Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Senate Report Shows Russia Used Social Media To Support Trump In 2016 (bbc.co.uk)

Posted by BeauHD on from the confirms-what-we-already-knew dept.

AmiMoJo shares a report from the BBC: Russia used every major social media platform to influence the 2016 US election, the report claims. New research says YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram and PayPal -- as well as Facebook and Twitter -- were leveraged to spread propaganda. Its authors criticize the "belated and uncoordinated response" by tech firms. It is the first analysis of millions of social media posts provided by Twitter, Google and Facebook to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Russia adapted techniques from digital marketing to target audiences across multiple channels, with a particular focus on targeting conservatives with posts on immigration, race, and gun rights. There were also efforts to undermine the voting power of left-leaning African-American citizens, by spreading misinformation about the electoral process.

"What is clear is that all of the messaging clearly sought to benefit the Republican Party -- and specifically Donald Trump," the report says. "Trump is mentioned most in campaigns targeting conservatives and right-wing voters, where the messaging encouraged these groups to support his campaign. The main groups that could challenge Trump were then provided messaging that sought to confuse, distract and ultimately discourage members from voting."

13 of 388 comments (clear)

  1. Clinton Lost Because of Clinton by Kunedog · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I swear, I've never seen such a longrunning and ineffective damage control campaign for a losing candidate. Is this a sign they really are going to run her again in 2020?

    1. Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton by arbiter1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Russia attacked both sides, they had meme's that attack Both Clinton and Trump. They want people to think it was only Clinton they attacked and it was reason they lost. Last i checked Clinton didn't show up here in Michigan til Mon nov 7th's, 1 day before voting happened. It wasn't Russia that turned Michigan Red. It was Clinton's lack of doing anything to get out there to get people to vote for her on top of all the very questionable legal issues surrounding her and all the money they some how many since leaving the white house.

  2. It's more complicated than that by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    yes, Clinton could have won if she'd just taken Trump seriously. Also if she took notice of how badly beaten up the working class was. Her solution to everything was more education. For a woman who'd spent her entire life living large off the fruits of her education that makes sense. She's a classic left wing, elitest do gooder: she can't understand why folks don't just reach out their hands for all the money out there when it's all so easy. She's literally unable to comprehend that it's not so easy for most of us.

    But all that said:

    1. She still won the popular vote.

    2. She lost by a razor thin margin. So thin that all she needed was to focus a bit more on the rust belt but...

    3. By the same token that razor thin margin means that stuff that ordinarily shouldn't have mattered, mattered.

    TL;DR; I think Clinton could have won if she tried harder, but I don't think she'd have lost without Russian interference and that last minute Oct surprise from Comey pushing Trump over the edge.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:It's more complicated than that by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't think she'd have lost without Russian interference and that last minute Oct surprise from Comey pushing Trump over the edge.

      Isn't that a bit like saying "I don't think he would have died without that hangnail and the bullet piercing his heart." One seems slightly more likely to have affected the outcome in question than the other.

      People keep talking about "Russian interference", but if it was that easy to sway votes with a few anonymously-placed ads or astroturfing bots, it seems the campaigns are awfully incompetent with the $2.4 BILLION spent on the presidential race. I mean, surely the next presidential candidate who hires a Russian strategist is a shoo-in, since they apparently have some untapped genius for getting candidates elected without anyone even noticing.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    2. Re:It's more complicated than that by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The left is focused on basics like education and healthcare because those are the things that tend to keep people poor. Education opens up more opportunities, and that includes learning trades as well as purely academic study.

      Clinton's real problem was that she had too much baggage. Nothing was wrong with her policies really. She was an easy target for a populist promising to "drain the swamp" and offer a bunch of simplistic solutions to complex problems that in reality take many years of sustain effort to fix.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  3. Who cares about Clinton? by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The only people I hear bring her up are Republicans who keep going "Lock Her Up". Whether Trump worked Russia seems important because, you know, if he keeps working with Russia, that's really bad.

    --
    Your ad here. Ask me how!
  4. Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads by raymorris · · Score: 3, Insightful

    > Russia funded every divisive movement they could. Black Lives Matter, Muslims for Hillary, etc. Their purpose is psy ops to sow derision in the populace - the same purpose they've had when they've done the exact same thing for the past 75 years. We do the same.

    Exactly. Russia is trying to beat the US, not Clinton. They want us fighting with each other instead of beating them at whatever. We just got new confirmation that Russia was running Black Lives Matter ads. Whatever gets Americans fighting Americans, whatever divides us.

    > It had zero impact in the election's outcome though. This is all about providing an excuse for Clinton's loss to make her 2020 run more palatable.

    Clinton was a really bad candidate, with terrible poll numbers. Of the six "finalists" for the Republican nomination, five of the six beat Clinton in the polls. Only one, Donald Trump, could lose to Clinton, according to polling during the primaries. Trump was also a pretty crappy candidate - the only one who didn't poll better than Clinton during the primaries.

    I think the Russian ads probably did what they were designed to do and not much else - they made the election period more partisan, encouraged us to be even less unified, and probably didn't materially affect the election, but there's no way to be 100% sure of what would have happened if things had been different. Wen might have even had a more moderate, less polarizing candidate win. Doubtful though.

    1. Re: Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The NRA owns the Republicans and apparently the Russians own the NRA thanks to the efforts of people like the Red Sparrow Butina.

      It is disingenuous to say that they did not favor Trump. Yes the primary goal was to sow discord however they favored Trump because they wanted sanctions eased.

    2. Re:Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads by Vitriol+Angst · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly. Russia is trying to beat the US, not Clinton. They want us fighting with each other instead of beating them at whatever. We just got new confirmation that Russia was running Black Lives Matter ads. Whatever gets Americans fighting Americans, whatever divides us.

      Well this really is the issue. Whether there are Clinton people using it as an excuse for the election or not doesn't really matter and it's beside the point if it was SIGNIFICANT enough to change the election (really, it was just 70,000 votes in 3 midwest states that tipped the electoral college). The issue is that Trump is accused of colluding with Russian agents for their help (whether it was good or not) to effect the election and they were offering help with the Magninsky act and perhaps other things. We also have money traveling from Russia to the NRA to the Republican party. While Putin is trying to divide the nation -- he is getting aided by the Republicans and that's where the problem lies.

      And that's not getting to all the other crimes of the administration. Whether his machinations to pay off porn stars or get help from Chinese or Russian agents or if he made a profit on renting his hotels to people buying influence -- do we really need to allow this? It was poor judgement and a lack of ethics regardless on whether it was beneficial or not. We shouldn't have to go to trial to get tax returns or to get a President to divest themselves of conflicts of interests. This guy didn't have to be President. Why do we have to prove crimes beyond a reasonable doubt when we can't find any LEGAL way he covered billions of dollars in debts without any US banks loaning him the money and we can't PROVE that he's a Russian agent but we have little reason to suspect otherwise.

      We can't even prove that Trump knows how to read. Why do we have to put up with this as a people? The divisiveness in this nation is because a sizeable percentage want to troll the rest of us.

      --
      >>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
    3. Re: Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads by Vitriol+Angst · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Wow, the Russians even traveled through time and got us to enact a second amendment. They are powerful!

      At this moment, on Slashdot, a comment that completely misses the entire point of the prior comment is at labelled "(Score:4, Insightful)". The problem with America is that there are people who are just content to be wrong. And proud of it. And they cheer each other on. They support Trump not because they believe a damn thing he says -- but because he pisses off half the country. They have given up on fixing anything and are waiting for supply side Jesus to take them to Heaven during the Rapture and meanwhile they just want someone who can piss off Liberals. The important thing is pissing of Liberals.

      There was absolutely nothing in the prior comment about guns, gun rights, or anything about your rights. It was about a foreign country influencing a private group to influence our politics. But again, some people are OK with that because the Russians are better than the Liberals. These are people who have given up on solving problems after all and just want to stick it to those know-it-alls.

      Slashdot has been infected by cancer because your comment was labelled as insightful when they damn well know it wasn't. You didn't come for a discussion or friendship.

      --
      >>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
  5. Carry this out to its logical conclusion by Solandri · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why was it wrong for Russia to try to influence the election in 2016? The reason I arrive at is because Russians aren't allowed to vote in our election, so it's wrong for them to try to influence it.

    But by that same reasoning, isn't it also wrong for the two political parties to influence elections for Senators and Congresscritters by shifting money to candidate's campaign that has been raised outside the state or district the candidate is running in? After all, that's money donated by someone who can't vote in that election being used to try to influence it.

    So if you carry this outrage over Russian interference to its logical conclusion, you end up with a ban on political parties' unrestricted use of donations. No using money raised in New York to try to influence a Congressional race in Arizona. Money raised in New York has to be used in New York. Only money raised in that Arizona congressional district can be used to influence the race there.

    Somehow I suspect the political parties aren't going to see it that way. And their stance is going to be that it's wrong for other people to try to influence races they can't vote in, but it's OK for them to do it.

  6. Re:Uhhh, what? by shilly · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah, if the election was different, the result would be different. So what?

    So what, you ask? If the popular vote result and the electoral college vote result are wildly different, then people may choose to infer that the electoral college vote is no longer fair. That is what is happening. Obviously. Disagree away with their inference, but it's stupid not to acknowledge the importance of questions about whether the voting system is fair and can be improved.

  7. A wider problem by peppepz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't reduce this to a "Hillary vs Trump" fight. The Russians influenced more than the last American elections: for instance, they facilitated Brexit in Britain, and supported Salvini in Italy. I don't think you should reduce the problem to a "Hillary vs Trump" fight. The problem is people being convinced by incendiary propaganda on social networks, and the control of this mechanism by malicious actors. And in this case it was the Russians, but in the future it could very well be others to take advantage of it.