Trolls Are Still Actively Trying to Influence Brexit and US Elections (go.com)

TechCrunch reports: A major new campaign of disinformation around Brexit, designed to stir up U.K. 'Leave' voters, and distributed via Facebook, may have reached over 10 million people in the U.K., according to new research. The source of the campaign is so far unknown, and will be embarrassing to Facebook, which only this week claimed it was clamping down on "dark" political advertising on its platform. Researchers for the U.K.-based digital agency 89up allege that Mainstream Network -- which looks and reads like a "mainstream" news site but which has no contact details or reporter bylines -- is serving hyper-targeted Facebook advertisements aimed at exhorting people in Leave-voting U.K. constituencies to tell their MP to "chuck Chequers." Chequers is the name given to the U.K. Prime Ministers's proposed deal with the EU regarding the U.K.'s departure from the EU next year.
ABC News reports: When the Justice Department unsealed criminal charges detailing a yearslong effort by a Russian troll farm to "sow division and discord in the U.S. political system," it was the first federal case alleging continued foreign interference in U.S. elections. Earlier Friday, American intelligence officials released a rare public statement asserting that Russia, China, Iran and other countries are engaged in ongoing efforts to influence U.S. policy and voters in future elections. The statement didn't provide details on those efforts. That stood in contrast with the criminal charges, which provided a detailed narrative of Russian activities...

The criminal complaint provided a clear picture that there is still a hidden but powerful Russian social media effort aimed at spreading distrust for American political candidates and causing divisions on social issues such as immigration and gun control.... Court papers describe how the operatives in Friday's case would analyze U.S. news articles and decide how they would draft social media messages about those stories. They also show that Russian trolls have stepped up their efforts with a better understanding the U.S. political climate and messages that are no longer riddled with misspellings.
CNN notes that one week before America's 2016 presidential election, "one of the Kremlin-backed accounts denied that Russian meddling, saying: 'Russia's Putin says Moscow not trying to influence U.S. election.'"

Comments

The truth

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody I disagree with is a troll.

Re:The truth

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone posting about politics on Slashdot and elsewhere on the Internet is doing the same thing. This includes you, AmiMojo. Everyone wants just as badly as you do to increase the size of their tribe and gain more support from people who might be on the fence. This kind of discourse has been going on since the dawn of the Internet. Hell, this type of pseudonymous political social interaction likely predates the Internet. I would not be surprised if BBS users did the same thing, though I was too young to join that scene at the time before it fizzled out.

This is not illegal election interference. This is people on the Internet running their mouths off about things they're passionate about. It's humanity at work. It's been going on for over 30 years and it makes you look like a fool to make a boogieman out of this non-issue.

If you want to know what it looks like for someone to knowingly, willingly, arrogantly and mockingly violate the laws of another country's election interference laws, look no further than John Oliver, resident of the United States of America, who earned over 11 million views on YouTube and countless more via television as he and Mike Myers (axe, not knife) told viewers in Canada not to vote for Stephen Harper. This wasn't an innocent sketch, he knew exactly what he was doing and gloated about it with a wad of cash in his hand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V5ckcTSYu8

This is why the rest of the world has a bit of trouble taking the United States seriously when they complain about interference. The United States set themselves up on a high moral pedestal as an example for the world to follow. They probably have the worst track record of any other nation in history when it comes to meddling in foreign elections, and now they're mad that other countries *might* be trying the same thing? Don't even make me get started with what they've done to South America or Iran or any other number of examples where they utilized actual government forces rather than just celebrity opinions.

Re:The truth

[Mashiki]

Everyone manipulates public opinion. Know what the difference today is vs 30 years ago? Now everyone can leave their own views, input, beliefs and "let the group as a whole" make the decisions as to what they're saying is good or bad. This pulls views away from the elitists, the pundits, the manipulation by the media telling you how you should view something. That control they had for decades is something they've lost.

The most recent meme aka NPC meme is a great example of this. The political left, pundits, media just freak out over it. What's the problem with it? Well the let "claims it dehumanizes people." But...there's a problem with that. Why weren't they being banned from social media platforms when they were screeching that conservatives, libertarians, trump supporters, mad max, doug ford supporters, were all labeled as racist, neo-nazis, sexists, reacists, bigots, homophobes, white nationalists, race traitors, uncle toms, and so on.

I'll give you your answer. Because it struck too close to home. The NPC meme is a satirical mocking of a loud-mouth leftist pundit/politicians point and those who suppor it. It becomes effective to everyone else because a person and look around at the people they draw to them, and then notice how much is full on regurgitation of these same points, in the most stupid way. Usually involving some form of attack against the persons job, family, race, sexual orientation and what not.

Conservatives find this funny because they can and regularly engage in self-deprecating humor. Progressives do not. And in a round of "OMGROFLF" phase, Twitter banned 1500 accounts that were not violating any rule, or policy, or anything else. The reason? Nobody knows, and twitter is refusing to day why.

Re: The truth

[jedidiah]

> weak strawman. Try harder.

The original remark is neither of those things.

The definition of "troll" has been devalued to nothing more that "someone I disagree with" for a long time now. A lot of people can't handle the idea that someone would disagree with their particular cult.

Gullble people

[riverat1]

Unfortunately there are a lot of gullible people in the world who just skim the headlines and don't bother to dig down in any detail on an issue. Lazy thinkers will always be with us and all we can hope for is there are enough people who aren't that way in order to counter them. Lately it's kind of depressing how much of this has distorted the political realm.

Yeah yeah

[nagora]

Funny how these trolls always affect the side the person writing the article doesn't support, isn't it? I mean, no one would dream of spreading misinformation on the Remain side - they're all saints devoted to the purity of Truth.

I'm sure Russian trolls are feeding out misinformation about all sorts of things. The real issue is whether it has any more effect than the lies politicians tell.

Re:Yeah yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

People these days are more paranoid than the US during the cold war.

Not everything is about imaginary Russian bots. People disagree with you. Real people. Even if you cannot fathom how anyone could have another opinion, that doesn't make them trolls or bots.

Yeah The Horror

[Crashmarik]

Imagine people actually able to see differing points of view. They might just decide they don't like what their betters have planned for them