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Facebook VP of Ads Criticised For Tweeting that Russian-bought Ads Had Not Been Designed to Sway the US Election (bbc.com)
Facebook's vice-president of adverts has been criticised for tweeting that Russian-bought ads had not been designed to sway the US election. From a report: Rob Goldman's tweet was retweeted by President Donald Trump. His view contradicted special counsellor Robert Mueller's recent indictments, in which 13 Russians were charged with meddling in the election via social media and other means. Mr Goldman is reported to have apologised to Facebook staff. In a series of tweets, Mr Goldman said that Russia's misinformation activity had been designed to "divide America" but added that "the majority of the Russian ad spend [on Facebook] happened after the election." However according to the indictment, the ads were only part of Russia's activity on the social-media platform. In the document, Facebook is mentioned 35 times. According to Wired, he sent a message to staff that read: "I wanted to apologise for having tweeted my own view about Russian interference without having it reviewed by anyone internally. The tweets were my own personal view and not Facebook's. I conveyed my view poorly. The special counsel has far more information about what happened [than] I do -- so seeming to contradict his statements was a serious mistake on my part."
They didn't want Trump. They didn't want Clinton. They wanted discord and wow did they ever get it.
Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
https://www.motherjones.com/po...
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/1...
"Some defendants, posing as U.S. persons and without revealing their Russian association, communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities."
being too stupid to know you are being used, does NOT mean that you were not involved it just means you are stupid AND a participant.
I predict the case about the Russians won't go to trial. It's an easy prediction because 97% of Federal charges are plea bargained.
They weren't even charged with "meddling" in the US Election(52 U.S.C. 30121), they were charged with conspiracy to defraud the US (18 U.S.C. 371) and some paperwork fraud. The feds will be eager to avoid a trial on the conspiracy to defraud charge because its weak. The defendants will plead to the paperwork stuff because that's easy to prove.
Facebook likes to pretend to do the right thing while always seeming to find a bunch of new wrong things to do instead. No doubt the next election will have similar ads with funding sources disguised enough to provide Facebook with deniability. The press won't care unless their candidate loses again.
Your post is the definition of irony
If you think so, you're truly living in the post-fact world. The indictment and Rosenstein were clear. The data on the ads was clear. The post by the Facebook VP was clear. Unless you're implying he was lying and that the data is forged.
You are a Russian pawn at this point if you keep pushing for division and hate towards a dully elected President.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
This whole "Russian Interference" paranoia is nothing new. The platforms have changed from Radio Free Europe/Voice of America to NGOs and Social Media. They do it to us, we do it to them and it's extremely cheap to do it because of social media. Take out an ad, program a few bots.. you have a disinformation campaign. The fact that this was overblown into the need for a special prosecutor is that we have a government run by idiots who were raised by TV programs and not by parents. Our new so-called leaders are caught up in endless tirades looking for anything that'll get them that 2 minute soundbite on the news but screw that, there's social media which greatly democratizes anyone's opinion no matter how ridiculous it is. Shit, 90% or more of what news puts out there is now social media generated or comes from so called journalists. Hey podcaster, blogger out there. Journalism, real journalism requires that you investigate, question and then publish not publish and hope it sticks.
Yes, I'm an older American and the way our political system, our FBI, our DOJ, Congress, the WH and especially traditional media, all of it has been thoroughly adolescent and they all need to grow the fuck up. Our peaceful transition of government has now been forever affected because regardless of what party wins or who gets to sit in the WH, the other side will resort to crybaby, seditious tactics to get their way. Instead of being constructive and working on finding common ground we're all about lunatic has-been comedians holding up beheaded effigies for shock value.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Here's the thing about 2016 -- it was a very close thing. Just 1/2 of 1% of the turnout in three states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin) would have flipped those states. That's 78,000 strategically based voters -- not even 1/10 of 1% of the total US votes cast -- and the Electoral College would have gone the other way.
The flaw in nearly every 2016 postmortem analysis I've seen is that they all look for the explanation. It's a situation tailor made for advancing pet theories: an idea that has any truth at all in it can quite plausibly be claimed to have flipped the results.
So you can't rule out Russian meddling by citing Clinton's (unquestioned) weaknesses as a candidate. They could *both* have been decisive.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The rest of the world should care. Putin is willing to use his propaganda capabilities to tear apart any and every Western democracy from the inside if he thinks it could buy him even a tiny morsel of regime survival. Forget Kim Jong-Un, Putin is the #1 threat to free societies across the world right now.
Turns out that Mitt Romney was only wrong about the nature of the threat Russia poses, not the magnitude. It's a threat that needs to be fought with improved education and regulation of advertisements rather than battleships from Romney's pal...but I sure wouldn't complain about some propaganda return-fire aimed at ousting Putin and his cronies.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
According to the most recent public intelligence, this assertion is technically true as far as it goes. The goal was to call the election's legitimacy into question and undermine the Hillary presidency that basically everyone thought was inevitable. The Russians got half their wish: they did indeed call the legitimacy of the election into question. The Trump victory was an accident: unanticipated, unintended, and frankly undesired (because they spent all this effort to delegitimize an enemy, but wound up delegitimizing an asset instead).
And if you think about it, Trump's collusion with the Russians makes more sense in this light. It is a very poorly kept secret that Trump didn't want to win: he got into the election for the lulz, but didn't want the responsibility. He had no reason to collude with people who wanted him to win, because that wasn't his goal. But undermining a seemingly inevitable Hillary presidency? That's something Trump would be 100% on board for. This brings the goals of Trump and the Russians into alignment, and then collusion makes sense again.
It has another effect, too. If we look at the goals in this way, Trump wasn't a mere colluder, giving aid and comfort to someone who might or might not qualify as an "enemy" depending on legal definitions. These circumstances would make him an active participant in the operations: a centerpiece of the psyops that went along with the hacking and fake news. That means he personally committed acts of war against the US, which is treason whether or not the people helping you count as an "enemy" for legal purposes.
In other words, sure; the fake news and meddling wasn't architected to help Trump win. This is actually worse for Trump than if they had been, because it leads to a more solid argument for a treason charge: one that doesn't let him hide behind technicalities.