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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.
It looks like England has a treason problem too.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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..
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
You misspelled NSA
Have you actually SEEN the ads that supposedly threw the election to Trump?
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/us/politics/russia-2016-election-facebook.html?referer=
Jesus v Hillary? Color your own Bernie? These are the goofiest pieces of crap political ads ever made. Believing these somehow convinced millions of Hillary voters to switch to Trump is a MENTAL DELUSION.
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?
"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.
Everytime I visit Slashdot I know I am making them a tiny bit of money.. normally I will do it a few times a week.. but I am voting with my presence and I will no longer come to this site because of their Political CRAP.. they want to double down on doubling down on a loser mentality that does not serve the public good... sure they have the right to.. but this site has just become another outlet for leftist crap to propagate the internet.. lies .. bullshit.. nothing that actually helps us form a better society.. that is their choice... this is my goodbye...
Move along peple. I am American and I say like most that this is fake news of the deepest amount. No evidence of Russian interference exists, is all made up from the Democrat party so they can win election and take our guns and impregnate our white wives while forcing us to watch. Besides USA is worse than this, they do it all the time to everyone like the mother Russia who just want the peace and love of world not liberals SJW attacks.
Ahh, the good ol' slashdot "-1 I disagree". You even quoted the NY Times. The moderators really are partisan, aren't they>
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...
$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.
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.
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?
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.