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Well, there were studies showing the impact was minimal to zero - that it reached very few people, constituted a fraction of a percentage of total political con

by aksss 8y ago

Well, there were studies showing the impact was minimal to zero - that it reached very few people, constituted a fraction of a percentage of total political content on social media, and those it did reach were already likely to be hyper-partisan. https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/1/27/14266228/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-fake-news-media-2016-election https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/1/27/14266228/donald-... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/health/fake-news-conservative-liberal.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/health/fake-news-conserva... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/upshot/fake-news-and-bots-may-be-worrisome-but-their-political-power-is-overblown.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/upshot/fake-news-and-bots... And then there's the DNI report, which if you actually read, paints a pretty lame picture of what actually happened, and in no way supports the idea that the election was impacted.

gph 8y ago
I hadn't seen these sources, thanks. Guess I'll have to update my priors a bit.
52-6F-62 8y ago
It's not the fake news reports that were the effective tactic. That was one of many they used in the attack (if you will). This article is from within days of the one you posted: https://www.wired.com/story/did-russia-affect-the-2016-election-its-now-undeniable/ https://www.wired.com/story/did-russia-affect-the-2016-elect... It covers the other tactics used and how they were successful—namely false identities. The US intelligence community saw it as enough of a threat going forward they acted for the 2018 midterm elections: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/02/disrupted-russian-trolls-day-november-election-report-190226175659275.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/02/disrupted-russian-tro... The identities used were things like sockpuppet accounts and fake communities set up to look as if there was more virulent discord already organically occurring and dragging legitimate online communities and identities into the same discord. Here in Canada CSIS has put out warnings for Canadians leading up to the federal election later this year about that very thing. They said it would happen, and now Canadian online communities are devolving into trolling and anger and vitriol like there never was. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/twitter-troll-pipeline-immigrant-russia-iran-1.5014750 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/twitter-troll-pipeline-immigr... https://globalnews.ca/news/4518563/canada-target-russian-troll-warns-vigilant/ https://globalnews.ca/news/4518563/canada-target-russian-tro... edit: Formatting
- aksss 8y ago
  We need to be careful of reading too much into the wired article. First, the article makes statements like this, "So anyone trying to tell you there was little impact on political views from the tools the Russians used doesn't know. Because none of us knows." Well, actually the aforementioned studies shed some good light on the impact of fake news stories, and soundly debunk the idea that they were influential in the election. I'll take studies from universities over an opining Wired article any day. The main thrust of the Wired article is that there were different tactics, but they had different goals. The article is saying almost explicitly that these other tactics didn't (and weren't designed to) change people's minds (e.g. sway an election). They were designed to foment conflict between groups already opposed, e.g. orchestrating protests for two opposing groups at the same street corner, turning opposing thought into violent action. To what degree this was organic after 2016 vs catalyzed by Russia is a great question to dig into, but it shouldn't be conflated with tipping a vote. Being that I'm rather condemnatory of any of these protest movements as futile and counter-productive shit-stirring or worse, I'm not terribly surprised about or sympathetic towards the "victims". Edit: quoted some silliness from Wired article
  - 52-6F-62 8y ago
    The political views impacted were indirectly affected by the aforementioned online communities. Whatever the design of the groups, the resultant effects have been overwhelmingly political. I don't know much about Ms. McKew as a writer other than she was present during the Russia-Georgia problems and would have been witness first-hand to Russia's prototyping of these kinds of tactics, as well as she's written for other reputable outlets like the Washington Post and was interviewed for Harvard Political Review[0][1]. Couple that with not only our intelligence agencies, or even the five eyes, but other national agencies like the AIVD (Netherlands) have all confirmed that this is happening. They aren't exactly green. And while I would be remiss to just dismiss a university study, I don't know who the researchers were, their methods, or their scope. If it's only about the fake news items, that stuff was almost passé by the time these other tactics really took hold. If you take a look at the CBC article and the timing of the attacks (for lack of a better word), they aligned quite tidily with a continuing stream of anti-immigrant conversations online to the point where those vitriolic approaches to the subject of immigration were wrapped up in the yellow-vest marches here. [0] http://harvardpolitics.com/interviews/molly-mckew/ http://harvardpolitics.com/interviews/molly-mckew/ [1] She's also a particularly prominant subject of attack for various [outspokenly] right-wing outlets and pro-Russian sources. It doesn't take much of a search to find that.

by aksss 8y ago

gph 8y ago

I hadn't seen these sources, thanks. Guess I'll have to update my priors a bit.

52-6F-62 8y ago

It's not the fake news reports that were the effective tactic. That was one of many they used in the attack (if you will). This article is from within days of the one you posted: https://www.wired.com/story/did-russia-affect-the-2016-election-its-now-undeniable/ https://www.wired.com/story/did-russia-affect-the-2016-elect... It covers the other tactics used and how they were successful—namely false identities. The US intelligence community saw it as enough of a threat going forward they acted for the 2018 midterm elections: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/02/disrupted-russian-trolls-day-november-election-report-190226175659275.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/02/disrupted-russian-tro... The identities used were things like sockpuppet accounts and fake communities set up to look as if there was more virulent discord already organically occurring and dragging legitimate online communities and identities into the same discord. Here in Canada CSIS has put out warnings for Canadians leading up to the federal election later this year about that very thing. They said it would happen, and now Canadian online communities are devolving into trolling and anger and vitriol like there never was. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/twitter-troll-pipeline-immigrant-russia-iran-1.5014750 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/twitter-troll-pipeline-immigr... https://globalnews.ca/news/4518563/canada-target-russian-troll-warns-vigilant/ https://globalnews.ca/news/4518563/canada-target-russian-tro... edit: Formatting

aksss 8y ago
We need to be careful of reading too much into the wired article. First, the article makes statements like this, "So anyone trying to tell you there was little impact on political views from the tools the Russians used doesn't know. Because none of us knows." Well, actually the aforementioned studies shed some good light on the impact of fake news stories, and soundly debunk the idea that they were influential in the election. I'll take studies from universities over an opining Wired article any day. The main thrust of the Wired article is that there were different tactics, but they had different goals. The article is saying almost explicitly that these other tactics didn't (and weren't designed to) change people's minds (e.g. sway an election). They were designed to foment conflict between groups already opposed, e.g. orchestrating protests for two opposing groups at the same street corner, turning opposing thought into violent action. To what degree this was organic after 2016 vs catalyzed by Russia is a great question to dig into, but it shouldn't be conflated with tipping a vote. Being that I'm rather condemnatory of any of these protest movements as futile and counter-productive shit-stirring or worse, I'm not terribly surprised about or sympathetic towards the "victims". Edit: quoted some silliness from Wired article
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  The political views impacted were indirectly affected by the aforementioned online communities. Whatever the design of the groups, the resultant effects have been overwhelmingly political. I don't know much about Ms. McKew as a writer other than she was present during the Russia-Georgia problems and would have been witness first-hand to Russia's prototyping of these kinds of tactics, as well as she's written for other reputable outlets like the Washington Post and was interviewed for Harvard Political Review[0][1]. Couple that with not only our intelligence agencies, or even the five eyes, but other national agencies like the AIVD (Netherlands) have all confirmed that this is happening. They aren't exactly green. And while I would be remiss to just dismiss a university study, I don't know who the researchers were, their methods, or their scope. If it's only about the fake news items, that stuff was almost passé by the time these other tactics really took hold. If you take a look at the CBC article and the timing of the attacks (for lack of a better word), they aligned quite tidily with a continuing stream of anti-immigrant conversations online to the point where those vitriolic approaches to the subject of immigration were wrapped up in the yellow-vest marches here. [0] http://harvardpolitics.com/interviews/molly-mckew/ http://harvardpolitics.com/interviews/molly-mckew/ [1] She's also a particularly prominant subject of attack for various [outspokenly] right-wing outlets and pro-Russian sources. It doesn't take much of a search to find that.