5 ms·

Dear lord a dozen countries could use this style of "evidence" to support the notion that the BBC(British Broadcasting) is deeply involved in nefarious election

Dear lord a dozen countries could use this style of "evidence" to support the notion that the BBC(British Broadcasting) is deeply involved in nefarious election influencing. I believe in freedom of speech including Russia's ability to talk and influence. All the evidence not directly related to hacking is just completely inappropriate. This "proof" doesn't help their case against Russia. They should be focusing a narrow remit on the like's of Gucifier and Wikileaks. What a mess.

salimmadjd 10y ago
As a kid growing up through the 1978-79 Iranian revolution, I can tell you BBC played a crucial role. We use to gather an listen to Farsi BBC broadcast in short-wave radio. That experience has made me to be distrustful of any major media outlet.
- ealexhudson 10y ago
  Absolutely; UK Govt still funds the BBC directly. I do believe it's substantially independent and certainly not direct Govt propaganda, but there's no denying that it pushes a very UK-centric view.
- eternalban 10y ago
  I remember it. They used to announce demonstration schedules. And the line from the Foreign Office was "BBC is independent". What a crock of shit. And the New York Times was calling the Ayatollah Khomeini a "saint". (Let that sink in.) https://sadbastards.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/khomeini-was-praised-as-a-moderate-by-the-new-york-times/ https://sadbastards.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/khomeini-was-pr... RT is clearly a propaganda organ and Russians are old hands at propaganda. That much is clear. But the germinal issue, the elephant in the room, is that corporate media in our nation serves such a thin gruel of "news" that outfits like RT or (earlier) Al-Jazeera gain a foothold and establish "credibility" simply by publishing what our media refuses to cover. Didn't they get the memo that we have thing called the internet these days and other sources are a click away? The biggest nugget in this report, imo, is that NSA is not so hot about this assessment. Which reminds me, did the former CIA employee cum whistle blower dish out CIA's dirty secrets as well or did he just dump on the NSA?
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    Well then, the issue is to establish good journalistic sources, which publish the important stories, while remaining independent of propaganda motivations, including corporate ones. How do we do that?
    - eternalban 10y ago
      I don't have the answer to that question. The obvious answer is that democratic societies need to take education very seriously and provide the necessary cognitive tools for the populace, but that is not a short term remedy.
    - jwtadvice 10y ago
      Thank you for asking the right questions! This should be it's own topic. Can you run an "Ask HN"? My thought would be an information system that is jointly published in by all nation states - like a broadcast Wikipedia. The idea is that out of the chaos in the reporting the facts that every nation agrees on will get through clearly, whereas the opinions, unfounded accusations and the rest will bury themselves in a quagmire of costly effort.
      - anigbrowl 10y ago
        Yeah that's gonna run about as effectively as the UN, which is to say barely at all. I do have a scheme I'm developing for this problem but I'm not sure how practical it is.
        eli_gottlieb 10y ago
        Go ahead and contact me personally. We need to do something about this, and if algorithms can, algorithms must.
        eternalban 10y ago
        Train it on this - a great resource: http://www.gdeltproject.org/ http://www.gdeltproject.org/ I remain skeptical that merely flagging individual content as 'probable disminformation' will the address issue. Propaganda is, at its core, a form of psychological manipulation. It doesn't necessarily have to involve overt lies. Omission of facts, tone, phrasing and choice of words, etc. are all effective tools. There are patterns to propaganda. /That/ is their achilles heel.
Zigurd 10y ago
Hacking, internet based propaganda, and disinformation are all elements of asymmetric warfare, and Russia has used all these, in a spectrum from hacking infrastructure in Ukraine, to spreading disinformation and supporting a racist, fascist right in Europe and the US. This does not diminish the case against Russia. They have helped turn a political fringe into a force in the US, France, UK, Poland and elsewhere. Unless you truly believe open society and liberalism is wrong, Russia is throwing a wrench in the works, and deserves to be punished for doing so.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  Hacking, internet based propaganda, and disinformation are all elements of asymmetric warfare, and the USA has used all these. What's your point?
  - Zigurd 10y ago
    Is there a point to your relativism? I can hold that Russia is partly to blame, and should be punished for enabling a minority of Americans to elect a highly damaging president, AND I can hold that the US is heavy-handed in, for example, managing "democracy" in Turkey and that leads to problems.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
      And the USA should be punished for it's mischievousness? You left that out both times. It feels like a lot of US folk are still in the blame-somebody-else stage of grieving. Is it Russia's fault the US electoral college system allows a minority to elect the president?
      - Zigurd 10y ago
        Should the US be punished? One could conclude that the coup in Turkey failed because many Turks thought so. Similarly, Russia should not get away with pumping up our racists.
      - 10y ago
matt4077 10y ago
The stuff about RussiaToday is in there as evidence for the hacking because it establishes intent. They use it as a proxy for Putin's opinions.
- jwtadvice2 10y ago
  I think that's fair. You can look at VOA, Radio Free Somalia, Radio Free Asia, CNN, WaPo and others and get a pretty good understanding what Washington's intentions are. Having watched/read RT, today and during the election and before the election: I agree with the assessment that the intention was to quote "undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency." The behavior of the DNC did exactly that for me and in that regard they chose a very good example of electoral corruption to accomplish their objective.
idm 10y ago
This report presents conclusions, not evidence. There are quite a few commenters in this thread decrying the "absence of evidence," but that is simply the burden of proof fallacy. I've performed my own analysis of election memes and I independently confirmed a staggering amount of Trump-related traffic with significantly above-average upvotes across several major media platforms. https://iandennismiller.github.io/election-memes/ https://iandennismiller.github.io/election-memes/ I wrote this 2 weeks before the election and even then, I was already looking closely at bot/sock puppet activity. I didn't connect everything at the time, but I now view the shockingly pro-Trump traffic in an even-more-skeptical light. For some, there will never be enough evidence to prove social media were subverted for the purpose of influencing the election. For my purposes, however, I appreciate the PDF linked in this thread because it is actually relevant to my social media research. I am happy to cite the intelligence report as context for the social media findings I reported on. I do not consider the book to be "closed" on this matter, but I do condemn all the commenters in this thread who are attempting to shut down the conversation by claiming there's not enough "evidence." In closing, I quote from the report: > This report is a declassified version of a highly classified assessment; its conclusions are identical to those in the highly classified assessment but this version does not include the full supporting information on key elements of the influence campaign.
- jwtadvice 10y ago
  The report does not establish that there was inflated social media brigading on behalf of Trump. Mostly the report establishes that the DNC was hacked and that they believe the information was leaked to Wikileaks. Then, they believe usual RT coverage was the primary venue for criticizing the fairness of the election and the electability of Clinton.
  - idm 10y ago
    The report does establish that social media brigading occurred. https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf p. 4: > Russia used trolls as well as RT as part of its influence efforts to denigrate Secretary Clinton. This effort amplified stories on scandals about Secretary Clinton and the role of WikiLeaks in the election campaign. Continuing: > A journalist who is a leading expert on the Internet Research Agency claimed that some social media accounts that appear to be tied to Russia’s professional trolls—because they previously were devoted to supporting Russian actions in Ukraine—started to advocate for President-elect Trump as early as December 2015 I will use those two quotes to provide context for my research.
ENOTTY 10y ago
The BBC is very open about their government ties. RT is not.
- wdr1 10y ago
  Oh? https://www.rt.com/usa/rt-government-broadcasting-radio/ https://www.rt.com/usa/rt-government-broadcasting-radio/ The seem to be very open about their funding from the Russian government. In fact, comparing it exactly to the BBC.

salimmadjd 10y ago

As a kid growing up through the 1978-79 Iranian revolution, I can tell you BBC played a crucial role. We use to gather an listen to Farsi BBC broadcast in short-wave radio. That experience has made me to be distrustful of any major media outlet.

ealexhudson 10y ago
Absolutely; UK Govt still funds the BBC directly. I do believe it's substantially independent and certainly not direct Govt propaganda, but there's no denying that it pushes a very UK-centric view.
eternalban 10y ago
I remember it. They used to announce demonstration schedules. And the line from the Foreign Office was "BBC is independent". What a crock of shit. And the New York Times was calling the Ayatollah Khomeini a "saint". (Let that sink in.) https://sadbastards.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/khomeini-was-praised-as-a-moderate-by-the-new-york-times/ https://sadbastards.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/khomeini-was-pr... RT is clearly a propaganda organ and Russians are old hands at propaganda. That much is clear. But the germinal issue, the elephant in the room, is that corporate media in our nation serves such a thin gruel of "news" that outfits like RT or (earlier) Al-Jazeera gain a foothold and establish "credibility" simply by publishing what our media refuses to cover. Didn't they get the memo that we have thing called the internet these days and other sources are a click away? The biggest nugget in this report, imo, is that NSA is not so hot about this assessment. Which reminds me, did the former CIA employee cum whistle blower dish out CIA's dirty secrets as well or did he just dump on the NSA?
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  Well then, the issue is to establish good journalistic sources, which publish the important stories, while remaining independent of propaganda motivations, including corporate ones. How do we do that?
  - eternalban 10y ago
    I don't have the answer to that question. The obvious answer is that democratic societies need to take education very seriously and provide the necessary cognitive tools for the populace, but that is not a short term remedy.
  - jwtadvice 10y ago
    Thank you for asking the right questions! This should be it's own topic. Can you run an "Ask HN"? My thought would be an information system that is jointly published in by all nation states - like a broadcast Wikipedia. The idea is that out of the chaos in the reporting the facts that every nation agrees on will get through clearly, whereas the opinions, unfounded accusations and the rest will bury themselves in a quagmire of costly effort.
    - anigbrowl 10y ago
      Yeah that's gonna run about as effectively as the UN, which is to say barely at all. I do have a scheme I'm developing for this problem but I'm not sure how practical it is.
      - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
        Go ahead and contact me personally. We need to do something about this, and if algorithms can, algorithms must.
        eternalban 10y ago
        Train it on this - a great resource: http://www.gdeltproject.org/ http://www.gdeltproject.org/ I remain skeptical that merely flagging individual content as 'probable disminformation' will the address issue. Propaganda is, at its core, a form of psychological manipulation. It doesn't necessarily have to involve overt lies. Omission of facts, tone, phrasing and choice of words, etc. are all effective tools. There are patterns to propaganda. /That/ is their achilles heel.

Zigurd 10y ago

Hacking, internet based propaganda, and disinformation are all elements of asymmetric warfare, and Russia has used all these, in a spectrum from hacking infrastructure in Ukraine, to spreading disinformation and supporting a racist, fascist right in Europe and the US. This does not diminish the case against Russia. They have helped turn a political fringe into a force in the US, France, UK, Poland and elsewhere. Unless you truly believe open society and liberalism is wrong, Russia is throwing a wrench in the works, and deserves to be punished for doing so.

TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
Hacking, internet based propaganda, and disinformation are all elements of asymmetric warfare, and the USA has used all these. What's your point?
- Zigurd 10y ago
  Is there a point to your relativism? I can hold that Russia is partly to blame, and should be punished for enabling a minority of Americans to elect a highly damaging president, AND I can hold that the US is heavy-handed in, for example, managing "democracy" in Turkey and that leads to problems.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
    And the USA should be punished for it's mischievousness? You left that out both times. It feels like a lot of US folk are still in the blame-somebody-else stage of grieving. Is it Russia's fault the US electoral college system allows a minority to elect the president?
    - Zigurd 10y ago
      Should the US be punished? One could conclude that the coup in Turkey failed because many Turks thought so. Similarly, Russia should not get away with pumping up our racists.
    - 10y ago

matt4077 10y ago

The stuff about RussiaToday is in there as evidence for the hacking because it establishes intent. They use it as a proxy for Putin's opinions.

jwtadvice2 10y ago
I think that's fair. You can look at VOA, Radio Free Somalia, Radio Free Asia, CNN, WaPo and others and get a pretty good understanding what Washington's intentions are. Having watched/read RT, today and during the election and before the election: I agree with the assessment that the intention was to quote "undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency." The behavior of the DNC did exactly that for me and in that regard they chose a very good example of electoral corruption to accomplish their objective.

idm 10y ago

This report presents conclusions, not evidence. There are quite a few commenters in this thread decrying the "absence of evidence," but that is simply the burden of proof fallacy. I've performed my own analysis of election memes and I independently confirmed a staggering amount of Trump-related traffic with significantly above-average upvotes across several major media platforms. https://iandennismiller.github.io/election-memes/ https://iandennismiller.github.io/election-memes/ I wrote this 2 weeks before the election and even then, I was already looking closely at bot/sock puppet activity. I didn't connect everything at the time, but I now view the shockingly pro-Trump traffic in an even-more-skeptical light. For some, there will never be enough evidence to prove social media were subverted for the purpose of influencing the election. For my purposes, however, I appreciate the PDF linked in this thread because it is actually relevant to my social media research. I am happy to cite the intelligence report as context for the social media findings I reported on. I do not consider the book to be "closed" on this matter, but I do condemn all the commenters in this thread who are attempting to shut down the conversation by claiming there's not enough "evidence." In closing, I quote from the report: > This report is a declassified version of a highly classified assessment; its conclusions are identical to those in the highly classified assessment but this version does not include the full supporting information on key elements of the influence campaign.

jwtadvice 10y ago
The report does not establish that there was inflated social media brigading on behalf of Trump. Mostly the report establishes that the DNC was hacked and that they believe the information was leaked to Wikileaks. Then, they believe usual RT coverage was the primary venue for criticizing the fairness of the election and the electability of Clinton.
- idm 10y ago
  The report does establish that social media brigading occurred. https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf p. 4: > Russia used trolls as well as RT as part of its influence efforts to denigrate Secretary Clinton. This effort amplified stories on scandals about Secretary Clinton and the role of WikiLeaks in the election campaign. Continuing: > A journalist who is a leading expert on the Internet Research Agency claimed that some social media accounts that appear to be tied to Russia’s professional trolls—because they previously were devoted to supporting Russian actions in Ukraine—started to advocate for President-elect Trump as early as December 2015 I will use those two quotes to provide context for my research.

ENOTTY 10y ago

The BBC is very open about their government ties. RT is not.

wdr1 10y ago
Oh? https://www.rt.com/usa/rt-government-broadcasting-radio/ https://www.rt.com/usa/rt-government-broadcasting-radio/ The seem to be very open about their funding from the Russian government. In fact, comparing it exactly to the BBC.