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Russian Influence Campaign Sought To Exploit Americans' Trust In Local News (npr.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: The information operatives who worked out of the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg did not stop at posing as American social media users or spreading false information from purported news sources, according to new details. They also created a number of Twitter accounts that posed as sources for Americans' hometown headlines. NPR has reviewed information connected with the investigation and found 48 such accounts. They have names such as @ElPasoTopNews, @MilwaukeeVoice, @CamdenCityNews and @Seattle_Post. "A not-insignificant amount of those had some sort of variation on what appeared to be a homegrown local news site," said Bret Schafer, a social media analyst for the Alliance for Securing Democracy, which tracks Russian influence operations and first noticed this trend. Another example: The Internet Research Agency created an account that looks like it is the Chicago Daily News. That newspaper shuttered in 1978. The Internet Research Agency-linked account was created in May 2014, and for years, it just posted local headlines, accumulating some 19,000 followers by July 2016.
Another twist: These accounts apparently never spread misinformation. In fact, they posted real local news, serving as sleeper accounts building trust and readership for some future, unforeseen effort. "They set them up for a reason. And if at any given moment, they wanted to operationalize this network of what seemed to be local American news handles, they can significantly influence the narrative on a breaking news story," Schafer told NPR. "But now instead of just showing up online and flooding it with news sites, they have these accounts with two years of credible history."
Another twist: These accounts apparently never spread misinformation. In fact, they posted real local news, serving as sleeper accounts building trust and readership for some future, unforeseen effort. "They set them up for a reason. And if at any given moment, they wanted to operationalize this network of what seemed to be local American news handles, they can significantly influence the narrative on a breaking news story," Schafer told NPR. "But now instead of just showing up online and flooding it with news sites, they have these accounts with two years of credible history."
Good thing there isn't a major, national media group that controls a whole bunch of local news channels and can force them to run pre-written stories to push a political narrative. That would be awful!
=Smidge=
Why? To erode U.S. politics and disrupt NATO.
Russia's biggest restriction on expanding their influence has always been NATO. NATO's balls have been cut off without reliable American participation.
Someone ought to swing for this. As a cynic I know that powerful people often don't bear the consequences of their actions. But make no mistake, this is as much of an attack on America as 9/11 was.
Sinclair broadcast group owns many "local" stations, often multiple in a city. They force the "local" news shows to run their stories, commentators, and have the local hosts read corporate produced statements. They also force stations to run their national produced "news" shows like Full Measure.
They even run commercials about how independent and reliable local new is. It's funny to see these same ones on multiple stations.
I see every time this comes up that political process hacking is somehow not seen as a big deal, because injustice in the name of conservatism is somehow sacred and above such considerations.
Well, the digging won't stop. This isn't some 'Bengazi' investigation - this is about the heart of our election process, about how much influence foreign interference had.
I know that conservatives have power over the mechanisms of power now - and plenty of folks like that idea, and want it to continue at all costs. But if it comes at a cost of ignoring damage to our democracy, it won't be remembered well at all.
This is not going away.
None of these issues are going away.
Ryan Fenton
Curious how deeply researchers dug into these accounts. Another possibility would be for them to have also posted 'fake news', allow it to get shared while relevant, and then delete those posts to continue the appearance of a semi-legit news source...? Very troubling either way. What would be really helpful now is news sources documenting how to detect these questionable sites....the willingness of people to trust what they see on Twitter and elsewhere is another side of the problem that needs attention.
How about we let Mueller do his job and see what the results are.
Until then, take your own advice, mmm-k.
called Sinclair news just bought virtually all local stations (and were allowed to do it by our current FCC) that's not really an issue.
I keep saying this, but when it comes to economics the media has a distinct right wing, pro-corporate bias.
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These accounts apparently never spread misinformation
There is no need for fake news or misinformation. Very good results are obtained by just choosing what subjects are covered or not. This is what mainstream media do andit works very well.
So you're claiming that additional evidence that Russia has an extensive framework set up to interfere with US democracy through manipulating citizens' knowledge and views somehow doesn't support the narrative that Putin influenced the 2016 US election through Facebook and Twitter posts? Sounds like you're too far gone to see the issue objectively.
Side note: The media hardly ever talked about Hillary. They spent most of their time feeding into an underdog story for (privileged self-professed billionaire) Trump. And, sadly, this country values naive "thinking from the gut" over well-thought-out plans from people with experience and a proven record. The difference in detail (how goals could be accomplished) of plans for the country listed on their campaign pages was laughable as if Donald didn't want to win from the start.
The lobbying system is absolutely a problem though. And people desperately wanted change. But hiring a rich grifter is not a very logical way to change that compared to electing a moderate liberal judge who could help overturn Citizens' United.
this is about the heart of our election process
Exactly, this is precisely the problem.
Yes, it is. People who think Twitter is the heart of our election process are a big problem.
Folks, Twitter is a social media thing. There is no validation of who posts what. It is DESIGNED for anyone to be able to say whatever they want. Just because someone calls themselves "OrlandoOfficialRealNewspaper" doesn't make them a newspaper, and it never has. Anyone who does not understand that shouldn't be allowed to view tweets from anyone.
Now it is a big deal that people are saying whatever they want, and it is somehow ruining the "democratic process". Item number 1 in the Bill of Rights is "freedom of speech", which means freedom of speech. It's based on the idea that people are supposed to be critical readers. Abandoning freedom because some people can't handle the work of thinking about what they read is pathetic.
It's going to be hard to elicit a big response from people about a torrent of lies from foreign agents when they are already used to listening to a torrent of lies from everyone else who has a political agenda to push.
FTFY.
I have yet to see anyone comment on the heart of this story. Russians created Twitter accounts to spread disinformation and then didn't use them to spread disinformation. From TFS:
Shocking abuse of our electoral process, Russian agents posting real news stories. Absolutely unthinkable and unacceptable!
Oh yes, and they have the full support of the Russian government.
https://www.theguardian.com/ne...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Foreign governments HAVE ALWAYS been involved in the democratic process. The only time they aren't is if your country has absolutely nothing of advantage for them which is rare.
It may be as little as a nasty word or two about a particular politician or it could be an outright assassination but you'd be hard pressed to find any election in the past 200 years in which some foreign power wasn't involved either behind the curtain or outright on the streets.
The 'Russian' thing is just sour grapes. China probably had more of an impact on the last election in the US.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
If you want to suppress the truth because you don't want it influencing elections I have no idea what to say.
Actually this is the crux of the matter. The US (and many other Western countries) Political scene is ready for wholesale silencing of "inconvenient" and "disruptive" and "hateful" truths for the sake of preserving cherished social illusions and National Myths. Many in the halls of power eye China with envy.
And while it is the Democrats at preset who are the torch-bearers of this "innovation", make no mistake, the whole of US corrupt political machinery, from the deep-state operatives, through the MSM corporations, lobbyists, government contractors and the Republican party profiteers, would be very glad if this is met with success.
All those close to the veins of power all love the idea.
In fact, some ancient dude had something to say about this ... something about power and corruption...
Sweden is only ahead of the US in that list because, get this, they have very low government debt due to actually having taxes and a great economy. It's not the best argument. But what can I expect from someone who says 23 (Norway), 25 (Germany), 71 (France) are higher than 18 (US)
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