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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

#91

Post by kolbe »

soared wrote: post #8

This doesn't really communicate anything. All the examples are something of this ad about americans liking cars was targeted to americans who like cars. I don't at all deny Russia meddling, but the website does a poor job at showing what they were trying to influence. Example: This ad targeted people interested in same-sex marriage and 12 more. We speak for all fellow members of LGBT community across the nation. How…

> the website does a poor job at showing what they were trying to influence.

Maybe they weren't trying to do that. I know it's uncommon these days, but maybe they just wanted to present the facts, and allow us to deduce whatever we wanted to deduce from them.

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

#92

Post by adamrezich »

kolbe wrote: post #91
soared wrote: post #8

This doesn't really communicate anything. All the examples are something of this ad about americans liking cars was targeted to americans who like cars. I don't at all deny Russia meddling, but the website does a poor job at showing what they were trying to influence. Example: This ad targeted people interested in same-sex marriage and 12 more. We speak for all fellow members of LGBT community across the nation. How…

> the website does a poor job at showing what they were trying to influence. Maybe they weren't trying to do that. I know it's uncommon these days, but maybe they just wanted to present the facts, and allow us to deduce whatever we wanted to deduce from them.

But I need to be explicitly told what to not only think, but feel!

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

#93

Post by ashelmire »

jshevek wrote: post #77
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.

Sure, sorry if that offended you, I'll refrain from using that here in the future. It's a shorthand for the people commenting here not adding anything to the discussion and projecting one aspect that I associate with the oft-derided "tech libertarian" culture - that is, that nothing every really happens, coupled with an unwillingness to dig deeper to find a deeper understanding of the issue at hand.

If you think the ~15 other posts here saying "I don't get it, these aren't election meddling" are adding more to the conversation than my comment because you were offended at the word, then I think perhaps you should continue reading the rest of it. Psyops is real, Russia does it, the US does it, and sowing dissent and funding extremist political groups in our country is a known part of Russia's global political strategy.

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

#94

Post by dragonwriter »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #31
code_duck wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that’s nice but it’s a different issue. We already have plenty of inquiry into the influence of Americans with money on politics, with Citizens United and whatnot. A hostile foreign government’s operations to propagandize Americans about politics is important to analyze.

Call it a different issue, that’s fine. But it’s an issue I want to hear about! I haven’t heard nearly the hand wringing over home grown control as I have over Russia.

> I haven’t heard nearly the hand wringing over home grown control as I have over Russia.

If you haven't heard the hand-wringing over the influence of money in politics in the US, you've literally paid zero attention to any US politics for at least the last, oh, half century. (And the hand-wringing didn't start then, it's just been ubiquitous for about that long; it's really older than the US, since the main line of complaint in the US on that score is basically a continuation of a complaint about the political influence of moneyed special interests that has been repeated fairly consistently, in every generation, since it appeared in The Wealth of Nations.)

OTOH, the problem, while widely viewed a significant, is also widely accepted as a routine and perennial feature of liberal democracy, whereas a foreign influence operation deeply bound up with a domestic Presidential campaign is still considered unusual and extreme.

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

#95

Post by code_duck »

jshevek wrote: post #78
code_duck wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

I have absolutely no idea why you think you need to quote me. I can’t even edit my responses at this point, and I do not back down from anything I say. Simply because you plead ignorance about plain facts is not persuasive. If you are confused about this, maybe you should do some research - Simply searching the keywords in my statements would easily supply the evidence that you claim doesn’t exist. It’s not my job to inform you.

There’s a certain method of dispute on discussion forums like this where when someone sees facts that they dislike, they will insist that it has to be cited, from a source hey approve of course! Otherwise they will loudly insist that it is clearly false, because the other person didn’t take all the time to cut and paste a bunch of links and do web searches, as if this is a Wikipedia article or something.

Nothing I posted is even remotely controversial, except perhaps to people who are firmly convinced of the opposite already.

If you feel my statements contained hyperbole or misrepresentation, could you please clarify that? Because I’m not seeing any trace of that in what I said. In your statements, I just see flat denials without no content. In fact, you are misrepresenting the content and character of my statements.

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

#97

Post by akhilcacharya »

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.

> So let’s say (presume) Russia has goods on Trump, and we all know they had at least some goods on Hillary

Why do we have to "presume" they do about Trump and "know" they had some goods on Hillary?

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

#98

Post by code_duck »

ashelmire wrote: post #93
jshevek wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, sorry if that offended you, I'll refrain from using that here in the future. It's a shorthand for the people commenting here not adding anything to the discussion and projecting one aspect that I associate with the oft-derided "tech libertarian" culture - that is, that nothing every really happens, coupled with an unwillingness to dig deeper to find a deeper understanding of the issue at hand. If you think the…

Yes, the person you’re replying to has appointed himself Tone Police for this discussion.

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

#99

Post by code_duck »

jshevek wrote: post #46
code_duck wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

“He’s defended Putin’s authoritarian rule (“he’s a strong leader”) and, when asked about the murder of Putin opponents, said the United States has murdered people, too — much as Putin asserted in his interview with Chris Wallace”

Supports my first point. From The Chicago Sun Times, with links: https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/president-donald-tru...

And to support my second point, here you go: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/15/trump-russia-hack-...

“The DNC should be ashamed of themselves for allowing themselves to be hacked. They had bad defenses, and they were able to be hacked,” Trump said

Almost verbatim what I said, isn’t it?

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

#100

Post by dbtc »

ljw1001 wrote: post #90
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the long standing rumor is that Russia influenced the US election through Facebook. Okay, fine. You know what I want to hear about? The wealthy Americans who used Facebook to influence the US election. If Facebook can be used in this way, I think looking at what Russia did is interesting, but it’s not the only story! The story is, people are subtly and quietly influincing our elections! Shouldn’t we look closely a…

You seem to be conflating the workings of a flawed democracy with meddling by a foreign power. Those are nothing like the same thing.

Vladimir Putin and Robert Mercer both seem like foreign powers to me.
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