7 ms·
A group of teens purportedly using TikTok to troll the president's rally is not election campaign interference.
by staticassertion 6y ago
A group of teens purportedly using TikTok to troll the president's rally is not election campaign interference.
- blfr 6y agoWhy is it not when Facebook ads purchased by foreigners are considered to be?
- jussij 6y agoIn the former case all the teenagers did was send in an RSVP indicating they would attend knowing full well they would not be doing so. In the later case foreign entities were spreading misinformation in an attempt to undermine candidates, in they hope they could change the outcome of an election. The later was a direct attack on the election process, the former was a direct attack on the president's ego.
- blfr 6y agoSending false RSVPs is exactly spreading misinformation to undermine a candidate by making his support seem smaller than it is through crowding out real potential participants. Don't get me wrong. I think it's pretty funny but I don't think this option is available to someone lamenting Facebook ads.
- didibus 6y agoThey were American?
- kanox 6y agoThis is not a good standard.
- jefftk 6y agoWhether or not it's a good standard, it means it's not "election campaign interference sponsored/enabled by a foreign government"
- fiblye 6y agoAmericans getting involved in their own electoral process is kind of hard to consider as electoral interference. Non-Americans living outside of America using money to sway things is quite different.
- kanox 6y agoNo, foreigners should be completely free to campaign in elections.
- monadic2 6y agoThat's not election interference either, at least not unusual election interference for powerful nations, much like we do abroad (hell just look at the 1996 Russian Federation election). It was certainly a miniscule ad spend compared to republican pac spending. The democrats just don't want to admit why they lost: they couldn't convince enough people to vote for their candidate.
- briandear 6y agoThey weren’t trolling. They were actively preventing people from attending. Trade “Trump” for “Biden” and see if the opinion changes. If a Russian company enabled the sabotage of a Democrat rally, would we be having this same conversation? That’s the problem with these debates, “the means justify the ends” is all that matters. It isn’t about fairness or what’s correct. The Chinese ban Tiananmen Square stuff (and ugly people,) on TikTok, yet they allow “teens” to interfere with an American political campaign.