4 ms·

Is that the point of what this person is saying?

smsm42 9y ago
Basically, yes. Twitter and other social media had a lot of disturbing, hateful and abusive content long before one of the parties in the US lost the elections and decided to blame Putin for that. And feeble efforts of a bunch of paid trolls change nothing in that. The only threat to the democracy is attempts to control online speech because otherwise scary Russian will ruin our democracy. I hope the democracy is a bit stronger than one that a bunch of trolls speaking bad English and 100k investment in ads could ruin it. And if anything is scary in Twitter GC testimony it is the admission that they already exercised political censorship, suppressing certain content (such as talk about Podesta emails) but apparently not enough.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > one of the parties in the US lost the elections and decided to blame Putin for that. Russian involvement was widely reported and under investigation before voting began; it was not a post hoc rationalization for election defeat (in fact, the election defeat has, AFAICT, been blamed more frequently on Comey’s interference than Putin’s; the Russian intervention and apparent active collaboration has gotten more attention because it's viewed as more serious of an set of action s, not because the losing party painted it as decisive.)
  - smsm42 9y ago
    > Russian involvement was widely reported Sure. UFO sightings were widely reported to. Protip: not everything you read on the internet is true. There's a lot of bullshit out there, and a lot of people whose job depends on peddling bullshit and making people believe it. Some of them are Russians, but there are more than enough of them right in the US. > it was not a post hoc rationalization for election defeat (in fact, the election defeat has, AFAICT, been blamed more frequently on Comey’s interference than Putin’s It was blamed on anything except the actual performance of the candidates, as usual. Because taking responsibility is not something politicians do. Both Comey and Putin featured prominently. > the Russian intervention and apparent active collaboration Intervention in what? Collaboration with what? It is very symptomatic that object-less phrases are used to describe that - it creates nefarious aura without presenting a claim that can be verified. Russians "interfered" with what? They spent 100k or so on ads? It's peanuts, Hillary campaign spent 1bn+ overall - you are saying they couldn't beat Russian 100k with that? If that were true, that would be a sign on incompetence so gross that one has to wonder how they are putting on their shoes in the morning. However, it is baloney - Russian trolls had no traceable effect except show some stupid (and look it up, they are stupid) ads to a bunch of people. Ah yes, there also is the question of stealing and publishing some emails (there were several cases) - some of which may or may not be obtained by Russians (public evidence so far is beyond shoddy and basically is "trust us, we know it's Russians" and can not be independently evaluated). But that part - and especially the part where Dems staunchly refused to give FBI access to their networks to investigate what exactly happened - somehow is not discussed that much. E.g. how comes their IT practices were so shoddy that they fell for a primitive phishing scam? What does it say about IT security of people who are supposed to handle the ultra-top-secret materials and still don't seem to give a damn about security? Etc. No, it's better to blame Putin and Twitter of course than discuss this. > not because the losing party painted it as decisive. Which they definitely did and continue to do so.
    - knowaveragejoe 9y ago
      I'm really disheartened to hear this rhetoric on HN, but I'm not surprised given the affinity for contrarianism here. Russia has developed a track record of(trying to) interfere in elections over the last decade+, this isn't some new concept that was conjured out of thin air. They aren't some misunderstood good guy that's being scapegoated. Some examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberwarfare_by_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberwarfare_by_Russia It would be one thing if it were only the handful of goofy ads you've seen, but in actuality a lot of the far right's sound bites and "gotcha's" leading up to the election - even those parroted by the President himself - came from the sorts of fake news mills that spun up during that time, a number of which can be traced to Russia.

Basically, yes. Twitter and other social media had a lot of disturbing, hateful and abusive content long before one of the parties in the US lost the elections and decided to blame Putin for that. And feeble efforts of a bunch of paid trolls change nothing in that. The only threat to the democracy is attempts to control online speech because otherwise scary Russian will ruin our democracy. I hope the democracy is a bit stronger than one that a bunch of trolls speaking bad English and 100k investment in ads could ruin it. And if anything is scary in Twitter GC testimony it is the admission that they already exercised political censorship, suppressing certain content (such as talk about Podesta emails) but apparently not enough.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> one of the parties in the US lost the elections and decided to blame Putin for that. Russian involvement was widely reported and under investigation before voting began; it was not a post hoc rationalization for election defeat (in fact, the election defeat has, AFAICT, been blamed more frequently on Comey’s interference than Putin’s; the Russian intervention and apparent active collaboration has gotten more attention because it's viewed as more serious of an set of action s, not because the losing party painted it as decisive.)
- smsm42 9y ago
  > Russian involvement was widely reported Sure. UFO sightings were widely reported to. Protip: not everything you read on the internet is true. There's a lot of bullshit out there, and a lot of people whose job depends on peddling bullshit and making people believe it. Some of them are Russians, but there are more than enough of them right in the US. > it was not a post hoc rationalization for election defeat (in fact, the election defeat has, AFAICT, been blamed more frequently on Comey’s interference than Putin’s It was blamed on anything except the actual performance of the candidates, as usual. Because taking responsibility is not something politicians do. Both Comey and Putin featured prominently. > the Russian intervention and apparent active collaboration Intervention in what? Collaboration with what? It is very symptomatic that object-less phrases are used to describe that - it creates nefarious aura without presenting a claim that can be verified. Russians "interfered" with what? They spent 100k or so on ads? It's peanuts, Hillary campaign spent 1bn+ overall - you are saying they couldn't beat Russian 100k with that? If that were true, that would be a sign on incompetence so gross that one has to wonder how they are putting on their shoes in the morning. However, it is baloney - Russian trolls had no traceable effect except show some stupid (and look it up, they are stupid) ads to a bunch of people. Ah yes, there also is the question of stealing and publishing some emails (there were several cases) - some of which may or may not be obtained by Russians (public evidence so far is beyond shoddy and basically is "trust us, we know it's Russians" and can not be independently evaluated). But that part - and especially the part where Dems staunchly refused to give FBI access to their networks to investigate what exactly happened - somehow is not discussed that much. E.g. how comes their IT practices were so shoddy that they fell for a primitive phishing scam? What does it say about IT security of people who are supposed to handle the ultra-top-secret materials and still don't seem to give a damn about security? Etc. No, it's better to blame Putin and Twitter of course than discuss this. > not because the losing party painted it as decisive. Which they definitely did and continue to do so.
  - knowaveragejoe 9y ago
    I'm really disheartened to hear this rhetoric on HN, but I'm not surprised given the affinity for contrarianism here. Russia has developed a track record of(trying to) interfere in elections over the last decade+, this isn't some new concept that was conjured out of thin air. They aren't some misunderstood good guy that's being scapegoated. Some examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberwarfare_by_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberwarfare_by_Russia It would be one thing if it were only the handful of goofy ads you've seen, but in actuality a lot of the far right's sound bites and "gotcha's" leading up to the election - even those parroted by the President himself - came from the sorts of fake news mills that spun up during that time, a number of which can be traced to Russia.