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Senate Report Shows Russia Used Social Media To Support Trump In 2016 (bbc.co.uk)
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."
"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."
You are not a member of the elite.
Most of the people who vote (R) aren't doing so because they believe themselves to be part of the privileged few. They believe the Democrats are going to take more of what little they do earn, and give it to people who (in their view) don't deserve it.
Even though I support the lesser of the evils in our two party system, I'm not blind to the idiocy which frequently comes from the left almost as often as it does from the right. A few examples:
Cash for clunkers - Didn't benefit me at all, because the vehicle I wanted to trade in was 1 MPG too efficient to qualify, even though the vehicle I wanted to purchase (a compact economy car) would've resulted in a larger net benefit to the environment, versus the hypothetical situation of someone trading in a vehicle which did qualify, towards the purchase of another gas guzzling SUV. The program didn't take into account fuel efficiency gains of what you intended to purchase, only the inefficiency of your trade-in.
Solar tax rebates - A nice handout to the rich who could afford to have photovoltaics installed on their home.
EV tax rebates - Another handout to the rich. The average hard working American can't afford this shit, with or without the rebate.
The ACA (Obamacare) - Crony capitalism meets healthcare. It is absolutely abhorrent to use taxpayer dollars to subsidize the cost of private insurance, and penalizing people on their taxes if they refused to purchase what is essentially a commercial product truly is unconstitutional. This would be like the RIAA getting a law passed requiring a penalty be paid if you're not subscribed to Spotify/Apple Music/Pandora/etc., because their business model can only work if everyone pays!
Now here's the part where I say despite all this, I still hold my nose and vote (D), because the Republican party's disregard for the environment, moronic trade policies, and pandering to the "religious right" bothers me much more than misuse of my tax dollars (which the Republican party is presently doing in true "hold my beer!" style, anyway).
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Maybe you can read it the third and fourth time I say it:
>> 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.
"Oh that's bullshit, Clinton polled better than Trump", you say. Which is exactly what I said - twice. Derp derp indeed.
As I said, during the primary season (February and March), Ted Cruz beat into by 3-5% in the RCP average.
Marco Rubio had her beat 47% to 43%
https://www.realclearpolitics....
Kasich beat Clinton 48% to 41% - a whopping 7.4% lead
https://www.realclearpolitics....
Again, (for the fifth time) Republicans chose the only candidate who had a shot at losing to Clinton.
Hear hear. This story is a couple of days old and amazingly for once, didn't get heavy coverage outside of the usual foaming-mouth anti-Trump sources. I have hope to believe it's because many news outlets rightfully laughed at the conclusions of the report.
I don't live in nor vote in the United States, and I have to say I find much more objective coverage of Trump in my country. We still definitely have some of those same foaming-mouth outlets, but they are generally easier to spot for their heavy left-leaning bias. I think every politician and their policies should be heavily scrutinized, but I can't understand how people still live this "Russia hacked the election and colluded with Trump" given the actual evidence that has come out. If there was any "Trump support" from these online trolls, it was because they clearly hated Hillary vs. liking Trump. But the Senate wants you to believe some online trolls posting memes stole an entire election. Ridiculous.
Russia attacked both sides, they had meme's that attack Both Clinton and Trump.
Yes they did. It has been reported on and was detailed in the Cambridge Analytica investigation.
They targeted not just "both" side but many sides and found out that they got the most bang for the buck by riling up the right-wingers against Clinton.
> They supported both Clinton and Trump.
The summary states the exact opposite. I'm not sure where you got this from. At best there were a handful of example supporting Hilary to create division compared to hundreds of thousands in support of Trump.
> Trump's popularity on the other hand doesn't drop for a very simple reason. Political smear jobs based on misunderstandings, misrepresentations and lies have to take out their target quickly.
This doesn't make sense as most of the attacks on Trump (such as his rapey comments) were factual, whilst the attacks on Hillary and the Dems (PizzaGate) were lies, so it doesn't explain how Trump survives, but Hillary didn't. If what you said was true then Hillary would be in the whitehouse because the smears against her were often lies, whereas those against Trump were factual (and continuously prove to be so).
> it's genuinely hard at this point to take any critique of Trump without reacting "ok, show me the full context of this claim you have".
Right, but that's not because of the reason you give, that's simply because you're a well known Trump supporter on Slashdot and are incredibly partisan. You won't believe negative news about Trump because you'll support him regardless. You're one of those supporters that would support him if, in his own words "I could shoot somebody and I wouldnâ(TM)t lose any voters".
> Which is why you should be genuinely afraid of Trump if you're against his agenda. Not because of the contents of his agenda, or because of any of the smears. You should be afraid of him because there's one thing on which Bannon was completely correct in that Munk debate. Trump is the paradigm shift, where disenfranchised people actually found franchise, and where there are now too many people who have been disenfranchised by the globalist trend. To the point where it's not limited to the continent - Yellow Jackets was a part of the exact same paradigm shift in a country that is about as different as a country could be to US while still remaining a part of "Western" umbrella. Utterly different court system, literal codification of anti-theism into all government functions, very socialist policies. And yet, France had protests that literally showed that Trump's paradigm shift clearly happened in France too, and it reached a point where it cannot be simply dismissed as "those deplorable people that are beneath us that we will call names and dismiss as if they're irrelevant".
An alternative world view is that we should be scared of Putin, because we thought we'd won the cold war in the early 90s and turned our backs and started to focus on sideshows like the Taliban and ISIS. Meanwhile, Putin spent 20+ years building up his intelligence apparatus to infiltrate Western society left and right, hence why people like Arron Banks in the UK have a wife who was exposed as a Russian spy, and who is also the person who illegally funded Brexit way beyond campaign spending laws with money that can't be traced back to his actual business because it comes from Russia. We saw the St Petersberg convention, where Russia hosted all of Europe's far right, and they all came away with millions of pounds in funding, some of it overt (France's NF) and some of it covert but now exposed (UKIP). In the UK we're seeing the same pattern repeat now with Tommy Robinson having Russian propaganda support on social media, and we've seen it across Europe with Hungary's Jobbik, Italy's Five Star, Greece's Golden Dawn, Germany's AfD, and so on. That's not to say it's restricted to the far right, though that's Russia's preference as it's the orthodoxy it now follows at home, but if no convenient far right actor exists, or is unlikely to succeed Russia will support the far left too (Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece for example).
It's not some weird coincidence that Russia hosted all these parties and/or their key figures, and that clear links to Russia keep getting exposed to their financing and online propaganda support. It's not some conspi