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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.
" was largely treated as non-news by the same media."
It was being reported, but the media kept saying "oh, this isn't a big deal" while anything Trump did was reported as the end of days.
Had the news been impartial, Clinton easily wins, but the media couldn't help themselves and made the whole system look corrupt and pre-planned.
What's funny is when Democrats say that Hillary was treated unfairly by the media. Are you kidding me? Her downfall was that she was treated too well that it was obvious the whole system is corrupt...and that she was so confident throughout, as if she was daring voters to try and stop her pre-ordained presidency.
More Americans voted for Clinton than Trump. And since then Trump has become one of the most unpopular presidents since presidential polls began.
So tell me again how exactly you have a window on the "average American".
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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
The GP addressed this.
304 electoral college votes went to the Republican candidate in the 2016 election. Only 227 went to the Democratic candidate. (The popular vote is irrelevant. It's the electoral votes that matter.)
34 of the state governors are Republican. Only 15 are Democrats.
32 of the state legislatures are Republican-controlled. Only 12 are Democratic-controlled.
26 states have Republican-controlled governments. Only 6 are Democratic-controlled.
52 seats of the US Senate are held by Republicans. Only 46 are held by Democrats.
240 seats in the US House of Representatives are held by Republicans. Only 194 are held by Democrats.
1 current President of the United States of America is Republican. 0 are Democrats.
It's clear that the Democratic candidates are being rejected at many levels of government in the United States, especially at the most important levels.
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 I guess we shouldn't have believed Watergate, either. After all, that all came from "unnamed sources."