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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

#91

Post by 13years »

scottmf wrote: post #20
chasing wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. You're probably thinking of the $25m the Saudis gave to the Clinton Foundation, a non-profit humanitarian organization.

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-...

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

#92

Post by Ivoirians »

mc32 wrote: post #50
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…

Sure, but what about it? Does it not invalidate the basis for complaining, or at least the moral high ground, if you do the same thing? Of course on some level it can be a legalistic tool where while you might have done something illegal you can sue the other party for having done the same, like a countersuit. I'm almost willing to bet that if Merkel was found to have interfered on behalf of Bernie, we'd hear some mu…

I don't think anyone is trying to make the case that their side is morally superior. The issue at hand is how to prevent and punish what looks to be serious, efficacious interference, not how to perfectly avoid being biased or hypocritical. Like, pointing out "liberals would be arguing less vehemently about interference if it had produced an outcome they wanted" is pretty meaningless, don't you think? And "they did a bad thing, but we do it too, so guess we can't do/say anything about it" is nonsensical in a world where we aren't all competing for moralistic brownie points.

Not that humanity would be better off if we were less biased, of course. 70 percent of Democrats believe Russia tried to influence our election. Disheartening.

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

#93

Post by dragonwriter »

Clubber wrote: post #59

>Most of the ads focused on pumping politically divisive issues such as gun rights and immigration fears, as well as gay rights and racial discrimination. When I read this I thought that this is what the US press does every single day wither it's WaPo or Limbaugh. It's all about selling fear and division. There's no longer nuance, no longer presenting both sides of an argument. It's all this is good or this is evil.

> When I read this I thought that this is what the US press does every single day wither it's WaPo or Limbaugh

WaPo, and even Limbaugh, generally does not invent false flag news stories on both sides of divisive issues purely to drive division. WaPo may perhaps distort coverage to favor one side of divisive issues because of editorial biad or focus on existing divisive voices because conflict draws eyeballs, and Limbaugh may generate outright invented propaganda on a particular side of divisive issues to favor a preferred outcome, but neither of those behaviors are at issue, and even if it was the same behavior, neither actor is an outside interloper.

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

#94

Post by will_brown »

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…

>I'd just note that the US pretty openly interferes in Russian elections

Ah yes, the famous counter-point from the Eastern-block. I'd just politely ask, what Russian elections exactly?

Is anyone going to claim with a straight face Russia has open and fair democratic elections? I'm the first to laugh at the pointless US 3 letter agencies' misguided operations, but even they are not so naïve as to believe Putin would allow any actual legitimate political opponent, much less a foreign sponsored one. Any such individual, there friends and family would immediately be under investigation and then the individual placed on house arrest...and obviously that's if they were lucky.

Putin does this with journalists, businessmen and certainly political opposition. It's like when I used to tell people Lance Armstrong was doping in the middle of his 7 championships and people would ask how I knew that, all I did was point to every Tour de France winner since the 70's, and they all popped positive, then people believe out of nowhere a cancer survivor comes and wins 7 straight while clean...it's a nice story, just like Russian elections.

As dumb as it sounds just watch the Anthony Bourdain Russia episode where he has dinner with one such individual under house arrest and then visits Russian intellectuals in Siberia who live like so many sardines packed together.

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

#95

Post by 0xbear »

Retric wrote: post #84
bitJericho wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's true in the us, Russia, china, Australia. That's not everywhere but that is quite a lot of ground.

Russia does not have actual meaningful elections. That's a fairly fundamental difference.

Neither does the US really, in the sense that no matter who wins, you lose.

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

#96

Post by 0xbear »

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?

If you have any illusions about independence of US mass media after this election cycle, there's some swampland in Florida that I'd like to sell to you.

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

#97

Post by scottmf »

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-...

>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.

This is some bizarre logic.

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

#98

Post by valuearb »

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…

Russian also interferes in Russian "elections".

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

#99

Post by kemerover »

spaceseaman wrote: post #38
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…

> 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.
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