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Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

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Re: Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

#71

Post by calibas »

badlucklottery wrote: post #69
calibas wrote: post #66

I've looked through the Russian posts a few times, and to me it seems quite tame compared to the bitter, nasty, divisive rhetoric I hear sometimes from my fellow Americans. If this is the kind of thing that hurts our country, our own politicians are doing a far better job than the Russians.

Most of them are pretty tame but that's the point. It's something with a slight slant to get people to engage then it's all about slowly isolating them and luring them a bit farther down the rabbit hole with crazier and crazier shared posts. It'd be hard to recruit for a cult that starts with poison kool aid on day one.

Where can I see the "crazier and crazier shared posts"?

Re: Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

#72

Post by akhilcacharya »

kuraudo wrote: post #58
akhilcacharya wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost as though some governments have been determined through economic and military strength to be more significant and powerful than others perhaps? Whataboutism doesn't change the facts at hand, do they? A hostile foreign state orchestrated an intelligence operation to elect a specific person to further their own geopolitical goals. Every single person in this country should be alarmed by this.

Who gets to decide which state is hostile? We should be friends with Russia, not blaming them for all of our woes.

The American intelligence community.

And also anybody that has been paying attention to the situation in Ukraine and Syria.

Re: Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

#73

Post by mistermann »

dragonwriter wrote: post #63
aksss wrote: post #37

I think it's telling that tech people are very skeptical of the "$100k in facebook ads turned the election" narrative. Read the actual report from the DNI. Election counts weren't altered, the ads are nothing-burger. The hacks on mail systems were primarily done with spear-phishing, the same things businesses are caught with every day. My conclusion - phishing is the real story here of any consequence, if we want to…

> I think it's telling that tech people are very skeptical of the "$100k in facebook ads turned the election" narrative. But...that narrative doesn't exist, it's a strawman. No one that attributes any significant impact on the election to the Russian information warfare operation limits their description of the operation to $100K in Facebook ads. The Facebook part of the operation involved ads designed (among other p…

> No one that attributes any significant impact on the election to the Russian information warfare operation limits their description of the operation to $100K in Facebook ads.

You are technically correct. The $100k part of it is stripped out before the "Russian Facebook hacking to steal the election" is reported over and over in the media, absent of any details. And that is how the majority of the public is absolutely certain of something, even though almost none of them know any of the details.

Re: Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

#74

Post by ashelmire »

Lots of techbros posting here missing the point. If you can't make sense of these groups and these ad buys, you're not familiar with Foundations of Geopolitics, which is assigned as a textbook in Russian military academies and was very well received there. The point of all of it is to encourage separation and discord along racial, ethnic, and political lines, and generally disrupt the American political process and international clout. Read a bit on that with some brief summaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

>In the United States: Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics".

They've had resounding success with this strategy thus far.

Re: Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

#75

Post by orf »

calibas wrote: post #71
badlucklottery wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of them are pretty tame but that's the point. It's something with a slight slant to get people to engage then it's all about slowly isolating them and luring them a bit farther down the rabbit hole with crazier and crazier shared posts. It'd be hard to recruit for a cult that starts with poison kool aid on day one.

Where can I see the "crazier and crazier shared posts"?

[flagged]

Re: Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

#76

Post by orf »

mc32 wrote: post #38
akhilcacharya wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>reflecting some amount of disillusionment Disillusionment through propaganda and well-timed leaks of stolen documents by a foreign, hostile power.

Does the source of the leaks matter? Does it matter that it was Wikileaks, AccessHollywood, Guccifer? Either something is true or it isn’t.

Absolutely the source matters as well as the contents.

You could ask yourself why the Russians penetrated the RNC but decided not to release any dirt. Perhaps you could ask yourself if this has any bearing on Trump's Russia stance? Could he be unable to admit meddling for fear of undermining his very legitimacy? As a result of this is the head of state feuding with the unanimous conclusion of his (+allies) intelligence agencies good for anyone? Who would that be?

This is why the source matters. Because things are always leaked with intent, and by missing that intent and being distracted by shiny talking points you're missing the whole story. Both matter, equally.

Re: Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

#77

Post by jshevek »

ashelmire wrote: post #74

Lots of techbros posting here missing the point. If you can't make sense of these groups and these ad buys, you're not familiar with Foundations of Geopolitics, which is assigned as a textbook in Russian military academies and was very well received there. The point of all of it is to encourage separation and discord along racial, ethnic, and political lines, and generally disrupt the American political process and i…

I don't see how calling people that disagree with you 'techbros' qualifies as either 'discussing in good faith' nor meeting the standards of hackernews.

Re: Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

#79

Post by mc32 »

orf wrote: post #76
mc32 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the source of the leaks matter? Does it matter that it was Wikileaks, AccessHollywood, Guccifer? Either something is true or it isn’t.

Absolutely the source matters as well as the contents. You could ask yourself why the Russians penetrated the RNC but decided not to release any dirt. Perhaps you could ask yourself if this has any bearing on Trump's Russia stance? Could he be unable to admit meddling for fear of undermining his very legitimacy? As a result of this is the head of state feuding with the unanimous conclusion of his (+allies) intelligen…

So let’s say (presume) Russia has goods on Trump, and we all know they had at least some goods on Hillary. I think then it would be fair to presume they could get the goods on anyone. If that’s the case, how can anyone do anything against this kind of adversary without someone saying “Ha, you’re taking/not taking an action because Russia is in your pocket!” Or whatever.

Re: Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

#80

Post by [deleted] »

mc32 wrote: post #79
orf wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely the source matters as well as the contents. You could ask yourself why the Russians penetrated the RNC but decided not to release any dirt. Perhaps you could ask yourself if this has any bearing on Trump's Russia stance? Could he be unable to admit meddling for fear of undermining his very legitimacy? As a result of this is the head of state feuding with the unanimous conclusion of his (+allies) intelligen…

So let’s say (presume) Russia has goods on Trump, and we all know they had at least some goods on Hillary. I think then it would be fair to presume they could get the goods on anyone. If that’s the case, how can anyone do anything against this kind of adversary without someone saying “Ha, you’re taking/not taking an action because Russia is in your pocket!” Or whatever.

[deleted]
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