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Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

nytimes.com

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Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

#161

Post by beambot »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #62
beambot wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing we should really be asking: Why is startup investment by the US Govt so inept & ineffectual by comparison? What options do startups have to get government funding... the broken SBIR process?

> Why is startup investment by the US Govt so inept & ineffectual by comparison? It doesn't have to be effective. We're on something of an economic and technological roll, what with profit-motivated private investors who don't face political backlash when they shut down failing endeavors building on government-funded basic research.

Meanwhile, the Chinese & Russian governments are investing heavily in US tech companies (par for the course). But China is also investing heavily in domestic Robotics, AI, Energy, etc. in a way that is unfathomable by American standards. Technology dominance isn't a right... it's earned.

My guess: The US government has no stomach for the power-law economic outcomes associated with innovation. Our politicians cannot stomach 9 Solyndras for every 1 SpaceX... so they opt instead to turn away from high-tech investing. It will be a problem.

Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

#162

Post by paganel »

jacquesm wrote: post #115

This was totally obvious and led to an interesting exchange between PG and Fred Wilson: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143604

Sad to see a guy like jedberg so naive (I like to think that he was naive) as to ask for evidence as to why "Milner was linked to the looting of state resources".

And if we're talking about reddit, as a long-time user I remember that I first encountered political shill accounts and paid posters on reddit, in the summer of 2006, during the Hezbollah vs Israel conflict (the accounts were "rooting" for Israel, of course). Next time I encountered them was 2 years later, in 2008, during the Russia vs Georgia conflict (the shills being on Russia's side). It'd be interesting to hear what a guy like jedberg remembers about all this (not sure if he was working for reddit back in 2006, but I'm pretty sure he was there in 2008).

I also remember reading a one-page story about influencing opinions on geo-political facts on the web in the Financial Times, around November 2011, where a Israeli army colonel or something like that was acknowledging the issue at hand (that opinion on the web should be in part controlled by State actors) and that Israel was already implementing something to meet that goal (I have a screenshot of that article, but it's on my older laptop, too lazy to transfer the photo now). Come 2017 and the US is taken by surprise that one of those State actors has influenced its Presidential election.

Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

#163

Post by articleswewrite »

davesque wrote: post #130
jackcosgrove wrote: post #117

I will not dispute anything in this article, and it is discouraging if the allegations are true. However I will point out that an outlet like the NY Times is threatened by Twitter and Facebook financially. I would keep that in mind as to one reason the legacy media have been choosing to report on topics (and they don't always choose to report just what is newsworthy) concerning foreign influence and "fake news" emana…

I think you place the Times in an impossible position. If it's not the responsibility of traditional media organizations to report on the real problem of fake news in social media, then whose responsibility is it? Where else are people going to spread the word about something like that? Face to face? Furthermore, you must realize that the people questioning the veracity traditional media are, by and large, conspiracy…

Yup. Do me a favor and mention that they've sold their Facebook and Twitter holdings but mention nothing of the current holdings in Cadre in the headline.

By the way, C Corporations are not prevented from taking foreign investment; though S Corporations are.

In contrast to Facebook and Twitter, The Times writes articles and headlines and picks which ones to publish.

Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

#164

Post by postramus »

YuriNiyazov wrote: post #153
postramus wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you clarify something? You seem to be arguing two points without differentiating them clearly. One point is that it should be obvious where the money came from (etc); the other point is that that origin should not be cause for concern. Is that accurate? If so I would agree with you on the first point but not the second: the same logic that eg allows one to make the inferences in the first point would also lead on…

The first point I am trying to make is that it should've been obvious, and that aside from giving an actual name to the entity through which cash went from Kremlin to Milner, the NYTimes is not news. If you were concerned then, good. If you were not concerned then, there's no reason to be concerned now, as no new facts came to light through this NYT article. On the second point: the source of the money should not be…

I generally agree but I would have appreciated a more-direct response vis-a-vis Yandex.

In re: your broader point I don’t think they are “that smart” per se; or perhaps better put, I think they are smart enough to be aware their platforms are used by all kinds of agents for all sorts of purposes 24/7/365...but up until now also deemed it prudent to turn a rather universal blind eye towards those activities unless they were, say, so obviously fake that ordinary users could identify them as such.

Whether that universal blind eye was smart is tbd, but nothing in their response since then has seemed very clever.

Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

#165

Post by SamReidHughes »

dawhizkid wrote: post #82
pinewurst wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this surprising? When Milner came virtually out of the blue (or red, as the case may be) a few years ago, it seemed obvious that he was a conduit/laundry for oligarch cash at least. I even remember telling someone at the time that if we were chosen for YC, we didn't want Milner's dirty money. The additional Kremlin state ties seem only an additional technicality. (I mean the formalized acknowledgement of what…

He "purposely" overpaid by $50m for a house in Los Altos -> http://www.businessinsider.com/yuri-milners-100-million-sili...

Los Altos Hills, actually.

Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

#166

Post by jryan49 »

jgome wrote: post #113
jryan49 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if blood money is used to invest in tech to clean it, and make them profit it's okay?

As opposed to the "blood money" invested by the US govt. in technology companies? Do you also have problems with Twitter, Google and Facebook getting money from the US govt.? Let's not forget, the US govt., both Republicans and Democrats, have directly or indirectly killed millions of people in the last decade... I don't see you complaining about that "blood money" here or anywhere, though.

I'm just asking, I'm not taking sides or anything, cause it kind of is what it comes down to.

Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

#167

Post by YuriNiyazov »

postramus wrote: post #164
YuriNiyazov wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first point I am trying to make is that it should've been obvious, and that aside from giving an actual name to the entity through which cash went from Kremlin to Milner, the NYTimes is not news. If you were concerned then, good. If you were not concerned then, there's no reason to be concerned now, as no new facts came to light through this NYT article. On the second point: the source of the money should not be…

I generally agree but I would have appreciated a more-direct response vis-a-vis Yandex. In re: your broader point I don’t think they are “that smart” per se; or perhaps better put, I think they are smart enough to be aware their platforms are used by all kinds of agents for all sorts of purposes 24/7/365...but up until now also deemed it prudent to turn a rather universal blind eye towards those activities unless the…

I had to research a bit about Yandex in order to understand the implications there.

The story seems to be something like this:

[1] Yandex builds an app to crawl Facebook without Facebook's permission [2] Facebook blocks Yandex [3] Yandex gets licensed access to Facebook's firehose

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2013/01/11/yandex-wonder/ [2] http://www.reuters.com/article/net-us-yandex-facebook/yandex... [3] https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/13/yandex-facebook/

There's certainly a plausible Kremlin long con here - fund Milner to invest in Facebook, ask Yandex to build a crawler for Facebook, expect that Facebook would shut it shut down, then suggest via Milner that there should be a partnership between Yandex and Facebook, thus gaining official access to Facebook's firehose, to be sent directly to Kremlin for analysis of message proliferation, and further influence of the American public.

The fundamental mistake there (the final move that allows you to be checkmated) is the firehose deal, not the investment.

In any case, thanks for making me think through the possible attack vector here. Your comment is the first one that was specific enough that made me think through why this could be a cause for concern.

Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

#168

Post by wmeredith »

creaghpatr wrote: post #145
conistonwater wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to this, if you want something shorter to read, there is this prepared statement by Browder to the Senate Judiciary Committee: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/bill-br... Also, being a prepared statement to a senate committee, it has more meat to it than the average news interview.

To be fair, Browder has his own patrons and political interests to represent, particularly in this situation.

Could you expand on this or provide sources that do?

Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

#170

Post by killjoywashere »

wmeredith wrote: post #168
creaghpatr wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, Browder has his own patrons and political interests to represent, particularly in this situation.

Could you expand on this or provide sources that do?

Reviewing that person's comments (all 3 days of them), looks like a Russian shill to me.

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=creaghpatr

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