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I'm doing a dissertation on Russian propaganda, among other propagandas, so disclaimer for bias. I don't understand not caring about it, even were I not workin

I'm doing a dissertation on Russian propaganda, among other propagandas, so disclaimer for bias. I don't understand not caring about it, even were I not working on it. I was having discussions with friends in 2015/early 2016 where we were looking at stuff and it was obvious what was going on. The day after the election, Zuckerberg was saying it is "crazy" that Russians could have been involved. We've got something systematically wrong if the biggest tech companies in the world with all the data and resources either were oblivious to it (seems likely based on their reactions) or were aware of it but kept doing it because it made them money. By all accounts their ad tools actually made this especially easy. No country, much less one that considers itself a superpower should be willingly letting a foreign nation spread propaganda. That big moat called the Atlantic and all those resources don't matter if you you're gonna let them in the back door. This kind of naivety/ignorance is too common in the power centers of the US. Consider Obama getting outwitted by Putin and Clinton getting beat by an idiot like Trump. Maybe they aren't so clever after all. That Russia is doing that is annoying, what's offensive is that our leaders allowed it to happen, and what's disturbing is people either acting like it hasn't happened (evidence says otherwise) or just want to shrug it off. It's hard to say how much of the recent domestic unrest is being fueled by it.

mark_edward 9y ago
>No country, much less one that considers itself a superpower should be willingly letting a foreign nation spread propaganda. Is this a rule you apply equally or is it OK when we do it, like the ex-CIA director says [0]? Should the NED, VoA, Radio Free Asia, etc. all be shut down then? [0] http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/374372-ex-cia-director-us-meddles-in-foreign-elections-for-a-good http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/374372-ex-c...
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  I've got a general rule of not supporting propaganda. If I lived somewhere else I wouldn't want propaganda there either, but I don't, so... I'd rather it not be in my own country, especially because we've built the tools that have allowed it and have the power to stop it.
  - mark_edward 9y ago
    Fair enough. I see a lot of two-facedness on this.
skookumchuck 9y ago
The problem is, who says what is real news and what is fake news? Do you really want a Ministry of Truth? The history of such things is pretty bad. I'll take foreign propaganda over losing free speech rights.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Who is calling for restricting free speech? I'd be happy with people acknowledging it is happening instead of saying it's "nothing" or "McCarthyism" (see this thread). It does no good to lie to yourself. Some acknowledgement instead of denial is the first step towards...something.
scottlocklin 9y ago
Well, let me explain to you not caring about it: Israel and Saudi Arabia regularly run information warfare campaigns in the US, and actually influence election outcomes in obvious ways. For that matter the US has boasted of fixing the Russian elections in 1996, overtly committed a coup in Ukraine in 2014, and has attempted to do similar things since the fall of the soviet union for example by supporting evil murderous clowns like Khodorkovsky. So, if Russia took out a few ads or posted from twitter accounts; big deal. And that's assuming Russia (rather than Russian people acting on their own) did something -thus far 100% of the "evidence" for this sort of thing has turned out to be a big nothing burger. The media obsession with finding a Russian under every bed is absolute insanity; McCarthyism pales in comparison to this hysterical nonsense -communism was a real threat back then. It's also obviously organized: basically the same idiots telling us Putin is behind everything they don't like are the same idiots who sold us on the Syrian war, Iraq and so on. I mean, we have Rob Reiner, aka meathead telling us anyone who doubts the former heads of the CIA is a traitor. This is NUTS.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  I don't want to be too rude, but you are being willfully ignorant if you believe it's not happening. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/16/us/politics/russia-propaganda-election-2016.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/16/us/politics/r... https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/now-available-more-200-000-deleted-russian-troll-tweets-n844731?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/now-available-more... You're free to debunk these and a hundred other sources, but there's something there. Do you really belive an ex KGB officer doesn't use some KGB tactics? That a nation with major economic disadvantages isn't going to rely on alternative methods of attack? Not looking to get into a whataboutist argument. The US has done shady stuff, plenty of it. Propaganda is in no way limited to the Russians.
  - scottlocklin 9y ago
    Go look up the term "Gish Gallop" -that's the substance of the "Russia is responsible for everything I don't like" conspiracy theory you're writing your dissertation on. I agree there is something there: just like there was "something there" when these same clowns were selling us the Iraq war. The "something" isn't actual evidence which exists in the corporeal world: it's manufactured nonsense. I mean, the very absurdity of the accusations on display here: OMG RUSSIANS DID THINGS ON TWITTER AND SOCIAL MEDIA. FWIIW same story with the "all of our intelligence agencies agree" dossier; basically, Russia Today exists. Russia Today, now listed under FARA laws. Somehow the WSJ and WaPo Saudi/Israeli amen chorus manages to escape FARA -wonder how they managed to do this?
watwut 9y ago
Your leaders cant stop it from happening and any attempt to stop it would make free speech situation much worst then attempts to punish hate speech everyone complains about. Because Russian trolls boil down to speech - speech and could and should have been countered by local speech (which is much better funded anyway). Speech that is not much unlike America paying various political parties around the world (also for sides I liked and agreed with). Yes, purposeful conflict creating is annoying and problem, but it does not seem like Russians caused those divisions in the first place. It mostly all seem to be an attempt to blame Russia for internal problems.
- asdf1234 9y ago
  > It mostly all seem to be an attempt to blame Russia for internal problems. Agreed. The vast majority of the time I see Russia brought up it's being used by mainstream Democrats to dismiss criticism from both the right and the left. Basically anyone that's not a staunch neoliberal gets accused of being a Russian or a Russian puppet. They're using it as a scapegoat and it seems to be working.
lrc 9y ago
So much is hiding behind the word "allow" in your last paragraph. On balance I think it's a good thing that elite purveyors of propaganda are losing their ability to brand their product as something other than what it is.
oldandtired 9y ago
Propaganda is a fact of life. It occurs at every level in every field. It is up to the individual to look at what is being said and determine for themselves what is relevant. So what if a foreign government or foreign company or foreign group takes out advertisements or reveals "information" during any election or other event. Considering the "facts" that are "revealed" by opposing political sides during the pre-election period or during pre-legislative processes, there is no functional or ethical difference. As one of your respondents pointed out with the question regarding "good for the goose, good for the gander", any group including governments cannot point the finger, if they themselves are actively involved in what they are decrying of others. You appear to forget that national elections have effects that are extra-territorial, so those extra-territorial affected entities are going to act on their own behalf. The US regularly spreads propaganda during the elections of other sovereign nations, so if you don't want the reverse to happen it is up to you to stand up and fight against your own nation doing it to others.
jack9 9y ago
Having the ability to allow new ideas to emerge and having a government filter to prevent the wrong ideas, are fundamentally in opposition. I look forward to ignoring your paper until The Ministry of Truth approves it's not secrete propaganda, since you did use term "Russian".
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Never suggested that. That you can't suggest that there might be a legit propaganda problem without people assuming you are calling for restrictions on free speech is absurd. I'm very emphatically not about that. There's so many tangents not even responding to my post that I'm sorry to have said anything at all.
  - jack9 9y ago
    Never suggested that. You did. Now you want to argue about the phrasing. > That you can't suggest that there might be a legit propaganda problem What problem? That free speech has an unintended consequences that those in power would not want? That it might result in a society that isn't insularly protected from outside signal? Color me shocked.

mark_edward 9y ago

>No country, much less one that considers itself a superpower should be willingly letting a foreign nation spread propaganda. Is this a rule you apply equally or is it OK when we do it, like the ex-CIA director says [0]? Should the NED, VoA, Radio Free Asia, etc. all be shut down then? [0] http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/374372-ex-cia-director-us-meddles-in-foreign-elections-for-a-good http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/374372-ex-c...

aaron-lebo 9y ago
I've got a general rule of not supporting propaganda. If I lived somewhere else I wouldn't want propaganda there either, but I don't, so... I'd rather it not be in my own country, especially because we've built the tools that have allowed it and have the power to stop it.
- mark_edward 9y ago
  Fair enough. I see a lot of two-facedness on this.

skookumchuck 9y ago

The problem is, who says what is real news and what is fake news? Do you really want a Ministry of Truth? The history of such things is pretty bad. I'll take foreign propaganda over losing free speech rights.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
Who is calling for restricting free speech? I'd be happy with people acknowledging it is happening instead of saying it's "nothing" or "McCarthyism" (see this thread). It does no good to lie to yourself. Some acknowledgement instead of denial is the first step towards...something.

scottlocklin 9y ago

Well, let me explain to you not caring about it: Israel and Saudi Arabia regularly run information warfare campaigns in the US, and actually influence election outcomes in obvious ways. For that matter the US has boasted of fixing the Russian elections in 1996, overtly committed a coup in Ukraine in 2014, and has attempted to do similar things since the fall of the soviet union for example by supporting evil murderous clowns like Khodorkovsky. So, if Russia took out a few ads or posted from twitter accounts; big deal. And that's assuming Russia (rather than Russian people acting on their own) did something -thus far 100% of the "evidence" for this sort of thing has turned out to be a big nothing burger. The media obsession with finding a Russian under every bed is absolute insanity; McCarthyism pales in comparison to this hysterical nonsense -communism was a real threat back then. It's also obviously organized: basically the same idiots telling us Putin is behind everything they don't like are the same idiots who sold us on the Syrian war, Iraq and so on. I mean, we have Rob Reiner, aka meathead telling us anyone who doubts the former heads of the CIA is a traitor. This is NUTS.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
I don't want to be too rude, but you are being willfully ignorant if you believe it's not happening. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/16/us/politics/russia-propaganda-election-2016.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/16/us/politics/r... https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/now-available-more-200-000-deleted-russian-troll-tweets-n844731?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/now-available-more... You're free to debunk these and a hundred other sources, but there's something there. Do you really belive an ex KGB officer doesn't use some KGB tactics? That a nation with major economic disadvantages isn't going to rely on alternative methods of attack? Not looking to get into a whataboutist argument. The US has done shady stuff, plenty of it. Propaganda is in no way limited to the Russians.
- scottlocklin 9y ago
  Go look up the term "Gish Gallop" -that's the substance of the "Russia is responsible for everything I don't like" conspiracy theory you're writing your dissertation on. I agree there is something there: just like there was "something there" when these same clowns were selling us the Iraq war. The "something" isn't actual evidence which exists in the corporeal world: it's manufactured nonsense. I mean, the very absurdity of the accusations on display here: OMG RUSSIANS DID THINGS ON TWITTER AND SOCIAL MEDIA. FWIIW same story with the "all of our intelligence agencies agree" dossier; basically, Russia Today exists. Russia Today, now listed under FARA laws. Somehow the WSJ and WaPo Saudi/Israeli amen chorus manages to escape FARA -wonder how they managed to do this?

watwut 9y ago

Your leaders cant stop it from happening and any attempt to stop it would make free speech situation much worst then attempts to punish hate speech everyone complains about. Because Russian trolls boil down to speech - speech and could and should have been countered by local speech (which is much better funded anyway). Speech that is not much unlike America paying various political parties around the world (also for sides I liked and agreed with). Yes, purposeful conflict creating is annoying and problem, but it does not seem like Russians caused those divisions in the first place. It mostly all seem to be an attempt to blame Russia for internal problems.

asdf1234 9y ago
> It mostly all seem to be an attempt to blame Russia for internal problems. Agreed. The vast majority of the time I see Russia brought up it's being used by mainstream Democrats to dismiss criticism from both the right and the left. Basically anyone that's not a staunch neoliberal gets accused of being a Russian or a Russian puppet. They're using it as a scapegoat and it seems to be working.

lrc 9y ago

So much is hiding behind the word "allow" in your last paragraph. On balance I think it's a good thing that elite purveyors of propaganda are losing their ability to brand their product as something other than what it is.

oldandtired 9y ago

Propaganda is a fact of life. It occurs at every level in every field. It is up to the individual to look at what is being said and determine for themselves what is relevant. So what if a foreign government or foreign company or foreign group takes out advertisements or reveals "information" during any election or other event. Considering the "facts" that are "revealed" by opposing political sides during the pre-election period or during pre-legislative processes, there is no functional or ethical difference. As one of your respondents pointed out with the question regarding "good for the goose, good for the gander", any group including governments cannot point the finger, if they themselves are actively involved in what they are decrying of others. You appear to forget that national elections have effects that are extra-territorial, so those extra-territorial affected entities are going to act on their own behalf. The US regularly spreads propaganda during the elections of other sovereign nations, so if you don't want the reverse to happen it is up to you to stand up and fight against your own nation doing it to others.

jack9 9y ago

Having the ability to allow new ideas to emerge and having a government filter to prevent the wrong ideas, are fundamentally in opposition. I look forward to ignoring your paper until The Ministry of Truth approves it's not secrete propaganda, since you did use term "Russian".

aaron-lebo 9y ago
Never suggested that. That you can't suggest that there might be a legit propaganda problem without people assuming you are calling for restrictions on free speech is absurd. I'm very emphatically not about that. There's so many tangents not even responding to my post that I'm sorry to have said anything at all.
- jack9 9y ago
  Never suggested that. You did. Now you want to argue about the phrasing. > That you can't suggest that there might be a legit propaganda problem What problem? That free speech has an unintended consequences that those in power would not want? That it might result in a society that isn't insularly protected from outside signal? Color me shocked.