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Facebook Reopens Probe Into Russian Involvement in Brexit (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes TechCrunch:
Facebook has said it will conduct a wider investigation into whether there was Russian meddling on its platform relating to the 2016 Brexit referendum vote in the UK. Wednesday its UK policy director Simon Milner wrote to a parliamentary committee that's been conducting a wide-ranging enquiry into fake news -- and whose chair has been witheringly critical of Facebook and Twitter for failing to co-operate with requests for information and assistance on the topic of Brexit and Russia -- saying it will widen its investigation, per the committee's request. Though he gave no firm deadline for delivering a fresh report -- beyond estimating "a number of weeks".
It's not clear whether Twitter will also bow to pressure to conduct a more thorough investigation of Brexit-related disinformation. At the time of writing the company had not responded to our questions either. At the end of last year committee chair Damian Collins warned both companies they could face sanctions for failing to co-operate with the committee's enquiry -- slamming Twitter's investigations to date as "completely inadequate", and expressing disbelief that both companies had essentially ignored the committee's requests... Independent academic studies have suggested there was in fact significant tweet-based activity generated around Brexit by Russian bots."
Theresa May has said Russia's attempts to "sow discord" in the West could not go unchallenged, and warned Vladimir Putin, "We know what you are up to."
Facebook's response complained that a new investigation "requires detailed analysis of historic data by our security experts, who are also engaged in preventing live threats to our service."
It's not clear whether Twitter will also bow to pressure to conduct a more thorough investigation of Brexit-related disinformation. At the time of writing the company had not responded to our questions either. At the end of last year committee chair Damian Collins warned both companies they could face sanctions for failing to co-operate with the committee's enquiry -- slamming Twitter's investigations to date as "completely inadequate", and expressing disbelief that both companies had essentially ignored the committee's requests... Independent academic studies have suggested there was in fact significant tweet-based activity generated around Brexit by Russian bots."
Theresa May has said Russia's attempts to "sow discord" in the West could not go unchallenged, and warned Vladimir Putin, "We know what you are up to."
Facebook's response complained that a new investigation "requires detailed analysis of historic data by our security experts, who are also engaged in preventing live threats to our service."
"The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War's been over for 20 years" - Barack Obama, third presidential debate, Oct. 22, 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
I wonder if Russia is behind alvinrod's commenting that Russia is behind Facebook's reopening of this probe into Russian meddling in Brexit. If you're Russia it seems like the best way to stir up shit in opposing powers is to let alvirond start some whataboutisms over whether or not Russia was involved in influencing Facebook reopining this probe into Russian meddling in Brexit.
but it was Mays own party that proposed Brexit on a gamble. After the country actually voted in favour of it, 3 separate politicians assumed responsibility for the fiasco and each stepped aside as the brakes were nowhere to be found on this train. Even Boris Johnson had a swing at the corpulent trashbag known as Brexit. the UK even went so far as to say the legislation was somehow nonbinding, and when pressed by the EU to exist in a timely fashion had the audacity to demand "a good deal" in exchange for leaving. They did not in fact get a deal.
now may's trying again, desparately, to save face and pin the blame on russia? Seriously? At some point someone has to call her bluff and ask what strategic or tactical advantage Russia gains by sabotaging a nation into exile from a trade group russia already has formal relations with (the EU)? In other words, why would russia intentionally make it more cumbersome to trade with the UK?
Good people go to bed earlier.
What are you talking about? There's been a massive amount of attention to Russian support of Jill Stein. This has included aspects of Senate investigations https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/19/jill-stein-trump-russia-investigation-documents. There were many mainstream media reports on it such as https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/why-are-senate-russia-investigators-interested-jill-stein-n831261 and https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/12/senate-intelligence-committee-jill-stein-russia.
The problem is something called sampling bias. If you only look for meddling by Russia in only decisions you dislike, then you can only find meddling by Russia only in decisions you dislike. e.g. If your landlord claims your apartment is filthy and is the source of the cockroaches that everyone in the building has been complaining about, and he does an extensive search for roaches in your apartment and finds some, that doesn't prove his claim. For all we know, your apartment could be the cleanest one in the building, and if he'd done the same extensive search on the other apartments he would've found a lot more roaches. But by searching only your unit, he's abusing sampling bias - cherry picking data by only looking in certain places - to try to make it appear as if you're the one at fault.*
If you want to investigate something like this in an objective manner, you need to look for meddling into all big political decisions by all foreign powers. This includes meddling by Facebook (a US corporation) abusing sampling bias to try to discredit the UK Brexit vote via a press release that millions if not tens of millions of Britons will hear about in the news..
* In this case the statistical error (by Facebook) is intentional. But sampling bias can creep in unintentionally too. The classic example is a surveyor tasked with finding out how many hours city residents ride the subway on average, so the city can make better decisions on if subway service should be expanded. He starts off by asking random people on the street how often they ride the subway each week. He grows frustrated that most people don't ride the subway at all, making it difficult for him to gather the required minimum number of positive responses to minimize the margin of error. Then he's struck with inspiration. He'll simply got aboard a subway train and ask the riders how many hours they ride each week. Since everyone on the subway must be subway riders, that'll neatly filter out all the non-riders he's been wasting his time with.
The problem is when you ask people riding on the subway instead of random people on the street, the odds of you encountering a heavy subway user are higher. e.g. If 80% of subway riders ride the subway 1 hour a week, and 20% ride it 10 hours a week, you are 2.5x as likely to sample a 10 hr/wk rider than you are a 1 hr/wk rider simply because they're on the subway a lot longer. So the statistical data you gather this way ends up biased high by your sampling method.
Russiagaters are getting more and more desperately pathetic with each passing day.
...
Anything and everything can be and will be blamed on Russia,
Actually, only online propaganda and hacking has been blamed on Russia. We know Russia has excellent hackers and buildings full of online propagandists, so it seems like a logical conclusion that they have been using them.
because we need a distraction from how horrible Hillary and her party are to lose the most winnable election in history.
It's 2018 and the Republicans have controlled both Congress and the Presidency for over a year, so why are you bringing up the 2016 elections? At this rate, I swear it's 2037 and one of you retards with a faded MAGA hat is going to tell me about how that Trump and Republicans won and that I should accept it. Seriously, we get it!
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
failed socialist experience to again
(emphasis mine)
I'm curious, what/when was the last 'experience' (do you mean experiment?)?
most successful nation
Not by a lot of metrics; less so than in the past and falling.
Some progressive policies =/= socialism. Some well-regulated and limited social policies =/= socialism. Criticism of the excesses of capitalism =/= socialism. Calling for limitations or regulation of capitalism =/= socialism.
Neither pure capitalism, nor pure socialism (or the closest approximations that have arisen) work particularly well for anyone but the small group who come to accumulate power. Identifying the areas of society that are best allowed to operate as a (regulated) free market, and those areas that are better run as (limited and well defined) social services is more successful, by a number of measures.
Challenging where to draw those lines is essential to prevent the excesses of an imbalance in either direction, and to that end debate and argument is useful.
Tribalism, partisanship or a refusal to accept any 'dilution' of a position, or compromise with different points of view is not.
It's more like, "Lots of us keep hearing hearing funny noises from under the bed... Don't you think we should get a torch and have a peek under there?"
Your response is something like, "There's nothing under the bed because we say so--and don't you dare even look under it."
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.