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.

Comments

Rubbish

[Archtech]

"The article describes a Russian soldier in the Ukraine pretending to be a 42-year-old American housewife".

Blown right away. There are no Russian soldiers in Ukraine. And if there were, they would be too busy fighting off the crazed Ukrainian soldiers and Nazi battalions to do a lot of social media.

Re:Rubbish

[Uberbah]

All those freshly dug graves

An NGO with ties to Human Rights Watch, another tool of western hegemony.

and reporters being attacked

From BBC, the British equivalent of National Pentagon Radio, a stenographer of the military-industrial complex. It's always amusing to see people who would pitch a fit at citing Russia Today as a source use western media that act as stenographers for the military-industrial complex.

But even if everything said about Russia in Ukraine was 100% true, it's 100000% more justified than any western intervention you can name. The U.S. just bombed Syria, supposedly to protect American "advisors" there. Well, Syria isn't on America's border, and didn't have it's government overthrown by Russia. Which is why this little nugget is a especially pernicious piece of horseshit western propaganda:

there are the terrorists themselves

So the fighter resisting anti-semetic neo-nazies in Ukraine is the "terrorist". Not the anti-semetic neo-nazies who attacked government buildings and overthrew the elected Ukrainian government.