Slashdot Mirror
Russia-Linked Accounts Were Active on Facebook Ahead of Brexit (ft.com)
The Russia-linked troll farm that used Facebook to target Americans during last year's election was also active in the UK ahead of the Brexit vote (Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source), the social media company has admitted. From a report: In a letter to the Electoral Commission, Facebook said accounts associated with the Internet Research Agency spent $0.97 for three ads in the days before the EU referendum. These ads appeared on approximately 200 news feeds in the UK before the country voted to leave the EU last year. For months the social media company has sidestepped questions from MPs and journalists about Russian interference through its platform in the UK. The concerns were fuelled by revelations this summer that Facebook had been weaponised by Russian entities before the election of US President Donald Trump. France and Germany have said their elections were also targeted. "We strongly support the Commission's efforts to regulate and enforce political campaign finance rules in the United Kingdom, and we take the Commission's request very seriously," Facebook said in the letter.
That's about the same value as a can of coke has been spent on pre-brexit facebook ads. Either, the spend was much better hidden (see how the vote leave campaign channelled GBP625,000 through a 23yr old student) or brexit was not endorsed or funded by the Russians and simply fuelled by the stupid.
Only 200 news feeds, that's less then the average shot of a kitten falling off a sofa or a half-decent restaurant meal. Really if that's all they managed they aren't very good hackers, the effect would have been almost non-existent.
You can't let an article go without somehow bringing the US President in to it.
Sad!
Everyone who thinks Facebook has the power to persuade people of ANYTHING are insane. When has it ever changed YOUR mind? It's the ultimate echo/thunderdome chamber where everyone only agrees with each other or causes pain, no actual change takes place there...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They are making better use of the net to manipulate the west and our democratic ways. Both Russia and China continue to block information getting to their citizens, while at same time they buy their way into our businesses, and minds.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The new norm: When the election result doesn't suit the powers that be, blame the Russians.
What, the US and UK didnt think the same political manipulation that they use to keep poor countries poor would ever hey used on them?
Fuck em both.
Russia-linked accounts were active on facebook before global warming.
97 cents??? You're doing an entire Slashdot post about 97 cents worth of ads????
More than $140 million was donated to the Clinton Foundation by Uranium One board members and associates, but no, let's focus on 97 cents worth of ads.
The left's newfound Russia Derangement Syndrome is beyond parody.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Who stands to win by the Balkanization of the World's most stable organizations? When the EU, NATO, the USA and other large/multi-national organizations fall, Russia, still smarting from the fall of the USSR, can rise in prominence. Putin already tried putting Humpty back together, tearing down everyone else is a parallel strategy.
Organization? You must be joking..
I know it's en vogue to blame Russia for all things non-liberal but this shit is getting ridiculous. Russia hacked the Election, Russia hacked Brexit, Russia killed your puppy, Russia forced Harvey Weinstein to jerk off in front of women, Russia made my wife cheat on me...
Fuck off all of you.
Yeah, but this is the problem of money in politics. A country like Russia has vast money to pour into a campaign like this, and there's no way average people can come up with a dollar to combat this insidious advertising campaign.
Seriously, though, someone's getting this upset over less than a dollar? The left is beyond parody at this point.
Do you have ESP?
EXACTLY like Slashdot, but with better Emoji support and no UID digits to tell you who to respect.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I voted for BREXIT. Here's why
Outside the EU with a Canada type deal the UK would have control over
1) Immigration. Inside the EU we have to accept free movement of EU citizens. Not just to come to work, which I have no problem with, but also to claim benefits which I have a large problem with. And, more subtly, being inside the EU means we have to sign up to the ECHR. Article 8 of that makes it almost impossible to deport criminal, non EU aliens. Also if the UK is in the EU, it cannot refuse EU migrants and immigration is unpopular it instead clamps down on non EU ones. I've got a lot of friends in non EU countries who have tried and failed to get UK work permits because of this, despite the fact that they'd get a job and pay taxes if they moved to the UK. Many EU migrants end up in low pay jobs and are not net taxpayers because they depend on Working Families Tax Credit, Housing Benefit and so on. I.e. the EU is a source of cheap labour but that labour is subsidised by the taxpayer.
2) Trade. Inside the EU we need to have tariffs on non EU imports. Outside the EU we don't - we could sign free trade agreements with the US for example, which is our largest export customer. There's the Commonwealth, Asia and so on. Trade with the EU is important, but it is declining in importance. Also even without a Canada type deal we have a trade deficit with the EU. I.e. we buy more than we sell. So if tariffs are imposed on trade both ways we can use the tariffs we collect to pay our exporters tariffs.
3) Internal regulations. If you trade with another country, your exporters need to comply with their regulations on goods they export. Unfortunately the EU goes much farther than that - the EU wants to be a state and to regulate even intra country trade. Outside the EU that wouldn't happen.
4) Democracy. Democracy works if you vote for a government, that government makes policy and then you vote again. In the EU that process is broken because there are things you can vote for - controls on immigration for example - which the EU will block. In the run up to BREXIT Cameron asked for a delay between new immigrants arriving from the EU and being able to claim benefits but was slapped down. Meanwhile Merkel unilaterally admitted 'Syrian refugees' who turned out to be mostly not Syrian and not refugees. Since Germany controls the EU, the EU didn't bat an eyelid. In fact the EU is still trying to impose a quota system on EU countries to accept their 'fair share' of the migrants Merkel invited into Germany.
5) Defence. The EU wants an army and to be a state. The UK has traditionally seen NATO as being the security organisation, and the EEC and then EU as being about trade. Leaving the EU with a Canada type agreement keeps tariffs off trade but removes us from getting sucked into the EU's aspirations at statehood. Even a WTO deal isn't too bad for the reasons mentioned in 2)
6) Money. The UK makes a net contribution of £10billion per year. Outside the EU we'll probably have to pay a divorce fee of around £40billion or so. However after that we'll only contribute to programs which are in the national interest. Norway is not an EU member but is a single market member and makes per capita contributions of around 1/7 what the UK does.
Of course the Remoaners want you to think it's all a Russian plot. Nope. There was a referendum and you guys lost.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Hillary Clinton Gave 20 Percent of United States' Uranium to Russia in Exchange for Clinton Foundation Donations?
Uh, the article says that they located Russians buying three ads totaling about a dollar.
That's not really a problem.
also, logically, Russians meddling in a British elections would not be treason-- treason would have to be by citizens of the same country.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Nice try, dumbass!
You misspelled NSA
I can't help but wonder whether these Russian fake news accounts were online and active trying to get Roy Moore elected in the special senate race. Trump would have likely requested Putin to try to tip this one too in his favor.
No, Putin has re-allocated all his election rigging assets to the nor important task of rigging the upcoming Russian presidential elections.
Turnabout is fair play.
Darling: So you see, Blackadder, Field Marshal Haig is most anxious to eliminate all these German spies.
Melchett: Filthy Hun weasels fighting their dirty underhand war!
Darling: And, fortunately, one of *our* spies--
Melchett: Splendid fellows, brave heroes, risking life and limb for Blighty!
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Is social media the new, best practices for the age old divide and conquer strategy?
Well, there seems to be a lot of dividing going around.
Faith versus faith.
Left versus right.
Cops versus folks.
Faith versus non.
Rich versus poor
Repub versus Demo.
Great Brit versus the EU.
And even now men versus women.
We could use a good generational dividing.
The Russians wouldn't matter if folks remembered how to talk.
Perhaps social media has supplanted civil discourse?
facebook doesn't kill, people do.
It is ludicrous to believe that somewhere in the $125k range of ads purchased on Facebook caused an election loss for a candidate that spent $1,184m dollars not to mention colluding with 90% of all media outlets to cover up everything she did wrong while they were trying to destroy Trump such as the Washington Post hiring 20 people to dig up dirt on Trump.
How many CIA linked accounts were active on Facebook?
How many CIA linked accounts are still active on Facebook?
It is apparent that you do not live in Russia, as Putin's support at home is genuine. He does not need any rigging to win. http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/...
"large parts of that uranium are now MIA"
"large parts of that uranium are now in North Korea"
Fixed that for you
and look at the massive impact it had. $125k ads goes a long way with conspiracy-minded right-wingers who will share and re-tweet without a second thought to its truthiness.
1. Re-enforce your base's opinions and get them motivated to actually take action.
That would be great but the only thing Facebook excels at is de-motivation.
2. Depress your opponent's supporters.
Which Facebook does not really manage to do At All.
If everyone is in an echo chamber, then it's impossible to depress anyone. But on the flip side, you get all so beguiled by the echo chamber you do not need to do anything so if anything it makes it less likely you will take real action... Facebook is a tool for pacification, not for riling people to action.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why do we never read about any of those? Let's not pretend that America is just and righteous. Whatever you can accuse Russia of, America is already doing the same and to a larger extent. That's the real issue.
You keep saying those words. I do no believe they mean what you think they mean.
The new norm: shit stains like you support traitors who align with your shitty political views.
yeah ok ivan
You lost. Get over it.
You lost ! Get over it, conservative snowflake !!
How does your own medicine tastes, assholes ?!
Shut up, Ivan.
No faggot, we blame the Russians for what the Russians did - and Trump for what Trump the traitor bitch did. It has nothing to do with disagreeing with him.
You dumb cunt snowflake cuckservative traitor.
Not to mention that he can kill his opponents without fear of retribution, that goes a long way in garnering total support
Ahh, the good ol' slashdot "-1 I disagree". You even quoted the NY Times. The moderators really are partisan, aren't they>
Yeah right, Chechnya voted 99.8% for his party with 99.7% turnout, not long after Putin waged two wars against them. Think about how many votes Lincoln would get in the South the next election had he survived the assassination.
You're used to vote fraud meaning a few tens of invalid votes. On the other had, Russia didn't have a remotely fair election anywhere in its history: not by the tsars, not during the revolution, not by the soviets, a close shave by Yeltsin, then fully back to normal by Putin. Same in puppet countries they conquered (most recent example in Crimea).
“I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how.” -- Joseph Stalin
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
sure, and in a new developments, icebergs should be ignored because you cannot see what is under the water
Your life must really suck for you to have this much irrational anger, I feel sorry for you.
Just kidding. I actually enjoy knowing that somewhere out there, you and everyone like you are endlessly suffering.
Seriously, can't you see them when they pop up, they're not even that good at creating profiles and they don't even understand how humans link to each other in the real world. Fake posts liked by other fake profiles and commented on, but they repeat the exact same posts in a specific cycle, and the same comments.
If you can't detect that, get out of security, because you've failed.
And you're off by a factor of 1000, by the way. There are more.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I'm glad Putin wanted Macron and Merkel win. He's on ok guy lol...
Install an ad blocker and they won't get a dime.
$0.97
Excellent!! Proceed with operation Brexitfix!
Mwuhaahaaahaaahaaaa!
Uh, read (2)
Demotivation is DISTINCT from depression. And you are ignoring the de-motivation happens in the echo chamber, NOT for opponents.
Wait, you just said... did you read what you literally said one sentence before that?
Can you please read what I wrote instead of what you think I wrote?
TRANSMISSION END
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What about the price of onions? What about the latent towel controversy? What about socks that don't stay up?
Why doesn't anyone talk about those things, huh? HUH??
This is transparent distraction. Let's not talk about the issue, oh no! Let's talk about something else, preferably the Clintons. You can always tell a Right Wing Troll by their obsession with the Clintons. What about the Big Giant Orange Head admitting to sexually assaulting women, and reveling in his ability to do so without consequences. NO!!! What about the Clintons!!!
Sad. Pathetic. Transparent.
Incorrect. Their is still time to appoint Madame President to her throne thru the impeachment process.
-msmash
yeah nicky haily is clearly distancing herself from #denturedon to be the next empress.
BBC was actively opinionating on US elections. BBC is not registered as a foreign agent. BBC is funded by the British government. Great Britain is not part of the US nor is it a US territory. This is open foreign interference in US elections which has been happening for close to 100 years.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
See how liberal SJW attacks because of no counter arguments. Low energy sad.
You clearly failed civics class. Go back and read up on how impeachment and the line of succession works.
Look at an election map of Alabama. It's almost all red, with just a single bit of blue. It's just that this single blue dot somehow had more turnout than it did for the presidential election, and that blue dot single-handedly handed Doug Jones the election.
It's just not plausible that happened without massive voter fraud.
i think it's pretty shitty of you to assume that everyone who is against this "blame russia" movement is named Ivan.
Stop stereotyping, you hateful liberal fuck.
Even the summary reads like an onion story. Is this a joke, parody, or do the editors truly want to share this news on this website with this audience? Some probably russian-related actors bought three ads for the amount of ONE dollar..? This is background noise. You can probably find even more adds of Pakistani people trying to influence the elections in Portugal
int main(void) {while(1) fork(); return 0;}
What does Occams razor say?
Was there a huge coordinated group of people, effortlessly injecting fake news, creating stores, posting comments across the entire internet in an attempt to sway massive elections involving millions of people, many of which wouldn't even use a fucking computer.
OR
Did people just vote what they thought best?
The far left have gone off the bloody deep end. Don't tell me, it's *.white *.males fault some how?
Look at the map, and you'll see that most of 'Bama is sparsely populated farmland. Look at the politics, and you have a candidate for the majority party being accused of child molestation. The minority party tends to do better is special elections, because the base for that party feels under siege. In this election, the minority party would be especially up in arms, in a special election which tends to have a VERY small turnout.
I wouldn't expect fraud to be needed for Jones to win.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Putin's support at home is genuine since he took control of all the TV stations and intimidated the rest of the media and opposition politicians by assassinations and spurious criminal charges. All it shows is that Russia has as many stupid, pig-ignorant and desperate people as the USA.
It's just not plausible that happened without massive voter fraud.
Yes it is, just like it's possible for Trump to get elected president with the majority of voters voting for Hillary.
Or is it fraud only when a democrat wins ?
Well, it's more rational than the previous approach, which was "blame the Kenyans". At least the Russians *are* demonstrably meddling.
It's also a gross mischaracterization to accuse the US and UK of using political manipulation to keep poor countries poor. They use it, so far as they can (which isn't as far as they'd like) to keep countries friendly to their (mostly commercial, but also political) interests. They're perfectly fine with the countries concerned becoming rich. (See, e.g., Japan and South Korea for examples of countries that have done pretty well out of US political meddling; Malaysia and Singapore have done well out of UK political meddling. Compare with those countries, such as Iran, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, that have vigorously rejected their interference.)
As you are obviously a retard here is county-by-county listing of the result. The resident Republican child molester did win the majority of counties however the filthy Dem's did win big in some metro areas: Jefferson D 149,522 R 66,309. In all the Dem's won 23 counties: more than 1 blue dot dumb-ass. And no, I am not an 'Merkin. I can count.
Link: http://www.al.com/news/index.s... If you trust the state government or is this 'fake news'?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"If Theresa May is certain Russia is ‘meddling’ in British democracy she obviously knows some seriously cheap advertisers. It just emerged Russia spent 73p ($0.97) on ads to influence the Brexit referendum. How much influence can you buy for 73p?"
"Well, for a start, probably not a lot because the Facebook ads were about migration and the wider European context – and not Brexit. And then there’s the fact less than £1 was spent." link
If you can sway an entire country for under a dollar, I've got 200 dollars to crown myself king of the world.
Yes, your clear example showing they are doing exactly what was claimed, somehow means the other guy is wrong?
Logic fail.
Hey, it worked for the Clintons...
Vladimir Putin dropped his trousers and took a shit on my front lawn! There are witnesses!
ok ivan