4 ms·

what is the evidence for russian government hacking ? edit: https://theintercept.com/2016/12/14/heres-the-public-evidence-russia-hacked-the-dnc-its-not-enough/

what is the evidence for russian government hacking ? edit: https://theintercept.com/2016/12/14/heres-the-public-evidence-russia-hacked-the-dnc-its-not-enough/ https://theintercept.com/2016/12/14/heres-the-public-evidenc... The fbi and even lynch said there was no evidence. Everything is so vague and speculative, its too similar to the iraq has wmds fake news.

13years 10y ago
Exactly. I also wonder what public opinion would be if MSM headlines read "US planning to retaliate against Russia for exposing the truth in US politics". There are so many ironies here. The US has been involved in interfering and over throwing governments for decades. The public should not be upset that the truth was exposed, but rather should be calling for more truth to be exposed. Let's expose the Republican corruption as well.
- krapp 10y ago
  >The public should not be upset that the truth was exposed, but rather should be calling for more truth to be exposed. Perhaps - but having the "truth" be "exposed" by a foreign government undermining your electoral process and waging a propaganda campaign on behalf of one party exclusively is not something the public should be calling for. The interests being served by that exposure will always be those of their government, and not your own, and certainly not "the truth" in any objective sense. Otherwise, one could just as well say that the governments the US has interfered with ought to be grateful that we "exposed the truth" in their case as well. >Let's expose the Republican corruption as well. You mean, let's hope it's in the national interests of foreign governments to expose Republican corruption, and that they choose to be honest about doing so. There are two separate issues here, which often seem to be conflated for political purposes, or implied to be in conflict - the value of the integrity of the electoral process and the value of an informed electorate. If we presume that the only way to achieve the former is to destroy the latter, then we're implicitly conceding the legitimacy of our own state.
  - crdoconnor 10y ago
    >Perhaps - but having the "truth" be "exposed" by a foreign government undermining your electoral process and waging a propaganda campaign is not something the public should be calling for I can't imagine any situation whereby uncovering the truth undermines democracy. That sounds distinctly Orwellian, in fact.
    - krapp 10y ago
      >I can't imagine any situation whereby uncovering the truth undermines democracy. Can you imagine a situation in which the truth uncovered by a foreign government or some unaccountable agency like Wikileaks is not, in fact, actually true? Or where, as with Wikileaks, the selective exposure of some truths and withholding of others is meant to serve an explicit political purpose and to bias, rather than inform, the electorate?
      - crdoconnor 10y ago
        >Can you imagine a situation in which the truth uncovered by a foreign government or some unaccountable agency like Wikileaks is not, in fact, actually true? Yes. All that would achieve would be to undermine wikileaks' credibility. They literally would just have to do it once and every leak subsequent to that would be suspect. The main reason why wikileaks has had such an effect is because they haven't yet released any lies. >Or where, as with Wikileaks, the selective exposure of some truths and withholding of others is meant to serve an explicit political purpose and to bias, rather than inform, the electorate? If you were the subject of such leaks you could offset this problem by releasing the rest of the information to the media rendering its selectivity pointless. The only way selective exposure as a means of propaganda works is if you actually wield a large degree of influence or control over the media (which does undermine democracy) and can 'bury' stories. The DNC can make a claim to that (CNN, CBS, Viacom) as can the RNC (Fox) but wikileaks doesn't wield any influence over those corporations.
        krapp 10y ago
        >Yes. All that would achieve would be to undermine wikileaks' credibility. You're assuming that the accuracy of the information Wikileaks releases is crucial to its influence or credibility, but I disagree. A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can put on its shoes, after all. I submit that Wikileaks is more influential because of political bias than it is because of objectivity. >I don't doubt that the mainstream media would hammer home the point that they released lies in the past from that point onward. Many Americans have been trained to mistrust the mainstream media and to assume they are biased, corrupt and bought by corporate and political interests. People who would be susceptible to political influence from sources like Wikileaks would likely also reject the credibility of the mainstream media, so the intended effect of influencing partisans wouldn't really be countered by MSM rebuttals. The question is whether the set of such people is large enough to actually influence an election. >If you were the subject of such leaks you could offset this problem by releasing the rest of the information rendering its selectivity pointless. Yes ... and your releases wouldn't be believed, because many people have been trained to assume that politicians are corrupt and that their denials regarding accusations of scandal are lies. Also, guaranteeing that anyone who leaks inaccurate information will be answered with a leak of accurate information probably doesn't set a good precedent regarding the integrity of classified material. >The only way selective exposure as a means of propaganda works is if you actually wield a large degree of influence or control in the media. I present to you the recent US Presidential election in rebuttal, and argue that selective exposure as a means of propaganda worked quite well in that case. Not because of Wikileaks' influence over the media, but because of their influence over social media and the cynicism of the electorate.

13years 10y ago

Exactly. I also wonder what public opinion would be if MSM headlines read "US planning to retaliate against Russia for exposing the truth in US politics". There are so many ironies here. The US has been involved in interfering and over throwing governments for decades. The public should not be upset that the truth was exposed, but rather should be calling for more truth to be exposed. Let's expose the Republican corruption as well.

krapp 10y ago
>The public should not be upset that the truth was exposed, but rather should be calling for more truth to be exposed. Perhaps - but having the "truth" be "exposed" by a foreign government undermining your electoral process and waging a propaganda campaign on behalf of one party exclusively is not something the public should be calling for. The interests being served by that exposure will always be those of their government, and not your own, and certainly not "the truth" in any objective sense. Otherwise, one could just as well say that the governments the US has interfered with ought to be grateful that we "exposed the truth" in their case as well. >Let's expose the Republican corruption as well. You mean, let's hope it's in the national interests of foreign governments to expose Republican corruption, and that they choose to be honest about doing so. There are two separate issues here, which often seem to be conflated for political purposes, or implied to be in conflict - the value of the integrity of the electoral process and the value of an informed electorate. If we presume that the only way to achieve the former is to destroy the latter, then we're implicitly conceding the legitimacy of our own state.
- crdoconnor 10y ago
  >Perhaps - but having the "truth" be "exposed" by a foreign government undermining your electoral process and waging a propaganda campaign is not something the public should be calling for I can't imagine any situation whereby uncovering the truth undermines democracy. That sounds distinctly Orwellian, in fact.
  - krapp 10y ago
    >I can't imagine any situation whereby uncovering the truth undermines democracy. Can you imagine a situation in which the truth uncovered by a foreign government or some unaccountable agency like Wikileaks is not, in fact, actually true? Or where, as with Wikileaks, the selective exposure of some truths and withholding of others is meant to serve an explicit political purpose and to bias, rather than inform, the electorate?
    - crdoconnor 10y ago
      >Can you imagine a situation in which the truth uncovered by a foreign government or some unaccountable agency like Wikileaks is not, in fact, actually true? Yes. All that would achieve would be to undermine wikileaks' credibility. They literally would just have to do it once and every leak subsequent to that would be suspect. The main reason why wikileaks has had such an effect is because they haven't yet released any lies. >Or where, as with Wikileaks, the selective exposure of some truths and withholding of others is meant to serve an explicit political purpose and to bias, rather than inform, the electorate? If you were the subject of such leaks you could offset this problem by releasing the rest of the information to the media rendering its selectivity pointless. The only way selective exposure as a means of propaganda works is if you actually wield a large degree of influence or control over the media (which does undermine democracy) and can 'bury' stories. The DNC can make a claim to that (CNN, CBS, Viacom) as can the RNC (Fox) but wikileaks doesn't wield any influence over those corporations.
      - krapp 10y ago
        >Yes. All that would achieve would be to undermine wikileaks' credibility. You're assuming that the accuracy of the information Wikileaks releases is crucial to its influence or credibility, but I disagree. A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can put on its shoes, after all. I submit that Wikileaks is more influential because of political bias than it is because of objectivity. >I don't doubt that the mainstream media would hammer home the point that they released lies in the past from that point onward. Many Americans have been trained to mistrust the mainstream media and to assume they are biased, corrupt and bought by corporate and political interests. People who would be susceptible to political influence from sources like Wikileaks would likely also reject the credibility of the mainstream media, so the intended effect of influencing partisans wouldn't really be countered by MSM rebuttals. The question is whether the set of such people is large enough to actually influence an election. >If you were the subject of such leaks you could offset this problem by releasing the rest of the information rendering its selectivity pointless. Yes ... and your releases wouldn't be believed, because many people have been trained to assume that politicians are corrupt and that their denials regarding accusations of scandal are lies. Also, guaranteeing that anyone who leaks inaccurate information will be answered with a leak of accurate information probably doesn't set a good precedent regarding the integrity of classified material. >The only way selective exposure as a means of propaganda works is if you actually wield a large degree of influence or control in the media. I present to you the recent US Presidential election in rebuttal, and argue that selective exposure as a means of propaganda worked quite well in that case. Not because of Wikileaks' influence over the media, but because of their influence over social media and the cynicism of the electorate.