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The story of how a BLM Activist twitter account and Facebook account with 360,000 (fake) followers was trying to organize riots in Baltimore but was actually ru
by zaroth 9y ago
The story of how a BLM Activist twitter account and Facebook account with 360,000 (fake) followers was trying to organize riots in Baltimore but was actually run by Russia? And the BLM Leaders shut them down because they were from out of town.
This guy Heber Brown should be feeling pretty good right now. He even has a screen-cap of him reputing the Russian agent. [1]
My one question here -- where was the NSA/CIA on this? If Russian is running such an incredibly nuanced misinformation campaign to incite riots in America, why the fuck didn't they identify it while it was happening, expose it, and stop it?
What we have here is either (a) insignificant, or (b) a glaring failure on the part of US intelligence. But my better guess is that the story completely falls apart at some point. These always start out so exciting and then utterly fizzle.
Did you notice the quick turn of phrase? It's no longer Russians influencing the election, now it's Russian influencing politics. When Russian agents are trying to rally protests in Baltimore, and they are doing it publically on Twitter and Facebook, let's see all the data and expose it, right now. If it's actually happening, it should be shockingly easy to detect.
[1] - https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154097683603610&set=a.423996223609.197367.505488609&type=3&theater https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154097683603610&se...
- Flemlord 9y ago> where was the NSA/CIA on this? Great question. Why isn't the NSA working to secure the systems of Americans and our companies? Instead, it seems like they are devoting most of their resources to inserting back doors into commonly used software and generally subverting secure systems. Oh, and letting people like Snowden steal it all and give it to Russia. Very frustrating to watch the incompetence, indifference, or whatever is going on.
- SomeStupidPoint 9y agoThis isn't really the NSA's domain -- they're a more technical agency than that. Where the Russians penetrated actual systems -- eg, the DNC hack -- the NSA was there alerting people and discussing attacks on the systems during the election. They intentionally didn't mention the possible collusion between Trump and Russian during the election, not to be seen as trying to influence it, but they were anything but silent about Russia attacking US computer systems. Combating mechanized state propaganda inside the US isn't really anyone's job, thought it could fall under the FBI counterintelligence mandate. The openness with which the US conducts its society operates against it here -- the government doesn't directly manage propaganda and doesn't have a division tasked with disabling foreign propaganda under the banner of protecting first amendment freedoms. (After all, how you determine propaganda from funding people who just happen to think that way in a free society?) There are numerous reasons that experts in the field avoided collaborating with the government post Snowden, compounding the ineffectiveness of the US here. This is a real challenge posed to democracy -- how do we stabilize a national identity and discourse with open memetic borders and having both a past that contains some really nasty business and a society divided on pressing social topics that can be used as wedge issues? I don't think it's constructive to whine that the government didn't just solve it for us -- they shouldn't, in a free society. The price of democracy is that we, as citizens, need to maintain vigilance on constantly be discussing how to collectively deal with these hard issues.
- tambienben 9y agoHypothetically speaking, what's keeping this from being instigated by any three letter agency under the guise of Russian influence?