NBC Publishes 200,000 Tweets Tied To Russian Trolls

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: NBC News is publishing its database of more than 200,000 tweets that Twitter has tied to "malicious activity" from Russia-linked accounts during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. These accounts, working in concert as part of large networks, pushed hundreds of thousands of inflammatory tweets, from fictitious tales of Democrats practicing witchcraft to hardline posts from users masquerading as Black Lives Matter activists. Investigators have traced the accounts to a Kremlin-linked propaganda outfit founded in 2013 known as the Internet Research Association (IRA). The organization has been assessed by the U.S. Intelligence Community to be part of a Russian state-run effort to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential race. And they're not done. At the request of NBC News, three sources familiar with Twitter's data systems cross-referenced the partial list of names released by Congress to create a partial database of tweets that could be recovered. You can download the streamlined spreadsheet (29 mb) with just usernames, tweet and timestamps, view the full data for ten influential accounts via Google Sheets, download tweets.csv (50 mb) and users.csv with full underlying data, and/or explore a graph database in Neo4j, whose software powered the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers investigations.

NBC News' partners at Neo4j have put together a "get started" guide to help you explore the database of Russian tweets. "To recreate a link to an individual tweet found in the spreadsheet, replace 'user_key' in https://twitter.com/user_key/status/tweet_id with the screenname from the 'user_key' field and 'tweet_id' with the number in the 'tweet_id' field," reports NBC News. "Following the links will lead to a suspended page on Twitter. But some copies of the tweets as they originally appeared, including images, can be found by entering the links on webcaches like the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine and archive.is."

Comments

200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say the Russians got a better bang for their buck.

Re:200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the scary thing about it, and it doesn't just concern Russia or governments in general. One or two years ago a guy showed how easy it was to get an arbitrary (and obvious) fake story on the top page of reddit with a ridiculously small budget. (200 bucks or so) While this might be a dream for viral marketing agencies, used by the wrong people such ways of influencing a large number of people can wreak quite some havoc. (Not that I think that the traditional ways of propaganda and advertisement/branding are more beneficial.)

 

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Please... The obvious point is that it didn't influence shit.

If $1.2 billion in Clinton propaganda, 94% favorable domestic media coverage, an army of celebrity shills, a brainwashed electorate hooked on the welfare plantation, and every dirty trick in the book (plus new ones like buying FISA warrants) can't win you a presidency, then Russians tweeting about BLM literally did nothing.

This is obviously the Democrats and NeverTrumps desperately searching for an excuse so they don't have to admit that they lost to the worst candidate in history.

Re:200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Mr D from 63]

200K tweets over a few years might as well be zero when considering the total number of tweets generated of this period of time. Over 500 million tweets are generated per day.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Mr D from 63]

Please... The obvious point is that it didn't influence shit.

Very true. For comparison, there were 3.5 Millions Tweets generated in a couple hours during the 2012 VP debate between Biden and Ryan, a debate that didn't mean squat.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

And once again the Hillary supporters are out modding en masse. Little propagandists complaining about the Russians, what a laugh! Well, they definitely showed who was better at the job. and cheaper too.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[lucm]

Many of those tweets are about politics but without a clear purpose:

"How fucked up our country will be if Hillary wins in 2016 and Trump wins in 2020
Or vise versa"

What's the angle there? Sow the seeds of common sense?

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[AmiMoJo]

The relevant metric is how much influence these tweets had. How much they were retweeted, how much they shaped the discourse.

Just comparing the language in the tweets to some of the posts on Slashdot suggests that some people were heavily influenced. Usually the ones who insist that the Russians had no effect on anything.

You see the same behaviour with cult members.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Up next, Deepfake videos showing ${IMPORTANT_PERSON} doing ${BAD_THINGS}. The results will be more chaos. NewStatesman has an article about how to spot DF vids. At least it's a start
https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/technology/2018/02/how-identify-if-online-video-fake

I find the example of a DF video of Donald Trump declaring nuclear war particularly frightening.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[alvinrod]

I think you make the mistake of thinking that the people who read those tweets or follow this accounts were anywhere close to neutral to start with. I do not think you could find many people who had their minds changed.

Also, why do you assume posts made here are genuine and not also troll accounts, whether Russian or just asshats from wherever? If they would use Twitter, why not other popular sites as well?

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[sycodon]

How do we know AmiMoJo isn't a Russian?

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

The losing side needs to move themselves out of the first two stages of grief. Its hard I know, but you can get to bargaining > depression > and finally Acceptance. Then finally you can work toward a democrat as loved as Obama and JFK were. Ahhh who am I kidding.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Mr D from 63]

The relevant metric is how much influence these tweets had.

Application of common sense tells us very little if any. Do you actually believe someone changed their vote because they read one of these tweets among the tons of other tweets out there?

I think we need to address Russian meddling, but its not like its made any difference to this point.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean that they lost with the worst candidate of all time. Hillary is literally unelectable. They had to rig the primaries to push her onwards

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[ilguido]

What's the angle there? Sow the seeds of common sense?

Common sense is what the warmongering cryptocracy establishment fear the most.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

They way the suggestion algorithms work is by finding people likely to want to see something. So at best, this just fed preconceived notions by people likely to be looking at anti-Hillary stuff anyway.

I read through the spreadsheet and the vast majority of these were never seen, re-tweeted, or favorited by anyone. The ones that were, were just retweets of some other post.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Hal_Porter]

I reckon the fact that all the money celebs and media were on one side made people think they were being railroaded.

If the media is 60:40 in favour of one side, it looks like one side is ahead. If it's 70:30 it looks like one side is more ahead. If it's 94:06 it starts to look dubious.

It's like those elections in a dictatorship where the dictator gets 99% of the vote. Everyone knows they're fake.

I.e. a plurality on one side looks like a consensus. Unanimity one side looks like the system is rigged.

Maybe the DNC should funnel some of its vast cash reserves to conservative commentators like Ben Shapiro through a law firm in order to get the media balance back to 90:10 and see if that makes people start believing them again.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[AHuxley]

Re "Do you actually believe someone changed their vote"
That would be a good quality speech using terms people in each state could relate too.
Jobs, education, trade, spending.
Talking up the past and future of the state.
Talking to the people of that state in a positive way.
Been able to give a good quality speech in person in that state and the next state.
A good speaking voice and the duration of the speech is also important. So is an accent.
Then giving another great speech in the next state.
Not staying in one part of the USA and talking about the rest of the USA in a negative way.
Positivity and optimism wins elections as it sways the needed states. Its all in the candidate and their ability to talk all over the US and what they talk about.

People in every state also consider how a speech is given. Full of energy and charm? A positive story that connects a candidate with a city, local history, their state?
Thats what stays with voters. Good political advisors can help with a good speech and how to give a good speech. The words and terms that will make for a speech that is talked about by voters in that state.

The internet and social media can only reflect on what candidate did or did not do.
Great speeches in every state starts to take on a positive momentum.
Not giving great speeches all over the US starts to become a question.
Citizens then vote and recall who they want and who was listening and talking to them.
Social media will not win an election. Voters all over the USA have to like a candidate.

Re:200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Lisandro]

They sure did, and it is scary as fuck.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Mr D from 63]

You understatement the gullibility of the uneducateds.

And if you understand their gullibility, common sense might tell you these relatively few tweets were not likely to change the minds of people who are getting orders of magnitude more tweets, just as misleading, from domestic sources.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[PopeRatzo]

If the media is 60:40 in favour of one side, it looks like one side is ahead. If it's 70:30 it looks like one side is more ahead. If it's 94:06 it starts to look dubious.

So, if 94% of the media says today is Saturday, do you throw away your calendars?

You're buying into the "there is no such thing as truth" mindhack, which is how Donald Trump got elected in the first place. Once you can get people to believe nothing is true, then you can get them to do anything. It is the ultimate "Listen and Believe".

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Your "literally unelectable" candidate got 3 million votes over Donnie Boy.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

They hang homosexuals. That's why.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Thatâ(TM)s literally Russiaâ(TM)s response. Sure, they only spent millions per year that we can account for, but even those dollars were used under false US identities by people in the US illegally with access to campaign personnel and with a kremlin backed propaganda agency getting their back. Among other things. And the intel community DID know, and DID warn everyone. We didnâ(TM)t pay attention.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Hal_Porter]

Donald Trump got elected because as dislikable he is he's less dislikable than Hillary Clinton. And having a bunch of even more dislikable journalists on her side didn't do her any favours.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[MightyMartian]

It also suggests Russian trolls are fairly widespread. I'm on several forums, and I've seen similar kinds of posts on pretty much all of them. The Russian troll farms are well coordinated and amazingly on message.

Now how much it may have affected the election is hard to quantify, and maybe it was minimal, but with a body of evidence of tampering in other elections in various ways, it suggests the Russians at least feel there is some effectiveness to these tactics.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[jader3rd]

I think you make the mistake of thinking that the people who read those tweets or follow this accounts were anywhere close to neutral to start with. I do not think you could find many people who had their minds changed.

True, but it might have riled them up enough to remember to vote; when without the false placed anger, they might have not voted.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

How do elections work?

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[ScentCone]

How do we know AmiMoJo isn't a Russian?

To the contrary, we KNOW that AmiMoJo is a Russian. We know this because a law firm hired by a political consultant paid a foreign national to write down things that people he paid in Russia told him, and he put it in a dossier. And that dossier was confirmed by news articles that were written because the same guy who was paid to assemble the phony dossier briefed the reporters who then pretended they had other sources. So, obviously we know that AmiMoJo is a Russian, because we have enough evidence to convince a judge (as long as we don't mention who was paying for all of this) to grant the government the power to listen in on his communications, and the mainstream media will thus spend a year and a half repeating all of this non-stop as if it were fact. There, see how this works?

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[PopeRatzo]

Donald Trump got elected because as dislikable he is he's less dislikable than Hillary Clinton.

Hillary got 3 million more votes, Hal.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why she's president?

There's a lot of suckers out there, I guess.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[thegarbz]

were anywhere close to neutral

In American politics there's no such thing. You are blue or red. Any alternative viewpoint or idea that you could meet in the middle is heresy. Any deviation from the party line needs to be punished.

Democracy at its finest.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Your "literally unelectable" candidate got 3 million votes over Donnie Boy.

The vast majority of those votes were fraudulent, cast by illegal aliens and felons in the Left Coast "sanctuary cities" and in Chicago, Seattle, and NYC where vote fraud is a traditional way of life.

The Democratic Party is collapsing from the weight of it's own corruption.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Why isn't PopeRatfucker fifty dicks ahead in California you might ask.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

The reality is that every example you've given is part of the divisive, buzzword-filled, half-truth message that they nurtured. They definitely influenced you.

Re:200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think we've even revealed the tip of the iceberg yet. I first felt that manipulation of the American population from "within" by one or more organized external forces was occurring in the late 90s. It seems as though someone has combined big data with social science and election science to determine exactly where to place propaganda messages so that they have a massively leveraged effect on creating division in society. The purpose wouldn't be to push any particular agenda so much as to render our political system ineffective. Congress, in particular, has been paralyzed for many years now. The manipulations to give better definition to the divisiveness that creates the inability to compromise go back to years before that. The methods have varied over time, but the program's goals haven't.

It feels very much as though Isaac Asimov's Foundation science has arrived.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey Scentcone, you're becoming famous. Your name appears in NBC's list of Russian trolls.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

a) yes, it is easiest to whip up furor in and manipulate those that aren't neutral.

b) There are definitely troll and bot accounts on Slashdot.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[ScentCone]

That WOULD be funny you weren't simply lying, like liberals do when they have nothing useful to say.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump won the electoral college by just 70,000 votes and the Russian effort wasn't random. Don't forget, they had stolen all the DNC's and probably the RNC's polling data too (though they may have been given the latter).

"A number of Russian-linked Facebook ads specifically targeted Michigan and Wisconsin, two states crucial to Donald Trump's victory last November"

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Not "buying into", promoting. Hal_Porter is one of Putin's Savushkina Street surrogates

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Hal Porter will suck Don Jr's cock in prison if he gets his dream.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Found the ruski shill.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, whoever does not comply with Hollywood must be a ruskie troll.

You murricans are really not the smartest cookies. Dumb Whitey...

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah Hillary, you are a paranoid old bitch.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

The 1â... who control money and war are offended their candidate lost. Despite all their best efforts!

Re:200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

What's funny is how they played the left, swaying millions of voters to vote for the orange guy. So effective!

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[_Sharp'r_]

Not much was announced regarding the indictments of these Russians which wasn't already known, i.e. some people from Russia spent some money and effort on what they thought would disrupt things in the U.S., but didn't really accomplish much.

The most telling part of the statement from the Special Counsel's office was:

“Now, there is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity,” Rosenstein said. “There is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election.

So I guess the only potential for "collusion" remaining is that someone wanted to know what had been found in the DNC's email phishing which was published publicly by wikileaks and has already been discredited by time and date stamps. Doesn't seem to be anything there to this whole Trump campaign "collusion" narrative anymore...

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

ivan you are a god damn retard

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever you say. Just be wary of taking any vacations outside the motherland.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not paranoia if the Russians really did it and the evidence of what they did is mounting up.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

You think Mueller has finished? He's just getting started.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[_Sharp'r_]

So what specific allegation remains regarding "collusion" between the Trump Campaign and the Russians?

Can you tell us who was supposed to have colluded when and what they colluded about? I'm not asking you to prove it at this point, just to at least be able to list the criminal accusation.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Lisandro]

Equating HRC to Trump. This was incredible effective too - just read this story.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Not very well in the US, apparently.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[butzwonker]

If it didn't influence shit then you and the rest of the US of A wouldn't talk about it all the time, like e.g. now here. According to the reports they wanted to divide your nation. Well, if that was their goal then they have been tremendously successful (judging from the posts on /.)

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Boy, you really need to find a new scapegoat / hate symbol. Is she even in politics any more?

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Ol Olsoc]

Please... The obvious point is that it didn't influence shit.

Oh, Boris. Just wait until yo see just what it influences

Re:200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Cuz you have perfect knowledge and know this is it, there are no more. And with that vast knowledge this is what you do with it. SAD.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[ScentCone]

Aren't you up past your bedtime? Did your mom tuck you in yet? Be sure to check under your bed for Russians.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesent matter. Even if she got trillion million million more votes in California, it does not give him more electoral college votes in rest of USA ...

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[PopeRatzo]

No, but you cannot say it was because Trump was more popular than Hillary, or "less dislikable". More Americans voted for Hillary for president because they could see that Donald Trump was garbage that would bring disgrace to the country, as he has.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

No clearer evidence that Russian trolls influenced the feeble minded as the above. QED

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[tinkerton]

As far as I can see what is known is some people in Russia spent money on clickbait in order to make money. As usual I concur with this guy : http://www.moonofalabama.org/2...

Most people will disagree, but then most people aren't able to think for themselves.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

stupid faggot

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be one of those liberal elitists who think they can dictate how other people think or more accurately think the approved narrative it the only reality and truth.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

It also suggests Russian trolls are fairly widespread. I'm on several forums, and I've seen similar kinds of posts on pretty much all of them. The Russian troll farms are well coordinated and amazingly on message.

Now how much it may have affected the election is hard to quantify, and maybe it was minimal, but with a body of evidence of tampering in other elections in various ways, it suggests the Russians at least feel there is some effectiveness to these tactics.

You mean the same way your Saviour, the Obama, used information warfare in an attempt to influence the Israeli elections? Forgot about his bad acts huh?

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[ABEND]

were anywhere close to neutral

In American politics there's no such thing. You are blue or red. Any alternative viewpoint or idea that you could meet in the middle is heresy. Any deviation from the party line needs to be punished.

Democracy at its finest.

That is red-pilled vs blue-pilled.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

It's weird, I go months without coming on here, but on a random visit back I can nearly rely on seeing a load of shit on these pages, typed by you. It's uncanny.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Hilda had 10 x more money than Trumo and they are still left floundering with their social media shilling as if that can compete with the firepowershe and bankster TPP big pharma threw at it. It's like they still can't help be they lost and are looking for table scraps to compare to the juggernaut of the DNCs money. Beyond thunderdome level of pathetic.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[ScentCone]

It's weird, I go months without coming on here

Hey, look! An obvious lie.

But even so, you can't muster the intellectual honesty or energy to actually address the substance of the matter. Which would be pretty typical of a Russian troll like yourself, I guess. Carry on, Ivan.

Re: 200k tweets vs 6.5 billion dollars

[Quirkz]

If $1.2 billion in Clinton propaganda, 94% favorable domestic media coverage, an army of celebrity shills, a brainwashed electorate hooked on the welfare plantation, and every dirty trick in the book (plus new ones like buying FISA warrants) can't win you a presidency, then Russians tweeting about BLM literally did nothing.

If I've learned one thing from the Joker, it's that no matter how many tens of millions it took to build, you can usually burn it down with $10 of gasoline and a match.

I take this as a badge of honor

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that our elections are free and open enough that they think they can influence them through social media meddling, and everyone knows that their elections are a sham with Putin having an iron grip on the outcome speaks volumes for the superiority of our system. It shows that we are a society that has a say in who our leader are, even if we don't always like them personally. Unlike their system where they have a de facto dictator who is president in name only.

Re:I take this as a badge of honor

[ThomasBHardy]

The fact that our elections are free and open enough AND THEY KNOW they can influence them through social media meddling,.

Fixed that for ya

Re: I take this as a badge of honor

[Anonymous Coward]

Youâ(TM)re so butthurt youâ(TM)re actually defending this? Stealing identities, funneling money from foreign agencies into US politics through agents in the US, coordinating and funding political actions in our streets, while running day and night shifts out of kremlin backed propaganda operations overseas with an unknown (but clearly substantial) budget, etc isnâ(TM)t âoefree speechâ.

Re:I take this as a badge of honor

[ABEND]

The fact that our elections are free and open enough AND THEY KNOW they can influence them through social media meddling,.

Fixed that for ya

The Russian social media meddling was rather low budget and they likely got what the paid for.

A much more expensive but much more effective way to meddle in an election is to manipulate content on television networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, ...) and manipulate the results of highly regarded polls in order to demoralize supporters of a candidate. Tens (or hundreds) of millions of people are exposed to network media every day.

Anyhow, the demoralization of a candidate's supporters isn't likely to influence their voting preference but it is likely to influence whether or not and, how much, they donate to their preferred candidate's campaign. Who wants to put their money on a sure loser?

The candidate with the smaller campaign chest is less able to buy media coverage to influence voters who haven't already made a firm choice. Thus the candidate, who's been targeted by network media for negative coverage, will lose potential voters.

Get the popcorn!

[Anonymous Coward]

Really looking forward to seeing how the russian trolls approach this one. Real life is turning into some crazy novel.

3... 2... 1...

Re:Get the popcorn!

[Anonymous Coward]

mrclydepratt,5/1/2017 22:22,"RT @AshAgony: ""This is fucking class war. #EatTheRich, feed the poor!"" #Antifa in NYC marching & chanting finally. #MayDay https://t.co/twp"
baobaeham,3/25/2017 18:56,RT @HubCityAntifa: Spotted fash at #maga rally in #philadelphia believed to be with American vanguard @DisruptMAGA https://t.co/W3Ro9B0GUQ
lazykstafford,4/1/2017 2:15,"RT @MarALagoAntifa: Another BRUTAL ACT OF VIOLENCE DONE BY TRUMP SUPPORTERS TO #ANTIFA
patriotblake,3/29/2017 12:33,RT @JackPosobiec: Antifa calls for end to hiring and dating of whites https://t.co/yGQUkYcgYN
laurabaeley,2/6/2017 5:07,RT @RealAlexJones: Antifa’s Reign Of Terror Now Targeting Women And Children - https://t.co/ETj0PoQukq,
mr_clampin,4/22/2017 9:21,#ThingsToBeAshamedOf Confronting nazi Trump supporters who leave me hanging out to dry!! #ANTIFA #RESIST! baobaeham,5/4/2017 0:41,"RT @stimulator: The first step in fighting fascism effectively is understanding what it is we're up against. #Antifa #Trouble
laurabaeley,1/27/2017 1:19,RT @PrisonPlanet: Antifa tears. https://t.co/mZmDcFgpqJ
lazykstafford,4/1/2017 2:15,RT @LagBeachAntifa: One of our comrades was attacked today on the beach by a group of Nazis and buried in the sand. Everyone who voted for

Right-wingers are so easy to bait.

Re:Get the popcorn!

[Anonymous Coward]

mrclydepratt,5/1/2017 22:22,"RT @AshAgony: ""This is fucking class war. #EatTheRich, feed the poor!"" #Antifa in NYC marching & chanting finally. #MayDay https://t.co/twp"
baobaeham,3/25/2017 18:56,RT @HubCityAntifa: Spotted fash at #maga rally in #philadelphia believed to be with American vanguard @DisruptMAGA https://t.co/W3Ro9B0GUQ
lazykstafford,4/1/2017 2:15,"RT @MarALagoAntifa: Another BRUTAL ACT OF VIOLENCE DONE BY TRUMP SUPPORTERS TO #ANTIFA
patriotblake,3/29/2017 12:33,RT @JackPosobiec: Antifa calls for end to hiring and dating of whites https://t.co/yGQUkYcgYN
laurabaeley,2/6/2017 5:07,RT @RealAlexJones: Antifa’s Reign Of Terror Now Targeting Women And Children - https://t.co/ETj0PoQukq,
mr_clampin,4/22/2017 9:21,#ThingsToBeAshamedOf Confronting nazi Trump supporters who leave me hanging out to dry!! #ANTIFA #RESIST! baobaeham,5/4/2017 0:41,"RT @stimulator: The first step in fighting fascism effectively is understanding what it is we're up against. #Antifa #Trouble
laurabaeley,1/27/2017 1:19,RT @PrisonPlanet: Antifa tears. https://t.co/mZmDcFgpqJ
lazykstafford,4/1/2017 2:15,RT @LagBeachAntifa: One of our comrades was attacked today on the beach by a group of Nazis and buried in the sand. Everyone who voted for

Right-wingers are so easy to bait.

Yeah, as are left wingers. But this is a great example of how these tweets had no influence in the election. People who pay attention to this stuff, and similar left wing trash, have already made up their minds.

Twitter is a big group think clusterfest, one reason I don't use it.

Re:Get the popcorn!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'm sorry, but I've lurked at right-wing websites, and they're constantly citing stuff that looks exactly like the above. They've convinced themselves that "mainstream news is fake", and so just take whatever social media fits worldview as if it's actual news.

Re:Get the popcorn!

[Lisandro]

That really reads like most AC comments on ./ for the past 5 years. Scary.

Re:Get the popcorn!

[PopeRatzo]

But this is a great example of how these tweets had no influence in the election.

Of course they had no influence on the election. They're dated after the election.

Re:Get the popcorn!

[Rei]

The interesting thing when you look through the dataset is how high of a portion of the tweets are "@Name", particularly "@InfluentialName". They weren't just putting things out in the ether - they were taking steps to make sure that they got seen.

Re:Get the popcorn!

[MightyMartian]

Basically, a large fraction of the American Right has basically swallowed the Russian propaganda without question. I'm still not sure that turned the election towards Trump, but it has certainly created a pro-Trump base in the GOP.

Re:Get the popcorn!

[MightyMartian]

And I suspect that's why Twitter, Facebook, Google and the rest are going to have to start putting some serious efforts into preventing these Russian troll farms from using their platforms in the future. France already has some rules that basically limited the Russians from offering the Front National too much aid and comfort in the final lead up to the French presidential election, and the warnings are going up in many Western countries "Regulate your platforms or governments will regulate you."

Re:Get the popcorn!

[HiThere]

The problem is that mainstream news *is* fake. Which doesn't make the social media garbage any more reliable. There aren't any reliable sources of news. Local news, from local sources, is often biased in a predictable way, and that's the best you can do. If 90% of their audience can't check what they're reporting, they feel free to get totally creative.

OK, I exaggerate. But not by that bloody much. And you can't even tell which direction they're spinning things, since it generally seems to turn more on which will get them most views rather than which is most accurate, or most favored by some ideologue. And if you're given a choice between that and some propaganda put out by an ideologue, which are you going to believe, and why?

Re: Get the popcorn!

[Anonymous Coward]

We can see what they're doing here. They've pivoted from "No evidence of Russian interference" to "They only spent $smallest_figure_I_can_get_away_with compared to Killary's $15 trillion".

Re: Get the popcorn!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear next years MAGA cap will be made out of tinfoil (still made in China)

Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Something to read on the toilet

How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[AbRASiON]

No more Russia political garbage, stop.

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that hard. Just click the unsubscribe button. We'll all be happier for it.

Sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling "I can't hear you! la, la,la!" isn't working. Go crawl back under your rock.

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[ThomasBHardy]

That's the trap now isn't it.

Facts start to come out after the investigation has had time, and now it's "I'm tired of this".

Shame to let facts start intruding onto our personal bubbles, isn't it?

The reality is that we're on the verge of a new cold war based on information and social media. This isn't about one election, it's about how states are choosing to behave with meddling. And I'm not suggesting we're not guilty of doing some of the same things. But it's all escalating and it'll get worse before it gets better.

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[AbRASiON]

Even if it's true. Why do we need a bloody Russia post every 12 hours on this site? So people can have political fights? Seriously.

We're not all Americans here. So we're not all crazy about politics, day in, day out.

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[drinkypoo]

Even if it's true. Why do we need a bloody Russia post every 12 hours on this site? So people can have political fights? Seriously.

Political fights means more new content means more page views means more ad impressions means Slashdot continues to be a thing. As ever, if you don't like a story, you can skip it. Or can you? Maybe you have a problem, and should see someone about it.

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? This is actual computer data organized in a database and worthy of greater analysis by knowledgable people to see if it is legit. It's supposedly evidence of foreign influence in the politics of a democracy. It's practically a duty for people who know about this stuff to find out if it is bogus or not. It's relevant to /. You'll just have to deal with the politics.

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

...We'll all be happier for it...

Says the AC douche-nozzle.

Re: How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, facts such as there was just as much pro Hillary as there was was pro Trump.

Facts such as there is no evidence of anybody colluding with the Russians.

Facts such as it had no measurable effect on anything.

Re: How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[JayBean]

Agreed. Wait, are we discussing the tweets or the Steele dossier?

Re: How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Facts such as there is no evidence of anybody colluding with the Russians.

Facts like meeting with the Russian Ambassador to promise eliminating the sanctions?

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

As ever, if you don't like a post, you can skip it. Or can you? Maybe you have a problem, and should see someone about it.

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

New cold war based on freedom of speech. I'm so terrified. When I walk past the tabloid section of my bookstore, I am raped. #metoo

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[drinkypoo]

As ever, if you don't like a post, you can skip it. Or can you? Maybe you have a problem, and should see someone about it.

I'm having fun! It's the GP that's whinging.

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[Lisandro]

It is sort of Stuff That Matters, you know.

Re: How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

When did that happen?

Of course, this happened... obvious treason, right?

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[Bartles]

No. It's been 18 months of Russia, Russia, Russia. They have to eat it. They put it on the plate, they cannot leave the table until it's gone.

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[PopeRatzo]

Even if it's true. Why do we need a bloody Russia post every 12 hours on this site?

I wonder the same thing about Apple posts, or cryptocurrency. I mean, isn't once a week enough?

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[jader3rd]

Why do we need a bloody Russia post every 12 hours on this site?

Because it's the nerds who enabled this new kind of targeted enabling to happen.

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[MightyMartian]

It's about Twitter, it's tech news. If you don't like it, don't read the fucking article or posts. Jesus, you're a delicate little snowflake.

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[HiThere]

How are you supposed to decide if this is real data? I think you need evidence of it's provenance before it's worth anything. Do you believe it because Microsoft's NBC says that Twitter says that it's accurate?

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[evil_aaronm]

I get your point on the whole "Russian saturation" aspect, but you don't have to read these. I scanned the top 20 articles on /. and chose two or three of interest. You won't find me complaining about the other articles I didn't read.

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it up to investigators to find out what is facts and what isn't? This data is not new, so if it was not considered a proof there is probably a problem with it. Likely it is in the process used to trace these tweets to their purported source. Wonder why it is never explained despite being key to interpreting the evidence?

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[AbRASiON]

There really has been an intense amount for weeks and weeks.

I think my main issue is that someone, who should probably whining and fighting on Reddit politics or something, is so bitter and angry they want EVERYONE to have to discuss this shit, by bringing it here to stir up a fuss. It's effectively trolling at this point.

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[fatwilbur]

Agreed. Russia is about 5% of the size of the US (economically).. they are nothing. If the Americans stick to their principles (free speech, etc), everything will be fine.

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck off ivan your colors are showing

Re: How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm enjoying it immensely. I ordered the nothingburger, having heard so much about it but it arrived at the table looking pretty thin. Funny thing is, ever since then it has been miraculously putting on weight and is now a monstrous size, oozing with substance. I'll be able to live off it for a year or two more at least. Nom nom nom.

Re: How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

"... some copies of the tweets as they originally appeared, including images, can be found by entering the links on webcaches like the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine and archive.is."

Omigod, the whole Internet's in on the conspiracy.

Re: How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[HiThere]

So some, unknown fraction, of the data can be validated as accurate, the those who are offering the data know in advance what can be validated.

I'm sorry, but to me this says "You can split the data into two chunks. One chunk you can validate, and the other you can't. We know ahead of time which pieces you can validate, but trust us, the rest is honest."

Please note, this doesn't mean I believe they're lying this time. It just means I don't trust the protocol. (I actually have no opinion about whether they're lying this time. This could just be setting a protocol up for later abuse after it's been accepted. Or it really could be that they don't understand why they aren't trusted.)

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

blaire white is the trap

Re: How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[drinkypoo]

Yes, facts such as there was just as much pro Hillary as there was was pro Trump.

If only that meant something, you might not be a Russian shill.

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[drinkypoo]

New cold war based on freedom of speech. I'm so terrified. When I walk past the tabloid section of my bookstore, I am raped.

Americans weren't in any danger from the first cold war, because the USSR was building cardboard tanks to try to look like they actually could keep up with our manufacturing capacity and still went bankrupt... apparently, building cardboard tanks is too expensive for Russia. Nobody is worried about an all-out military confrontation with them. It's only nuclear war that's scary.

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

verge?

where have you been the last two decades or so?

Informational warfare has been waged since before the development of the modem, and has only gotten more sophisticated.

to pretend that this only popped up last year, and was only one "side" shows someone has not been paying attention and doesn't have any interest in the history and state of the art in "supposedly non state-sponsored information gathering enthusiasts"

Re:How does a long term member unsubscribe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your right. As far as anyone knows we are all americans talking about americas and things like apple pie and baseball. Chicago with guns bang bang.

Progress

[Anonymous Coward]

People are more paranoid about russians now, than we were during the cold war - and that's REALLY saying something.

Re:Progress

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. When I started working in the 80's, possessing a wire longer than 20cm was a fireable on the spot offense (since it could be used as a a radio antenna). Today people carry video cameras into work. It was a high tech, but non government related facility..

Re: Progress

[MightyMartian]

I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, and I remember the paranoia. It might not have been as bad as the 50s and 60s, since the Soviet Union was pretty obviously in a decline it couldn't even hide by the 1980s, but still, there was no lack of fear of some sort of nuclear war. The TV movie the Day After, which was a big deal at the time, gives you an idea of the kind of fear that many in the West felt at in the early and mid-80s.

So no, the concern of Russian interference now is nothing like the fear thirty or forty years ago.

Re: Progress

[Anonymous Coward]

Then, as a last ditch ÃoeresistanceÃ, the FBI glommed on the Russia Collusion narrative to spy on the Trump Transition Team using FISA 702 Title 1

FISA law created by Republicans intended to be used only by Republicans. Once it was used against the Trump administration they are now backtracking on it because it could implicate their orange cheetoh president.

Reminder to all there are multible invistagations.

[jellomizer]

There are two key invitations going on.
1. Russian Meddling in the election
2. Trumps teams collision with the Russians

While proof in the #2 also means #1 was an issue. Having proof for the #1 doesn't necessary point to #2.

However I think #1 is a bigger problem. Because these constant trolling egged on by the Russian government has hurt us tremendously, it has created a situation of distrust of the other side, vs just disagreeing with them. For the bulk of left leaning and right leaning people, they are actually rather similar, they are all trying to make it in this world the best that they can, and they hope their contributions were overall positive.

However this trolling had successfully made groups seem like they are on a more devious path. It isn't about fighting for just rules ans safety, it has became their side fighting for majority power, or rethinking a policy becomes destroying all the people who benefit from it.

Now Trump is a bad president, as his statements seem to be focused on himself and not the nation, being too unpredictable to properly plan, unable to manage his own staff, and not able to unify a political party that has control of all parts of government. He has surrounded himself with Yes Men, who knows how to manipulate him, because they just need to tweak his ego, and he will go into that direction. However he is just a reflection of a polarized group of people, we have been bombarded with saying x group of people are good and y group of people are bad. As a Rich White man, being influenced by such media, he is going to assume the Poor minority group is causing all the problems, because you can plainly see their trolling is obviously false, while you ignore the tolling on your side.

Re:http://qanonmap.github.io/

[Anonymous Coward]

DON'T FEED THE TROLLS!

You just put your lips together, and blow.

[drinkypoo]

Putin, that is.

Re:You just put your lips together, and blow.

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd think Putin has a sore dick from all the blowing going on... Even he must have his limits!

Re:You just put your lips together, and blow.

[PopeRatzo]

You'd think Putin has a sore dick from all the blowing going on... Even he must have his limits!

Trump was chosen for his soft lips.

Would love to see a 'fact check'

[Anonymous Coward]

One scary thing to me was that the democrats NEVER came out and said 'What is up with all these lies, fabrications and propaganda spilling into the media?' It was always more of 'Who are these damn trolls [exposing the truth]?'

There are Trolls on the internet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah man now I am totally disillusioned. I thought everything on the internet was supposed to be true and created by honest people. Come on Twitter? Twit is in the name you can call them tweets if you wanna but its still a Twit. Who really gets information they base life decisions on from a social media site that self refences itself as a TWIT. Laughing and crying at the same time
Definition of twit
1 : a silly annoying person : fool
2 : an act of twitting : taunt

They didnâ(TM)t care who won

[Anonymous Coward]

They wanted to seed chaos and confusion to have the US distracted and unable to think clearly and decisively about forgin policy matters with Russia. Score one for the FSB/KGB.

Re: Reminder to all there are multible invistagati

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny how you decry people being turned against each other by lies and manipulation, then proceed to spew those same lies and hatred.

If you took a moment to consider your position rationally, you'd realize that you are behaving in the manner they programmed you to: irrational anger, baseless accusations, raw hatred for "the other side", and a belief in unproven statements because they confirm a bias you were brainwashed to desperately need to believe.

Getting "news" from social media is a total FAIL!

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting "news" from social media is a total FAIL!
Insta-goo-face-tweet is a rumor and dating platform. Nothing more.

Did you read the spreadsheet?

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bunch of BS. Download the spreadsheet, read a bunch of the tweets.

Most of the tweets are trivial, inane. Many back Hillary or bash Trump.

A bunch of noise, I don't see how this could affect any election.

And the issue is not a bunch of foreigners tweeting, it is how stupid Americans are assumed to be so weak that their r vote is determined by Facebook or twitter noise.

Re:Did you read the spreadsheet?

[Anonymous Coward]

> A bunch of noise, I don't see how this could affect any election.

You might be right, but the point is that they tried, and they did so in defiance of clear election laws. I suppose you could take the attitude that "If it had no effect on the result, then who cares?", but even if the result wasn't effected it has sown divisiveness into society and caused people to question the result. That's all bad and illegal even if it was the case that the net effect on votes was nil (which hasn't been demonstrated).

Re: Did you read the spreadsheet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because Hilda and her friends in finance and war industries are mad means little, actually.

Re:Reminder to all there are multible invistagatio

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say there are potentially 3 investigations:

1. Russian meddling in the election
2. Trump's team's collusion with the Russians
3. Trump's personal involvement in collusion with the Russians.

Like you say, these are quite different questions and a "yes" on one does not necessarily imply the others are true (depending on which we're talking about). #1 is pretty much settled. It occurred, and the data that NBC published is more evidence. #2 is suspicious, because you've got people like Paul Manafort who led the campaign and have been indicted for highly questionable financial activities with Russian interests. Then there's the meeting in Trump Tower with Trump's son and others. #3 is not clear at all. Trump keeps professing his innocence, and I could even believe it because it is entirely possible his campaign did collude (wittingly or unwittingly), yet still have Trump entirely oblivious. Goodness knows he's oblivious on all sorts of other things.

The thing that bothers me in all this is that Trump is utterly fixated on his own innocence. If he is innocent and was doing his job, he should be accepting #1 like everyone in the intelligence community is telling him, and *doing* something about it to protect the next election. He should be applying the sanctions that the Congress and Senate passed almost unanimously and he fricking signed into law. Instead he keeps chanting "no collusion! no collusion!" as if that is *all* that matters. No, you incompetent fool. Even if there was no collusion (which is not yet demonstrated), you need to get off your butt and lead the changes necessary to discourage attempts at it in future, because clearly the Russians *tried*.

The guy is straight up self-interested and/or incompetent even if you grant that he's innocent. Thankfully the intelligence agencies and justice department will slowly and thoroughly labor through the investigation anyway as long as they are allowed to do their job, but the guy needs to stop trying to interfere with it.

Re:Reminder to all there are multible invistagatio

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry. I still don't see how the entire trajectory of American politics for the last century is the work of Russian internet trolls.

Everyone is upset about Russia

[pecosdave]

When Russia made some Tweets, bought some ads and asked nicely.

Meanwhile Mexican citizens literally rode buses from one poling place to the next voting multiple times in our elections, a literal serious interference in our election, to the point of qualifying as an act of war - silence.

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

They're upset about the thing that actually happened, not that made up thing.

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[pecosdave]

Really?

http://www.judicialwatch.org/w...

https://thepoliticalinsider.co...

https://lasvegassun.com/news/2...

https://www.ice.gov/news/relea...

https://www.ice.gov/news/relea...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

https://www.justice.gov/usao-w...

http://www.breitbart.com/big-g...

https://www.snopes.com/cascade...

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

Cascade Mall Shooter? C'mon Dave, at least vet your links.

Arcan Cetin, immigrated to the United States from Turkey as a child when his mother married an American citizen. He's not even from Mexico, and there's no evidence he rode a bus to vote multiple times in ANY election. And he became a naturalized American Citizen so you can't even claim it was unlawful for him to vote.

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up! Russia Russia Russia!

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

Oy, scanned your list and saw a Breitbart link. Not going to waste my time on the others as they would be biased too.

Anyone else have links to reputable sources about this topic?

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[Ryanrule]

someone downvote this shitweasle

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[pecosdave]

If you're comfortable with a life of fallacy so be it. You dismiss Snopes (on the opposite end of the political spectrum) and multiple federal websites when you do it.

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[pots]

I didn't watch your Youtube links, because that's pathetic, but not one of your other links seems to support your claim that people were voting in multiple polling places. There's also no indication here of widespread fraud, or anything about buses for that matter, only a few examples of individuals who were living the in the US and voting, despite only having green cards or being illegal residents.

No one has claimed that in-person voter fraud never happens, just that it's rare enough that it isn't an issue.

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[pecosdave]

The Snope's link disagrees with that, and says your link is wrong. Usually I don't trust Snopes so let's look deeper.

I found this one with a more recent date.

Looks like you're probably right. Thank you for once again discrediting Snopes and making me regret using it in an attempt to show balance.

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[pecosdave]

I have looked at your comment history.

I take your recommendation as almost irrelevant and as something akin to a drive-by considering the number of "kill yourself" posts and similar low-brow nonconstructive commentary you tend to make.

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[pecosdave]

That Harvard study disagrees with your last statement.

BTW, those videos you refuse to watch from Project Veritas have New York (and other) election officials admitting to buses going from neighborhood to neighborhood with the same people voting multiple times. "Ducks on the ground" talk started to get somewhat hilarious sounding after a while.

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, these millions of illegal votes are a huge problem, what's sad is that in spite of the mountains of proof that potus produced of this, the left will not believe it. (too subtle ?)

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[pecosdave]

Project Veritas is such a pain the ass to people who refuse to accept evidence of reality because they tend to go undercover and get indisputable video (and other) records of shenanigans going on.

Since you don't like the video-only YouTube stuff (and to be honest the modern era of making everything and video and having print stuff become increasingly rare and hard to filter and find bothers me too) I'll leave you with a couple of less video-centric links.

https://www.projectveritas.com...

https://www.projectveritasacti...

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

The “adjusted estimate” row presents our best guess at the true percentage of non-citizens registered.

Well, my made-up numbers totally contradict their made-up numbers. What now, smart guy?

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[pecosdave]

If you'll actually read the links most of them predate the current POTUS, so sure, whatever.

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing as Project Veritas has a long history of editing videos to mislead, I'm going to be pretty hesitant to trust them as a source. Video evidence from a group well-known to make convincing-looking lies with video is not evidence.

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[MightyMartian]

Project Veritas is a scam, and has been outed multiple times editing its videos. If you buy into that load of crap, then you really are a gullible moron.

Or a Russian troll. Either will do.

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[pots]

I don't know which Harvard study you're talking about, so I did a search for 'in-person voter fraud peer-reviewed study'. These were the first two links from Duck Duck Go:

But a look at the facts makes clear fraud is vanishingly rare, and does not happen on a scale even close to that necessary to “rig” an election.

In-person voter fraud ‘a very rare phenomenon’

That first link has many links of its own, to papers from NYU, Columbia University, Arizona State, etc. Nothing from Harvard though.

I appreciate your willingness to accommodate my distaste for video references, but I don't see how recordings of shenanigans are supposed to demonstrate anything. If you show me an hour's worth of video showing people committing fraud, and I show you nine hours of people voting without fraud, does that mean that 10% of votes are fraudulent? No. What If I show you ninety nine hours, does that mean it's 1%? No. So what have we actually demonstrated here? Nothing, it's just anecdote.

That's what the studies are for. If you see an event, you can't just assume that event is commonplace. That's something you have to measure, and that takes work.

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[pecosdave]

I know about the edit accusations. They released two versions, a long form unedited and a version that trimmed out dead time and irrelevant info.

The propaganda mills that wanted to downplay and discredit Project Veritas simply pointed at the trimmed one and kept yelling "edited!" While pretending the other wasn't also available.

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[MightyMartian]

By "irrelevant info", you mean context. Veritas is a scam that's been debunked. You believe, you're a fucking idiot. Full stop.

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[Arzaboa]

Your studies state that even the very few people that illegally voted could not have changed the outcome of any election.

The rest of these are onsy twosy cases, or terrible articles based off of misreading of the studies presented.

--
Whats up Doc? - B. Bunny

Re: Everyone is upset about Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

I watched one of their videos and the way it was edited was laughable. Sentences and phrases cut up and pasted together in a way which was obviously misleading to anyone with half a brain or any critical faculties. But then such people aren't their target audience.

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to nitpick or anything, but normally when you're trying to argue a side you're supposed to provide sources that back up your assertion. I mean, you do you I guess, and lazy shit like this may work on Facebook or Twitter, but you really think we aren't going to read your sources? This makes you look like an idiot.

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

What you actually showed is that you can't even be trusted to read a webpage accurately, that you mysteriously confused a Turkish-born naturalized American Citizen as not being one but concocted a fabricated story somehow having something to do with your made-up imaginary conspiracy of Mexicans, so you really just discredited yourself for no purpose.

I get it, I get it, you can't actually produce evidence of buses full of Mexicans, Canadians, or even Americans voting multiple times in the same election on a bus, so you just make up a connection to a news story where the only thing that was established is that people like you raise a fit over false claims.

That's...bad for you. You should start vetting your links like I told you. Because what's REALLY funny is that just minutes before, you were wringing your hands over another poster discrediting your copious amounts of bias, and specifically referenced Snopes. Which turned out not to support your contention at all.

Remember that? You were spewing forth about Mexicans voting illegally in buses. Yet produced no evidence of it. Ever. All you've got is useless babbling.

Maybe you should have actually made video of the purported buses, not random disjointed statements taken at streetside restaurants. You know, if they actually existed.

Re:Everyone is upset about Russia

[pots]

He actually only links to one study there, that's the first link, and it does claim that a decent number of people voted illegally and probably swung North Carolina for Obama in 2008. The problem is that the study authors didn't account for error. Here's a response to that study.

Re: Everyone is upset about Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

What video? Give us youtube link to edited video(s).

Re: Everyone is upset about Russia

[pecosdave]

Just the edited one, not the long form. Ignoring exactly what was said....

What about Canada?

[William Baric]

I'm not American, I live in Canada, and I certainly admit posting a lot of comments on social networks during the last US election. Worse, a lot of prominent Canadian figures made comment after comment on social networks about both Trump and Clinton. I'm sure Canadians posted more than 200,000 tweets. So why not accuse Canada of interfering with the US elections?

Re:What about Canada?

[cascadingstylesheet]

I'm not American, I live in Canada, and I certainly admit posting a lot of comments on social networks during the last US election. Worse, a lot of prominent Canadian figures made comment after comment on social networks about both Trump and Clinton. I'm sure Canadians posted more than 200,000 tweets. So why not accuse Canada of interfering with the US elections?

Because I doubt most of them supported the unapproved (by the left) outcome ... that's why Canadian tweets were OK.

Re:What about Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing wrong with it if you aren't being *paid* to do it, or you aren't otherwise being compensated. In most western democracies you're allowed to have an opinion and express it whether a citizen or not. Certain Russians went *way* beyond that. That's the point: the law is pretty clear about where it crosses the line from being a foreigner interested in the outcome of an election and being more directly or indirectly involved in influencing it.

The line is pretty clearly defined in the US Federal Election Campaign Act.

Re:What about Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is AIPAC not a problem because 50% of DNC funding comes from Jews? Israel does everything Russia does, and more, yet no one ever talks about it... and those of us who do are viewed as less than human (and worthy of physical assault.) Does anyone actually think anymore?

Re:What about Canada?

[thegarbz]

Because it doesn't fit the narrative? Also because we're only angry at people who don't apologise for their interference ;-)

Re:What about Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Americans think that Canada is a state.

Re: What about Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Going by your posts you seem very close to Putin for a Canadian.

Re:What about Canada?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

There is a huge difference between individual Canadians trying to influence our election and an organized push by the Canadian government, much as there is a difference between a Canadian citizen committing murder in the US and the Canadian military shooting people in the US.

Re:What about Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not American, I live in Canada, and I certainly admit posting a lot of comments on social networks during the last US election. Worse, a lot of prominent Canadian figures made comment after comment on social networks about both Trump and Clinton. I'm sure Canadians posted more than 200,000 tweets. So why not accuse Canada of interfering with the US elections?

Because they weren't Canadian's trying to pretend that they were grass roots US citizens...???

Do you really need that explained to you?

Re:What about Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you assume the persona of a named American citizen to post your comments? Were you taking instructions from someone as part of a co-ordinated campaign?

There's a difference between "I think this is right" or "I think this would be fun to post to get a reaction", and "this will get those Americans at each others' throats".

Re:What about Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah! Fuck the Russians, why isn't anyone talking about the Canadians? Why, they've been trying to influence our election since the primaries! "Please don't vote for Donald Trump," they would say. "Anyone but Donald Trump, we're begging you," they would say. There must be millions of tweets and Facebook posts, from millions of Canadians, all desperately trying to stop Donald Trump from being elected. Hell, even the Prime Minister took a stab at it, in a properly-veiled political way. Why aren't we questioning why our neighbors to the north are so keen on having us kowtow to their interests?

Or maybe the Russians just didn't want to deal with a President who felt that they owed her bigly for that whole Uranium One thing.

Wait a minute. Why in the ever-living flying fuck was this story posted to developers.slashdot.org?!

Re:What about Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a huge difference between individual Canadians trying to influence our election and an organized push by the Canadian government, much as there is a difference between a Canadian citizen committing murder in the US and the Canadian military shooting people in the US.

Are companies any different? Most of our media is driven by telecom providers just like America.

This happened on Obama's watch...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why didn't he do something to secure our elections?

Re:This happened on Obama's watch...

[Lisandro]

Why didn't he do something to secure our elections?

He did. Maybe you forgot the time back in 2016 when the Obama WH met with McConnell to inform him and others in Congress of Russian interference, and asked for a public warning announcement. McConnell denied it and stated he would oppose any announcement as political interference by Obama in the election.

Re:This happened on Obama's watch...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why didn't he do something to secure our elections?

He did. Maybe you forgot the time back in 2016 when the Obama WH met with McConnell to inform him and others in Congress of Russian interference, and asked for a public warning announcement. McConnell denied it and stated he would oppose any announcement as political interference by Obama in the election.

Wow.

Talk about damning Obama with faint praise...

Re:This happened on Obama's watch...

[Anonymous Coward]

It was actually a bipartisan statement, which would've lead to some legislative action. Thanks, turtle head!

https://www.politico.com/story...

Re:This happened on Obama's watch...

[MightyMartian]

And what was Obama supposed to do, bomb St. Petersburg?

Re:This happened on Obama's watch...

[HiThere]

And an interesting question is whether this response indicates that at that time McConnell was aware that the Russians were intervening in favor of the Republicans. It is, of course, far from proof, but it's certainly suggestive.

Re:This happened on Obama's watch...

[Lisandro]

I don't think they did. The GOP and McConnell in particular just made a point of obstructing Obama on everything possible back in the day - he even acknowledged so publicly.

Re:This happened on Obama's watch...

[Anonymous Coward]

And what was Obama supposed to do, bomb St. Petersburg?

Umm, sanctions? Expel diplomats?

You know, DO something.

Obama knew, didn't do shit, and now it's a YUUUUGE deal?

Only because Hillary! lost?

Bullshit.

Oh, yeah: give us all more CRUMBS!!!!

CRUMBS!!!

CRUMBS ARE YUUUUGE!!!!

MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!! ONE CRUMB AT A TIME!!!!

Gawd, the success of the Trump economy has to hurt fools like you after eight years of Obama's "we-need-to-rebuild-the-economy (to make it more progressive)" utter fucking mismanagement/not-a-"recovery".

You tried to tell the population that jobs "were never coming back". Aaaaand now the US is the largest producer of oil in the world - and wages are finally starting to go up.

Black unemployment is the lowest it's EVER been, too. What are you going to do if Trump gets a good percentage of blacks to leave the Democrat thought plantation? Geez, it's not like Democrats have been good for US blacks, despite getting 95+% of the black vote....

I guess that's why Democrats have to cry RAAAAACIS!!! so damn much - they're deathly afraid of Republicans making inroads into the black vote, because doing THAT would doom the Democratic Party as currently aligned.

Re:This happened on Obama's watch...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Intelligence Services indicated that Russian interference in US elections was occurring back in 2012 and had not stopped. Obama took no action until 2016 when he tried to get McConnell to indirectly endorse Hillary Clinton. I fully expect that had the Republicans nominated a more traditionally hostile to Russia candidate, Obama would have continued to ignore Russian interference to focus on the highly successful Reset with Russia policies.

Re:This happened on Obama's watch...

[Lisandro]

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/1...

Re:This happened on Obama's watch...

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus Christ, were you sleeping when he expelled 30+ diplomats and shut down two Russian-owned states near DC?

Differing opinion?

[Anonymous Coward]

You may be a troll. Or a terrorist.

Indictments etc

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder when the tit for tat will come and Americans are indicted for meddling in Israeli and Russian elections.

Good thing everyone was looking at this

[Anonymous Coward]

So school shooters wouldn't be prioritized.

Re: Good thing everyone was looking at this

[Anonymous Coward]

You've had 18 school shootings already this year so they're clearly routine, not a priority. Anyway, nothing can be done to stop them.

Re: Good thing everyone was looking at this

[Anonymous Coward]

That number is fake news.

Re: Good thing everyone was looking at this

[Anonymous Coward]

19 already or is it 20?

Russian "trolls" didn't cause Hillary! to lose

[Anonymous Coward]

Hillary! Clinton has been in the national US spotlight for 25+ years.

A dozen fucking Russian trolls didn't cause her to lose to Donald Fucking Trump.

Hillary has lost every election that wasn't handed to her. She lost to Barack Obama, then she tried hard as hell to lose to Bernie Sanders despite the entire corrupt Democratic Party apparatus working to hand her the nomination.

And then she lost to Donald Trump because she's a hateful, conniving, amoral, untrustworthy, corrupt harridan. Period. She didn't "forget" to go to Michigan or Ohio or Pennsylvania - she didn't campaign there because when she did, her polling went down (don't think Democrats didn't know they needed help there? Look at where Barack Obama spent the day before the election - yep, Michigan...)

And it goes back decades - Hillary! got her ass fired from her job as a lawyer working for the Watergate investigating committee for being corrupt and and utter lack of respect for the US Constitution.

And don't fucking bother trying to say "Snopes says Hillary! wasn't fired". One, the guy who had the power to fire her says he did, and two, Snopes can't even get his name right.

Hillary!'s only accomplishment was getting married to Bill.

(Don't forget that Bill got away with lying about his affairs because everyone looked at Hillary! and felt sorry for him...)

Re:Russian "trolls" didn't cause Hillary! to lose

[Anonymous Coward]

"she lost to Donald Trump because she's a hateful, conniving, amoral, untrustworthy, corrupt harridan. Period"
Hmm, you do know who Trump is, right ? I mean, Trump has all that and _so_ much more, he's like the incarnation of the proof that 7 mortal sins are not enough.

Re:Russian "trolls" didn't cause Hillary! to lose

[bussdriver]

Where did you learn to write such good english? I went to American schools but clearly Russian schools can do better

Re:Russian "trolls" didn't cause Hillary! to lose

[Bartles]

Yes. We do. She still lost to him.

Re:Russian "trolls" didn't cause Hillary! to lose

[MightyMartian]

You know we know you're a Russian troll, right? The cat's out of the bag, Comrade.

When will Steele be indicted?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's illegal for a Russian to post to Facebook about the US election*, isn't it illegal for a Brit to feed fake data to the FBI about one of the candidates?

* - Quite the fucking stretch, isn't it? Is this Meuller's big finding?

Re: Reminder to all there are multible invistagati

[Anonymous Coward]

And you forgot#3 which is your cry bullying gas the FBI so distracted that 19 kids were killed in Weston Florida.

The blood is on your hands because you cannot accept that Hillary is the most unelectable Democrat ever.

How much money does the US spend each month?

[Anonymous Coward]

How much money does the US government spend each month injecting various political views and other subterfuge into other countries; manipulating public opinion, fomenting political unrest, undermining elections, overthrowing governments, psychological warfare?

In fact, how much effort does the US military directly make upon the American citizenry?

What the Russian do (and will continue to do) is no different than what the US, Britain, China, etc do on a regular basis. This does not excuse the conduct, but it does demonstrate these are games all nations play.

Maybe you think I'll get tired of calling out this

[Iamthecheese]

Or maybe you're posting it for guaranteed replies, which would just be sad.

Here's what really happened: People wanting to influence the election purchased ads through Russia, which happened to be selling for the lowest cost. Also the media, including someone who is paying Slashdot, is STILL trying to push the idea that Trump's presidency is somehow illegitimate because "Russian interference". At the same time claims are being made that Russia is somehow related to the DNC leaks. This is being done to avoid discussion of the content of the leaks. You post this on a daily basis, Slashdot, and we're ALL sick of seeing it. But I'm going to keep calling out your bullshit every time because the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Stop spreading propaganda.

Is it illegal to tweet?

[CRB9000]

So, question: Is it illegal to tweet a political opinion? Is it illegal to tweet about a candidate? I remember Mikhail Gorbachev writing editorials about American politics. What is the crime here?

Re:Is it illegal to tweet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, not by itself. But it's illegal to be paid to tweet a political opinion if you're a foreigner and didn't register your status as a foreign lobbyist (for example). Read the Federal Election Campaign Act. Tthe US government provides a helpful summary for foreigners if you are confused.

Re:Is it illegal to tweet?

[Lisandro]

Is it illegal to tweet a political opinion? Is it illegal to tweet about a candidate?

No. And, again, no.

The crime here is conspiracy to defraud the United States. From the actual indictment text, "...knowingly and intentionally conspired with each other (and with persons unknown to the Grand Jury) to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing and defeating the lawful functions of the government through fraud and deceit for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes, including the Presidential election of 2016."

Re:Is it illegal to tweet?

[CRB9000]

So, it's illegal to discuss and plan your tweets? Isn't this what "activists" do in their PAC's? How is a tweet defrauding the United States? If you and I get together and decide we are going to relentlessly tweet that X Legislation is bad for America and we create a bunch of bots to tweet the same, how is that illegal? It may violate various user agreements with the services it goes out on, but what law is broken by amplifying your voice with bots and stating your opinion or the general opinion of a group?

Re:Is it illegal to tweet?

[Lisandro]

It very much is if you're a foreigner who's getting paid to distribute political propaganda, be it through Twitter or any other media. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... for detais.

Re:Is it illegal to tweet?

[ScentCone]

Which means that the Clinton campaign and the DNC are guilty of at least as much, by paying a foreign entity to influence the election. Looking forward to THAT basket of indictments. Hope it comes soon.

Re:Is it illegal to tweet?

[MightyMartian]

The Dossier's origins are more complicated than that, so there'd be a few conservatives on your little charge sheet as well, if the Dossier were in any way equivalent to Russian troll farms, which it isn't.

Re:Is it illegal to tweet?

[Lisandro]

https://media.giphy.com/media/...

Re:Is it illegal to tweet?

[ScentCone]

No, it's not complicated. FusionGPS, the oppo-research firm, was no longer doing any work with any Republican candidates when the Clinton/DNC machine started paying them to buy Steele's artistic writing skills under the guise of "legal services" through their law firm.

And no, the two aren't equivalent, you're right. The business with Steele lying, the Clinton machine hiding their hand and payments, and the use of Steele's phony narrative (and phony self-corroboration) in order to facilitate an in-power political party's ability to listen in on the campaign of their opponents through a nonsense court petition is: much, much worse than the ineffective Russian trolling project.

Re:Is it illegal to tweet?

[ScentCone]

I can always tell when I'm right because the people who don't like the implications of it trot out silly memes instead of actually speaking to the substance of the matter.

Re:Is it illegal to tweet?

[Lisandro]

There's no "substance" to the matter. If you're referring to the Steele dossier it had zero influence on the election. But, whatever floats your boat i guess.

Re:Is it illegal to tweet?

[ScentCone]

Who's talking about influence on the last election by the Russians? We're talking about violation of several laws as the Democrats and partisan supporters in federal agencies attempted to influence the election. And more importantly, the fact that the breathless, shrieking narrative that the Dems and their media water-carriers have been bleating about for the last year (trying desperately to do with distraction and sleaze what they couldn't do by winning executive and legislative seats) isn't just wrong, it's exactly backwards. The only collusion present is on their part, and even they know it. Which is why they're getting even more unhinged as the narrative they've been trying to sell continues to fall apart. This may and should have an impact on the 2018 mid-terms (and thus on countless other issues) because what they've invested so heavily in - the whole "Trump is a nazi putin colluder!" hilarity - demonstrates more of exactly the sort of crap that people outside of a couple of dense liberal urban areas voted against in 2016. And their instincts were correct.

Re:Is it illegal to tweet?

[Anonymous Coward]

FusionGPS is an American company and they hired Steele.
Most of the dossier has been proven true.
None of the dossier has been proven false.

Re:Is it illegal to tweet?

[Lisandro]

Ok.

Re:Is it illegal to tweet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Claiming that expression of political opinion - individual or concerted - can constitute fraud is, well, insidious. And ridiculous.

Now, of course the filing of charges is only a matter of public affairs, and the DOJ doesn't intend to seriously hold these trials, but if they did - the defendants would probably have a good defense claiming that they helped rather than hindered by engaging in discussion...

Re:Is it illegal to tweet?

[Anonymous Coward]

You should really '71s Federal Election Campaign Act. It will clear up the obvious misconceptions you have.

Re:Is it illegal to tweet?

[ScentCone]

You can always tell when the Shillaries are lying because they post as the cowards they are.

You're fine

[Okian Warrior]

I'm not American, I live in Canada, and I certainly admit posting a lot of comments on social networks during the last US election. Worse, a lot of prominent Canadian figures made comment after comment on social networks about both Trump and Clinton. I'm sure Canadians posted more than 200,000 tweets. So why not accuse Canada of interfering with the US elections?

It's fine when regular citizens do it. Regardless of nationality.

The flap is about groups *paying* other people to do it. When that happens, it becomes a foreign entity paying money to influence the American elections, which is a crime in the US.

And of course there is the question of collusion, so if you agreed to help get a candidate elected in return for favors, not only is that illegal but it could cause the elected official to lose their office. And again, an individual tweeting doesn't rise to that level - you'd have to pay money or direct an organization to help or something.

Overall, it would appear that this is a flap about nothing. At first glance there appears to be many, *many* examples of blatant corruption with obvious evidence which are being completely ignored(*), while the Russian investigation has taken up everyone's time and has found virtually nothing. The resources might be better used investigating other things.

I don't want to politicize a tragedy, but why is the Russian investigation still going on after all these months when a domestic incident with massive impact slipped through the cracks? (And for which the FBI was warned?)

(*) For an example (of many!), Reality Winner leaked classified information and sits in prison, while James Comey leaked classified information (and publicly admitted it) and gets a book deal.

Re: You're fine

[Anonymous Coward]

"a domestic incident with massive impact slipped through the cracks"

What are you talking about?

Re:Reminder to all there are multible invistagatio

[pots]

The trolling has certainly perpetuated the problem, but we have only ourselves to blame for creating it. Painting your political opponents as abjectly evil has been at the forefront of politics for a couple of decades now, and it's something which has happened on an occasional basis forever.

Aside from ferreting out shills, maybe an approach to addressing this is taking another stab at reforming our system to allow for more than two political parties. It's harder to vilify your opponents when you'll be forced to work with them after the election because no one party is able to get a majority of seats.

Re: Reminder to all there are multible invistagat

[Anonymous Coward]

Hillary wanted to reduce the number of guns. Republicans want more guns and no restrictions on sales to fucktards. So a fucktard buys guns and kills some kids that's somehow her fault?

Jesus Boris, this is a tragic trolling effort. Off to the gulag with you.

Re:Reminder to all there are multible invistagatio

[Anonymous Coward]

"For the bulk of left leaning and right leaning people, they are actually rather similar, they are all trying to make it in this world the best that they can, and they hope their contributions were overall positive."

There's an article on this very site this morning where a bunch of faggots won't let you work on open source software, for free, unless you subscribe to an ideology so leftist that describing a hug is considered harassment. If this cold civil war goes hot I hope the ball pits are bulletproof.

Here's my take on it. Flame away...

[Anonymous Coward]

Noticed about 2012 how the Internet seems to change. Lots more ranty right-wing stuff, lots of unhinged SJW posts, outburst of trolling designed to annoy or piss off.

I like looking at conspiracy sites for fun. Similarly around 2012 there's a big change from the usual Ron Paul stuff & general government distrust to progressively more extreme right-wing material. Lots of posts trying to rehabilitate uncle Adolf, lots more racism, not much in the way of conspiracies - RedIce being an obvious example. At the same time many sites suddenly decided they love Putin (Godlikeproductions Putin obsession was particularly egregious) and thousands of memes spew out which contrasted wimpy Obama with manly bear-riding Putin.

Hmmm. Bit odd that. The Obama hate gets ever more demented. The racism gets worse. Posters with moderate opinions are pushed away.

The chan sites get ever more crazy and neo-nazi. Meanwhile in real-world politics all of a sudden lots of strange little separatist/right wing movements start getting lots of funding thrown at them. Weird shit like Brexit's main funder being married to a Russian and boasting about meeting the KGB is glossed over in the media.

Something is going on here.

Back to conspiracy sites... Donald eventually announces a run. The conspiracy sites which by now are politically to the right of Mussolini LOVE Donald. They create their own North Korean-style personality cult surrounding the orange one. Sites that a few years before were promoting UFOs or alternative remedies for sore asses go full out on the paranoia. JADE HELM!! MUSLIMS!!! SJW FEMINISTS FUCKING BLACK GUYS WHO DINDU NUFFIN ARE KILLING THE WHITE RACE!!!!

Then this stuff leaks out onto the wider Internet making discussions even worse than they were previously. Sites like IMDB's message boards become unreadable (and are eventually killed), extreme politics is the 'in' thing. Slashdot goes from nerd paradise to alt-right-troll-cave. Newspaper and movie sites comments look like something from 1930s Germany - assuming 1930s Germans couldn't spell and had mental health issues.

Where did this shit come from? Am guessing the far-right in the US and other countries decided to work together and with the help of some shady money men successfully managed to fuck up discussions on the Internet. Funding of extreme political movements helped fuck up political discussions in real life as well. Russia was clearly a part of that which can easily be seen in the amount of 'conservative' websites that seemingly worship the place. Contrast also with the number of said conservatives who believe Obama is a Muslim but think the idea of state-sponsored cyberwar from Russia is silly - i.e. most of the posts on here or Reddit today.

Add in characters whose agendas are somewhat confusing (Assange, Snowden) and we're currently in this clusterfuck of a mess where democracy is on its last legs and the world is being run by dickheads.

The only thing that amuses me about all this is that if we do end up going full fascist the first people to get put before a firing squad will be the unemployed autists whose contribution to Western society so far has been frog memes and a fascinating with MLP porn. Karma, you little shits.

However, being somewhat of a moderate and in the unlikely event of any FBI agents or non-hack journalists reading this, I'd going to give you a bit of advice. Devote some time to looking at the conspiracy sites and the alt-media political hangouts. Note how at the same time as traditional conspiracy interest was declining (911, Peak Oil, Roswell etc.) and the New Age craziness falling apart (no Mayan apocalypse) these sites started to rapidly expand. I don't believe for one second that Alex Jones is funding a multimillion dollar empire via Youtube money and the sale of shady vitamins to idiots. Check out this guy. Check out Henrik at Red Ice. Check out the cretin who runs Natural News. Find out who actually runs Godlike productions and similar.

You'll discover lots of interesting connections no doubt many involving our friends from Eastern Europe and their cut-outs in the US.

Re:Here's my take on it. Flame away...

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I don't believe for one second that Alex Jones is funding a multimillion dollar empire via Youtube money and the sale of shady vitamins to idiots.

It's hard to underestimate how much money you can make selling vitamins. According to his former employees, he could see $10,000/hr of vitamins, and is playing 4 hours a day five says a week. That certainly seems plausible.

Or rather, if Candy Crsuh can sell 2.2 million dollars of digital nonsense a day, it's easy to believe Alex Jones can see overpriced vitamins enough to maintain a business.

Re:Here's my take on it. Flame away...

[Anonymous Coward]

You think somehow shady money (possibly russian?) changed the internet culture? You fell for the Russia meme. There is no money, just memes, and it's survival of the fittest, where the dankest memes propagate themselves. Weak memes have to be supported and propped up, and it's the memes that create the internet culture and shape people's beliefs.

People lost faith that the world that the establishment and the liberal progressives were building had any future for them. Every single rant about white males was matched with white males losing all faith in where this system was leading to. Every time you had jewish leftist celebrating how Christianity was dead, and whites (the poison) were going to be minorities in their own countries soon you had whites, mostly males, realizing that old crazy uncle adolf was right and we really did need to start removing ((them)) from positions of power. The SJW's and politics of victimhood I think is more like an annoyance though, like an annoying buzzing sound in the background.

We sat through a decade of the war on terror, where the establishment of this country spent trillions of our dollars to overthrow secular dictators and sow religious strife in it's place, all the time claiming to be doing it in a fight against Jihadists. We then watched as the same establishment argued for a no-fly zone over Libya, while well funded Jihadists overran the country, so that our former ally in the war on terror, (and rightful dictator) was thrown out of power. We all watched him get bummed to death with a bayonet in glory detail, and we then saw Hillary Clinton laugh about it on TV and give her famous "we came, we saw, he died" line. Syria and ISIS is barely even worth going into, it's simply another country the establishment wanted to overthrow. You've had ISIS running convoys of oil tankers back and forth across the desert into Turkey, while being supported by practically all of our allies in the ME, while we sat on our hands and pretended that we really did want to stop them.

And this leads to mass immigration of Muslims to Europe, trying to escape the chaos that the establishment has supported. Millions of desperate people, and millions upon millions more who are not from these hotspots, but simply looking for opportunity. This immigration is supported by the establishment, and the progressives too, because as progressives tell us, the more immigration you have the more you dilute "the poison". Here in America you have the same thing, no civil war, but instead with mass immigration from Central America and Mexico. The more immigration, the more you increase the labor pool and dilute the cost of labor. Who cares about the social consequences.

Who would want this? Where is our future in it?
Here is the reality of what is really going on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aPRjg8ViF0
With Open Gates - propaganda film made by racist 4channers that explains how racist jews are ruining everything in europe with mass immigration of muslims, mostly because they hate whites and christians. Very popular film that's been taken down many times. It is worth nothing that many jewish groups support mass immigration of hispanics (nothing wrong with hispanics BTW) into America too. This is because they hate whites, who are nazis by nature, and need hispanics to dilute the white poison, in order to prevent another holocaust. Even after whites are a minority they will not truly be safe. Whiteness must be obliterated completely. Many people have argued that this is social justice insanity, but it's hard to argue with history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK6VLFdWJ4I
911 and War by Deception - documentary that explains how racist neocons (aka zionist jews) not so secretly wanted a pearl harbor event to happen so that they could launch a campaign to "remake" the middle east, and the hijackers were supported by foreign intelligence agencies (mossad and saudi). Also were there bombs inthe towers? some people think so, but it's hard to say. Very well

Re: Here's my take on it. Flame away...

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting summary. I wouldn't be surprised if the right-wing Western billionaires like Robert Mercer, Richard Ashcroft and Peter Thiel have been plotting for years with their Russian counterparts to fund dissent from the liberal consensus.

Re:Here's my take on it. Flame away...

[ABEND]

When you type "conspiracy sites" you do mean "vast right-wing conspiracy" sites--don't you?

I hope you can get the joke.

If not, Google is your friend.

Btw, when DJT first announced he was running for POTUS, rational persons, who were unfamiliar with his personal history, thought he was running as a publicity stunt. Remember (or look it up), he was previously a registered Democrat before he switched parties to run in the Republican primary.

29 millibits!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a lot.

Re:Reminder to all there are multible invistagatio

[ScentCone]

The thing that bothers me in all this is that Trump is utterly fixated on his own innocence

Wouldn't you be, too, if all day long the mainstream media and vitriolic political opponents were screeching non-stop about how you're a traitor? He has work to do, and has been doing a great deal of it, despite this phony relentlessness from the Clinton camp and her supporters. No, I'm sure that if you had CNN calling you a traitor 24 hours a day, you'd just clam up and let them lie about you, right? Sure, of course.

So, now they're getting more exposure than ever?

[Anonymous Coward]

I never saw or heard about this during the election. Are (((they))) sure that there was any influence? It's a sick joke is what it is...

Re:Reminder to all there are multible invistagatio

[MightyMartian]

You know, at the end of the day, it wouldn't surprise if Trump was at least technically innocent. He seems so detached from reality, with only a few touch points to the outside world (mainly Fox News) that I wouldn't be at all surprised if Kushner, Don Jr., Manafort, Flynn and whoever else were cozying up to the Russians without really informing him, or if they did, because it wasn't Sean Hannity saying it, he probably didn't process it.

I really do believe that anyone who talks about Trump himself colluding with the Russians is giving him far too much credit. It's pretty obvious the man is an idiot. His speech is rambling and disjointed, Tweets are just about the extent of his attention span, he doesn't read, he just watches the boob tube. The American people elected a malicious Forest Gump, so I really think you need to start looking at his team during the campaign and in the first six or seven months of the Presidency.

We have a solution for Cyber Attacks

[Anonymous Coward]

The Pentagon calls it Nuclear War. The Brits agree.

We know where the Russians and Chinese hackers are located. It is simply a matter of time before their facilities are razed.

Re:Maybe you think I'll get tired of calling out t

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in the real world, the Russian interference issue is not about ads. They apparently did a few small ad buys as part of their efforts, but the actual concern is their intensive efforts to pretend to be Americans (with the latest indictments, we now know this involved acquiring social security numbers and setting up bank accounts) to drive conversation on social media. This is not comparable to the same amount of money/people working on a campaign legitimately because of the vast amount of fraud involved.

Typical "Old Media" reporting

[Anonymous Coward]

Too little, too late.

the distinction

[Anonymous Coward]

The distinction between genuine individuals from whatever nation posting their opinions and what the Russians did is that the Russian effort was all part of a coordinated effort that included things like paying Americans (who didn't know with whom they were dealing) to hold rallies and events. These weren't people just stating their opinion, these were operatives deliberately fomenting unrest in the USA, frequently by telling bald faced lies.

In short, everything that right-wingers accused George Soros of doing on the left side, is exactly what was happening with the Russians on the right side.

Chris Steel

[Anonymous Coward]

You will notice people claiming that if you were PAID it would be illegal. If that were the case Chris Steel, paid by the DNC and Clinton, attempted to affect an election, without registering as a foreign agent, and without reporting his activities to the FEC. FBI also paid him.

So by Muller's indictments, the FBI, Clinton, DNC, and Steel are all guilty of much more than the 13 Russians, since their paid for information was also used to obtain illegal FISA warrants. You will notice Muller failed to indict them.

So it appears your actions are acceptable if you were attempting to help Clinton win. If you were helping Trump, it is illegal.

Muller and the FBI have become a joke at this point. No reasonable person thinks they are able to do honest work.

Re: http://qanonmap.github.io/

[Anonymous Coward]

Still waiting for the purge of the deep state Qanon promised would happen last November.

Cohen was never in Prague

[Babel-17]

https://www.washingtonian.com/... "Two USC baseball sources confirm that Cohen and his son were in fact on campus visiting the baseball program on the 29th."

Re:Reminder to all there are multible invistagatio

[Anonymous Coward]

> The thing that bothers me in all this is that Trump is utterly fixated on his own innocence.

How unbecoming, being so obsessed about proving your innocence in the face of charges of colluding with a foreign country...

I take it you would expect people would be cavalier about these kinds of accusations?

it isn't difficult

[Ol Olsoc]

To figure out the Russian trolls, bots, or their useful idiots here in the states, you just look at the content. Often strange syntax, howaboutism, continued reference to the defeated candidate. As people become more used to the sillieness, it just becomes sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Re:Reminder to all there are multible invistagatio

[Anonymous Coward]

It is obvious that the MightyMartian is a russian troll.
He is trying to cast doubt upon US democracy.

You know, this whole "Russians are good at ads"

[eric_harris_76]

This whole "Russians are good at advertising to voters who don't think well" problem would be a moot point if there weren't so many idiots voting. But all you have to do is say a magic word (the word varies by idiot) and thinking shuts down. It even works on supposedly smart educated people.

Clearly, voter turnout is too high.

We need public service announcements to discourage excitable people from voting. Because they can't think worth a damn.

They're bad. Compared to what?

[eric_harris_76]

It's bad that Russians (real or imaginary) try to influence the election by using advertising effectively.

But is it any worse than NBC using news coverage effectively to influence the election? Or ineffectively?

Their support of the anointed Donkey Party candidate worked out well. They got the intended nominee. Their opposition to the "outsider" Elephant Party candidate didn't work out so well.

Me? I think NBC is just jealous. ;-)

Re:http://qanonmap.github.io/

[ABEND]

Qanon's posts are only interesting to genuine nerds. Slashdot has been overrun by normies ... or maybe they're pod people. Well, whatever, nerds on Slashdot seems to be a disappearing breed.

And yet the indictments are real

[Anonymous Coward]

Be the smartass all you like, the indictments are real and the net is closing.

Re:And yet the indictments are real

[ScentCone]

Be the smartass all you like, the indictments are real and the net is closing.

It's true. The actions of a handful of partisan law-breakers fairly high up the food chain in multiple agencies, trying their best to make sure the Clinton machine regained its cash-printing political power, is definitely getting more sunlight by the week. The indictments of Russians trying to make you angry so you'll dish out more toxic, low-information vitriol are appropriate, but do the exact opposite of your dearly held wish - they demonstrate, again, the lack of any collusion by the Trump campaign, and point out, again, the lack of any impact on the actual election results. But please, continue to anonymously post your delusions. It's quite humorous, really.

Attempted collusion

[Anonymous Coward]

"if this is what you say it is, I love it"

Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry but Hillary lost. Get over it. She lost before it started. A guy on YouTube predicted every state bar one based on the primaries and general sentiment. No Russians needed. No Russiand mattered. The end. She was never going to win. Endless Russian nothing burgers can't change that my little deep state stooge.

"Collusion" a word that will go down in infamy

[Anonymous Coward]

We all have our humble opines of all the alleged chicanery by Russian bad doers, all evidence that we the people are allowed to see,whether it is decided to be "classified" or of national security reasons or that the openly biased and very liberal MSM does not feel or believe that it is not within their interests to put forth true and factual information so American citizens make their own decisions. Sad and the ultimate kick in the ass to all "We The People".
  Well, one of the most ultimate corruption scandals in the history of our republic has occurred, and the openly biased liberal MSM,mostly CNN,MSMBC and NBC continue to exercise their hatred for ,IMHO, one of the greatest POTUS's in our republics very short history and in his very short time in office. I for one,under the leadership of President Trump,if not for this biased and complete hatred exhibited by the MSM and their non-journalist, we as the greatest country on planet Earth,would if our citizens would come together,respect the office, we would become ultra-superior greatness that has never been witnessed.
    Again Russia did nothing new and to think that this shit just occured in this previous election cycle is moronic, BUT, what the Russian ,final product was definitely obtained,and not only meeting their objective,but, they outdid themselves and did it masterfully ,to put the US into a kaotic ball of shit. And, with the unbelievable backing by the MSM, the Russians achieved a social media atomic blast, and the MSM fell for this in the ole ,hook,line and sinker way. Plus they don't even see it yet,for they continue to seek and believe and tongue flap in the Russian dirt and deception.The bad and sickening ,esp. CNN,with the 2 of their butt buddy anchors who refuse to report truth and fact as their ratings continue to plummet to the butt bottom, but, these 2 are used to that feeling,"butt bottom",we know that is fact. Well I just started a boycott of CNN and the advertisers , I know I am only one person, but until we stand and band together this media BS will never end. AGAIN, CNN you helped in furthering Russian interference into our democracy, by falling into their phony info sabotage
, CNN you helped the Russians and are still doing it, talk about stupidity