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Russian Trolls Tried -- and Failed -- To Push Divisive Content On Vaccines (fortune.com)
Russian trolls "seem to be using vaccination as a wedge issue, promoting discord in American society," according to a new study shared by long-time Slashdot reader skam240.
"The topic became another issue the Russian trolls seized upon to widen existing rifts in America and turn citizens against each other," reports NBC News.
But Fortune reports there's more to the story: While the latest study highlights how Russian outfits have increasingly used social media to toy with people's emotions to influence their behavior, it's also notable for the fact that most Twitter users appeared to have ignored its anti-vaccine messages... Outside of the Russian trolls, virtually no real Twitter users actually responded to the messages, said the paper's author David Broniatowski, an assistant professor in at George Washington University's School of Engineering and Applied Science. Generally, Russian trolls try to exploit controversial topics like religion, and race and class division, but "sometimes they get it hilariously wrong," he said.
Broniatowski attributed the campaign's failure to the content of the tweets, which included: "VaccinateUS mandatory #vaccines infringe on constitutionally protected religious freedoms;" "Did you know there was a secret government database of #vaccine-damaged children? #VaccinateUS;" and "Dont get #vaccines. Iluminati are behind it. #VaccinateUS." The messages were so far-fetched that even people who believe in conspiracy theories chose to ignore them.
But Fortune reports there's more to the story: While the latest study highlights how Russian outfits have increasingly used social media to toy with people's emotions to influence their behavior, it's also notable for the fact that most Twitter users appeared to have ignored its anti-vaccine messages... Outside of the Russian trolls, virtually no real Twitter users actually responded to the messages, said the paper's author David Broniatowski, an assistant professor in at George Washington University's School of Engineering and Applied Science. Generally, Russian trolls try to exploit controversial topics like religion, and race and class division, but "sometimes they get it hilariously wrong," he said.
Broniatowski attributed the campaign's failure to the content of the tweets, which included: "VaccinateUS mandatory #vaccines infringe on constitutionally protected religious freedoms;" "Did you know there was a secret government database of #vaccine-damaged children? #VaccinateUS;" and "Dont get #vaccines. Iluminati are behind it. #VaccinateUS." The messages were so far-fetched that even people who believe in conspiracy theories chose to ignore them.
...why did they remove the mercury from them after people started noticing and complaining? Comrade, think about it.
or Donald Trump ? He even states it more plainly than this.
It is clear that our commander-in-chief believes that vaccines causes autism. Despite any evidence. So I don't really worry too much about what some Russian bots are saying when we have real Americans spreading stupid theories.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
There's currently a measle outbreak in a dozen states because so many idiots think vaccines will kill their child.
Once again, the Russians are running circles around us.
(and hello to all the Brave Comrades reading Slashdot here! I hope you get an extra ration of vodka today.)
hookers and grits.
"Outside of the Russian trolls, virtually no real Twitter users actually responded to the messages"
An obvious response comes to mind.
Why not pick a political agenda (such as vaccination) and engineer a bot army that argues for the correct position?
Specifically in this case, why doesn't a group of 40-or-so people get together and agree to play the analogous "troll" position, build a couple of hundred bots, and sow complacency and agreement (instead of divisiveness)?
It sounds like bot trolling is an effective and disruptive way to sway many things - an election, regime satisfaction, and scientific belief.
Why doesn't someone use that technique for the purposes of good?
TFA>_ Russian outfits have increasingly used social media to toy with people's emotions to influence their behavior
They're not toying with people's emotions, they find cracks in American classes (arising from poor education in the first place) and use them to place wedges (inflammatory comments) and divide the country even further.
That is not very sophisticated from them and the guilt is partly upon the Americans themselves for failing to provide decent affordable education. It's funny how people from a failed ideology (socialism/communism) can still exploit flaws in capitalism.
Their methods are the classical FUD, applied to vaccination, Democrats (supposedly) ulterior motives, technology (space exploration/round world), etc etc
Only the stupid fall for it, but the problem is that success in America is measured by affluence, not by intellectual prowess. Given enough stupid voters one could even promote a stupid President and make him victorious.
People have a tendency of being proud of what they do even if it's dumb. Some Windows users are proud of not understanding computers -- imagine that!
I know people who are anti-vaxxers who are not stupid or uneducated. What they are is emotionally overwrought. In the architecture of the human brain, emotions have absolute priority over reason, so once you give your feelings a free rein they can lead you anywhere.
We call these particular people pushing the anti-vaxx bullshit "Russian trolls" because of the tools they happen to use, but if you look at what they're actually *doing*, it'd be more accurate to call them "Russian propagandists". And propagandists know all about the power of inciting passion, both positive and negative.
The Russian government has taken the measure of our society, and they obviously believe they have found a weakness. Freedom of communication and association. If their propagandists can encourage people to associate based on violent and paranoid passions, they can weaken us. It's psychological warfare, and that's not just a metaphor. In this case there will be casualties.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
My second youngest almost died as a new infant from a disease that almost everyone is immunized against, or should be, because someone like you convinced enough parents not to vaccinate their kids that my son was able to get it before he was old enough to be vaccinated himself.
Communicating to encourage suicide is a crime. Communicating to encourage wacko vaccine theories should be too.
107 cases across the whole U.S., vs over 40k in Europe.
I wonder where the Russians have really been targeting - and succeeding.
The U.S. has long been much more immune to ideological persuasion than elsewhere.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...I think the only thing left for us ... is to ... learn Russian....
Actually it would be a good idea. All the leading "specialists" on Russia: Müller, Clintons, McCain, etc. do not speak a word in Russian, never visited Russia, except maybe an airport and diplomatic buildings in the capital, have a vague idea of its history and culture.
As a result they just cannot grasp the issues, problems, and worries of the Russian society. It seems to me sometimes they are trying to communicate not with the real country but with a phantom which they themselves created by a collective effort.
Your own link indicates that you’ve got the cause and effect backwards. It wasn’t normal people being wary of thiomersal that led to its removal: it was the removal of thiomersal that led to normal people being wary of it.
The reason thiomersal was removed from vaccines was because it metabolizes to ethylmercury, which is similar to a known-danger, methylmercury. Working on the assumption that it was just as dangerous, the CDC did some naive extrapolations from what we knew about methylmercury dosages and determined that the dosage of thiomersal in a vaccine, while likely not dangerous, was close enough that it was better to have it removed. So, as a purely precautionary measure, the CDC had thiomersal removed from all vaccines beginning in 1999 (with Europe following suit), which was the right thing to do until further studies could be done. Later studies discovered that ethylmercury flushes out of the human body much faster than methylmercury and interacts very differently with our tissue, making it nowhere close to as dangerous as methylmercury, meaning that it was always perfectly safe at the dosage levels present in vaccines.
As for your advocacy that people make up their own minds, how about you let someone who has gone to school for the better part of a decade so that they could specialize on this topic break the issue down for you, rather than relying on Wikipedia? What next, hand people the source code to the Linux kernel and tell them they should make up their own minds about whether it’s being used to spy on out children? People aren’t equipped to make up their own minds about these sorts of topics. Either equip them to do so or point them to those who are. Telling people to “go and make up their own minds” without a foundation to do so or any of the relevant context that is necessary for an informed opinion is like pushing someone off a cliff without a parachute or any training on how to use one.
And while a few people took note of thiomersal’s removal and bandied around conspiracy theories, it probably would have blown over, were it not for Andrew Wakefield publishing his long-since discredited, retracted by its publisher, fraudulently-researched paper indicating a link between vaccines and autism. In doing so, he effectively threw fire on the burgeoning anti-vax movement, allowing it to become the circus it is today, with brainless celebrities repeating utter and complete FUD as fact. Mind you, he was never licensed as a medical practitioner in the US, and he was stripped of his license in Europe as a result of his name being erased from the medical register by the UK’s General Medical Council, which is the strictest sanction they could impose after finding him guilty on all charges brought against him.
As for thiomersal in vaccines being linked to autism, it hasn’t been. In fact, the rate of autism has continued to increase since thiomersal was removed back in 1999, which is a contraindicator to the notion that it’s at fault. But hey, why let facts get in the way of what you’re saying?
We call these particular people pushing the anti-vaxx bullshit "Russian trolls" because of the tools they happen to use, but if you look at what they're actually *doing*, it'd be more accurate to call them "Russian propagandists".
I've been arguing for months that we should be calling them "Russian spies". To call them "trolls" implies that they're just being a bit pesky, and it's all in good fun. I agree that "propagandists" is more accurate, but it doesn't capture the fact that it's a foreign government doing this out of malicious intent, and for their own strategic advantage. They're spies, and they're doing a good job infiltrating our telecommunications and public discourse.
Your response is not actually a response to what he said. Yes, there are forms of speech which are illegal. No, that's not sufficient justification for banning people from communicating their personal views, even if those views are contradicted by science and could potentially cause some harm. The US specifically prohibits very few forms of speech at the criminal level, and for good reason; the moment you start down the path of defining which ideas should be illegal you swing wide the doors for others to criminalize your ideas as well. This is how tyranny begins.
"You are not educated enough to understand the issue" used as an argument always indicates that you are the one who does not understand the issue. If you understand something, you should be able to explain it in a simple and straightforward way, so that any layman could understand it.
We can, and we have. People just refuse to accept it. I can tell you all day that ethylmercury and methylmercury behave differently in the body, but if you're a jackass who insists on believing that both are dangerous and that I'm part of some grand conspiracy to poison your kids there is not a damn thing I can do to change your mind.
Someone pointing out that you're not an expert and don't understand something is not an insult. None of us are experts in the vast majority of things there are to know. If you're the kind of person who believes that he's an expert in absolutely everything, there is a strong likelihood that you are just an opinionated jackass who doesn't know much about anything. Intelligent, rational people are capable of admitting when they don't know something, and deferring to the advice of experts. That doesn't mean you have to accept everything they say as gospel truth, but if 99% of experts disagree with you it's a damn good indication that you need to carefully reexamine your position.
Dude, look out - there's a Russian hiding under your bed!
Are you *really* so ignorant as to believe *everyone* who is against forced-vax is a Russian bot? Greens, hippies, small-c conservatives, libertarians, intellectuals, anarchists, and some religious faithful are all natural opponents of authoritarian quackery.
When your scream your appeal to your ersatz religion - "but but but muh SCIENCE(tm)!!!!!!!!!11!!!1!!!" - only credulous middle-brow bumpkins are moved. Anyone with real understanding of science, statistics, and/or history can see you are disingenuously sweeping risks under the table, while exaggerating the benefits of widespread coerced compliance.