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Is Russia Conducting A Social Media War On America? (time.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Time magazine ran a cover story about "a dangerous new route for antidemocratic forces" -- social media. "Using these technologies, it is possible to undermine democratic government, and it's becoming easier every day," says Rand Waltzman of the Rand Corp., who ran a major Pentagon research program to understand the propaganda threats posed by social media technology." The article cites current and former FBI and CIA officials who now believe Russia's phishing emails against politicians were "just the most visible battle in an ongoing information war against global democracy." They cite, for example, a March report by U.S. counterintelligence which found "Russians had sent expertly tailored messages carrying malware to more than 10,000 Twitter users in the Defense Department."
Each message contained links tailored to the interests of the recipient, but "When clicked, the links took users to a Russian-controlled server that downloaded a program allowing Moscow's hackers to take control of the victim's phone or computer -- and Twitter account...
"In 2016, Russia had used thousands of covert human agents and robot computer programs to spread disinformation referencing the stolen campaign emails of Hillary Clinton, amplifying their effect. Now counterintelligence officials wondered: What chaos could Moscow unleash with thousands of Twitter handles that spoke in real time with the authority of the armed forces of the United States?" The article also notes how algorithms now can identify hot-button issues and people susceptible to suggestion, so "Propagandists can then manually craft messages to influence them, deploying covert provocateurs, either humans or automated computer programs known as bots, in hopes of altering their behavior. That is what Moscow is doing, more than a dozen senior intelligence officials and others investigating Russia's influence operations tell Time."
The article describes a Russian soldier in the Ukraine pretending to be a 42-year-old American housewife. Meanwhile, this week Time's cover shows America's White House halfway-covered with Kremlin-esque spires -- drawing a complaint from the humorists at Mad magazine, who say Time copied the cover of Mad's December issue.
"In 2016, Russia had used thousands of covert human agents and robot computer programs to spread disinformation referencing the stolen campaign emails of Hillary Clinton, amplifying their effect. Now counterintelligence officials wondered: What chaos could Moscow unleash with thousands of Twitter handles that spoke in real time with the authority of the armed forces of the United States?" The article also notes how algorithms now can identify hot-button issues and people susceptible to suggestion, so "Propagandists can then manually craft messages to influence them, deploying covert provocateurs, either humans or automated computer programs known as bots, in hopes of altering their behavior. That is what Moscow is doing, more than a dozen senior intelligence officials and others investigating Russia's influence operations tell Time."
The article describes a Russian soldier in the Ukraine pretending to be a 42-year-old American housewife. Meanwhile, this week Time's cover shows America's White House halfway-covered with Kremlin-esque spires -- drawing a complaint from the humorists at Mad magazine, who say Time copied the cover of Mad's December issue.
If anyone is conducting a (metaphorical) war on America, it's the news media. How many hyped up bullshit stories is it going to take before news media consumers realize it's 95% storytelling and 5% actual events?
Crimea invasion and now this? It looks like long-time KGBer Vladimir Putin is serious about rebuilding the Union of Soviet Social-ist Republics.
The vast majority of the article can be summed as, "astroturfing." I think we've known for a while that various governments pay people to enter forums and post messages trying control the narrative.
There is a paragraph about phishing that largely is quoted in the summary. The article doesn't make clear whether these are phishing attacks from the Russian government, or just from Russia.
Overall, the article is an example of the breathless hyperbole that fills every news article these days.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Because the alternative is admitting that Hillary lost because she's terrible and because her views are out of step with the public.
And that can't be true, right? If it were, Republicans would also control the House and the Senate and the majority of the state governorships and the state legislatures.
Probably the biggest source of propaganda came during the 2007 TARP. If the American people did not bail out the banks who had been holding CMOs, the economy would be devastated.
This one really gets my goat. The big banks got off so easy at the expense of taxpayers. Then they lobbied so successfully for Dodd-Frank that it became a present wrapped for them in a bow.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Well that's good, because there isn't any accusation of electoral fraud, vote rigging or coercion of voters (except by Trump).
Like a good infowarrior you erected a poor strawman to avoid recognition of the actual concern.
Good job, man!
Glad Russia didn't have any trouble manipulation social media. You are a poster child.
The Democrats are practically shut out of the state governments. Legislative branches and Governorships.
The have been in the minority in the Federal Government for nearly ten years now.
And now Hillary just got technically KO'd by a bloviating braggart (which, I have to admit, I thoroughly enjoyed watching.).
So now they are struggling to figure out what happened and make sense of their current predicament. In the best tradition of politicians, they have found an scapegoat...the Russians.
Despite allcoolnameswheretak insistence and links, there is no hard evidence of the Russians interfering with the election. Rumors, innuendo, circumstantial curiosities, but nothing more.To the extent they might have been perpetrating a Psyops, there is no evidence they've done anything that WE haven't done throughout the world currently and in the past.
The furious panty twisting the Democrats are engaged in is merely a Psyops on the American people.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Switzerland has a GDP of around $650B. There are only 6 _states_ in the US that have more and only 3 states have more than double that. Now, I did not fund a list of US GDP by country, but unless, for example, California manages to have about 25% of its total GDP in only one county, your numbers are complete bullshit.
The funny part is if you wanted to take the county or state comparison all the way, then a good chunk of the US would be considered third world.
Actually that's not funny at all, it's really quite sad...