Russia Reportedly Used Pokemon Go In an Effort To Inflame Racial Tensions (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Russia's far-ranging campaign to promote dissension in the United States reportedly included an effort to weaponize Pokemon Go. CNN reported that in July 2016, a Tumblr page linked to Russia's now-notorious Internet Research Agency promoted a contest encouraging people sympathetic to the Black Lives Matter movement to play the game near famous sites of police brutality. Players were told to change their characters' names to the victims of those incidents -- an apparent effort to inflame racial tensions. The Tumblr page was linked to Do Not Shoot Us, a multi-platform campaign designed to mimic aspects of Black Lives Matter. (As CNN notes, the name plays on "hands up, don't shoot," one of the movement's slogans.) Do Not Shoot Us included a website, donotshoot.us, along with related pages on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. The Facebook page was one of 470 pages that were removed after the company determined that it was linked to Russian groups attempting to interfere in US politics.

Comments

The strategy is obvious

[zzyzx]

It's less trying to promote one side or the other than a case of Let's You and Him Fight where they just try to get everyone so mad at each other than the US has trouble governing. Trolls are less about converting people (although it's great if they can) and more about making the other side think their views are so insane that they can't be reasoned with. It's all an attempt to get us into increasingly frustrated self selected bubbles and it does seem to be working. ...but maybe I'm just bitter because the Russians didn't offer me a Lapras for helping them. I mean if you're going to use Pokemon Go, use it!

Re: The strategy is obvious

[OzPeter]

Trust me... It didn't take the Russians to be divisive, condescending, smug, and insulting.

Liberal America did a great job of that without any prompting.

The irony in your post is almost palpable.

Re:The strategy is obvious

[sittingnut]

there is evidence ... (since they've traced the activity back to Russia)

in fact, there is no independently verifiable evidence.
establishment authorities are making claims there is evidence and links, but no concrete details that can be checked independently.
and even these claims are not of original accusations of facilitating trump win, "hacking" the election, etc, but of spending less than 0.01% of online (loosely defined) political ads( and much less of all ads), by "russia linked" "entities" (without much details about them and their alleged links).

does russia's interests oppose usa's? yes.
does russia want a weak usa ? yes.
is russia trying to get its way v.s usa, even using covert and criminal activity? yes.
all that is true (not just of russia but plenty of others) for a long time.

but current narrative is not about such obvious things. it is a blatant attempt at renouncing responsibility for american evils and failures, and attempt to deny incompatibility of reality prevailing in usa, with agendas and ideology of establishment( whether it be sharing economic benefits and pains, justifications and sacrifices for permanent wars, free trade, unregulated immigration, etc etc ).
by blaming russians for events arising from that reality( such as election of trump), you delegitimize that real opposition to establishment ideology and agendas.

In Post-Soviet Russia...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pokemon Go plays YOU!

Re:anyone still believe this Peak Bullshit?

[AmiMoJo]

Actually the evidence is mounting. This article has a good summary with plenty of links: https://www.theguardian.com/us...

I find this report by the Director of National Intelligence particularly interesting: https://www.dni.gov/files/docu...

We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trumpâ(TM)s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment;NSA has moderate confidence.

Moscowâ(TM)s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operationsâ"such as cyber activityâ"with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid socialmedia users or âoetrolls.â

The extent to which Trump was involved in this has yet to be determined. The investigation is on-going. It seems that some of his staff did meet with people working for the Russian government and communicated with them in other ways, but to be fair that in itself isn't proof of actual collusion. Trump and his team may well be victims of Russian government manipulation too. It certainly undermines his victory.

We don't know the full extent of this for some time, and even then the way Trump has interfered with the investigation means that any conclusions are unlikely to be accepted now.

You want to use cashiers check or PayPal...

[Uberbah]

...to send me your life savings?

Actually the hysteria is mounting.

Fixed that for you.

The Russian's hacked power plants storyline was bullshit.
CrowdStrike is bullshit.
The "17 intelligence agencies" line was bullshit.
The Russia hacked election systems is bullshit.

find this report by the Director of National Intelligence particularly interesting

Sure, lets look at this - while remembering the FBI wasn't allowed to examine the DNC servers so how exactly would they have "high confidence" in any thing - but this time noting the weasel words:

We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence.

Zero evidence provided, only claims and accusations. Well guess what Chem Trailers, Sandy Hook Truthers and Birthers have? Claims and accusations.

Then there's the fact the entire "Russia wanted Trump to win so hacked the election" makes no sense whatsoever. The election was Hillary's to lose, right up until she picked Tim Kaine as her running mate and decided to skip campaigning in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan. So according to the storyline, Putin was crafty enough to dig up dirt on Hillary (which was all true) but dumb enough to collude with someone as dumb as Trump. Which means the CIA, NSA & FBI would know all about it. Which meant Hillary would too, who had already campaigned on shooting down Russian jets in Syria. So what's really going on?

The entire "Russian hacking" storyline is nothing but Swiftboating from Clinton supporters, as she was the candidate who engaged in corrupt collusion with Russian interests to sell a fifth of America's uranium.

And you can skip that Snopes link that handwaives away Hillary's culpability for a number of reasons:
1) Access is corruption
2) Avoiding the appearance of impropriety applies to politicians, not just judges
3) Her own campaign was warned internally that the deal was a political liability for her
4) Hillary flat-out broke her confirmation promises on keeping a wall between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation

At this point, Chem Trailing anti-vaxxer Birther Sandy Hook Truthers have more respectability than Russiagaters.

Re:You want to use cashiers check or PayPal...

[AmiMoJo]

What does the DNC emails have to do with Russian inference? Your entire argument seems to be that because you found some fake thing everything else no matter how unrelated must also be fake.

This seems to be a standard tactic of alternative fact peddlers. CNN made a mistake once, therefore everything they ever reported is fake news.

Re:You want to use cashiers check or PayPal...

[Uberbah]

What does the DNC emails have to do with Russian inference?

Are you....kidding? It's only the foundation for for the accusations that Russia tried to interfere with the election. No big whoop.

Your entire argument seems to be that because you found everything to be fake everything else no matter how unrelated must also be fake.

FTFY2.

This seems to be a standard tactic of alternative fact peddlers. CNN made a mistake once, therefore everything they ever reported is fake news.

Your projection is noted - Russiagate is the definition of fake news.

Don't like that? Then come up with more evidence than what Birthers, Chem Trailers and Sandy Hook Truthers do to support their theories. Or admit you've turned into that cranky Uncle Bob on Facebook who insists to this day that Obama really was a Kenyan-born Muslim with a fake birth certificate.

Eh.

Veh.

Dence.

Re:You want to use cashiers check or PayPal...

[AmiMoJo]

The foundation of the accusations about Russian interference are the FBI, CIA and NSA investigations of their activity on social media, funding and meeting with American citizens. It's all in that report, why don't you read it?

Re:You want to use cashiers check or PayPal...

[Uberbah]

The foundation of the accusations about Russian interference are the FBI, CIA and NSA investigations of their activity on social media, funding and meeting with American citizens.

No. It's not. Not even remotely close. Whining about Social Media ads - many of which were placed after the election last November and someone of which involved cute pictures of cats or criticizing a Trump golf course in Scotland - is the last pathetic attempt of partisan hacks desperate to keep their edition of the Whtiewater/Vince Foster witch hunts going. Or didn't you notice the steady moving of the goalposts - from DNC hacking to collusion to $100,000 in ads (many of which were place after the election) in a race where Hillary spent $1.2 biiiiiiiillion dollars?

It's all in that report, why don't you read it?

You mean a report completely lacking in the aforementioned Eh Veh Dence from the same professional liars who sold you on Saddam plotting 911, who spy on Congress while perjuring themselves before Congress?

Did you read the link noting that all this hyperventilation is over drops in an ocean?

Say hi to Uncle Bob for me, as you've turned into a Birther: someone who skates right on by legitimate reasons to oppose a political opponent in favor of engaging in theories so bizarre they wouldn't make it onto Info Wars.

And all so that the corporate Democrats that brought you Trump can make the conversation about Russia and not their epic fail, so they can maintain control and direction over the party. Might as take one of Uncle Bob's "4 more years!" sign and put it on your lawn. Right now.