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First of all, the story has actually changed a couple of times. So if you really want to understand the timeline - you are going to need to refer to archives o

by terryd 8y ago

First of all, the story has actually changed a couple of times. So if you really want to understand the timeline - you are going to need to refer to archives of those articles. Second, the "small experiment" had a budget of at least $100k that they are willing to admit to - traceable money that flowed through people related to the USDS and DoJ. You know that Obama repealed the ban on domestic propaganda before he left office, right? I couldn't tell you the number of times a counter-intel op leaked into domestic media (PopSci was really bad about it) - and months of work would instantly go up in smoke as the operation got scuttled, it makes me sick thinking that is no longer the case. New Knowledge's objective was to deceive voters. That is damage that can't be undone, they even tricked the media (a disappointingly easy task) into spreading the lie. If you can't see something very wrong with this, well you'll be just fine in cold-war 2.0 - we can pick up where we left off in government experimentation on an unwitting public. MKULTRA 2 electricboogaloo. I'm sure its been a while since we updated our nuclear/biological/chemical weapons models... so long as it doesn't affect the public by a statistically significant amount - we should be fine to resume the 1970s practice of releasing airborne pathogens over major American population centers, doubling the number of deaths in the elderly.

eridius 8y ago
> New Knowledge's objective was to deceive voters. From reading the article, the group's¹ objective wasn't to deceive voters, it was to research how these tactics worked. Are you suggesting that a single $100k research project was sufficient to alter the course of an election with a $51M advertising budget? As near as I can tell, that's just how the right-wing media is trying to spin it. Certainly if I were to actually try and alter the outcome of an election like this, I'd expect to be spending a lot more than $100k to do so. That said, I find it hard to believe you're arguing in good faith when you're drawing parallels between a limited spread of misinformation centered around a single event with literally murdering people. ¹Which seems to have involved at least one New Knowledge member but it seems wasn't actually run by New Knowledge.
- terryd 8y ago
  > ...the group's¹ objective wasn't to deceive voters... "The report does not say whether the project purchased the Russian bot Twitter accounts that suddenly began to follow Mr. Moore. But it takes credit for “radicalizing Democrats with a Russian bot scandal” and points to stories on the phenomenon in the mainstream media. “Roy Moore flooded with fake Russian Twitter followers,” reported The New York Post." Deception. > Which seems to have involved at least one New Knowledge member but it seems wasn't actually run by New Knowledge. Reid Hoffman, the billionaire funding AET wrote an apology. What does he have to apologize for? Well he paid AET $750k, AET paid New Knowledge at least $100k of that to run this disinformation campaign. So you can knock it off with the "at least one member... seems wasn't run by New Knowledge..." Obviously my patience has run thin on this - it has been proven that Morgan is a liar and that New Knowledge was deeply involved. https://medium.com/@reidhoffman/truth-and-politics-1a532bc6c2b1 https://medium.com/@reidhoffman/truth-and-politics-1a532bc6c... As I said, they've change their story more than once. When Morgan was pressed on the leaked internal report's clearly political goals, he said that "it didn't ring a bell". Oh, and go check out their release of the report they provided the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in December. What, you didn't know that this politically motivated organization with an agenda was asked to inform the Senate about Russian interference in US election? Yeah, they were - and did, in December. Checkout the timestamp on that pdf - not December... weird... > That said, I find it hard to believe you're arguing in good faith when you're drawing parallels between a limited spread of misinformation centered around a single event with literally murdering people. When you say "limited spread" do you actually mean "completely unrestrained"? And no. I find it hard to believe that you don't see the parallels between the justifications for unethical experimentation conducted on an unwitting population during the cold war, and the rationalization you've provided in this thread. It has nothing to do with deaths, it has everything to do with the ethics and the non-zero cost to individuals. In the cold war a statistically insignificant portion of the population involuntarily paid a heavy price, in this "experiment" (it wasn't, the leak shows it was a political action) a statistically insignificant portion of the population was convinced that their president was a traitorous Russian agent and driven mad with impotent rage.
  - eridius 8y ago

by terryd 8y ago

eridius 8y ago

> New Knowledge's objective was to deceive voters. From reading the article, the group's¹ objective wasn't to deceive voters, it was to research how these tactics worked. Are you suggesting that a single $100k research project was sufficient to alter the course of an election with a $51M advertising budget? As near as I can tell, that's just how the right-wing media is trying to spin it. Certainly if I were to actually try and alter the outcome of an election like this, I'd expect to be spending a lot more than $100k to do so. That said, I find it hard to believe you're arguing in good faith when you're drawing parallels between a limited spread of misinformation centered around a single event with literally murdering people. ¹Which seems to have involved at least one New Knowledge member but it seems wasn't actually run by New Knowledge.

terryd 8y ago
> ...the group's¹ objective wasn't to deceive voters... "The report does not say whether the project purchased the Russian bot Twitter accounts that suddenly began to follow Mr. Moore. But it takes credit for “radicalizing Democrats with a Russian bot scandal” and points to stories on the phenomenon in the mainstream media. “Roy Moore flooded with fake Russian Twitter followers,” reported The New York Post." Deception. > Which seems to have involved at least one New Knowledge member but it seems wasn't actually run by New Knowledge. Reid Hoffman, the billionaire funding AET wrote an apology. What does he have to apologize for? Well he paid AET $750k, AET paid New Knowledge at least $100k of that to run this disinformation campaign. So you can knock it off with the "at least one member... seems wasn't run by New Knowledge..." Obviously my patience has run thin on this - it has been proven that Morgan is a liar and that New Knowledge was deeply involved. https://medium.com/@reidhoffman/truth-and-politics-1a532bc6c2b1 https://medium.com/@reidhoffman/truth-and-politics-1a532bc6c... As I said, they've change their story more than once. When Morgan was pressed on the leaked internal report's clearly political goals, he said that "it didn't ring a bell". Oh, and go check out their release of the report they provided the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in December. What, you didn't know that this politically motivated organization with an agenda was asked to inform the Senate about Russian interference in US election? Yeah, they were - and did, in December. Checkout the timestamp on that pdf - not December... weird... > That said, I find it hard to believe you're arguing in good faith when you're drawing parallels between a limited spread of misinformation centered around a single event with literally murdering people. When you say "limited spread" do you actually mean "completely unrestrained"? And no. I find it hard to believe that you don't see the parallels between the justifications for unethical experimentation conducted on an unwitting population during the cold war, and the rationalization you've provided in this thread. It has nothing to do with deaths, it has everything to do with the ethics and the non-zero cost to individuals. In the cold war a statistically insignificant portion of the population involuntarily paid a heavy price, in this "experiment" (it wasn't, the leak shows it was a political action) a statistically insignificant portion of the population was convinced that their president was a traitorous Russian agent and driven mad with impotent rage.
- eridius 8y ago