3 ms·

One thing to maybe help, whenever you read “Russian interference” just replace it with “Russian Facebook Ads” and see how ridiculous it sounds. The argument is

One thing to maybe help, whenever you read “Russian interference” just replace it with “Russian Facebook Ads” and see how ridiculous it sounds. The argument is that US citizens were swayed by shitty Facebook ads to vote differently? This does not reconcile with the historically small fraction of US swing voters, and also leads to a flawed mindset of “I’m smarter than those dumb people over there”. The winner in 2016 pitched themselves as an “outsider” for the masses, and sure was propelled by memes which are non-traditional. Even if you disagree with the winner, sometimes excuses like blaming Russia are just lies told to feel better.

lern_too_spel 5y ago
It wasn't Facebook ads. It was an army of trolls creating, sharing, and upvoting "fake news" articles tricking gullible people into thinking that Hillary molested children underneath a pizza parlor and tricking other suggestible people into thinking people said the problem was Facebook ads. I was on Reddit at the time, and 90% of commenters believed that the Correct the Record PAC was illegally astroturfing Reddit, despite lacking any evidence, or were trolls pretending that they believed the PAC was astroturfing.
- sweetbitter 5y ago
  > It was an army of trolls Colloquially known as '/pol/'.
  - lern_too_spel 5y ago
    The Senate intelligence committee found otherwise: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume2.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu... It explicitly called out GP's misunderstanding: "The Committee found that paid advertisements were not key to the IRA's activity, and moreover, are not alone an accurate measure of the IRA's operational scope, scale, or objectives, despite this aspect of social media being a focus of early press reporting and public awareness."
- t-3 5y ago
  People didn't need whackjob conspiracies to hate Clinton, she earned that over many years in the public spotlight. If Trump hadn't said so much offensive stuff that directly insulted me on multiple levels, I would have voted for him just to be sure she didn't win. I think a lot of D-leaning people really don't understand how abhorrent the establishment politicians and foreign policy of their party are to anti-war, non-nationalist leftists.
  - lern_too_spel 5y ago
    Except Clinton was wildly popular before the trolls amplified attacks against her with crazy conspiracy theories about her emails, having by far the highest approval rating among the field in July 2015. https://news.gallup.com/poll/185324/hillary-clinton-favorable-rating-one-worst.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/185324/hillary-clinton-favorabl...
    - t-3 5y ago
      What conspiracy? It's an absolute fact that she illegally used a private email server for official correspondence.
      - lern_too_spel 5y ago
        The conspiracy theories were the wild claims about the contents of the emails. Measured against other political scandals, the fact that she did unclassified email correspondence (as all email correspondence in the State Department is) on her own email server was minor enough to not warrant charges as Comey's investigation concluded. https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/17/politics/state-department-email-breach/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/17/politics/state-department-ema...
sgustard 5y ago
Not just swing voters. A lot of the effort is increasing voter turnout for your favored side.

lern_too_spel 5y ago

It wasn't Facebook ads. It was an army of trolls creating, sharing, and upvoting "fake news" articles tricking gullible people into thinking that Hillary molested children underneath a pizza parlor and tricking other suggestible people into thinking people said the problem was Facebook ads. I was on Reddit at the time, and 90% of commenters believed that the Correct the Record PAC was illegally astroturfing Reddit, despite lacking any evidence, or were trolls pretending that they believed the PAC was astroturfing.

sweetbitter 5y ago
> It was an army of trolls Colloquially known as '/pol/'.
- lern_too_spel 5y ago
  The Senate intelligence committee found otherwise: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume2.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu... It explicitly called out GP's misunderstanding: "The Committee found that paid advertisements were not key to the IRA's activity, and moreover, are not alone an accurate measure of the IRA's operational scope, scale, or objectives, despite this aspect of social media being a focus of early press reporting and public awareness."
t-3 5y ago
People didn't need whackjob conspiracies to hate Clinton, she earned that over many years in the public spotlight. If Trump hadn't said so much offensive stuff that directly insulted me on multiple levels, I would have voted for him just to be sure she didn't win. I think a lot of D-leaning people really don't understand how abhorrent the establishment politicians and foreign policy of their party are to anti-war, non-nationalist leftists.
- lern_too_spel 5y ago
  Except Clinton was wildly popular before the trolls amplified attacks against her with crazy conspiracy theories about her emails, having by far the highest approval rating among the field in July 2015. https://news.gallup.com/poll/185324/hillary-clinton-favorable-rating-one-worst.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/185324/hillary-clinton-favorabl...
  - t-3 5y ago
    What conspiracy? It's an absolute fact that she illegally used a private email server for official correspondence.
    - lern_too_spel 5y ago
      The conspiracy theories were the wild claims about the contents of the emails. Measured against other political scandals, the fact that she did unclassified email correspondence (as all email correspondence in the State Department is) on her own email server was minor enough to not warrant charges as Comey's investigation concluded. https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/17/politics/state-department-email-breach/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/17/politics/state-department-ema...

sgustard 5y ago

Not just swing voters. A lot of the effort is increasing voter turnout for your favored side.