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Russian Trolls Created Facebook Events Seen By More Than 300,000 Users (cnn.com)
"Posing as American activists, Russian government-linked trolls created 129 Facebook events between 2015 and 2017," writes CNN. An anonymous reader quotes their report:
On multiple occasions, the events prompted real Americans to take to the streets. In a written statement Facebook gave to the Senate Intelligence Committee released on Thursday, the social media network said that the events created by one Kremlin-linked troll group were seen by more than 300,000 Facebook users. About 62,500 users marked that they would attend the event, and an additional 25,800 expressed an interest in attending.
Facebook told Congress it does "not have data about the realization of these events," but CNN has previously found evidence that the Russian group successfully convinced Americans to attend the demonstrations. The events were organized on a range of divisive issues and were designed to pit Americans against each other.
"The company also told Congress it had removed Kaspersky Lab from a list of free anti-virus offerings it provides users."
Facebook told Congress it does "not have data about the realization of these events," but CNN has previously found evidence that the Russian group successfully convinced Americans to attend the demonstrations. The events were organized on a range of divisive issues and were designed to pit Americans against each other.
"The company also told Congress it had removed Kaspersky Lab from a list of free anti-virus offerings it provides users."
It's a CNN.COM article.
That's the dirty secret -- propaganda and astroturfing works. Social media is a dream come true for the practitioners of the Soviet-style dark arts of mass brainwashing and information-attack.
Which makes the fecklessness and arrogance of the social media barons ("this time it's differet", "the Internet changes everything") all the more galling. They sniffed their own techno-libertarian farts, believed their own bullshit, and then, due to their obstinate refusal to come to terms with the destructive power of their platforms, nearly destroyed the republic.
I'm not holding my breath, waiting for fucking idiots like Jack Dorsey or Mark Zuckerberg to wake up. I'm out. If Russian and Chinese security-state fascists are given a free pass to attack us, really the only thing we can do is opt out and do the only thing we can do individually to make things as hard as possible for the enemy.
Why not? Russia's information warfare campaign is fascination and world-changing, and VERY interesting to nerds. After all, most of the vectors of Putin's information assault on the West are enabled by the Web and social media.
Look, I'll admit I'm a rank amateur up front. But I reached 1,000,000 eyeballs during the 2016 election.
If the Ruskies can only pull off 300,000 eyeballs then I am pretty damn impressed with myself.
Caution: Contents under pressure