Facebook Says 10 Million US Users Saw Russia-linked Ads (reuters.com)

Some 10 million people in the United States saw politically divisive ads on Facebook that the company said were purchased in Russia in the months before and after last year's U.S. presidential election, Facebook said on Monday. From a report: Facebook, which had not previously given such an estimate, said in a statement that it used modeling to estimate how many people saw at least one of the 3,000 ads. It also said that 44 percent of the ads were seen before the November 2016 election and 56 percent were seen afterward. The ads have sparked anger toward Facebook and, within the United States, toward Russia since the world's largest social network disclosed their existence last month. Moscow has denied involvement with the ads.

Comments

FFS

[Neo-Rio-101]

Anybody can post politically divisive content on Facebook.
That's the whole point!

Re:FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

>Anybody can post politically divisive content on Facebook.
>That's the whole point!

Not really - the whole point of Facebook is ads. Company pages are ads. People's pages are ads for the people. Facebook services are mostly for specifically targeting ads. The games are ads, the fake accounts are ads, even the settings exist to make you more receptive to the ads.

Anyway - in this particular case, Russia's proxies purchased ads during the compaign season, in highly targeted ways, to affect the outcome of the election. 10 million is like 1/35 people in the US, and a much larger portion of the voting public, and an even larger portion of the key battleground voting public.

This is akin to Russia buying 1000-foot-tall billboards above every voting place in battleground states, and using it to tell the most vicious, manipulative lies they cared to tell, to sew chaos and hatred into the public.

It's something more than normal provocateur work.

Re:FFS

[Neo-Rio-101]

Not doubting that it's more than provocateur work,.... but basically anyone with an axe to grind can spend heaps on influencing elections.
Even if that person is a millionaire living in a yurt in middle of nowhere Mongolia with an internet connection.

Presumably money talks, and as long as it doesn't upset Zuck and his shareholders too much - he can do what he wants.

Re:FFS

[rtb61]

How about, the lead addled ignorant zombie bots of America will immediately obey any advertisement upon view. The only real measure of that would be how many fell trap to click bait and clicked. The world, unfortunately is a breeding ground for annoying click bait and being an English speaker, the most annoying country is the US, a click bait market in every area of media, from small to large, to compete they join in from all over the world.

It was really pathetic and shameful when the US government joined in on the click bait stories but hopefully they will realise how unproductive it really is (pissing people off with unproductive clicks waste their time and annoys them, hence you have paid to do damage to your image and brand).

Think how many ads a day, an internet user is subject to many ads on nearly every single page view. The number boogles the mind, definitely in the thousands and done over a year in the hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions. One ad becomes near invisible, hundreds are required to force awareness and profound annoyance, unless on that rare occasion they are actually interested and that will most likely occur when the ad aligns with content ie food ad with food content.

If they are looking for that political content, they will find it, if they are not, shoving it in their face will just annoy them. The person who decide a large percentage of American citizens deplorables, this to be repeated by the internet, hundreds of millions of times ever since, they were by far the most divisive in US history since the civil war.

Re: FFS

[easyTree]

This is akin to Russia bribing our politicians to directly control our country.

By all that is holy, only American Citizens should be able to bribe politicians in this great country.

Re:FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

It's still speech, as in "freedom of ..."

But why would the USA care about that, it's not like you guys have had freedom of speech the last several decades (at least since they outlawed speech that was against the Vietnam war, aka "shouting fire in a crowded theater").

Re:FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who bases their vote off a Facebook ad has no business being in a voting booth.

Re: FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

Well there goes all the red states

Re:FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah! And yelling "Fire!' in a movie theatre should be protected by the first amendment! What's wrong with everyone!!!

Re:FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

>basically anyone with an axe to grind can spend heaps on influencing elections

Bingo. That's the problem: it allows capitalism to subvert democracy.

Fuck citizen's united.

Re:FFS

[AmiMoJo]

It's part of a campaign to destabilize and weaken the west. Brexit is another outcome of their social media attacks. They tried to influence the recent French election with hacking and leaks, but the eventual winners saw it coming and fed them fake documents. They have been involved in posting a lot of fake news about Germany as well, supporting the far-right there.

A lot of this could easily have been stopped if social media companies had been paying attention, or even our own security services had been looking instead of drowning in bulk data collection. For example, many Russian fake accounts were found on Twitter when people did a simple analysis of posting times and noticed that they matched Moscow office hours when the person was supposed to be in the UK. AntiFa Boston was known to be fake from the start, but it wasn't until they accidentally posted location tags (Moscow again) that the account was removed. I bet Twitter can see those tags even when they are not made public.

Re:FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering I don't have a Facebook account, I didn't see any of them. Not that it mattered, there was plenty of false stories available on the major news networks throughout the campaign that dwarfed any purchased by the Russians.

Re: FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not akin to bribing politicians directly to control our country. Many countries (Russia as well) directly bribe our politicians directly as do owners of large corporations.

Your second sentence is the main reason why this country has become the political shit stain that it is. NO ONE should be bribing politicians at all. Not even American citizens. They shouldn't be taking salaries, pensions, and Cadillac health plans. They should be getting fair value compensation. They should be doing their day jobs, which isn't being the rock star of the Senate/House floor. They should also do a fair amount of terms and then cease.

If this can't be achieved, then continue to watch this country slide down the drain. History continues to repeat itself. Yet mankind will always find a way to embrace insanity.

Re:FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

First, are you sure they were all lies?

Second, why do we allow companies, politicians, and news outlets to lie routinely? We need stronger standards across the board.

Re:FFS

[HermMunster]

These are valid accurate statements/questions. He should not be downvotes.

If the US press lies during the election cycles then isn't that election interference?

Re: FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

$100k on stupid FB ads that supported identity politics changed nothing.

Hillary spent over a billion dollars and you clowns think $100k made a difference? If that's true then we need the Russians to help run our country because our current lesders in both parties are ridiculously out of touch with us.

Re:FFS

[TheRaven64]

Not really - the whole point of Facebook is ads

Nope, that's the visible part. The whole point of Facebook is psychological manipulation. The site exists both to collect the data to build psychological profiles that can be used for manipulation and to deliver the messages designed for such manipulation. Advertising is simply the most benign use for this.

Re: FFS

[Ol Olsoc]

Your second sentence is the main reason why this country has become the political shit stain that it is. NO ONE should be bribing politicians at all. Not even American citizens.

AC or not, this should be at +5 insightful.

The corruption has become so strong, that the politicians don't even deny that they are working for the groups and corporations who bribe them. They have hit upon a successful formula that allows their supporters to support them while engaging in the large scale pecuniary extraction which surely doesn't help the average American.

Even more disturbing is that they seem to approve of other nations getting involved as long as if fits their agenda.

Re: FFS

[LynnwoodRooster]

Young, college-educated, urban women are the biggest Facebook user demographic. Doesn't sound too red-state to me!

Re:FFS

[penandpaper]

Fuck citizen's united.

Do you lose your 1st amendment rights if you make a commercial supporting a political position or politician? Is the money you make/have yours to promote any idea you want and are you protected by the constitution to promote said idea?

If it costs money to make a commercial or ad and the speech in that commercial or ad is protected by the 1st amendment; How can the government justify limiting your access to pay for commercials or ads?

Re:FFS

[penandpaper]

$100k in Facebook ads is part of the campaign to destabilize and weaken the west. Yet, the Clinton campaign spent how much money? But the 100k made the election? ... ... How much contempt do you hold for your fellow citizens and Americans?

Here's the thing, if you have free speech, any idea can influence people to vote. Any group promoting an idea is a campaign. How is that any different than Obama telling Brits to vote no on brexit?

Does it have anything to do with actual policy in your mind?

Does antifa Boston stop being fake when they rioted over lies? https://bluelivesmatter.blue/a...

Re:FFS

[AmiMoJo]

The facebook ads are the tip of the iceberg. Plus the Clinton campaign was bound by electoral rules and was already under heavy attack by the leaked emails and subsequent last minute FBI investigation, which were Russian efforts to damage her.

Re:FFS

[Etcetera]

It's something more than normal provocateur work.

What gives you reason to think that? Any ad campaign is by definition a planned activity. And whether it's by some PAC, a 501(c), the German Foreign Office, or the KGB, doesn't really change any fundamental aspect of it.

While a "don't show me ads bought by foreign users or entities" option has all sorts of ramifications on the site, and across the internet, and might be something I'd actually support (and is probably worthy of a full-fledged discussion), the problem is that the Facebook ad platform (and all big data ad targetting systems) are so efficient and people are so worked up that ANY ad can be used to impact and influence people much more strongly than they used to.

Ads are the problem. Microtargetability is the problem. Lack of critical thinking is the problem. Ad-supported communication networks that reach 50-80% of the population on a daily basis are the problem. KGB ad buys are not really the problem.

Re:FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it should be. Now go hide in your basement from the free people of the United States. Coward.

Re:FFS

[Lord Kano]

Anyway - in this particular case, Russia's proxies purchased ads during the compaign season

This may well be true but I have yet to hear anyone make the case that the ads were lies. I am hearing the complaint that Russian proxies influenced the election with the silent concession that the manipulation consisted of telling the truth about Hillary.

LK

Re:FFS

[penandpaper]

Wait, the last minute FBI investigation were Russian efforts to damage Clinton? Did the Russians force the tarmac meeting too? Did the Russians force Clinton to do all the unethical shit in the emails? Did the Russians tell Clinton to ignore rust belt states? Bound by electoral rules, like maximum campaign contributions that were bypassed when the DNC funneled down-ballot election funds to her campaign?

How far are you willing to take the Russian scare?

The tip of the iceberg? I would take that more seriously if they showed us what the ads were. Half of them happened after the election.

Re:FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, the Russians run the FBI now. It's all so clear. Does that mean Trump removed a Russian from his FBI post?

Re:FFS

[chihowa]

He's not an American, but it's ok when he posts BS after BS post about American politics (with the intent to influence US politics or elections, I suppose) because he's not Russian and he's doing it for free.

Re:FFS

[AmiMoJo]

You think that the theft of her private emails and the sudden release of a large batch of them (which were completely innocent by the way, don't forget that) a couple of weeks before the vote, perfectly timed to cause maximum damage, was a coincidence? Even though the hacking has been linked to Russia.

Even though Trump has done his best to scupper it, the results of the official investigation are going to blow your mind.

Re:FFS

[penandpaper]

Maybe we need an investigation into the British influence on the election! I wonder how much money has been spent from British ip's that have "influenced" American votes.

Re:FFS

[penandpaper]

Sure, it was damaging but what was more damage: the fact that her private server was hacked or the contents of that private server?

Take a different example: which was more damaging; the fact that Snowden leaked NSA data or the data itself?

No one would have cared about the timing or the hack if Clinton wasn't doing unethical bullshit. It doesn't matter if it came from Russia or not; Are the contents of the leak legitimate?

the results of the official investigation are going to blow your mind.

I will wait until then and when I can see the evidence. Why don't you?

Re:FFS

[Archangel Michael]

This is akin to Russia buying 1000-foot-tall billboards above every voting place in battleground states

Not quite. The $100,000 Facebook "Russian" ads pales in comparison to the nearly 2 billion spent on the Presidential Election (Nearly 1.5 billion in favor of Clinton).

What the means is that Clinton's marketing was fucked up. And the Democrats keep on this narrative, it makes them look even worse than before.

Re:FFS

[Solandri]

This is akin to Russia buying 1000-foot-tall billboards above every voting place in battleground states

The two locations which have thus far been revealed to have been targeted by the ads (Ferguson, MO and Baltimore, MD) are hardly battleground states. Clinton won Maryland by a 2:1 margin (26%). Trump won Missouri by a 3:2 margin (19%).

I could see this as being part of some concerted (but underfunded - a nation state can drop a few $million without blinking) effort to sow chaos and discord in the U.S. population. But to claim that it was targeting the election is a real stretch. All the evidence I've seen thus far (location, apolitical nature, and timeframe of the ads) point to it having nothing to do with attempting to influence the election. What kind of idiot trying to influence an election wastes the majority of his money on ads after the election?

Re:FFS

[ScentCone]

Even though the hacking has been linked to Russia.

No, the hacking has NOT been linked to Russia. The only people who have ever had their hands on the DNC server, after the fact, was a private contractor that was hired to do work for the party. They have never allowed the FBI to to see the server. Regardless, the only evidence on the DNC email dump that we DO have has been exhaustively reviewed by teams of neutral experts, and every last bit of evidence points to the mail dump as having occurred internally, at the DNC, on a local machine writing the files to a USB storage device.

Of course, you know all of this. So the question is, why are still trotting out the debunked DNC talking points and spin? You're also, as per marching orders from the Clinton/DNC machine, going to great lengths to avoid talking about what the insider who leaked that mail was demonstrating: just how corrupt her operation was, and the degree of contempt she has for, among others, the Bernie supporter types who challenged her entitlement to the throne she and her husband demanded to have back. But you carry on: keep asserting things not only not in evidence, but shown to be incorrect. That sort of delusional foot-stamping on the subject is just going to make the problem you dislike even worse.

Re: FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh fuck off.

Islamic refugees committing mass murder is destabilizing the west, not a fucking pro-Hillary ad on Facebook, you fucking imbecile.

Re: FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely innocent?? What the fuck are you talking about?!

They showed massive corruption and collusion with the media, including getting debate questions before the debates. It was the most corrupt campaign in decades and we only found out about it because of the hack.

Seriously, go fuck yourself.

Re:FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

This exactly. All you Anti-Russians hipsters need to Shut it and go home and watch your VHS copy of Red Dawn and Rambo 3 and cry.

Re:FFS

[AmiMoJo]

what was more damage: the fact that her private server was hacked or the contents of that private server?

Clearly the hack, or rather the release of the hack. Remember that the FBI looked at those emails and decided that there was no case to answer, but the damage was already done.

Re:FFS

[Skuld-Chan]

It's actually illegal for a foreign entity to buy election ads in America - at least on TV and in print.

Re:FFS

[Cajun Hell]

Second, why do we allow companies, politicians, and news outlets to lie routinely?

Because we don't have a problem with lying. It's ok to lie.

And even if we did have a problem, letting them do it is easier than the alternative of not-letting them do it. What am I going to do, stop buying their products? Stop voting for them? Stop watching their ads?

Don't be silly. You can lie to me all you want. If you're a liar and if I'm not ok with that, that's my problem, not yours.

Re:FFS

[penandpaper]

ROFL. Clearly the fact that Snowden released documents is more important than what he released. Do you really believe this? You're smarter than that.

FBI looked at those emails and decided that there was no case to answer

You mean the, "there was probably a crime but don't prosecute because 'intent' even if the law doesn't mention intent" That Comey of the FBI? That is still damning to the common man that would have been arrested if he had done the same and Comey said as much. But sure, not "illegal" but still damaging because laws for thee not me Clinton. That whole fuck up was on Clinton, NOT the Russians or the leak.

Also, unethical doesn't mean illegal. The DNC colluding against Sanders was unethical but probably legal. That is still damaging. More so than the hack itself. How many democrats that voted Sanders stayed home because of that?

You are saying the unethical crap that was found was not damaging but the fact that it was hacked is damaging? If the information was innocent as you claim NO ONE WOULD CARE ABOUT THE HACK. Sanders' suspicion of DNC collusion wouldn't have been validated pissing off voters. MSM and Clinton campaign collusion wouldn't have been validated which pissed off voters. Trump the Pied Piper for MSM would not have been validated.

The Russians didn't force DWS to collude with Clinton. The Russians didn't force Clinton to appoint DWS after it was found out about said collusion showing voters the contempt Clinton had to corruption.

God damn, Are you really so invested in Clinton that a shit stain is part of the decor? Let me guess, it brings out her eyes?

The damage was done BY Clinton. If anything, the Russians showed us what MSM wouldn't because of collusion between Clinton and the MSM.

Re:FFS

[AmiMoJo]

The hacking has been widely attributed to Russian, including by the US government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I don't know why you thought it was Snowden, that's that bizarre.

Re:FFS

[penandpaper]

I am using the Snowden leaks as a comparison to the Clinton leaks. "Sure, it was damaging but what was more damage: the fact that her private server was hacked or the contents of that private server?

Take a different example: which was more damaging; the fact that Snowden leaked NSA data or the data itself?"

I acknowledged the Russians and again " If anything, the Russians showed us what MSM wouldn't because of collusion between Clinton and the MSM."

Re:FFS

[king neckbeard]

Bound by electoral rules? Well, certainly not the ones about SuperPAC coordination.

Re:FFS

[king neckbeard]

There wasn't a strong enough case to bring a criminal suit against one of the most powerful people in the country. that doesn't mean everything was a-ok. Comey said she shit the bed, that she should have her nose shoved in it, and that she should probably lose her security clearance.

You know what would have REALLY undermined the Russian plot? Picking a candidate that WASN'T under an FBI investigation.

Re: FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

You've been linked to Russia, scentcone.

Re:FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't disagree, but I also don't think the ads were that important.

I suspect they were used (because ads give excellent metric information back to the purchaser) for A-B testing of different messages and misinformation strategies, which then fed back into the tactics of Putin's troll army, who were the ones doing the real heavy lifting.

$100,000 on ads is a rounding error. Hundreds of full-time trolls, however - that was where the real money and effort went. Think about it in those terms, and you begin to see why Hillary's much-vaunted "overspend" on advertising didn't matter - it was still completely dwarfed by Putin's resources.

Re: FFS

[Highdude702]

stupid clickey finger.. commenting to remove -1 famebait.. sorry. +1 insightful as for the post before it that im now losing.

Re: FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

If the emails were completely innocent as you falsely claim then why is it a big deal they were released? Makes the Russians sound completely incompetent if all they could release was her cookie recipe and yoga schedule.

Do you actually read your own stuff for logical consistently or any form of reasoning befor you slam that submit button or just down another fifth of vodka and just go for it?

Does Putin pay you to post to keep his name in the news?

Re:FFS

[Xenographic]

> You think that the theft of her private emails and the sudden release of a large batch of them (which were completely innocent by the way, don't forget that) a couple of weeks before the vote, perfectly timed to cause maximum damage, was a coincidence? Even though the hacking has been linked to Russia.

I didn't realize Comey was linked to Russia now. I thought he was busy colluding with UK spies to buy opposition research that was coincidentally used by a 3rd party wedge candidate in Utah where they hoped to split the vote.

Anyhow, it was the FBI that released some of the worst stuff, like that email where she asked Colin Powell how he got away with using a Blackberry, in which he told us that he didn't think the NSA knew anything. There's a transcript of that PDF in my post history if you go back far enough.

Re:FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

Only the ignorant and uniformed voters -- in my experience liberals/democrats/progressives -- believe campaign ads.

A truly informed voter researches issues and candidates themselves and ignores annoying false ads.

Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Anonymous Coward]

but we're supposed to believe $50k worth of ads on Facebook had an effect on the election?

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Anonymous Coward]

But Putin spend more wisely.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Anonymous Coward]

#strawman
Size of virus != amount of $ spent on adds.
I hope you were trying to be funny because your analogy/straw man was pretty bad.

Re:Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Tablizer]

If the election were closer, yes it could have made a difference. But the real point is that a foreign government attempted to influence our elections through clandestine methods and plans. The success of their plans is secondary. They also attempted to hack voting machines, I'd note.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Tablizer]

But Putin spend more wisely.

Unlike ads sponsored by a candidate, an outside party (group) has more freedom to outright lie. Look how effective Pizzagate was.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Anonymous Coward]

We're supposed to believe an Apple a day keeps the doctor away?

#FakeAppleNews

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[PopeRatzo]

Size of virus != amount of $ spent on adds.

Now that you mention it, the amount spent on ads doesn't have anything to do with effect on an electorate if you can get millions of yahoos to believe and share fake ones for free.

You're right about #strawman, and I've got one for you:

"but we're supposed to believe $50k worth of ads on Facebook had an effect on the election?"

Re:Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Narcocide]

They spent a lot more than $50k and you know it.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[king neckbeard]

Better yet, you can get the opposition to run a candidate that half the country already has endless legitimate and bullshit reasons to hate, have that candidate insult half the voters for the opposition, spend the primaries bashing popular policies, and not step foot in several states that were within the margin of error.

Trump didn't win. Clinton lost. And considering she was running against the least popular candidate in US electoral history, the vast majority of the focus should be on how much Clinton and the DNC failed. They probably would have done better nominating a ham sandwich.

Re:Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[king neckbeard]

So, just like every other election, except maybe some updates on the methodology. But objectively far more important is the DOMESTIC influence on our election from corporations and oligarchs, which is more effective at altering policy in a way that harms the general public, and resulted in a candidate of so poor quality, hindering her policy choices so much, that she lost to a game show host with a complete lack of inhibition.

Re:Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[king neckbeard]

Do your imaginary numbers have any chance of even comparing to the billions in free advertising that Trump got, which was actually what the Clinton campaign wanted to happen?

Re:Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you understand just how close this election truly was? The only real difference in vote totals was because of HC winning California. It came down to 3 - 3! - counties in three states that HC lost by ~30k votes. In the places where it mattered, more voted for Stein than the difference between HC and Trump. Add up all the things that could have affected the totals - Russian propaganda, GOP Voter suppression etc., and the possibility of the GOP STEALING the election is fairly high.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sniff sniff, strong the vodka smells on this one.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Anonymous Coward]

And they haven't even learned their lesson yet.

Trump could only win because some states switched sides in this election. According to the Democrats, they switched because racism.

Oh sure, racism. That must be the reason why they voted Obama, Obama, Trump.

Repeating that is only going to piss off even more voters, causing them to vote in protest. And because the US basically has a two-party system, those protest votes are not going to some third party, but to the most incompetent, most orange candidate.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[king neckbeard]

More of a rum man, myself, and then whiskey. But I might need some vodka to handle the repeated failure of the Dems to learn a lesson, cut their losses on the whole "neoliberal/New Democrat/Third way" disaster of a strategy and actually give people something to vote for.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[AmiMoJo]

Democracy needs an abort mechanism. If it somehow comes down to two unpopular candidates, disqualify both and start over.

It would also help if the system wasn't first-past-the-post to start with.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why you get so upset comrade? You been at the vodka too?

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Anonymous Coward]

DNC probably would have done better nominating limburger cheese.

Re:Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[HermMunster]

Everything he said is patently false.

Trump won by a notable amount of electoral college votes. Hillary got the popular because of a couple states that she won, most notably CA and NY.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Trump didn't win. Clinton lost."

Exactly.
Clinton represented everything that is/was wrong with Washington politics, e.g. the traitor Wasserman running the Democratic Party.
Trump is/was just a moron.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump is/was more like what Lenin called "a useful idiot."

Re:Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh man, you should see the power of facebooks ad targeting platform. For a couple thousand you can specifically & directly target a given audience by age, race, gender, political leaning, and on and on. Spending 100K on facebook into targetting white male republicans about all the fake hillary stories and getting them to spread around for free afterwards costs little in this day & age and is super effective!

Re:Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[HermMunster]

Can you show us even just a single piece of actual evidence of this that isn't some news article? Just one piece.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Ol Olsoc]

Trump didn't win. Clinton lost. And considering she was running against the least popular candidate in US electoral history, the vast majority of the focus should be on how much Clinton and the DNC failed.

You do know that Trump set a record both in vote tallies and more than doubled the number of votes received over his closest rival, Ted Cruz. http://www.thegatewaypundit.co...

Sorry, but rather than the least popular candidate in US history, I claim that numbers like that illustrate that he is not only the most popular ever, but he also shares the values of the Republican party more than any other candidate in US history.

You don't get that sort of support by being unpopular and out of tune with your party.

I know that Republicans are the never wrong party, but you have to own this one. Trump is the soul of the party, and represents the total package of their ideals.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Anonymous Coward]

vote none of the above

Re:Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[TheRaven64]

Where does the $50k number come from? It's not like these are ads paid for by a cheque signed by Mr V. Putin Esq. Money laundering is a growth industry in Russia, and creating US organisations that can pay for things using money from Russia isn't exactly hard.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds like a terrible idea. Nothing would get done. Incumbents would stay in power because who is going to take over while we redo the election?

If the electorate chooses bad candidates, who are you to say that is wrong?

Re:Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[penandpaper]

This. I want to actually see the ads.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Baloroth]

Democracy needs an abort mechanism. If it somehow comes down to two unpopular candidates, disqualify both and start over.

It does, it's called "voting third party." Americans, however, believe the constant lie (perpetuated by both parties, who are terrified they will lose their duopoly) that voting 3rd party is "letting the other guy win" and "throwing away your vote", which is only true because people keep believing it to be true.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I'm really depressed

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[ScentCone]

which is only true because people keep believing it to be true

No, it's only true because the third parties don't have the intellectual integrity to put forth anyone better than lazy stoners with no awareness of current events (Johnson) or anti-vaxxer doctors who believe in homeopathy (Stein). Or people who look around the world and history, but still believe that making the US into a communist state is the best way forward.

Yes. Throwing away your vote on people like that really IS throwing it away. And when doing so deprives a more viable candidate that's at least partly in line with your world view of a vote needed to get them to win, then yes, you ARE letting the other candidate win. It's because it's actually true. If third parties can come up with a non-absurd agenda, and some non-awful candidates, then they might actually make some headway.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Anonymous Coward]

Over half of the ads were pro-Hillary... So, yeah, they were fucking lies.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Anonymous Coward]

And let me guess... You are the guy who gets to decide when and who that is, right?

Fuck off, you smug, condescending, fascist cunt.

Re:Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Shotgun]

You left out Hillary not bothering to campaign in any of those 3 precincts, instead calling the occupants "deplorable", which radically lowers the possibility of GOP theft. Hillary also ran the most negative presidential campaign in modern history. You have to account for that factor in your probability calculation, if you're going to be honest.

But, I doubt you really want a scientific analysis. You seem to be more concerned with finding a scapegoat.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[king neckbeard]

Yeah, he won the clown car race with 16 (or was it 17) candidates by a healthy margin by differentiating himself. But polling throughout the race had him at unprecedented unfavorability ratings, with only Clinton able to even remotely complete. He polled worse than lice and Nickelback.

Also, among the groups of independents, Democrats, and Republicans, Republicans are the smallest group, and only a small subset of them voted in the primaries.

Re:Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Tablizer]

But objectively far more important is the DOMESTIC influence on our election from corporations and oligarchs,

Using twisted logic, the right-leaning Supreme Court has ruled that corporations also have "free speech" and that "donating" to candidates is "free speech". In other words, the plutocrats got mass bribery legalized.

Re:Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[king neckbeard]

I don't disagree. My concern is that instead of fighting it, the Dems have largely embraced it. For example, in the latest election, the Clinton campaign tried to work around the already pathetic safeguards we have against direct coordination with SuperPACs.

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[Ol Olsoc]

Yeah, he won the clown car race with 16 (or was it 17) candidates by a healthy margin by differentiating himself. But polling throughout the race had him at unprecedented unfavorability ratings, with only Clinton able to even remotely complete. He polled worse than lice and Nickelback.

Also, among the groups of independents, Democrats, and Republicans, Republicans are the smallest group, and only a small subset of them voted in the primaries.

Which is why there are many questions yet unanswered. Without any mention of any other nations, American voting machines are notoriously easy to hack https://fossbytes.com/defcon-2... http://thehill.com/policy/cybe... 2012 - https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/... 2011 - https://www.salon.com/2011/09/...

2005 - https://arstechnica.com/uncate...

This is not fake news, this is not remotely deniable. I knew that the voting manchines were Internet of things easy to hack almost 15 years ago. http://euro.ecom.cmu.edu/peopl...

There have been some strange happenings like in the 2012 election where Carl Rove had a public meltdown when he refused to concede the Ohio vote, expecting some districts to come through and push the Republican candidate over the edge and win Ohio. It was interesting in the aspect that Ohio had a strange even in a previous election where the exit polls gave the state to a Democrat, but the vote tally did not. The Republican response was the typical Good Republican Voters screwing with the Media. But that's just a side story, and I digress.

The big question is - with the machines having terrible security, why the hell would a tech-savvy nation not hack and alter the results to mess with an adversary nation or to put in a person they had sway with?

Re: Hillary spent $1.2 billion...

[king neckbeard]

Yes, our elections are a horribly insecure mess. But that's not at all new with Trump, and there's no evidence that this election was any more of a focus or success than other elections. As for why a nation wouldn't hack our election results, that's ironically because they are already too much of a mess of different vendors and products to allow for an easy wide-scale hack. Also, the states that were vital to the election were "firewall" states, not the typical "swing" states that a foreign adversary would focus on.

Yes, that is a real problem, but the only reason it's being brought up is to distract from how much the Clinton campaign shit the bed in order to lose to a candidate that didn't even want to win.

How Many Saw Biased News?

[Kunedog]

Facebook admitted to promoting pro-Hillary and suppressing pro-Trump stories/outlets. Where is the investigation and media attention for that?

Re:How Many Saw Biased News?

[Tablizer]

Even if your claim were true (cough), it's not illegal for a US corporation to give a political opinion (for good or bad).

Re:How Many Saw Biased News?

[ckatko]

Would you be okay if China promoted Hillary on Facebook?

Because they sure loved the Clintons in 1996.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:How Many Saw Biased News?

[Tablizer]

What precisely are your allegations?

Re:How Many Saw Biased News?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Even if your claim were true (cough), it's not illegal for a US corporation to give a political opinion (for good or bad).

Even if your claim were true (cough), it's not illegal for a US **corruption** to give a political opinion (for good or bad).

FTFY

Re:How Many Saw Biased News?

[king neckbeard]

What is legal has virtually nothing to do with what are concerns should be. Super PACs are legal, but they should be burned to the ground. Plus, Facebook's power and influence are on arguably somewhere near on par with a nation state.

Re: How Many Saw Biased News?

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Re: How Many Saw Biased News?

[Jack9]

That's not an extraordinary claim. It's pedestrian.

Re:How Many Saw Biased News?

[sexconker]

I'm guessing he's pointing out that you and your ilk are duplicitous hypocrites.

Re:How Many Saw Biased News?

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook is an American company. There is no Law preventing you from supporting your candidate. It is illegal for Foreign Governments, like Russia, to influence American Elections. Apparently you don't seem to understand nor have you read the Constitution.

Let's make it clear: You may NOT work with Foreign entities to influence the outcome of an Election. Savvy?

Re: How Many Saw Biased News?

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

Broad statements without facts is not beneficial to the discussion. Try again.

Re:How Many Saw Biased News?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also not illegal for Russians to give a political opinion (whether paid or not) on a US election, since Russian law doesn't care about US elections.

It may be illegal for American corporations (such as Facebook) to run ads paid for by Russians, but it doesn't even appear so.

Re:How Many Saw Biased News?

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook is an American company. There is no Law preventing you from supporting your candidate. It is illegal for Foreign Governments, like Russia, to influence American Elections. Apparently you don't seem to understand nor have you read the Constitution.

No, apparently you don't.

Re:How Many Saw Biased News?

[Required Snark]

I've seen Fox News lie about the weather. There was a snowstorm and they were talking trash about climate change. Climate is different from weather. Weather is what is happening now, climate is over the long term. They were substituting their ill-informed political position for fact. If you call yourself a news organization and you deliberately conflate these kinds of issues then you are either grossly incompetent or lying. The truth is no where to be found.

And there are also multiple incidents where a political figure is caught up in scandal and the party affiliation is listed as Democrat when it is in fact a Republican. You can find the screen shots if you look around. I'm not going to do your homework for you. Those were not honest mistakes.

So Fox News is in the same camp as RT. All propaganda all the time.

PS. Are you taking your positions from Russia? Have you been paid off? Or are you a volunteer enemy of the US? Don't forget that there is now hard evidence that Russia is now interfering in the US political debate. You seem to fit the profile.

Re:How Many Saw Biased News?

[Anonymous Coward]

"But, Hillary!" is all you Trumptards have these days, isn't it?

Re:How Many Saw Biased News?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no real allegations only insinuations. its all there ever was.

Re:How Many Saw Biased News?

[Anonymous Coward]

The facts, not allegations, is that chinese entities contributed money to Clinton's campaign. Read the bloody cite.

Re:How Many Saw Biased News?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Facebook is an American company. There is no Law preventing you from supporting your candidate. It is illegal for Foreign Governments, like Russia, to influence American Elections. Apparently you don't seem to understand nor have you read the Constitution.

Statute making it illegal? You seem so certain - how about posting the statute? You can't, because there isn't one. There are NO restrictions on foreign involvement in elections, as long as the ads are related to issues and general positions - not specific candidates.

Re:How Many Saw Biased News?

[Tablizer]

Sorry, I'm NOT aware that China was discovered having a dedicated clandestine program designed to influence our elections using multiple techniques.

But I do invite you to present evidence, if you claim such.

Every politician probably has nations they are more friendly with than others. Trump has Saudi Arabia, for example. If the Clintons were friendlier with China than their opponent at the time, I don't see much difference between the two.

Re:How Many Saw Biased News?

[Tablizer]

I did, it doesn't back up what you claim.

Re: How Many Saw Biased News?

[Jack9]

Hi pot, meet kettle. Please feel free to try again from your OP.

Re:How Many Saw Biased News?

[andydouble07]

And it never crosses your mind that the people ignoring the wrongdoing and saying "BUT BUT BUT, maybe this thing happened 30 years ago to someone with the same name or maybe not?" have less than honest intentions?

Re:How Many Saw Biased News?

[Tablizer]

Foreign governments forming large clandestine operations to influence our democracy to their liking is disturbing, period.

Re: How Many Saw Biased News?

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

Are you of the opinion that claims don't need to be backed by facts because that bar is too high or am I missing something?

Re: How Many Saw Biased News?

[Jack9]

Continue to move that goalpost. Good luck with that.

Re: How Many Saw Biased News?

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

I'd appreciate if you could provide facts regarding pretty much anything at this point.

Moscow has denied involvement with the ads.

[Anonymous Coward]

Moscow has denied involvement with the ads.

Yeah, Moscow has no credibility because it lies so much even when it is incredibly obvious to the non-cynical.

I mean, remember when they invaded Ukraine and said "Nah, that's not us!"

(Not the best source, but an accurate headline:) https://www.thedailybeast.com/...

Re:Moscow has denied involvement with the ads.

[penandpaper]

Facebook does have credibility?

Was that before or after Facebook admitted to promoting pro-Hillary and suppressing pro-Trump stories/outlets?

How many bots saw these ads as well?

[JoeyRox]

The only ameliorating factor in this is how millions of those ads were probably never seen by a human but instead rendered onto an offscreen bitmap in video memory by a fraudulent ad bot designed to extract the most funds out of unsuspecting advertisers, in this case Russia but usually clueless Madison Ave. companies.

Re:How many bots saw these ads as well?

[Tablizer]

Bots for Trump! (tempting to spell it with a 'u')

I saw those ads

[fustakrakich]

Definitely affected my vote

I block ads

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they actually think people see their ads? Have they never heard of ad blockers? Are they not aware that Facebook blockers are an actual thing? What kind of bubble is this 'Silicon Valley'?

Re:I block ads

[Narcocide]

You know who doesn't block ads? Republicans. Know why? Because they think of that as stealing.

Re:I block ads

[king neckbeard]

A baseless assertion (especially since the Dems are generally the stronger copyright proponents, while Republicans get yelled at by artists for using songs during campaigns), but if they are already of that mindset, then the ad seems unlikely to make a big change.

Re:I block ads

[Q-Hack!]

Lets see... from the summary, "10 million people saw at least one add." (going to assume that # accounts for ad blocker and other such things)
Quick google search shows about 214 million FB users in the USA
of those, about 8% are under voting age.
so 3.3% of the USA FB population who are eligible to vote saw at least 1 ad.
Kinda puts it all into perspective.

Re:I block ads

[Anonymous Coward]

Judging by my Facebook feed, many republicans don't have any kind of bullshit detector. It's amazing how many outlandish conspiracy theories, outright hoaxes (including obvious photoshops), these idiots circulate.

Re:I block ads

[HermMunster]

An ad that was presented isn't necessarily seen. Just because an ad appears during a football game doesn't mean everyone watched it.

Re:I block ads

[HermMunster]

There's a compulsory license BTW. The artists have no legal basis for a complaint even though they may have the right to express moral objections.

Re:I block ads

[Anonymous Coward]

At least the Republicans stay as regular Facebook users. The Democrats go to work for the news media and do the same thing there.

Re:I block ads

[TheRaven64]

Compulsory license in the US applies only to covers: you can't prevent someone else from recording a cover of your song, and paying to a fixed royalty, but there is no compulsory licensing for recordings. You can't use a recording of someone's performance without permission, except as permitted by fair use or an explicit license.

Re:I block ads

[Shotgun]

You mean like "Hands up. Don't shoot." ?
Or, "Women only make 75% of what men do for the same work." ?
That sort of thing?

Re:I block ads

[Cajun Hell]

Do they actually think people see their ads?

YES! They totally do, and they're right.

Sure, you block ads and so do I. But that's not typical. If Facebook were a total fraud, their customers would eventually stop buying ads. And spam exists because spam works.

And, knowing that some people block ads and some don't, might you be able to draw some inferences about the people who don't? Perhaps non-blockers are actually particularly ripe for certain types of ad targeting.

As it happens, I've never actually seen the original, but I've nevertheless learned of the meme third-hand: "You wouldn't download a car, would you?" Isn't that intended for a certain kind of person, who just happens to also be the kind of person most likely to see it?

Re:I block ads

[king neckbeard]

No, it's a blanket ASCAP/BMI license. It isn't compulsory, but literally anybody you hear on the radio has already signed up for the deal.

Non issue. Will be blown up out of proportion.

[Guillermito]

The total cost of a presidential campaign is estimated to be around $2.65 billion. So now we are supposed to believe that the $100K spent on Facebook ads by Russia (56% of which were only seen *after* the election) were a key factor that determined the outcome? This is a total non issue but it will be hammered non stop for months by the traditional media simply because they are dying and will seek any opportunity to make the government regulate Facebook, Google and the other digital companies that are killing them.

Re:Non issue. Will be blown up out of proportion.

[Tablizer]

So now we are supposed to believe that the $100K spent on Facebook ads by Russia... were a key factor that determined the outcome?

Who is claiming that? Also, Facebook is just one of many avenues they pursued.

Re:Non issue. Will be blown up out of proportion.

[Anonymous Coward]

The US Constitution protects the press. Pesky constitution is a problem to be solved.

Re:Non issue. Will be blown up out of proportion.

[Narcocide]

Imagine for a second it wasn't only $100k. That shouldn't be hard, because you're imagining the number $100k in the first place. You have no idea how much 10 million targeted ad views costs. You have no frame of reference, so just for the sake of the mental exercise, imagine it was say, a lot more, like say, $400 million. Gosh; wow! That's nearly half a billion dollars! Now, imagine it wasn't even mostly sold to traffic bots or ad blockers, because the people who bought these ads aren't idiots and they also are the same people running the bots. Still with me? I know it's a lot to imagine. Now, as the icing on the cake, imagine it wasn't only spent on facebook, or ads. Imagine they are slightly creative and so they thought of spending it on all the popular social networks and imagine they spent it on posted content too.

Imagining all that, hypothetically, doesn't it seem like it might be slightly irresponsible to trivialize, at least? Doesn't it, as a rational thinker, bother you even a little?

Re:Non issue. Will be blown up out of proportion.

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine you had a brain and could decide who you were going to vote for. Imagine you had free will, I know it's a stretch for liberals but try.

Re:Non issue. Will be blown up out of proportion.

[king neckbeard]

Imagine that multinational corporations are just like foreign countries and then you'll catch up with the rest of the class on what to be outraged about.

Re:Non issue. Will be blown up out of proportion.

[Anonymous Coward]

> You have no idea how much 10 million targeted ad views costs

As a matter of fact, I do. You can too, since FB is quite eager to explain to you how your budget can be leveraged (start here as a newbie: https://www.facebook.com/busin...). Every digital advertiser likes demand. But that's ultimately a digression because you want to bury the foolish point you're trying not to make.

> doesn't it seem like it might be slightly irresponsible to trivialize, at least?

No. Is there some line by which you decide people should be treated as herd animals over individuals capable of making good and bad decisions on their own? Please explain how you would shape society, to correct those sharing views you disagree with. I'm sure that won't sound oppressive at all.

Re:Non issue. Will be blown up out of proportion.

[Narcocide]

No, see, I'm actually the one arguing against treating people like herd animals. This article is about an ad campaign designed to do just that. Clever trick you just tried there, but this conversation doesn't work like that, you astro-turfing whore.

Re:Non issue. Will be blown up out of proportion.

[Narcocide]

This is a fundamentally different situation and you know it. ASTRO TURFER!

Re:Non issue. Will be blown up out of proportion.

[Narcocide]

Imagine everything everyone ever told you was a lie. How would you think for yourself then?

Re:Non issue. Will be blown up out of proportion.

[Rockoon]

Who is claiming that?

Democrats. More specifically, the corrupt corporate crony wing of the Democrats (which is the wing in control of the party.)

The progressives will never vote for you fucks again.

Re:Non issue. Will be blown up out of proportion.

[tinkerton]

If it is not enough to show that Russia stole the elections it is enough to demonstrate their evil intent. Now the official evil intent includes the very general 'sowing discord'. That means that they support activism of all sorts and activism becomes suspect. It means that groups like Black Lives Matters are reduced to russian stooges, the way Wikileaks was reduced to a stooge, the way a lot of alternative sites now are reduced to stooges that have to be slammed down (Google and propaganda sites like http://dashboard.securingdemoc... and PropOrNot are working on that).

It's an extremely damaging evolution, and it's a bandwagon that is mostly fueled by baseless claims that get attention when they're launched and then debunked quickly without much attention. From all the debunked stories I've read I still need proof that Russia is responsible for any of it. But the claims come so quickly it's impossible to keep track of them. I've already seen claims linking Russia to the Las Vegas shooting.

You can also see the success on this site, which already full of people trying hard to roll their eyes and mutter knowingly something about russian shills.

I think it's horrible. The return of mccarthyism.

Re:Non issue. Will be blown up out of proportion.

[king neckbeard]

No, it isn't. The biggest difference between the two is while what Russia wants has basically nothing to do with my daily life, what Aetna, Exxon, Pfizer, and Goldman Sachs want can and likely will impact me. So, if I could only get rid of one, it would be the corporate influence, because America being a superpower does nothing for the people. However, the rules, regulations, and principles needed to effectively limit/stop one are largely the same as the ones to limit/stop the other.

Re:Non issue. Will be blown up out of proportion.

[bazorg]

It's a fair comment, but I'm not sure it gets us any closer to an answer.
Perhaps the 2.65Bn represent a very expensive way to put more noise on TV, or to get many phone calls out to people who may or may not be really engaged, while on FB millions of very cheap interactions day in and day out will support existing search bubbles and have an important effect.

Just look at how people write about Hillary being a symbol of everything that's bad about Washington. Others repeating that the EU commission are unelected bureaucrats and therefore the whole EU is undemocratic. If that's all that people read, the message will stick.

Is this 100% implausible?

SHUT UP!

[RAID Roach Killer]

Nobody cares. Russia hacked into your brain and installed a brain slug that made you vote for Trump. If we keep telling you that, surely you will believe it.

--msmash

Re:SHUT UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Everyone I disagree with is a Russian."

-Narcocide, 2017

Re:SHUT UP!

[Paid KGB Troll]

Exactly. In Soviet Russia, Putin pays YOU.

Re: SHUT UP!

[Reverend Green]

Putin himself stole my laundry!

Re:SHUT UP!

[gtall]

I thought Trump was a slug. This is getting very confusing.

Re:SHUT UP!

[Ol Olsoc]

I thought Trump was a slug. This is getting very confusing.

No, he's the Hypnotoad.

Re: SHUT UP!

[Penguinisto]

But he couldn't have... he was too busy hiding in my closet, waiting for me to fall asleep so he could whisper the word "Trump" repeatedly in my ear as I slept...

Re: SHUT UP!

[Shotgun]

And the bastard only stole ONE sock!!

Re:SHUT UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Russia was the Hypnotoad.

Re:SHUT UP!

[Ol Olsoc]

I thought Russia was the Hypnotoad.

I've been told they were the Slurm.

Double standard for investigations

[Okian Warrior]

Facebook admitted to promoting pro-Hillary and suppressing pro-Trump stories/outlets. Where is the investigation and media attention for that?

Comey admits to leaking classified information, gets a sweet book deal. Reality winner leaks classified information, sits in jail denied bond.

The DNC siphoned $60 million from down-ballot elections into Hillary's campaign to fight Sanders, which would appear to be a violation of FEC rules on its face(*).

Susan Rice unmasked wiretaps of Trump and advisors without a warrant, which was then leaked to the press.

Bill Clinton had an "on the tarmac" meeting with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch while Lynch was investigating the E-mail scandal.

Hillary got $11,000,000 from the King of Morocco in return for a special-access meeting with the (then) Secretary of State.

Consider how much time and effort and taxpayer money has been spent on investigation Trump's Russia connection - and they're now looking at $50,000 of *ads* taken out by people from Russia. Compared to the amount Hillary spent? Or Trump spent?

I live in hope that some day our administration will grow some balls and start prosecuting people for blatant corruption - even though it may look on the surface like political reprisals against the losers.

(*) FEC puts a limit on the amount any individual can donate to a candidate. Many donors gave the maximum to Hillary, and donated more to down-ballot candidates. Moving down-ballot money to Hillary's campaign is likely violating the "maximum donation" rule.

Don't tell Congress...

[Anonymous Coward]

... about the Australian who's picking your winners and losers in every election. News International?

Election Interference

[drake3d]

This whole interference thing is a joke. So what, how many elections has the US interfered with in the last 100 years. Probably can't count it with all your fingers and toes. Heck Billy boy meddled in the Russian elections for Yeltsin during his presidency. This article from the LA Times might shed some light on some of out meddling. http://www.latimes.com/nation/... The witch hunts are all show to distract the public and the Presidency from what is happening around the world.

Re: Election Interference

[Anonymous Coward]

In Ukraine, the U.S. and her "NGOs" sponsored a Coup d'etat.

Tough to eat Just a tiny Bit of their own medicine...

Yeah, right

[Dracos]

Given that this is Facebook we're talking about, plus their bungled attempts so far to save face over their part in this debacle, this estimate seems egregiously low, by a factor of 5 to 8 or more.

Re:Yeah, right

[HermMunster]

Why not 2 or 3, or 10 or 15? How exactly did you arrive at your factor?

Including Putin to support Trump?

[Anonymous Coward]

Putting it into the bigger picture, you see hacking to support Trump (including hacking attempts on his Republican primary rivals), you see adverts to support Trump, you see money funneled into propaganda (e.g. $100k in Veritas) Russian trolls out to support Trump, Manasfort's Putin links being revealed, secret meetings with Russian agents in Trump tower, meetings abroad with Cohen, every major Trump appointee meeting the Russians prior to being appointed (i.e. pre-interview).

It's how it always works, people putting Party affiliation before Country being used to divide the country.

Defending democracy from Putin attack should be one thing every US person can agree on. Yet people let their party affiliations undermine their freedom.

Re:Including Putin to support Trump?

[HermMunster]

All still supposition and it mischaracterized the actual situation with over simplification.

Re: Including Putin to support Trump?

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome Ivan, haven't seen you round here before.

Re: Including Putin to support Trump?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. Brown people? Jobs, yes... H1B needs fixed and Hillary wasn't going to help with that. Anti-Hillary and the entire left? Yes. I haven't spoken to one Trump supporter first hand that had the racist tendencies that are continually put forth. They've either been tired of training their replacements or desired to avoid the next cliff progressivism/leftism tries to drive us off.

Now that I've seen the behavior of the childish left after losing the election, it confirmed my vote.

Re: Including Putin to support Trump?

[Anonymous Coward]

Number 3 is the only reason that is actually factual. Most people who voted for Trump would have voted for the corpse of Millard Fillmore before voting for Hillary Clinton.

Re: Including Putin to support Trump?

[HermMunster]

All bogus and inflated fact scarce leftist talking points.

Prove any one of those with actual true facts without using news articles.

Re: Including Putin to support Trump?

[Anonymous Coward]

What Russia does is tries to undermine faith in our election system and government. Just like you're trying to do now.

Does that make you a paid Russian troll?

Re: Including Putin to support Trump?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bigot.... You're a moron.

Re: Including Putin to support Trump?

[Ol Olsoc]

All bogus and inflated fact scarce leftist talking points.

Prove any one of those with actual true facts without using news articles.

Chto ty govorish' o Borise?

Re: Including Putin to support Trump?

[Shotgun]

I didn't know Millard was running. Damn! I missed out.

Re: Including Putin to support Trump?

[HermMunster]

Stop with the bullshit responses meant to attack others rather than discuss the facts. You sound hysterical.

Show us one iota of actual evidence that proves anything that you believe about the Russians, just one single thing. The only limit is that you can't use the press/media reports as evidence.

You can't do it. You have no idea what happened. You haven't been given a spec of evidence from the justice system nor has anything been proven through a prosecution.

Everyone should read the book called "The Smear" by Sharyl Attkisson. Chapter 1 gives a very good overview of the tactics of the leftist, how they formulated those tactics, and the extent they'll go in using them.

Back in the 50s we had a red scare movement that destroyed a lot of innocent lives. It would have been better that we learn from history so we don't make the same mistakes. It looks like some are eager to make those mistakes again only to compound on them because it meets their biased political agenda. That red scare movement was branded as McCarthyism. Decades later it was condemned as unpatriotic and un-American, and rightfully so.

There's been no evidence whatsoever that has been presented to the American people that demonstrates that the Russian government was responsible for the hacks into the DNC, nor Podesta's emails. In fact, Comey admitted that the Russians had nothing to do with the Podesta breach. He said this before congress in testimony under oath.

The Obama administration stated that Russians had hacked our election. He said that all 17 Intelligence agencies had given their concurrence with high confidence.

Before congress, James Clapper, who was the head of the DNI, admitted that only 3 agencies had signed off this assessment, not 17.

In the summary that was released to the press only 3 agencies were listed. That summary had a banner at the top that essentially stated that nothing contained therein should be construed as evidence or fact.

One of those agencies, the DHS, didn't sign off. They were only quoted. The second, the NSA (which is under Clapper) gave the report moderate confidence. The FBI, which isn't even an intelligence agency, was the only entity that gave the report high confidence and it turns out that they didn't even look at the DNC servers instead they relied on a 3rd party private entity hired and paid by the DNC. The FBI was repeatedly denied access to the servers.

Either you can go all rabid following the talking points of the left or you can put forth a real effort to try to understand what happened. We have newspapers tossing out unsubstantiated unsupported inferences to circumstances that then publish those as if they are fact.

Re: Including Putin to support Trump?

[Ol Olsoc]

Stop with the bullshit responses meant to attack others rather than discuss the facts. You sound hysterical.

Damn right I'm hysterical. I keep 'em in stitches. I'd be remiss if I didn't credit people like you for providing material for me.

Show us one iota of actual evidence that proves anything that you believe about the Russians, just one single thing.

I believe that they have a lot of really good looking women, and I love their accents when they speak English. I believe they drive around with dashcams a lot. Did you see the one where some poor dude has an accident and he's carrying propane canisters and they go off in the resulting fire.

The only limit is that you can't use the press/media reports as evidence.

You can't do it. You have no idea what happened. You haven't been given a spec of evidence from the justice system nor has anything been proven through a prosecution.

Oh, now you are just making maudlin. Your demands are only possible to meet in a post-legal process situation. To use a presidential situation, this is like Dick Nixon wasn't guilty of anything because he was never put on trial. Or that Slick Willy never got his knob polished by Monica Lewinsky because his impeachment wasn't sucessful in the end.

Spare me your silly lawyer's tricks Boris.

What we do know is that the senior advisor to the Present Administration attempted to open a secure communications facility using Russian embassy equipment. This in itself is quite disturbing, perhaps yu can go to the American Embassy in Moscow and ask them to do the same, then go tell Putin you did it. No problem eh, tovarish? We also know other things.

But since we do get our information from the media, why would you even accept a media report of the results of th ecoming court actions? The utmost denial is strong in you comrade, much vodka, and perhaps we can exchange sat and bread some day, I have to respect convictions so strong they can withstand nuclear powered truth. Meanwhile rant on. I'm no leftist, my cock-a-whoop friend, I do however do like the truth, something you have left behind a long time ago....

You do know that you lose points every time you trot out the tired old tactic of claiming everyone that doesn't walk in lockstep with you as a leftist don't you? Probbly not.

Re: Including Putin to support Trump?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah the old 17/3 trick, used only by fools and Krembots. You don't seem like a fool.

Russian ads

[Brett Buck]

So, now the premise is that these ads somehow influenced people against Hillary or for Trump?

I knew Hillary was the very definition of corruption, entitled, a pathological liar, and the worst kind of sickening elitist LONG before Facebook even existed. I didn't need to see any ads on the topic, her own statements, and admitted public actions were plenty enough to make me despise her and vote for *anyone*, even Trump, to prevent her from becoming president.

Re:Russian ads

[Anonymous Coward]

So, now the premise is that these ads somehow influenced people against Hillary or for Trump?

I knew Hillary was the very definition of corruption, entitled, a pathological liar, and the worst kind of sickening elitist LONG before Facebook even existed. I didn't need to see any ads on the topic, her own statements, and admitted public actions were plenty enough to make me despise her and vote for *anyone*, even Trump, to prevent her from becoming president.

That is like saying Catwoman is a criminal and then voting for the Joker as Mayor of Gotham to show you are tough on crime.

Re:Russian ads

[HermMunster]

The difference is that you know catwoman is a criminal and you only laugh at what the joker may have done.

Re:Russian ads

[Kiuas]

I knew Hillary was the very definition of corruption, entitled, a pathological liar, and the worst kind of sickening elitist LONG before Facebook even existed. I didn't need to see any ads on the topic, her own statements, and admitted public actions were plenty enough to make me despise her and vote for *anyone*, even Trump, to prevent her from becoming president.

Which is why you saw no ads or stories about this, they're called targeted for a reason. Besides, unless you live in the key swing states there's no reason to target anything to you in the first place. Look at what the Trump campaign itself said it's doing with targeted voter identification and advertising:

When Bannon joined the campaign in August, Project Alamo’s data began shaping even more of Trump’s political and travel strategy—and especially his fundraising. Trump himself was an avid pupil. Parscale would sit with him on the plane to share the latest data on his mushrooming audience and the $230 million they’ve funneled into his campaign coffers. Today, housed across from a La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery along Interstate 410 in San Antonio, the digital nerve center of Trump’s operation encompasses more than 100 people, from European data scientists to gun-toting elderly call-center volunteers. They labor in offices lined with Trump iconography and Trump-focused inspirational quotes from Sheriff Joe Arpaio and evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr. Until now, Trump has kept this operation hidden from public view. But he granted Bloomberg Businessweek exclusive access to the people, the strategy, the ads, and a large part of the data that brought him to this point and will determine how the final two weeks of the campaign unfold. - -

Trump’s campaign has devised another strategy, which, not surprisingly, is negative. Instead of expanding the electorate, Bannon and his team are trying to shrink it. “We have three major voter suppression operations under way,” says a senior official. They’re aimed at three groups Clinton needs to win overwhelmingly: idealistic white liberals, young women, and African Americans. Trump’s invocation at the debate of Clinton’s WikiLeaks e-mails and support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership was designed to turn off Sanders supporters. The parade of women who say they were sexually assaulted by Bill Clinton and harassed or threatened by Hillary is meant to undermine her appeal to young women. And her 1996 suggestion that some African American males are “super predators” is the basis of a below-the-radar effort to discourage infrequent black voters from showing up at the polls—particularly in Florida.- -

Regardless of whether this works or backfires, setting back GOP efforts to attract women and minorities even further, Trump won’t come away from the presidential election empty-handed. Although his operation lags previous campaigns in many areas (its ground game, television ad buys, money raised from large donors), it’s excelled at one thing: building an audience. Powered by Project Alamo and data supplied by the RNC and Cambridge Analytica, his team is spending $70 million a month, much of it to cultivate a universe of millions of fervent Trump supporters, many of them reached through Facebook. By Election Day, the campaign expects to have captured 12 million to 14 million e-mail addresses and contact information (including credit card numbers) for 2.5 million small-dollar donors, who together will have ponied up almost $275 million. “I wouldn’t have come aboard, even for Trump, if I hadn’t known they were building this massive Facebook and data engine,” says Bannon. “Facebook is what propelled Breitbart to a massive audience. We know its power.”

Emphasis mine. And this is the Trump

Re:Russian ads

[HermMunster]

The massive barage of ads and other media propaganda by CNN alone didn't override the influence of 10 million people seeing 1 ad?

More proof of the bogus red scare created by the left.

Like clockwork, /. is pushing DNC propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never seen so much MUH RUSSIA propaganda on any tech news site like I see it on /. Ever since the sale, /. has been in the hands of far-left propagandists. EditorDavid and msmash are constantly pushing this garbage.
No wonder this site is on life support and no one cares about it anymore.

Re:Like clockwork, /. is pushing DNC propaganda

[Required Snark]

So you really enjoy kissing Putin's ass. Are you in the Ukraine or in Russia?

On Slashdot no one knows if you are being paid off by the Russians.

Re: Like clockwork, /. is pushing DNC propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

Putin is a Patriot and Fights for european culture.
The leftists of Europe and America meanwhile donate our Lands to the Mohammedist invaders.

Re:Like clockwork, /. is pushing DNC propaganda

[HermMunster]

You think it is bad here. On reddit the CEO edits the posts of users.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

https://www.theverge.com/2016/...

What the hell is "politically divisive"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you mean making people THINK about who they vote for! How awful!

As far as "election interference", what the Jewish media never mentions is that this means "exposing Clinton's crimes"...

Dolchstoss-legende

[DNS-and-BIND]

This is just the Left's dolchstoss-legende being solidified. Trump didn't win, it was a stab in the back by TEH ROOSHINS. (Seriously, "blame the foreigner"? It's like the oldest trick in the book) In years to come, this will become a bedrock belief of the Left, that all these bad things happened because dirty foreigners made them happen. I can understand why! Having to come to terms with the fact that ordinary Americans are hurting would be emotionally devastating. It would be having a heel realization, and having to completely rethink things, and humans will do anything to avoid that.

Being forced to realize that Americans, having not benefited at all from the government policies of the last 30 years, voted for the only change they could see would mean that they were wrong all along. So, the stab-in-the-back legend, right alongside blame-the-foreigners, is being embraced by a lot of educated people who tell us they know better than to fall for such fallacies.

Re:Dolchstoss-legende

[houghi]

One does not exclude the other.

Re: Dolchstoss-legende

[Anonymous Coward]

dolchstoss-legende?

Your European language skills are leaking, which would be conclusive proof you're not American but then I already know you're one of Putin's little helpers.

Re:Dolchstoss-legende

[GameboyRMH]

How the actual fuck did you manage to blame 30 years of trickle-down economics damaging the working class on the left? By *blaming the foreigners* they let in, perhaps? No, that was your man Reagan throwing open the floodgates of inequality, with Bush Sr. finishing the job. Own that shit. OWN IT.

You also play on the "liberal elite" fallacy, that there are no working class leftists and as such, anyone on the left struggles to understand working class problems. And then in the next breath the right will push to make voting more difficult for working-class people. So we know that you know that it's horseshit.

It's the right that should be in for a heel realization. Especially if they ever dig right down and find that the core of their ideology is an ancient evil in a human skinsuit. It's entertaining to think about which right-wingers know this and play dumb, and which actually don't know. I think most actually don't know.

Yeah

[buss_error]

And 9 million, 999 thousand people will yell "FAKE NEWS!". Overcoming set expectation of outcomes is a loosing business.

NO

[Anonymous Coward]

Im the Russian spy and Im in all your keyboards. That Russian porn you were downloading. I programmed you to do that.
If Hillary or any establishment candidate doesnt get in, its me. Its always me. You see my commrades, in Soviet Russia, elections hack you!

Rodham's

[Anonymous Coward]

How much was spent on Rodham's campaign by Saudi on Facebook. Numbers, spock?

War with Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

C'mon guys. We all know what really happened and what is going to happen eventually. Russia is a threat and will continue to be so, trying to drive America apart. This is not the action of a friendly nation. We need to prepare for war with Russia.

Re: War with Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah Sure. They have built Military bases around America. Or was it the other way around ?

Many of you murricans are nutters.

The number of viewers is made up

[Required Snark]

From the article: "Still, he said it was possible Facebook would find more Russia-linked U.S. ads as it continues to investigate". Also the value was the result of a simulation. Without details they might as well as have said "we used a dart board to get that number". So if Facebook says 10 million viewers saw the advertising there is no way of knowing if that is even the right order of magnitude.

Given that Facebook is desperately attempting damage control how likely is it that this number is on the extremely low side? Remember FB claims to be good at spreading information, and apparently disinformation as well, so why not give it a shot as part of their defensive strategy. They have a lot of plausible deniability, so they might as well push their own "alternate facts".

The best part of all of this is that FB is now saying that they don't have much impact on their viewers. "The latest company statement said that about 25 percent of the ads were never shown to anyone". Is that what they tell their advertising clients? That a quarter of their advertising dollars are a complete waste of money? It seems extremely unlikely that is the story they use when they are talking to Wall Street or any organization that is trying to use FB as part of their online strategy.

Is it possible that no one will connect the dots between FB claiming to be a great place to get out your message vs how they didn't have any impact when it came to election tampering?

Re:The number of viewers is made up

[AmiMoJo]

I expect Facebook's ad reach models are pretty good. Advertising is their primary business, after all. If it wasn't good the advertisers would quickly call bullshit.

It's not hard to calculate. They put in a bid, you look at other bids for the same demographics and determine how often their ads would win the eyeball auction.

Re:The number of viewers is made up

[rylyeh]

Facebook will go the way of MySpace.
MySpace lost all of its users when it was repeatedly HACKED.
How many real accts on FB are already compromised?
Google?
Oh yeah, YAHOO?
Need I go on?

Without serious curation, privacy and security, No service is worth sticking with.

So the USA has never influence an Election?

[FeelGood314]

Or say tried to do change another countries government?

Re:So the USA has never influence an Election?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

The US has also rolled tanks into other countries. Doesn't change the fact that it's indisputable (among Americans) that you don't let other countries invade. It's not a fucking abstract moral argument - it's a war. A psy-ops war, but a war. The gv't defendingthe US in a war is a thing.

Re:So the USA has never influence an Election?

[king neckbeard]

I don't think the intention was to claim that it's justified, but that it's not unprecedented, and that if we want to stop being on the receiving end of this behavior, perhaps we should stop engaging in it ourselves. It's a lot easier to work towards a goal when you stop being a hypocrite.

Re: So the USA has never influence an Election?

[Anonymous Coward]

We, Kemosabe? *

* Kemosabe is an Oglala Sioux phrase which roughly translated means "Obvious Putinbot".

Re:So the USA has never influence an Election?

[HermMunster]

Bullshit.

There's no evidence that the Russian government did a damn thing. We have seen absolutely zero evidence supporting the supposition by the DNC that Russia hacked the election, which is an absurd notion, with all claims so far publicly made debunked. Even the original claim by Obama was found to be inaccurate. Only 3 agencies signed off on the claim that Russia hacked the election, not all, and certainly not 17. Of those 3 only one gave it high confidence contrary to Obama's claims and that agency is not an intelligence agency and it never investigated the hack directly.

Re:So the USA has never influence an Election?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Wow, that misses the point entirely. Look at the thread context. OP made the presumption that Russia intervened. Everything,including my response, in this thread is based on that.

Trump's campaign crowds vs Clinton's...

[Anonymous Coward]

Find out for yourself. Trump had and HAS far more support than Clinton ever did - as PROVED by the massive size of the crowds attending all of his campaign speeches, compared to Hillary's. Please explain how she had 50% of the vote when she couldn't get more than a few thousand people (if that) to attend her speeches - AND she gave far fewer speeches than Trump did.

Re: Trump's campaign crowds vs Clinton's...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lefties are driven by Idealism, Not facts or reason.

Re:Trump's campaign crowds vs Clinton's...

[Anonymous Coward]

Her supporters were otherwise occupied, waiting in long lines at the various leftist bureaucracies where they collect their handouts in exchange for their oaths of fealty to the State.

Re:Trump's campaign crowds vs Clinton's...

[Anonymous Coward]

In New Hampshire, 6000 residents of other states voted in in NH. Considering that blue Vermont and Mass border NH, it's a reasonable bet that most of those 6000 votes voted Dem. The 6000 votes were a 2-3x multiple of the difference of votes in the pres election and a our senator election. And that's with NH's voter ID law.

Rediculous

[easyTree]

State-sponsored manipulation has resulted in millions of Americans receiving propaganda other than that intended.

This may damage our future ability to deliver Home-Grown American propaganda, our contact speculated.

Lots of irrelevant inferences

[HermMunster]

Russians are entitled to place ads even politically derisive ones.

No one has proven these were placed by the Russian government, which also isnt illegal.

Zuckerberg is a Democrat and as someone with political aspirations he has every reason to follow the DNC narrative.

This is a win all round for Facebook as they can say that $100,000 nets you effective influence over 10,000,000 people.

Re:Lots of irrelevant inferences

[hyades1]

"No one has proven these were placed by MY Russian government, which also isn't illegal."

Fixed that for you!

Re:Lots of irrelevant inferences

[HermMunster]

No. What I wrote was accurate.

You simply participated in McCarthyism tactics.

Re:Lots of irrelevant inferences

[ScentCone]

Fixed that for you!

No, you spent a moment typing some juvenile snark in order to avoid admitting he's actually correct, because addressing the fact that he's correct takes some of the fun out of your preferred narrative.

Re:Lots of irrelevant inferences

[hyades1]

My little comment is "McCarthyism"?

Oh, you poor little snowflake!"

Study what McCarthy's victims went through, then get back to me, if you haven't been succumbed to a case of the vapours.

Re:Lots of irrelevant inferences

[hyades1]

No, he's actually wrong, and didn't deserve a serious investment of time.

Much like you.

Re:Lots of irrelevant inferences

[ScentCone]

What fun! More no-information snark, with a dose of ad hominem on top, the better to still try to avoid admitting you can't address the actual substance of the matter. It's a rather indirect way of admitting he's right, but thanks for making the point again.

saw?

[Anonymous Coward]

Defined saw, SHould that way facebook surved up 10million ad pages from russia? MY facebook adblock removes most of that and even if I didnt have that on, the ads are ignored. SO not sure what the point of the number is.

Liberals are stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

You hit right on my point for the last couple weeks. Liberals have gone full retard.

Everything (and much more) you listed is true, and they haven't any evidence of Trump Russia collusion. It has gone from Russia hacked the election, to Russia worked with Trump, to now Russia spent $50k on Facebook ads. Does anyone even look at Facebook ads? Really?

Meanwhile you have the DNI, NSA head, FBI head ALL lying under oath about spying on the Trump campaign during the election. Yep, they ALL lied under direct questions under oath, and they know they did and the news went on for weeks about Trump being unhinged. Turns out he was right.

Yep, Obama made Watergate look like child's play. His team was listening on Trump's campaign manager, during the election, and everyone involved questioned about it lied under oath. To complete the Watergate analogy, Nixon "talked" about using the IRS against his enemies while Obama actually DID it.

And here is the 10th story on /. about Russian Facebook ads and not a word about the outright corruption from the DNC primary or Obama administration.

Liberals have hit peak stupidity.

Bragging

[WoodstockJeff]

3000 ads got 10,000,000 "impressions" - just think what our marketing department can do for YOU!

Big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Putin is nothing. Fear the day when China decides to subvert the USA elections. Bye-bye, American democracy...

Re:Big deal

[HermMunster]

Shall we start the conspiracy now?

Similar to the democrat's agenda in invalidating the 2016 presidential election with accusations of Russian interference, the 2018 mid-term elections were hacked in favor of Hillary Clinton's party by the Chinese and Ukrainian governments.

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

The Russians have discovered that speech is free in the U.S.A. Wonderful.

So?

[p51d007]

Oh no! Russian "ads" on Fakebook....so?

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really .. a big "so what?".

Keep it up, and you get Trump again in 2020

[bradley13]

From the numbers, that pretty much has to be 10 million impressions, not 10 million people. I.e., the ads were shown 10 million times, to some (smaller) number of people.

I don't live in the US, but answer me this: During election season, how many ads did eacy person see? Hundreds? Possibly thousands? Multiply by a population of 300,000,000, and we are talking on the order of hundreds of billions of ad impressions. Against which, 10 million is not even a drop in a bucket.

This Russian fetish never was relevant. The more information that emerges, the more obvious this is. Some people just cannot accept that Hillary! was an absolutely crappy candidate, and that half the country voted for "anybody else".

The D's need to get over it already, and maybe put up a decent candidate next time. But they won't, they'll nominate someone like Pelosi. Trump is very likely to win again in 2020.

Re:Keep it up, and you get Trump again in 2020

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. When I looked at the ballot, I saw 1) Hillary 2) NOT Hillary and voted against the corrupt establishment.

The Left's Tortured Existence

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just more of the Left trying to twist and torture their logic and thinking into a justification that the election was somehow rigged, when it wasn't.

First, they twist the definition of "stuffing the ballot box" to "someone trying to convince someone else to vote for a particular candidate," which is the normal course of an election.

Second, they torture their logic into thinking that 2016 was somehow different with foreign interests buying ads, and that foreign interests courting American public opinion is somehow "rigging an election." The French and English spent 150 post-independence years trying to influence American public opinion in the same way. It is nothing abnormal. American interests similarly spend a lot of money influencing public opinion in other countries.

All I can say is, PLEASE, keep it up. Please oh pretty please destroy the last little tiny shred of credibility that you are clinging to with all of your might. It will be a wonderful day when the rational piece of American society finally discards the leftism into the wastebin of laughably flawed and silly ideas.

Amimojo, you are dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be trivially easy to follow every single one of your posts with a well researched and reasoned rebuttal that demonstrates how uselessly ignorant you are but what's the point?

You're too dumb to learn anything and everyone else already has your number anyway. You're like an AC with a name but far worse because you believe your own noise.

She lost

[cascadingstylesheet]

Just accept it. However bad Trump was as a candidate, Clinton was worse.

She had all the MSM, Hollywood, the universities, etc. etc, on her side. Even big business and a fair slice of the Republican poobahs who hated Trump were on her side. She still lost.

Nobody needed any "fake news" (except you, but it didn't work); the real news was bad enough. "First old white woman" just wasn't enough to get her there. She lost. Period.

Going ballistic, acting even more insane, none of this is helping you. This is in fact why he won.

Not surprising...

[Anonymous Coward]

Something that "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" makes clear when Facebook set up their advertising system.

Most likely this is clickbait

[Anonymous Coward]

The default hypothesis that this is just clickbait as in the previously discussed Macedonian operation
No wonder no one at Facebook commented on where the ads led to.

Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

We can all wipe our ass on the constitution after the country becomes Somalia in a few generations jesus christ. It's not a holy document faggot

Re:Who cares

[penandpaper]

Why would our country turn into Somalia for valuing free speech?

As far as the courts are concerned it is a holy document.

Fake News [Re:Non issue. Will be blown up out of ]

[Tablizer]

Which ones? How many? Links? You appear to be manufacturing "facts".

I do agree many claim the Russians attempted to influence the election, but I've rarely seen any claims that they almost certainly ACTUALLY changed the final results.

In other words, which Democrats directly and clearly claim the outcome would be different? I don't want pundit interpretations, I want to see actual quotes.

Made me change my vote!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Russians were successful! I was a fully firmed leftie until I saw that Facebook ad, then I had no choice but to pull the crank for Trump!

Glad it made a difference here in California!!

Thanks Putin!

Hillary Lost face it

[Anonymous Coward]

Hillary lost and you can't stop shutting up about it.

Gee... If Facebook says so

[Anonymous Coward]

It must be true if facebook says so!!! facebook and google are the two largest distributors of misinformation and fake news.

Heroes of Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to thank you all for your work on this story. There are too many for me to list you all but I'd like to single out HermMunster and king neckbeard for special thanks and also Rockoon, DNS-and-Bind and ScentCone for their usual faithful support.

Best wishes

Vladimir Ilyich Putin

Alexa, find burn centers in previous poster's area

[Anonymous Coward]

Alexa, find burn centers in previous poster's area.

Please stop

[Anonymous Coward]

We are tired of this Russian conspiracy. You people are trying SOOOO HARD to convince people of Russia hacking. Most people on this forum know how Internet works and aren't going to be duped. We know how IPs work. And how IP attribution is not reliable. We know a Russian company is not the Russian government. I can buy a proxy service in Russia and bam I'm a Russian hacker. Jesus.

You are still repeating this garbage?

[marcgvky]

Wow, don't you have some other new conspiracy that we can focus everyone's attention on??? Get over yourselves...

So What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares? Some ads.

Re: So What?

[Anonymous Coward]

A buffoon in the White House. Who cares?