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FBI Tracked 'Fake News' Believed To Be From Russia On Election Day (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: The FBI monitored social media on Election Day last year in an effort to track a suspected Russian disinformation campaign utilizing "fake news," CNN has learned. In the months leading up to Election Day, Twitter and Facebook were the feeding grounds for viral "news" stories floating conspiracies and hoaxes, many aimed at spreading negative false claims about Hillary Clinton. On Election Day, dozens of agents and analysts huddled at a command center arrayed with large monitoring screens at the FBI headquarters in Washington watching for security threats, according to multiple sources. That included analysts monitoring cyber threats, after months of mounting Russian intrusions targeting every part of the US political system, from political parties to policy think-tanks to state election systems. On this day, there was also a group of FBI cyber and counterintelligence analysts and investigators watching social media. FBI analysts had identified social media user accounts behind stories, some based overseas, and the suspicion was that at least some were part of a Russian disinformation campaign, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.
targetting the Trump campaign too?
Y'know the stuff that was played out here on slashdot as well? Or are we only running this as a propaganda campaign that anything and everything attacking Trump was true but everything attacking Hillary was Russian fake news?
...many aimed at spreading negative false claims about Hillary Clinton.
Trump and Clinton were arguably the two most hated presidential candidates to run in US presidential election history. They didn't need the "help" of fake news to have material on which to attack each other as there was no shortage of negative true information about them.
The key difference was that every little thing Trump did was held up by the media (and the Republican establishment) as a harbinger of the end of modern civilization if Trump were to get elected.
On the other hand, every thing that Hillary did (and there was lots: evading federal records laws, flipping on "don't ask don't tell", flipping on gay marriage, colluding with the DNC on debate prep, colluding with the DNC on subverting Sanders' campaign, the highly questionable financial arrangements of the Clinton foundation, etc.) was largely treated as non-news by the same media.
So, in summary, there was absolutely no shortage of negative news on Clinton, it was just getting ignored by the news media.
CNN is talking about fake news again.
oh the irony!
"His name was James Damore."
What you're describing really boils down to average Americans in general getting sick and tired of the leftism that has been forced on them recently, especially over the last decade or so.
These average Americans are tired of the hypocrisy and contradiction that leftists continually exhibit.
Average Americans are tired of seeing huge numbers of illegal aliens flow over America's borders uninhibited, and they're especially tired of the economic distortions these illegal aliens bring. Average Americans are tired of the crime these illegal aliens commit, beyond their original crime of entering the USA illegally. Average Americans are disgusted by how leftists think all of this is acceptable, if not to be encouraged.
Average Americans are tired of constantly hearing about transsexuals from the media and from leftists, despite transsexuals making up far less than 1% of the population.
Average Americans are tired of being mislabeled as some kind of "-ist" or "-phobic" by leftists just because they don't want to constantly parrot the tenets of leftist ideologies.
Average Americans are tired of seeing armed and violent criminals portrayed as "innocent" by leftists when these criminals physically attack police officers, and the police need to respond with reasonable deadly force in self defense.
Average Americans are tired of seeing classic movies being remade by leftists just so that the cast can be more "inclusive" or "diverse", even when doing so makes absolutely no sense given the story being told. It isn't just limited to movies, as well. Many other aspects of American culture and history are being revised by leftists.
Average Americans are tired of being told by leftists that these average Americans need to be more "inclusive" and "tolerant", yet leftists rabidly attack anyone who doesn't agree with leftist ideology.
Average Americans are tired of the censorship they fall victim to on various social media sites, perpetrated by leftists.
Average Americans are tired of seeing academia become less about real education and real research, and more about leftist indoctrination. Average Americans are tired of seeing the STEM subjects and the classics forced to becoming a tier below questionable leftist subjects like "Women's Studies", "Indigenous Studies", and "Sociology".
Average Americans are tired of being threatened with carbon taxes or other environmentalism-driven restrictions by leftist "environmentalists" who generate massive amounts of greenhouse gases by living in large mansions, driving SUVs, and flying their private jets around the world to give speeches about how generating greenhouse gas emissions is bad!
Average Americans are tired of the crocodile tears so often exhibited by leftists. Today's "cause" is forgotten by tomorrow afternoon. Sometimes tomorrow afternoon's cause actually contradicts with today's cause!
All of this hypocrisy, contradiction and outright disrespect results in these average Americans voting for the political right. This is happening at the local level. This is happening at the state level. This is happening at the federal level. There is a widespread rejection of leftism by a huge portion of the American population.
And instead of recognizing that leftism is being rejected because it's so ideologically hypocritical and toxic to most average Americans, we see the leftists going on and on about "Russians". It's absurd.
Both Clinton and the DNC are even less popular than Trump.
I'm not American so maybe I've missed something despite my best attempts at following the events in the US closely but I am under the impression that there are several investigations underway into the Russia thing. So how come it's possible for people to claim anything to be proven, one way or the other, when the guys looking into it (Muller, the senate committee, etc) have not come out with anything yet as they're still gathering data?
I've always considered /. to be a place of (mostly) rational, science-oriented people who understand the importance and value of due process and following the evidence, but yet people from both the left and the right alike are proclaiming that they know the end result of the investigation(s) before it's even remotely completed. What the fuck is up with this shit?
The presence of this kind of rhetoric to me is worrisome because it reeks of 3rd world pseudo-Orwellian BS. People in their own little bubbles with insane amounts of confirmation bias absorbing blog posts masquerading as news and becoming convinced that they know the truth ahead of time, so that when the investigation(s) finally conclude, no matter the result, half of the people will be up and arms and shouting 'Conspiracy, conspiracy, I know the result is false, I read so at [insert news/blog outlet of choice] several months ago, clearly the establishment/'deep state' is [out to frame the innocent president/corrupt and in the back pocket of a corrupt president and lying to protect him]".
Democratic systems require an informed voter base to function. Once that is gone, once the public can be spoon fed tailor made propaganda and manipulated with relative ease into believing nearly anything without hard evidence, then the entire concept of accountability goes out the window, and truth stops mattering, by which point you might just as well elect a king and be done with it.
-1984
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
I don't get it: why does anyone care. Foreign government has an opinion, published propaganda pieces supporting it. Opinion happens to be about another government's elections.
Tell me the US government doesn't do this. Tell me just about any country on earth doesn't do this. This isn't news, it isn't even interesting. It's just the continuing progressive drumbeat, as they try to not let their "fake news" Russia stories die.
tl;dr: Hillary didn't need any help losing the election.
Also: For anyone who hasn't figured out why Trump won, and why those of us from flyover country have decided to stop humoring the progressives, read this rant. If you're from flyover country, you will nod knowingly. If you're not, maybe it will give you some insight into the foundations of the alt-right.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Nope, just corrupt and unrepresentative.
Political parties have a right to set their own standards. But both parties have a flawed primary system, and so does the presidential election itself. Not to mention the various legislative seats, which are grossly imbalanced.
I'm coming to the realization that the Democrats are actually corrupt(*).
I was reading about the DOJ slush fund(**) and it struck me just how deep and insidious the corruption has been in this country.
This is paired with the IRS selecting conservative charities for intense scrutiny, 11 California counties have more registered voters than adults, all the leaks and outright disobeying of executive orders from the WH.
And let us not forget after the election, leftists pleaded with the EC delegates to be faithless, then pleaded with the supreme court to invalidate the results, then pleaded with the U.S. military to step in and prevent the inauguration (wtf?), leaked secret and sensitive information - not to expose crimes, but for political slander, and rioted for weeks. They thought all this was OK, if it somehow got them to their goals. For example, Hillary made no statements condemning the riots, and most of the left blamed the rioting on Trump.
All this *in addition* to the Sanders thing, and getting special treatment in the press and for the debates, blocking reasonable voter registration, and suppressing the military vote.
There's a sub-conversation on the net that holds that the Democratic party *won't survive* once all the corruption has been rooted out. The Democratic ideals are so far from what people want that they require all the extra boost they get from a tilted playing field.
I'm not sure I believe that bit about the Democratic party not surviving, but after reading about the DOJ thing, and knowing the level of effort we're putting into the Russia probe while ignoring some seemingly obvious evidence on the Democratic side, it makes me wonder...
(*) Whether the Republicans are also corrupt, or have a different level of corruption, is still an open question.
(**) DOJ plea-bargains where the offending company pays its fine to charity, but the DOJ only chooses charities that promote left-wing causes.
Trump isn't a Libertarian - he's far from supporting my views, but I find myself defending and supporting him constantly. Why? BECAUSE OF ALL THE FAKE CRAP ATTACKING HIM.
That's not a reason to support Trump. It's a reason to support the truth. You're not inherently defending Trump by attacking fake news.
On the other hand...
The whole Russian thing is completely made up.
That's a stupid thing to say, and you are a stupid person for saying it. Trump and his relatives and his cabinet have lied at every turn about their various ties to and meetings with Russia, and not by accident, either. They couldn't have been accidents. If they have nothing to hide, why are they lying so much?
Russia isn't even our enemy!
Russia is not our enemy on paper, which is why what Trump has done is not treason. You have to be aiding the enemy, and Russia is (on paper) our ally. We are the left and right fists of the UNSC. But Russia is not our friend. Russia is a competitor.
They're like that guy we've worked with on a couple of projects but he doesn't come to our house for Thanksgiving or anything.
And he's got a penchant for poisoning people who disagree with him, and he's fond of spreading a lot of rhetoric about what assholes we are. You wouldn't actually invite him to dinner, at least, not if your kids were going to be home. And you'd lock up your valuables.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If the Russia story is made up, why did Flynn lie? And why did Sessions lie? And why did Trump Jr. lie? And why did Jared lie? All about meeting with Russians?
You'd think if it was such a fake story that they wouldn't keep lying about it. They'd just tell the truth.
So this is how Russia "influenced" our election? By spreading fake news and being Internet trolls?! For fuck's sake, that's it???
Careful, you gotta use the right language here: they didn't just "influence" the election, they "hacked" it! If you don't use the right terms, people might start thinking the Democrats fucked up really, really badly, and we can't let that happen or the people who spent decades getting all that political power might find themselves out in the cold, unable to pay for their third summer home in the Caribbean!
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
" . . . many aimed at spreading negative false claims about Hillary Clinton." What was fake about those negative claims? I'd believe almost anything negative about Hillary. Well, maybe not the one about her drinking the blood of young children, but nearly everything else.
Just because you believe these claims doesn't mean they're true; it rather means that people are telling you what you want to hear.
So I guess we shouldn't have believed Watergate, either. After all, that all came from "unnamed sources."
What I find hilarious is thanks to Wikileaks we have more than enough evidence to prove there was major collusion between the DNC and several large news outlets to ignore crimes and influence the election but the thing we are supposed to care about is Russia MIGHT have acted like Internet trolls and went "psst psst"....really? Do they REALLY expect us to be Russia having some Internet trolls makes them more powerful than a dozen billion dollar news outlets and the DNC when it comes to affecting our election process? Really?
The DNC and HRC rigged the primary to insure Bernie couldn't win, the MSM in cahoots with the DNC went out of their way to ignore evidence of crimes committed by HRC including but not limited to lying under oath to congress, lying to the FBI, and destroying evidence that was under subpoena, we even had a former president having a secret meeting with the person in charge of investigating his wife who in turn ordered the head of the FBI to change his language to cover up the fact HRC was under investigation, but we should care about Russian trolls...really?
I think we can all see who the REAL threat to democracy is, its the fake news outlets like CNN who are in the pocket of the DNC and whom have a vested interest NOT in reporting facts but pushing a political narrative. Between Wikileaks and Project Veritas I'd say we have more than enough evidence for arrests to be made...so why aren't we making them? Who is covering for those that were helping the DNC to shove HRC down our throats? This is what we really should be investigating because if we do not? Its never gonna matter what the people do on a grass roots level because the corporate masters can sit in a back room and choose who is gonna win the primaries no matter what.
Oh and for those that think Shillary and the DNC could do no wrong? You have them to thank for Donald Trump, look up "pied piper candidate" and see for yourself how Shillary and her pet MSM pushed Trump because they figured with her identity politics would play well against him compared to more mainstream candidates like Bush or Cruz.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Yet despite the fact that all I have said is backed by solid evidence including incriminating statements, emails, and proof of lying under oath and destruction of evidence the Shillary SJW army will try their best to bury anyone who disagrees with their false political narrative.
Those of us who actually supported the non shill candidates (I personally supported Sanders) got to see the entire primary process shown to be a sham and as rigged as a game of three card monty by a group of banksters and foreign influence by countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar...yet we are supposed to buy their "ZOMFG its teh Russians!" bullshit? When even the bigwigs at CNN admitted on camera that its bullshit?
It just shows how many have been turned into bleating sheep by identity politics, because we literally have proof of their crimes in their own words with emails, hidden cameras, and sworn statements before congress but sadly so many here are so fucking brainwashed the MSM can say "Who are ya gonna believe, us or your lying eyes?" and they will ignore mountains of evidence because it doesn't support their warped failed political narrative.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.