Slashdot Mirror
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?
My understanding is that most of the emails were in fact true. The DNC never claimed the emails were false, just complaining that their dirty laundry got out for everyone to see.
Rriight...
Yes, sure. Defending one's Motherland from invaders is "crazy".
The last National Socialist left Ukraine in 1944... He was in a hurry...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
After 9/11, I was listening to a interview with Rudy Giuliani. He made a joke, that while as some other countries might have the best engineers, America has the best Madison Avenue. He was referring to the propaganda pipeline, and how the US worked hard to make itself hear around the world and exerts its influence globally. /hr, but with the changes in the economy, prices skyrocketed because the economy was opened up to the West (shook capitalism, it was called).
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. All the wrong people would have the money, so the richest 1% had to work hard to maintain the status quo.
I remember hearing [re-]broadcasts by Ronald Reagan via "Voice of America" broadcast into Afghanistan in the 1970's. He went off the deep end and talked about how there are plenty of jobs for Afghan defectors. This was such bullshit, as there were lots of unemployed Americans, so I just didn't understand how shit like this would be believed (by the East). Apparently, it was reasonably successful, for the amount of descent it would cause. Similarly, most of the strikes in Gdansk Poland were strongly influenced by the US, with the help of the catholic church. All sorts of nonsense was promised to the workers in the shipyards, most ironically, that they would get Western wages if they broke away from the Eastern block. After the bankruptcy of the Gdansk shipyards and the fall of the Soviet Union, "Johnson and Johnson" negotiated purchasing the shipyards. The workers were getting around $.25/hour before the changes and managed to get $.50
I think we've known for a while that various governments pay people to enter forums and post messages trying control the narrative.
I haven't heard of any other nation coming close to the scale of Russia:
"Russia's information war might be thought of as the biggest trolling operation in history,"
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.
Uh, yes, TFA does say it came straight from Russian soldiers:
In one case last year, senior intelligence officials tell TIME, a Russian soldier based in Ukraine successfully infiltrated a U.S. social media group by pretending to be a 42-year-old American housewife and weighing in on political debates with specially tailored messages.
Overall, the article is an example of the breathless hyperbole that fills every news article these days.
Heh TFA says "the Russians would consider it a success if you questioned the truth of your news sources". Hrm.
There are no Russian soldiers in Ukraine.
No, of course not. All those freshly dug graves of Russian soldiers suddenly appearing and reporters being attacked investigating the sudden increase in dead Russian soldiers mean absolutely nothing.
Don't forget the Russian special forces soldiers captured in Ukraine, the Russian officer captured while transporting ammunition and supplies, the Russian soldiers who have dropped the pretense they're not fighting in Ukraine while others have quit the army because they don't want to fight in Ukraine like their comrades. Then there are the terrorists themselves who fully admit Russian soldiers have been fighting for them.
So yeah, no evidence whatsoever of Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
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.
Stop treating government as a sporting contest where you cheer for your team to crush the other team.
Some countries like Switzerland have not a single head of executive, but a council of 7 people.
It the same was practiced in your country, that would lead to totally different campaigns.
It would be very difficult for the candidate of one or the other of your bipartite system, to spend time arguing that the other is "an incompetent idiot", because with such system, they are guaranteed to then later have to work together reaching a consensus.
Hard to crush a team, when all the team *must in practice* work together.
The only big suspense would be who out of the minor parties are going to get the last of the coucil seats.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I've been noticing since the election how odd it is that whenever I meet a Trump supporter, or a Hillary hater, If I bring up Russia, their nationalistic sense of American sovereignty will completely evaporate. To a person, they deflect concern about Russian hacking or Putin's oligarchy with such skill as if they've attended an 8-week media training course. They'll claim the Russians did us a favor by exposing Democratic corruption, and even shed a tear for the plight of the Russian people suffering under Obama's sanctions.
When I meet someone who says they "don't support Trump" but somehow only attacks liberals, I can just imagine the Facebook group that got their hooks in them. I keep seeing groups for political causes that used to have their own identities, but now only post pro-Trump or anti-liberal messages. "Being Libertarian" had a perfect example – libertarianism is diametrically opposed from authoritarianism, and yet it showed up in my feed because a friend of mine clicked "Like" on a picture of a parody of that one poem. It said "They came for the socialists, and I said nothing. Then everything was better and they stopped coming for people." Thousands of likes, each one from someone who labels themselves "libertarian" but totally signed off on the rounding-up of their political enemies, and declared their trust that strongman authority only takes away rights temporarily.
And that's what is worrying, because even if Trump gets impeached, the national psyche is already gravely wounded, and the Kremlin has a fresh truckload of salt for us every day to stop it from healing.
Many shadowy parties are reported to be involved in this sort of thing, another is American Billionaire Robert Merce who has also been implicated in unlawful campaigning in the UK Referendum and General Elections, illegally under UK election regulations.
https://www.theguardian.com/te...
This is mental insanity because there isn't any evidence at all of electoral fraud, vote rigging or coercion of voters.
You're a liar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I don't respond to AC's.
Heh TFA says "the Russians would consider it a success if you questioned the truth of your news sources"
If that is truly the goal of Russian hackers, then they are doing us a favor.
Now if only we can get people to doubt news sources they agree with.
"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.
This is perfectly sane because there's a massive amount of evidence of Russia running propaganda farms pushing specific messages over the internet. Our intelligence community has come right out and said they're doing this. None of this is unsubstantiated. Spend 20 minutes on google and you can prove that to yourself. There are tons of meticulously sourced articles about it.
Also, you're straw manning. We're not discussing vote rigging or coercion, we're discussing propaganda campaigns.
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It's worth noting that whatever Time might have intended, the error here isn't just on the part of the Slashdot summary. Just about every media outlet that mentions the Time cover calls it the Kremlin.
This reflects a truth about the depth of the media's knowledge and understanding of Russia.
The Brexit vote and the U.S. presidential election form part of Russiaâ(TM)s campaign of propaganda and disinformation to undermine and interfere in democratic processes in the Western countries.
http://www.newsweek.com/brexit...