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US Charges Russian Social Media Trolls Over Election Tampering (cnet.com)
The US Justice Department has filed charges against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian groups for interfering with the 2016 presidential election. From a report: In an indictment [PDF] released on Friday, the Justice Department called out the Internet Research Agency, a notorious group behind the Russian propaganda effort across social media. Employees for the agency created troll accounts and used bots to prop up arguments and sow political chaos during the 2016 presidential campaign. Facebook, Twitter and Google have struggled to deal with fake news, trolling campaigns and bots on their platforms, facing the scorn of Capitol Hill over their mishandlings. The indictment lists 13 Russian nationals tied to the effort.
So these are the guys who spent less than 7 figures on propaganda and supposedly bought the most powerful government in the world?
communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities.
Translation: sharing a meme on Facebook.
Except not a single American is indicted — much less anyone from the Executive Branch.
Please, hold your breath until it gets interesting. Please, please, please. With sugar on top...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I haven't been paying much attention to this whole story since it seems like general boondoggle and that nothing substantial will come out of this, but doesn't the above quote make it harder for the people who want to accuse Trump of collusion? The " unwitting individuals" part makes it seem like Trump is just stupid (well we already knew this) instead of guilty of collusion.
I'm glad you got your digs in on Trump and all that, but do you really think Trump was involved directly with the trolls?
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
At this point, I just figure that anyone who posts idiocy about the Russians not hacking the US is either a Russian shill or one of their dupes. Either that, or they're so soaked in conspiracy theories that their brains are addled. It's really no use listening to them. Once you decide that false information is as good as real facts, your mind might as well be gone.
And for the idiots referenced above who say that all this Russsia stuff is "fake", I'll take the CIA, FBI, and NSA's word about spying before any of you conspiracy-spouting morons in the peanut gallery - I do value professionalism, if nothing else.
That is all.
um, yeah, i think you are talking out of your ass and trying to cope defending your shithole president. here's the complete list
What does the indictment say?
It says a group of Russians:
Posed as Americans, and opened financial accounts in their name
Spent thousands of dollars a month buying political advertising
Purchased US server space in an effort to hide their Russian affiliation
Organised and promoted political rallies within the United States
Posted political messages on social media accounts that impersonated real US citizens
Promoted information that disparaged Hillary Clinton
Received money from clients to post on US social media sites
Created themed groups on social media on hot-button issues, particularly on Facebook and Instagram
Operated with a monthly budget of as much as $1.25m (£890,000)
The indictment says those involved systematically measured how well their internet posts were doing and adjusted their strategies to maximise effectiveness.
You're missing the point, and veering rather far from reality, as well.
The original concern (I won't even say it was a "claim") was that Russians may have influenced the election process. That doesn't invalidate the result, and nobody credible has claimed that it would.
The Trump campaign has since then countered that there's nothing to see, never any outside influence, and the whole investigation should be shut down.
With these indictments, there is now an official accusation, backed by a nice pile of evidence, that there was in fact Russian interference. That's it. No, it doesn't indicate on its own that Trump knew, or his campaign officials knew. Those questions are still open. What has been resolved at this point is the question of whether something illegal happened (yes, it did), and whether there was foreign involvement (yes, there was).
This could be the end of the indictments. If Trump's campaign was as honest as he claims, it will be. However, those open questions still need to be answered, which means the investigation needs to keep going. By making statements opposing the investigative process, Trump has made it worse for himself and his administration, because now the investigation needs to answer the question of whether anyone is trying to obstruct justice.
This has nothing to do with whether Americans are unfit to vote. That's always been a risk, echoed in Benjamin Franklin's famous response when asked what kind of government we would have: "A republic, if you can keep it." It has always been known that people are subject to manipulation, and that's why interfering in the election carries severe consequences. If the indicted Russians ever find themselves on American soil, they'll have a chance to find out exactly how harsh those punishments can be.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I suppose reading even the introductory paragraph of the indictment is too much for you? It is, in fact, illegal for non-Americans to directly participate in US Politics, such as:
- Paying for political advertisements
- Paying others to troll social media for you
- Making campaign contributions
And this is all on top of general fraud and identity theft charges.
This is a proper and textbook example of a conspiracy, with a group of people in coordinated effort to conduct an illegal activity... not just some assholes "posting memes."
=Smidge=
Are you people actually serious when you say things like this? I mean, I assume these are troll accounts, but I just don't know anymore.
I'd find it funny if it wasn't such a serious issue. But sure, let's say that Steele, working for a third party who was being paid by the GOP is totally working for Hilary Clinton's benefit. Because the GOP love Hilary and definitely started their relationship with GPS Fusion for her benefit. (Yes I know the democrats took over payment, but we should be clear on where this whole thing started)
And the two charges are totally identical, because where the charges levied here are for explicitly directed campaigns intended to spread misinformation, Steele was a paid employee of a company hired privately to produce information for another private entity. A full fledged and funded campaign by a foreign government is surely the same thing as the domestic government hiring a foreigner to act as, more or less, a Private Investigator.
These are totally the same.
These two things are totally equatable and not at all two completely distinct and different things so different it would be like comparing apples to horses.
Putin can't have witnesses. I'm betting we're about to see some dead Russians.
If you were one of the 13 indicted Russians, would you be more afraid of the US Department of Justice or Vladimir Putin?
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's much more than just memes. Americans went on rallies organised by Russians. The Russian operatives encouraged minorities not to vote, and focused on damaging the Clinton campaign.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Nobody ever said the American people were unfit to vote. What we _did_ say is that they, like everybody, are capable of being lied to about the sources of information. Kinda like when a Cigarette company backs a study on the health benefits of tobacco. Or when Coke did the same thing. You'd want to know who backed that study. Lying by omission is a thing. A democracy lives and breaths by the quality of information available.
And no, there's still plenty of talk about the Russians hacking the election. They got caught funneling money through the NRA to Trump's campagin, and the only question is are we doing to do anything about it. Then there were all those meetings between high level Trump campaign officials and shady Russians that are still being investigated. Oh, and there's tons of evidence that the Russians have hacked into (literally) our electronic voting systems and that they continue to do so. There's good solid evidence they shared priceless voting record data with the Trump campaign. Again, hard to say if anything will come of this since the Republicans control so much of the government even before Trump won.
Remember, Trump was and is always a patsy. Nobody cares if he knew any of this because his only job was to show up to rallies and say bad things about Hillary and Mexicans. The question is how much did the folks who _really_ run the show know and do. What's clear is that what tattered remains of American democracy are left are being eroded.
But whatever, just keep ignoring the mounting evidence because the word 'hacked' sometimes gets used slightly inappropriately.
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she will be dead before being president. We might have a madame president but it wont be her. That 'cold' she has had for the last 2 years..... its still there. Besides why would you WANT her? She ACTUALLY IS guilty of collusion and conspiracy to meddle in an election. They didnt even deny they colluded with the media to rig the primary elections. Thats what started the whole screaming about russian hacking to begin with. Podesta fell for a fake email that tricked him into signing into a fake website with his real password. Hell even the then-chairman of the DNC released a book outing the illegal stuff the HRC campaign did. If you try to put her back into the election cycle you're going to end up with someone else you dont like. Pick someone without so much damn baggage for fucks sake
There's good reason to believe someone - likely multiple people - have a lot of leverage on Trump. There's a decent chance he's being straight-up blackmailed.
There's also a decent chance he's caught up in various illegal activities with the Russian mafia. Specifically there have been allegations that his properties were/are used to launder money. =Smidge=
Oh, we're making shit up now?
There's good reason to believe someone - likely Xenu - sent Trump to Earth to destabilize it. There's a decent chance he's being straight-up mind-controlled.
There's also a decent chance he's caught up in various interstellar prostitution rings with the Omicron Persei 8 mafia. Specifically there have been allegations that he likes to grab alien pussy.