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This year is election year in Sweden and we know the Russians spread disinformation during the Finnish election through social media. They’ve had plenty of prac

by pimmen 9y ago

This year is election year in Sweden and we know the Russians spread disinformation during the Finnish election through social media. They’ve had plenty of practice for taking on our small country. Denmark, Norway and Finland have a populist, far right party in their respective government coalition, Sweden and Iceland are the only Nordic countries that have resisted. I fear this will stop being the case. The Sweden Democrats are already polling highly and something bad, anything, wether it’s a recession after this long bull market or a politically charged murder could quickly be blamed on immigration and spread like wildfire on social media by people who love simple answers to complicated questions.

chronic193 9y ago
> wether it’s a recession after this long bull market or a politically charged murder could quickly be blamed on immigration and spread like wildfire on social media by people who love simple answers to complicated questions. Sorry to burst your warm heart of not hurting anyone's feelings, but immigration is the cause. It will soon expand to the US and the entire "progressive" agenda will implode on itself.
qbaqbaqba 9y ago
Aren't you overestimating facebook influence and underestimating the real life? If "evil Russia" is spreading misinformation isn't it a great opportunity for traditional media to expose and correct the misinformation? Censorship will mate the matter only worse.
- pimmen 9y ago
  I don't really think I am underestimating it, we can see a clear connection between supporters of Trump (and other far-right populist politicians) and the disinformation they've received from Russia. I'm not suggesting Russia started the angry movements that are dismissive of experts and government officials to begin with but they could potentially swing other people to join the already existing movement. We already know this is possible. The media has managed to influence elections multiple times, so has celebrities and religious officials (in Sweden, one of our most beloved children's books authors is credited with influencing the 1976 election a lot) and Facebook makes the angry person with a catchy meme as influential for a few weeks. The thing is that too many don't trust traditional media even when it's revealed Russia were influencing elections. As the piece stated, more than 30% of Americans believe Russian meddling in the US election is fake news, even though the US intelligence community has no doubt they were involved. 30% is absolutely enough to swing an election. So, I'm not really suggesting censorship, neither is the opinion piece linked in the OP. Let Facebook be responsible for the defamation resulting from these malicious posts and you can bet your ass they'll throw money at stomping out this problem.

by pimmen 9y ago

chronic193 9y ago

> wether it’s a recession after this long bull market or a politically charged murder could quickly be blamed on immigration and spread like wildfire on social media by people who love simple answers to complicated questions. Sorry to burst your warm heart of not hurting anyone's feelings, but immigration is the cause. It will soon expand to the US and the entire "progressive" agenda will implode on itself.

qbaqbaqba 9y ago

Aren't you overestimating facebook influence and underestimating the real life? If "evil Russia" is spreading misinformation isn't it a great opportunity for traditional media to expose and correct the misinformation? Censorship will mate the matter only worse.

pimmen 9y ago
I don't really think I am underestimating it, we can see a clear connection between supporters of Trump (and other far-right populist politicians) and the disinformation they've received from Russia. I'm not suggesting Russia started the angry movements that are dismissive of experts and government officials to begin with but they could potentially swing other people to join the already existing movement. We already know this is possible. The media has managed to influence elections multiple times, so has celebrities and religious officials (in Sweden, one of our most beloved children's books authors is credited with influencing the 1976 election a lot) and Facebook makes the angry person with a catchy meme as influential for a few weeks. The thing is that too many don't trust traditional media even when it's revealed Russia were influencing elections. As the piece stated, more than 30% of Americans believe Russian meddling in the US election is fake news, even though the US intelligence community has no doubt they were involved. 30% is absolutely enough to swing an election. So, I'm not really suggesting censorship, neither is the opinion piece linked in the OP. Let Facebook be responsible for the defamation resulting from these malicious posts and you can bet your ass they'll throw money at stomping out this problem.