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."

Comments

Re:Timeline of Treason

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that the point of the actual linked article is that the Russians objective is to sow disconnect and divide Americans. Then you go on to post a bunch of loosely connected and out of context examples to help feed a very partisan and divisive narrative. Currently those on the Left are actually doing exactly what the Russians want them to do. They're creating disconnect and trying to destroy American unity and faith in our democratic process. The left, unknowingly, are the ones colluding and doing the work the Russians want done. Try some introspection and realize you've been played and are part of the problem dividing us and weakening us as a nation.

Huh?

[rsilvergun]

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.

Re:Huh?

[swb]

This only works as propaganda to the extent that people already believe it enough to have it reinforce their own perceptions.

If this is a Russian "campaign", it's only a campaign to exploit the gap between the false narrative official discourse and the everyday reality of most Americans. The false narrative of official discourse is that Americans are racist -- uniformly biased against non-whites -- and the problems of African Americans are almost exclusively the result of this racism and not of any widespread social problems they contribute to.

The every day reality is that most Americans aren't uniformly racist against all races. If they were, millions of marginally literate, marginally English capable Mexicans wouldn't have had fantastic success in getting hired for jobs, millions of South Asians couldn't have been imported into Corporate American to staff IT departments, and people like Satya Nadella couldn't wind up in charge of one of the largest corporations in America and the world. The level of active "globalism" in the US just wouldn't work if the people making decisions were racist and the employees they had to work with were racist.

Americans do hold racial biases towards African Americans specifically, but this is largely not the cause it's given credit for, but an effect of their everyday interactions in most cities with the large plurality of poor and criminally inclined African Americans. And you can't talk about that reality without blaming white racism for it and freeing African Americans from most all responsibility for it.

As long as we continue to push the phony narrative of "racism" rather than "Americans don't like many African Americans", the propaganda will work. Once we acknowledge that white Americans are generally racially tolerant EXCEPT for African Americans, we will start to acknowledge the specific problems African Americans have (many of which are structural but not racist) and possibly get around to helping them. Once that happens, then the propaganda of racism won't really work.

Impressive ultra efficient Russian propaganda

[poity]

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.

... and I can't even get a 2% clickthrough rate on my adwords

Re:Haven't they been doing this stuff forever?

[drinkypoo]

Too bad you have that 100% backwards. Conservatives believe in a utopia in which charity covers all the needs of the needy, while Liberals believe that you have to legislate helping them, because history has shown that the conservatives (who are holding all the money) will not actually spend enough of their money on charity to make a noticeable difference unless forced. That's why the natural order is to keep cycling back to torches and pitchforks. Liberals know that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, while conservatives think it's a buck-oh-five.

Re:We need some guts and a law about political ads

[Kiuas]

Yeah, that and Facebook didn't cause Hillary to lose Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. You know what did? Ignoring the plight of real Americans who are really hurting. Telling them off and letting them know you absolutely refuse to represent their interests in the government.

The most successful trick Trump pulled during his campaign was convincing these people that he, a millionaire cosmopolitan and a 'globalist' in every sense of the word, would represent their interests, or that he cares about them in any sense. He doesn't. He's now been in office for 8 months and done very little, and his attempts are focused on giving out tax-breaks to the wealthiest segment of the US - his co-millionaires - at the cost of the very poorest.

This is the main problem currently faced by all western democracies: there's a segment of poorly educated poorly employed people who do not understand why their jobs are gone and won't be coming back except as automated factories, and these people will vote for anyone who tells them that he'll get their jobs back and make everything better. Put another way: the people most negatively affected by the current economic development are also the ones with the least understanding of it, making them easy targets to manipulate into voting against their own interests.

Hillary's main problem has always been that she's not really a charismatic figure in any way, nor is she a great speaker, put simply: she's way too boring and unenthusiastic. Trump isn't an orator either and seems to be running on a vocabulary of a 9 year-old, but what he has over Hillary is emotion: like any good salesman, he's able to deliver an enthusiastic pitch that gets people interested, it gets them listening. He's a superior showman and knows his crowd, but it doesn't make him a competent politician, that he's clearly not.

Re:Haven't they been doing this stuff forever?

[Xyrus]

Yeah, that's bullshit. The left doesn't believe in "Utopia". Why the fuck do you think they're supposedly the party of "evil" laws and regulations the right likes to demonize? It's the CONSERVATIVES who think we need less regulation. They're the ones who want to remove environmental protections. They're the ones that want to remove business regulations. They're the ones who want to remove the FDA. They're the ones that want to remove consumer protections. So on and so forth.

The CONSERVATIVES are the ones who believe in this ridiculous notion of Utopia. We'd all be happy if we just got rid of all these pesky rules and regulations! That's utter bullshit.