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Russia Reportedly Bought Thousands of Facebook Ads Sought To Stress Racial Divisions (thehill.com)
According to The Washington Post, Russia government actors bought Facebook advertisements during the 2016 election cycle that sought to exploit and divide based on hot-button racial issues. Some of the ads promoted civil rights groups such as Black Lives Matter, while others criticized them in an effort to sow division. The Hill reports: Facebook is handing over some 3,000 ads to congressional investigators as part of probes into the Kremlin's alleged effort to influence the outcome of last year's presidential election. Other ads allegedly highlighted Hillary Clinton's support among Muslim women and promoted anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant messages. Facebook didn't comment on the story, but did refer to a statement earlier this month from its chief privacy officer, Alex Stamos: "Rather, the ads and accounts appeared to focus on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the idealogical spectrum -- touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights."
Donald Trump's son has already admitted to committing treason and colluding with Russia's attack on America.
He was caught sending a clear as day email approving of Russian government help for the Trump campaign.
Donald Trump publicly commits treason as he praises Vladimir Putin while refusing to even aknowledge the Russian attack on our country.
Russia kicked my dog.
They couldn't exploit divisions that didn't already exist. The fact of the matter is that there are several separate "Americas" which are only held together and unified by our McDonalds and Walmart culture.
Facebook is a willing participant in election fraud?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
...who have used race baiting against working whites in the same way white supremacists attack black and latinos. It's an inversion of LBJ's famous observation about poor southern whites:
Only instead of getting poor whites to resent minorities who have never done a thing to them, it's getting poor minorities to resent white people who have never done anything to them. And all the while, the fine folks at COINTELPRO are laughing their asses off as people ignore the deep state crony capitalists hiding behind the curtain.
I grew up with these types of stories since the cold wars days. But were told that it was all cia propaganda and that they would never do anything like that.
The ads were initially reported to be pro Trump. It seems Facebook itself reported false information to seed decent.
So one propaganda arm claims another propaganda arm was used by the propaganda arm of another country to influence an election.
At least they didn't drop weapons or invade or prop up terrorists unlike what we do.
Just looking around they have nothing on what a true professional was able to accomplish.
Wow! This development really flips the investigation on its head!
Before the election
Dec. 10, 2015
Lt. Gen Michael Flynn is part of a panel discussion in Moscow for the 10th anniversary of government-backed Russia Today, for which he receives payment (The Washington Post, Aug. 15, 2016). Officials notice an increase in communication between Flynn and the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, following the Russia Today event (CNN, May 19, 2017).
Late 2015
British intelligence agencies detect suspicious interactions between Russia and Trump aides that they pass on to American intelligence agencies (The Guardian, April 13, 2017).
March 19, 2016
Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta is sent an email that encourages him to change his email password, likely precipitating the hack of his account (CBS News, Oct. 28, 2016).
March 21
During an interview with The Post, Trump lists Carter Page as part of his foreign policy team. Page had been recommended by a son-in-law of President Richard Nixon, New York Republican Party Chairman Ed Cox (WP, March 21, 2016).
March 28
Political veteran Paul Manafort is hired to help the Trump campaign manage the delegate process for the Republican National Convention. He is recommended by Trump confidante Roger Stone (New York Times, March 28, 2016). Before joining the campaign, Manafort lobbied on behalf of Oleg Deripaska, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. That deal followed a memo from Manafort in which he offered a plan that could "greatly benefit the Putin Government." His relationship with Deripaska ended in 2009 (Associated Press, March 22, 2017). Manafort also worked on behalf of the Russia-friendly Party of Regions in Ukraine, helping guide the party's leader, Viktor Yanukovych, to the country's presidency. Yanukovych would later be ousted. (WP, Aug. 19, 2016)
April 27
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) may have met with Kislyak at a reception at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington before a foreign-policy speech given by Trump (CNN, May 31, 2017).
June
At a closed-door meeting of foreign policy experts and the prime minister of India, Page praises Putin effusively (WP, Aug. 5, 2016).
June 9
Donald Trump, Jr., Manafort and son-in-law Jared Kushner meet at Trump Tower with a Kremlin-connected attorney named Natalia Veselnitskaya. Veselnitskaya's efforts to reverse a law passed in 2012 sanctioning Russians suspected of human rights violations at some point drew the attention of the FBI. The meeting was not initially reported to the government by Kushner as required when he took a position with the administration (Times, July 8, 2017). After the meeting was originally reported, Trump, Jr. admitted that the pretext for the conversation was that he believed Veselnitskaya to have information incriminating Hillary Clinton (Times, July 9, 2017).
June 15
A hacker calling himself "Guccifer 2.0" releases the Democratic National Committee's research file on Donald Trump (Gawker, June 15, 2016). News reports already link the stolen data to Russian hackers (WP, June 14, 2016).
July
At some point this month, the FBI begins investigating possible links between the Russian government and Trump's campaign (Wired, March 20, 2017).
July 7
Page travels to Moscow to give a lecture (NYT, April 19, 2017). The Trump campaign approved the trip (USA Today, March 7, 2017). This trip was likely the catalyst for the FBI's request for a secret surveillance warrant to track Pageâs communications (WP, May 25, 2017).
July 11 or 12
Trump campaign staffers intervene with the committee developing the Republican Party's national security platform to remove language call arming Ukraine against Russian aggression. (July 18, 2016).
July 18
At an event hosted by the Heritage Foundation as part of the Republican National Convention, Sessions and Kislyak have a brief conversation (WP, March 2, 2017).
Flynn delivers a speech at the Republican convention, joining in the crowd's "Lock her up!" chant. "If I, a guy who knows this business, if I
Charles Manson would be proud.
The Demunist Paperback – March 20, 2015
by Brandon Lipka
Tycoon Alton Barr, in pursuit of his life's great plateau, partakes in a relentless and great adventure to develop an ideal. This first book, titled The Demunist and set in the not-so-distant future, is an account in three parts, The Development of Flores, The Inhabitation of Flores and Alton Barr and Corvo, respectfully, of Alton's idealistic, unprecedented pursuit. The first part examines the developmental stages, where Alton's developer, Stockton Hughes, encounters a handful of complications during development. Meanwhile, Alton is engaged in a separate voyage across the globe. Part two commences with the Inhabitation, a glimpse within the ideal. Lastly, Alton Barr's pursuit heats up in great detail. Love and lust, wit and humor, euphoria and estrangement, etc. etc. compel this gripping tale, which is sure to expand the mind.
https://www.amazon.com/Demunist-Brandon-Lipka/dp/1508739374
Or were you influenced by your diminutive organ of cognition?
With the Kremlin credit card? Just seems weird for the Ruskies to pay for something the MSM has been doing for a long time. Every news show is the same: bring two sides to one stupid story so we can get riled up at the other 'bad' guy and go hurah when our guy puts them in there place. They seek to divide us on race, identity politics, and now recently with this past election, gender. Its almost as if they are trying to distract us all from something. Maybe the fact that politicians have been screwing us all, White, Black, Latino, Male, Female, Republican, Democrat, poor, middle class, upper 1%...err maybe not that last one.
Electronic racist russians! Blame them!
captcha: nonsense
See even it knows.
I grew up with these types of stories since the cold wars days. But were told that it was all cia propaganda and that they would never do anything like that.
Yes, propaganda is a very real part of everyday life, both state-sponsored and corporate-sponsored, throughout the developed world. Many newspaper articles are heavily influenced by it even when someone writing a story doesn't realize it, because fundamentally reporters have very little time to spend on each story. Most of this propaganda has political objectives.
That doesn't make it okay. It is something that causes harm and that there should be both protection from and defenses for. A foreign government that uses propaganda to destabilize a country should be treated as a kind of attack and an appropriate proportional response (although it may be of a different kind) should be employed until you are able to negotiate a de-escalation. Here, the evidence appears to show that there have been propaganda and electronic attacks on the United States and it should respond intelligently.
Real lawyers write in C++
But, did they buy any votes? Because the easiest way to influence an election is to buy actual votes.
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
Russia was pushing exactly the same kinds of things that the DNC is pushing. Racial and identity politics that divide the country. Look at the NFL to see how far it the division campaign has gone.
We are playing right into Russia's hands. We need to unite and stop judging people by their skin color. We need to stop calling Trump the orange one, we need to respect our country, and we need to balance the bad things in this country with all the good things and all the progress we have made to right the wrongs.
United States, we need to unite.
P.S. Why is it OK for Carlos Slim and Jeff Bezos and Rupert Murdoch to have undue influence over major news outlets? They have a lot more influence than a small Russian ad buy, and 2 of the 3 are foreigners. Russia should just buy a bank that buys a newspaper.
Do not bother investigating Russia. Spend that money educating the American voter, Then American advertisers suck up as much money as Russia wants to spend.
WIN - WIN
Russia should have hired the experts. Bell-Pottinger from the UK would have done a strapping good job, old boy.
Net media must stop either micro-targeted ads (not likely for FB or Google) or political ads (since micro-targeted political ads are death to society). It only took big data science and social media to deliver the most hideous election in U.S. history and assist the ascendancy of white supremacism in what had been a nation of immigrants.
All FB would have to do is hire human beings to turn down political ads, and the guts to pass up the money. Though broadcast TV takes the opposite path, at least TV does not intentionally try to fool the watcher into thinking everybody on that channel sees the same ads. The next step is to get money out of elections (every candidate gets the same budget for ads and buying supporters) and out of politics (flat dead impossible unless someone other than politicians makes the law).
They don't care about one party or the other. They want us to destroy ourselves from within. They're sour about the cold war and the downfall of the Soviet Union. Even more sour about the lack of respect we gave them afterwards. They just want to see us fail and for them to ascend to have more global influence than us. If they can help us lose faith in our government, we as a nation lose resolve and focus on the global stage. That's how they win.
I can't help but notice the number of clearly fake comments on this page, all trying to either blame Clinton and Obama or deliver that old, "Nothing to see here, folks. Move along." message.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Remember when Obama tried to alter the result of the Brexit vote? What retaliation should Britain be pursuing for that blatant foreign meddling?
Q1: How does Facebook know with any certainty that these are Russian *government* actors. The implication being that the Russian government acted with intent to sow dissent during our elections.
How does Facebook know that these are not separate, individual Russian citizens without ties to the Russian government?
If one actor took out ads highlighting both sides of an issue, then yes... that would be intent to sow dissent.
But if the different sides were taken by different actors, a simpler explanation is that people in Russia are also divided on an issue, of American politics.
Almost as if people in Russia have, I don't know, relatives in America or something.
Q2: How does Facebook know that ads highlighting both sides of an issue were taken by the *same* actor, and not different actors with legitimate different opinions?
I'd be really interested to know how Facebook determines both of these bits of meta-information.
Well, it seems the most harmful, divisive acts that a malevolent foreign power could come up with were the same ones so enthusiastically engaged in for free by the Left. It seems this evil foreign country thinks that sowing racial discord with Black Lives Matter is a good idea. Well, this is certainly inconvenient. I have complete faith in our media to tell the truth: by completely overlooking this niggling detail and trying to discredit anyone who points it out.
And there has got to be the burn of doing for free what the Kremlin would have paid you for. Doing work and not getting paid for it? I thought that was for suckers. All you had to do was show up and collect your rubles. In fact you'd have been more valuable than any KGB spy, as an established American your material would be worth far more to them and qualified for a high rate of pay. That has to sting.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Great idea, Li Feng! Then if we could just build some sort of "great internet firewall" to keep all the badthink out...
where you and me watching different campaigns. Racial divides were a big part of it. The tough hombres & rapists comments come to mind right off the bat. One of his chief advisors, Steve Bannon, made his mark first and foremost playing to that shtick. And let's face it, there was a lot of resentment over having a black president for 8 years that brought a lot of folks to the polls.
I'm not saying it was the only that got Trump elected, I'm just saying he wouldn't have been without it. Hell, he wouldn't have made it through the primaries.
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they targeted BLM ads to people likely to oppose the movement in order to rile them up. They did the same thing with ads showing Hilary was popular among Muslim women. They were shitposting on an epic scale. What's more they weren't just trying to divide the American people, they were trying to rile up a very specific group of voters (angry white men) in order to get them to oppose a very specific, left wing agenda. That in turn helped Trump win, which is almost certainly the intended purpose.
They were basically trying to get a whole bunch of folks who normally stay home to show up at the polls and without thinking about individual issues, vote their feelings. Worked too.
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citation provided
Subject: Re: Russia - Clinton - private and confidential
Good morning
Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting.
The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.
This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump - helped along by Aras and Emin.
What do you think is the best way to handle this information and would you be able to speak to Emin about it directly?
I can also send this info to your father via Rhona, but it is ultra sensitive so wanted to send to you first.
Best
Rob Goldstone
== Donald Trump Jr's Treasonous Response ==
Subject: Re: Russia - Clinton - private and confidential
Thanks Rob I appreciate that. I am on the road at the moment but perhaps I just speak to Emin first. Seems we have some time and if it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer. Could we do a call first thing next week when I am back?
Best,
Don
All of this "rage" over the last 3 years is completely manufactured? That "hands up don't shoot" didn't actually happen the way that the media said it did? That LGBTXYZ isn't that pervasive, and frankly, most people don't care about who goes to the bathroom where? That racism is actually quite rare in the USA, and cop violence is actually very rare relative to the population size of 330 million?
That all this self-styled "resistance" is just a bunch of whiny babies trying to feel self-important, rather than admit that their candidate sucked? And sucked so bad that even after having the DNC throw the primary, having the FBI fake a Russian dossier to justify wiretapping the opposition campaign manager, and frankly having the election in the bag... so bad that she lost it without any interference whatsoever?
That all this anger and blame towards each other would be better off spent in introspection, asking what life choices did we make that led us to our own predicaments? Why did we spend so much on our degrees? Why do we keep complaining about gender instead of actually looking at statistics that men and women really are different?
FACT: The left spent about 10 times the amount of money the right spent
FACT: Facebook was showing SIGNIFICANTLY MORE anti-Trump propaganda during the per-election period
So basically, the anti-Trump guys are complaining about the fact that the (so called) Russian interference was more effective than the fake propaganda they spent $$$ millions pushing on Facebook.
The last few POTUS Administrations have done a pretty decent job at dividing the country economically and racially.
Somebody bought divisive advertising in the USA. So fucking what.
Who's so desperate for something to be mad about that this gets a headline on a site for geeks? I'd genuinely like to know. Did Billary buy this slashvertisement?
Looks like a couple thousand dollars worth of foreign ads tipped the balance against a billion dollar campaign run by a powerful well-connected establishment.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
$100,000? Like, really? The Clinton+Trump campaigns have spent together over $200,000,000 on their campaigns. Either the Russians are absolute geniuses and light years ahead of everybody else when it comes to effective political ads, or this is just another inflated sensationalist article trying to get views for WaPo using a hot topic.
Also, I'm somehow missing the connection to Russia in the article - it's once again presented as a certainty, but it is not explained how the authors managed to do the attribution to the Russian government. If this is considered a serious article in the US, I'm not surprised that "fake news" is a thing there. How about some critical thinking?
Really, guys, to the rest of the world this histeria is beyond awkward and facepalming. Trump is your creature, born out of the swamp that is the 2-party scam, not some foreign plant. Reform your political system, and these things won't happen. Until you do so, according to the article everybody who has $100,000 to burn will be able to elect your president for you...
> ... Donald Trump's son has already admitted to committing treason and colluding with Russia's attack on America
Yes, Donald Trump's son has colluded with Russia by paying Facebook for online advertisement in support of Black Lives Matter
We must charge, indict and put that traitor to jail now !!
I'm starting to think Putin probably dances to that classic youtube sensation every night before bed. His government spy agencies have manipulated the US population through our permeation with big tech beyond what I would have thought possible a couple of years ago.
FYI, Black Lives Matter is not a civil rights organization, though it pretends to be one. If it was, it would not be built on a foundation of lies.
BLM, Antifa, Black Panthers, LGBTQ, Marxism, Socialism, hedonism, criminality, single parenthood, drug use, and Atheism were the division. You can't pretend to care now that Drumpf won.
Every time I see a "Russia perpetrated X heinous act against the people", I see "We (your government) perpetrated X heinous act against the people."
Requiem for the American Dream
Uberbah is a Russian troll. Look at his post history, always toeing the Kremline.
Demunist? You think that's clever but it just makes you look like a twat.
Sneaky Europeans and the old divide ad conquer technique, been doing it in Africa and Asia for hundreds of years (at least...)
Soros is a big influence in our elections, Obama tried very hard to influence Israel elections so who cares? I am sure Russia has been doing this for many elections. Just that the snowflakes lost so they are bitter about it. I am sure China has also had some influence as well. Big deal, so Russia bought some ads on Facebook. I never saw Zucker complain about taking their money?
Is this news? Or is having a week-long war game named "Zapad" or "West" news?
Its not like they have Podesta on the staff or anything.
Is the easiest way to punish Russia.
The Russians have been doing this shit since 1917. What's different now, is that the Internet gives them vastly more powerful and cheap ways to attack and victimise free socities.
Unfree shitholes like Russia and China have a vastly different notion of "information security" than we do. To them, the free exchange of ideas is a threat, which is why they invest so much money in controlling their citizens' access to information. Unfortuately, we'll have to adapt to this new reality by finding ways to keep Chinese and Russian information-war filth out of our societies -- up to and including breaking up the internet and censoring enemy propaganda and talking points. The Russia-lovers and "libertarians" are doing to go nuts, but increasingly, in the face of Russian information- and political aggression, this appears to be the price of freedom these days.
Does it matter now for what purpose whoever buys ads?
Oldest trick in the book. And behold; a nation divided.
Anonymous claims published with no evidence by the Washington Post -- the same paper that gave us the "Prop or Not?" debacle.
Did some trolls buy ads during the election? Almost certainly. Were some of them Russian? Probably. Did the average Russian on the street prefer Trump to Clinton? Of course -- Clinton backed a coup in their neighboring country Ukraine, a coup that put in place a government that stepped up repression of ethnic Russians, while Trump talked about normalizing relations.
Were these ads part of a coordinated plan by Putin, acting in collusion with Trump? Extraordinary claims requirry extraordinary evidence. "Anonymous sources tell us that they think X" is not evidence for X.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
The actual fraud here is on Silicon Valley. They actually convinced Russia that digital ads matter.
found online, not vouching for its accuracy
Independent verification of FBI Anon claims
1995: Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross, Izaac Herzog, and an unidentified Israeli representative meet to discuss the possibility of Bill Clinton pardoning Marc Rich in exchange for Rich funding the PLO, a Muslim terrorist organization committed to Israel's destruction.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/p...
Qatar would buy a stake in Marc Rich's company Glencore after his death, and Qatar and Glencore would operate in concert afterwards.
2000: Marc Rich associate Michael Steinhardt controls the DLC and Progressive Policy Institute.
http://www.deepcapture.com/200...
2003: George Soros and Morton Halperin placed John Podesta as founding head of the Center for American Progress.
http://www.discoverthenetworks... https://archive.is/Gb2FV
Under Podesta's watch, unknown persons placed accused Hamas fundraiser Faiz Shakir as Vice President of the Center for American Progress and chief editor of Think Progress. In 2011 Faiz Shakir and Wajahat Ali produced the report "Fear Inc." smearing national security analysts and political activists who oppose the Muslim Brotherhood, including liberal Muslims.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fp... https://archive.is/tOxwC
Online rumors have attempted to connect the art trading of John Podesta's brother Tony Podesta with Qatari art purchases of works by Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons who have been hosted by Qatar Museums.
http://qz.com/764975/qatars-oi...
The Podesta Group lobbyied for Qatar Petroleum in 2013.
https://www.desmogblog.com/201...
2004: The Awan brothers begin employment in the US Congress and will work under Robert Wexler, Xavier Becerra, Gregory Meeks, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and others before they are exposed as a spy ring in 2017.
http://www.politico.com/story/...
2005: Unknown persons placed Emad Shahin and Juliette Kayyem in the Dubai Initiative which produced propaganda to promote the Muslim Brotherhood using the name and reputation of Harvard University.
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvar...
Emad Shahin was convincted in absentia of aiding Hamas and Iran to overthrow the Egyptian government.
http://emadshahin.com/?p=1839
https://news.vice.com/article/...
Juliette Kayyem advocated for Qatari state television network Al-Jazeera and wrote "The War On Terror Is Over" to discourage continued resistance to al-Qaeda.
https://www.boston.com/bostong...
https://www.boston.com/bostong...
2005: Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal paid Georgetown University $20 million to continue hosting John Esposito's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, which was originally founded in 1993 with a grant from PLO board member Hasib Sabagh
ate my homework
(in cartman voice) im telling you guys, they are out of control
Anyone else speculating that the downtime was a Russian hacker response to the nasty topic?
Would the paid Russian trolls please raise their keyboards so we can take a count?
Actually I had a substantive response when I discovered the down-state of Slashdot. Let me see if I can recover those notes...
[...] I just stopped by [this other system] because Slashdot is down and I was looking for possible explanations. Now I'm wondering if the invalid certificate might have been part of an attack that has mostly shutdown the website (to "offline" mode, whatever that is). One possible scenario: Attackers triggered a revocation of the valid certificate to exploit a vulnerability of the obsolete one? Or perhaps to access a vulnerability using a new faked certificate? Or perhaps the fake new certificate came first, and what we are seeing now is due to Slashdot's successful revocation of the fake?
So I obviously have no real idea about means or opportunity, but I can speculate farther on motivation. One of the hot stories on Slashdot was about Russians hacking the election. (I wanted to add a comment about "Will the paid Russian trolls please raise their keyboards so we can get a count?")
Oh yeah, the real punchline. I actually found out Slashdot was down because I was trying to visit Slashdot to look up an old comment I wrote about ways to improve Slashdot. Or should I add the meta-joke that the same ancient idea is still visible on [this other system]... The tail-eating snake has reached his own neck?
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
WMD propaganda machine in full swing again, ITS RUSSIA is nauseatingly bad story.
The Democratic Republic of Russia is the bad guy you know!!! Squirrel!!!!