger I know is perfectly fine with two gay people having a contractual relationship with each other - but it's another thing entirely to have government demand that people abandon their Judeo-Chrisitan religious beliefs and accept the re-definition of the word "marriage" and the inversion of 2K+ years of morality that converts an "abomination" into a "blessing". You pretend you do not want government pushing somebody else's religious beliefs down your throat, but then you assert exactly such an act as a good thing. If government has the right to force Christians or Jews to accept "gay marriage" then it has the fully-legitimate right to force you to be a Christian and even to force gays into gay-to-straight conversion therapy....it's just at that point a matter of who is in power and what they choose to force. That idea that people have the freedom to believe as they will either goes both ways or it does not - and in the Obama era we turned a corner and started asserting that it does not as government sued nuns to force them to fund abortions, which they are unlikely to ever do, and sued Christians to force them to accept the re-definition of marriage, which they cannot do.

Matt Taibi

[superwiz]

Anyone following Matt Taibi's career can clearly tell you that he is a Russian-trained spy. He may have been born in the US, but he was clearly recruited during his 10-year sting as a reporter for an English-language newspaper in Moscow. His argument style is most reminiscent of the old-Soviet propaganda. And he consistently sides with Russia and blames the US in any conflict between the two countries. I, personally, have also seen him use a direct translation of the Russian phrase "neither fish nor meat" instead of the English idiom "neither fish not fowl". Which is entirely unexpected from a professional English-language writer. The only explanation I have for his whole persona is massive training received based on literature used to directly train Russian spies in English or directly in Russian.

Re:Bah! They lost Michigan recount &...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lunatic fuckwads like you have negative credibility you brainless malware pedalling shit.

the resident insane troll APK.

[Anonymous Coward]

You get downmods because everyone here knows you are a stupid insane troll.
Too gutless to login because you know you would be posting at -1 very quickly.
Your delusion of winning is rather amusing, when everything you post is downmodded, you have never won one argument, other than the ones between the voices in your head.
Time for another incoherent ranting post with random bolding!

Re:Take your own poor advice admitted troll

[__aaclcg7560]

You're clearly an unintelligent EASILY outwitted admitted troll (no creativity creimer you admitted troll)... lol!

I post on Slashdot for fun. Beyond that I don't give a shit.

False equivalence

[Xylantiel]

A few reporters getting duped is NOT the same as intentionally and repeatedly manufacturing fake news. This is actually a strategy of the fake news pushers... try to dress something up well enough to get picked up by the more reputable sources. Then declare them irriputable when one of dozens of false-flag operations gets through. But the point is that this story was (a) discredited by other news sources and (b) will be or already has been retracted by the WP and (c) reporters will lose their jobs or be demoted, not promoted like they would at a fake news operation.

Also, I'm sure that Rolling Stone has been scouring the Washington Post for something poorly sourced like this, since it was the Post that eviscerated Rolling Stone for the expose on gang rape on college campuses, which turned out to be fabricated by the victim (though actually in a very convincing way).

The problem isn't fake news, it's a public who can't pay attention longer than one 24-hour news cycle. The real facts are almost never known within 24 hours. If people drew their conclusions after there had been enough time for consideration and cross-checking, fake news would have no power. Just like superpacs would have no power if people would just not believe a word of what someone paid for them to hear, duh.

It is all propaganda

[Zemran]

Is there really a difference between Russian Propaganda and US propaganda? Not really. Change the names and places and they are the same. A lot has changed and now it is the US military is doing more spying and crying. Like when they go to Kaliningrad and cry that the Russian plane buzzed them to chase them out and the same spy ship was crying about the same thing the year before in Sevastopol. The news tells people what they want to hear. That is what sells newspapers. If you were to tell people the truth they would get upset and stop buying the papers. I remember talking to a Russian friend in the 1980s, before the wall came down, and I asked him about the difference between the east and the west and he said that the main difference was that in the east they know it is propaganda.

Re:Bah! They lost Michigan recount &...

[Mashiki]

Liar

So she's running a recount in the states where Hillary won by only 3k votes? No? Oh I thought so. She's running a scam you fucking rube.

Re:Bah! They lost Michigan recount &...

[Insanity Defense]

The recount in Pennsylvania is NOT dropped. The State Court case was dropped and REPLACED with a Federal one. So the attempt for a recount is on, just in a higher court.

Yes, we do

[Tom]

Both sides in this information war are using propaganda.

Does Russia spend money to improve its image, including on social media? You can bet they do. Just like every other country in the world. Are there people paid to troll anti-russian comments? I wouldn't be surprised. But the question the article raises is a good question as well: Are there people paid to troll pro-russian comments? I wouldn't be surprised, either. And frankly speaking to me it seems like it, because if you post anything pro-russian or just with a balanced view, you do get shouted down as a Putin-lover or whatever.

Re:Yes, we do

[david_thornley]

I'm fairly sure I've seen pro-Russian shills on Slashdot. I haven't seen as much direct evidence for anti-Russian shills, although it's very plausible.

Re:Take your own poor advice admitted troll

[penandpaper]

I post on Slashdot for fun. Beyond that I don't give a shit.

That's just what the government wants you to think, man.

Re:Bah! They lost Michigan recount &...

[serviscope_minor]

She's running a scam you fucking rube.

Are your bollocks ok? I only ask because your pants are clearly on fire.

I bet you can't point to an incident where she's used money in a manner other than what she said she'd use it for. Since you're the resident crazy-bloke here, I expect a bunch of links to irrelevant articles where you demand I dig through a further 3 layers of links to find information you insist exists.

We paid for Russian Info Op

[laughingskeptic]

The three biggest intel orgs in the world have very different philosophies of how you get the job done. The U.S. likes to go after big coups -- turning a general, etc. The Chinese like ops that require enormous resources and cast a wide net, like trying to compromise every visiting student and helping them with their careers in the hopes that one of them winds up somewhere useful someday. The Russians seek to the control the story and believe that they can shape history and they do this with a massive propaganda arm along with controlling the press, etc. Do not make the assumption that your opponents think the same way you do. A company with a superior product that doesn't understand that its competition has superior marketing can still lose in the marketplace.

The Russians have been probing our responses to social media for years. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ) and our scientists such as Gilad Lotan have helpfully informed them of how to succeed where this hoax is considered to have been a failure. By the time the 2016 election came around they not only knew how to successfully plant fake news but exactly what its shelf life was and had a good idea how to build up to the current election. My guess is they also made money doing it via "clicks". So the gullible US population funded Russia's information operation against itself. Genius.

Russia was not the only genesis of the fake news. I am sure Brad Parscale understood and drove a lot of this and we know Steve Bannon made money promoting fake news. A key element in fake news though is producing as many supporting cross-links as possible. In my mind the effectiveness of Russia's contribution is the outstanding question, not whether or not it happened. Since many of the documentable origins are fake social media accounts and evaporated shell companies it will be very hard to assess who contributed what to the process. I believe there will be a tendency to over-blame "nefarious" Russia in the aftermath.

Re:Bah! They lost Michigan recount &...

[david_thornley]

Stein said that her campaign would spend the money on recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania if they got enough, and that they'd use the remainder of the contributions towards making elections clean. She promised nothing in the way of results. The donation page was very clear on those things.

Do you have evidence that her campaign is doing anything else with the donated money?

Re:Take your own poor advice admitted troll

[__aaclcg7560]

That's just what the government wants you to think, man.

I work for the government. I'm here to help. :P

Re:Bah! They lost Michigan recount &...

[hyades1]

Just what we need. Another fact-averse Trump whore commenting on things better left to people with three-figure IQ's.

Re:Admittedly trolling on /. = your "job"?

[__aaclcg7560]

See subject & your admitting you are a troll (probably hired by George Soros or Hillary Clinton to mislead others)

Congrats on getting out of jail! The Slashdot community misses you. (Not!)

Re:I haven't been in jail creimer... apk

[__aaclcg7560]

I haven't had to work for ANYONE in a decade++!

You're unemployable and posting from an ObamaPhone? That's tough.

Re:I'm a landlord of multiple properties chump

[__aaclcg7560]

helpdesk, lmao

I do computer security these days.

You wouldn't be able to FUNCTION @ all minus guys like myself (programmers/software engineers)

Because of people like you, there will always be people like me to clean up after your messes. That's job security on my end.

Re:LOL - I was doing THAT before you were born

[__aaclcg7560]

You can TRY cut me down but you're SO far below me in this field, even in security, it's NOT funny.

What I'm doing is feeding the troll. What you're doing is pathetic. You claim to be someone important but you spend your time belittling someone on a two-week old Slashdot thread. That's pathetic.

Re:I never said I'm important (you did)

[__aaclcg7560]

you continue trolling off topic + are pathetic projecting what's in my subject line above as you did...

I think this thread will close out after 200 comments.