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Facebook says it sold political ads to Russian company during 2016 election

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Facebook says it sold political ads to Russian company during 2016 election

#101

Post by lern_too_spel »

13years wrote: post #91
scottmf wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a non-issue and you're really wasting your time responding to these attempts to suggest "both candidates were as corrupt as each other" in the 2016 election: "Nonetheless. looking at the Clinton Foundation’s donor list, Saudi Arabia gave between $10 million and $25 million. But the foundation reported the Saudi money in December 2008, and the amount hasn’t changed since. Clinton Foundation spokesman Brian Cookst…

If we are to accept the 'Clinton Foundation spokesman' as the definitive source of truth, then in fairness we would have to accept the administration's claims on Russia with the same merits. As to why, there seems to be more of a corrupt veil that obscures Saudi Arabia's true role in the world vs. Russia. For example https://news.vice.com/story/saudi-arabia-is-the-top-sponsor-...

The Clinton Foundation publicly discloses all its donors. https://www.clintonfoundation.org/contributors

Re: Facebook says it sold political ads to Russian company during 2016 election

#102

Post by belorn »

dragonwriter wrote: post #73
havetocharge wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if I was to draw a parallel, murder is only bad if it is successful?

> murder is only bad if it is successful? If it’s nobody gets killed, it’s not murder. I think the principle that attempted murder, unsuccessful conspiracy to commit murder, or soliciting a murder which does not actually occur are lesser offenses than murder is fairly well established.

Here in Sweden, conspiracy to commit murder (which includes solicitation of murder) carries the exact same punishment as murder, successful or not.

I remember a old conspiracy case (not for murder) where the actually crime could not be proven to have even existed, but the conspiracy could, so the accused got convicted and sentenced as if the crime had existed and they did it.

Re: Facebook says it sold political ads to Russian company during 2016 election

#103

Post by javajosh »

meri_dian wrote: post #90

I implore everyone alarmed by recent Russian assaults on Western Democratic institutions to get their hands on an English translation of 'The Foundations of Geopolitics' by Aleksandr Dugin. Dugin is a Russian academic and the book is essentially a textbook on how Russia should seek to subvert and destabilize Europe, the US and other Russian rivals in order to forge a new empire for the explicit purpose of ethnic Russ…

I'm curious: other than a will to power, is there any philosophical or principle-driven reason for Russia's actions? In other words, why don't Russians want Western liberal democracy for themselves?

Re: Facebook says it sold political ads to Russian company during 2016 election

#104

Post by Firebrand »

kemerover wrote: post #99
spaceseaman wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> virtually never mentioned I (anecdotally) hear this tidbit in every comments section relating to Russia's involvement in the U.S. election. Almost as if it's a common talking point. Reminds me a lot of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism EDIT: ... And so a conversation was effectively derailed and nothing was gained. Arguing about the validity of Whataboutism or who is doing it isn't the point. It's a deflec…

I never understand what is wrong with "whataboutism". When someone pretends that he has a moral highground, it is a reasonable thing to call them out on it. If you dont't want a conversation to be "derailed", stop making unsupported, wrong or dubious assumptions.

Just because A doesn't do X, but asks B to do X, doesn't mean B can argue the value of not doing X by saying “A doesn't do X, so neither should I" because: A (-X) ≠ B (-X)

Re: Facebook says it sold political ads to Russian company during 2016 election

#105

Post by dragonwriter »

javajosh wrote: post #103
meri_dian wrote: post #90

I implore everyone alarmed by recent Russian assaults on Western Democratic institutions to get their hands on an English translation of 'The Foundations of Geopolitics' by Aleksandr Dugin. Dugin is a Russian academic and the book is essentially a textbook on how Russia should seek to subvert and destabilize Europe, the US and other Russian rivals in order to forge a new empire for the explicit purpose of ethnic Russ…

I'm curious: other than a will to power, is there any philosophical or principle-driven reason for Russia's actions? In other words, why don't Russians want Western liberal democracy for themselves?

The Russian regime doesn't want Western liberal democracy because it's incompatible with the self-sustaining kleptocratic autocracy that they are running.

Individual Russian people may or may not want Western liberal democracy for any of a variety of reasons (they “not” side in part driven by regime propaganda), but those preferences are not controlling regime actions.

Re: Facebook says it sold political ads to Russian company during 2016 election

#107

Post by baybal2 »

javajosh wrote: post #103
meri_dian wrote: post #90

I implore everyone alarmed by recent Russian assaults on Western Democratic institutions to get their hands on an English translation of 'The Foundations of Geopolitics' by Aleksandr Dugin. Dugin is a Russian academic and the book is essentially a textbook on how Russia should seek to subvert and destabilize Europe, the US and other Russian rivals in order to forge a new empire for the explicit purpose of ethnic Russ…

I'm curious: other than a will to power, is there any philosophical or principle-driven reason for Russia's actions? In other words, why don't Russians want Western liberal democracy for themselves?

No, double digits of KGB and CPSU staff had bank accounts abroad just like Chinese CCP members do now.

And more power, means more money for them, just like usual.

To disrupt Russian political establishment, you do same things you do to disrupt criminal gangs. Plain and simple.

Gathering all of NATO's paratroopers and sending them to Moscow will work too, but at a bigger expense

Re: Facebook says it sold political ads to Russian company during 2016 election

#108

Post by klenwell »

meri_dian wrote: post #90

I implore everyone alarmed by recent Russian assaults on Western Democratic institutions to get their hands on an English translation of 'The Foundations of Geopolitics' by Aleksandr Dugin. Dugin is a Russian academic and the book is essentially a textbook on how Russia should seek to subvert and destabilize Europe, the US and other Russian rivals in order to forge a new empire for the explicit purpose of ethnic Russ…

This New Yorker article from March provides a lot of background on Russia's "Hybrid War" strategy and its motivations:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/trump-putin-an...

Reading that article left me pretty slack-jawed.

It cites a 2013 article, "The Value of Science in Prediction", by Chief of General Staff of Russian Federated Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov as a canonical text behind the Russian election interference campaign. After reading the New Yorker article, I tracked down a translation of that text here:

http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/...

Strange to think that the Arab Spring helped function as a trigger for white nationalist marches in this country.

Re: Facebook says it sold political ads to Russian company during 2016 election

#109

Post by wruza »

roywiggins wrote: post #60
balance_factor wrote: post #31

As it is rarely mentioned in the US media, I'd just note that the US pretty openly interferes in Russian elections, and has been doing so for a long time. It's curious this is virtually never mentioned amidst all the accusations of Russia involving itself in US elections. There are many tentacles to the US octopus, for starters you can look at an organization created by and funded by the US congress, the soi disant N…

Russia doesn't have free or fair elections anyway- how could the US possibly corrupt it any more than Putin cronies personally controlling almost all domestic Russian media?

USSR controlled all of the available media, but that didn't help, and 200..300k (unofficial: 1m) of working class went to Moscow streets in 1990. Meetings of modern russian opposition counts up to few thousands, mostly consisting of bored bohemians. Also, the opposition seems to lose the generic idea, chasing the wrong issues.

- When do we get vodka?

- The Center holds it. It is necessary to take away the vodka and the Kremlin.

(Boris Eltzin meeting with real people)

I'm not claiming that what we have now is the best vector of evolution, but the opposite forces are simply weak and up in the clouds by their nature.

Re: Facebook says it sold political ads to Russian company during 2016 election

#110

Post by rblatz »

kemerover wrote: post #99
spaceseaman wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> virtually never mentioned I (anecdotally) hear this tidbit in every comments section relating to Russia's involvement in the U.S. election. Almost as if it's a common talking point. Reminds me a lot of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism EDIT: ... And so a conversation was effectively derailed and nothing was gained. Arguing about the validity of Whataboutism or who is doing it isn't the point. It's a deflec…

I never understand what is wrong with "whataboutism". When someone pretends that he has a moral highground, it is a reasonable thing to call them out on it. If you dont't want a conversation to be "derailed", stop making unsupported, wrong or dubious assumptions.

It's basically breaks down to "two wrongs don't make a right."
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