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Russia's Prigozhin admits interfering in U.S. elections

mediumsmart 4y ago
It did not work everywhere: https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/11/putins-chef-ridicules-us-news-outlets-adds-election-interference-comedy-sketch.html https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/11/putins-chef-ridicules-...
jfengel 4y ago
Well, yeah. Of course. The question is, how much did it matter? It's impossible to tell without a control. The answer is almost certainly "more than zero", but I don't know if it's significantly more than that. Under Poe's Law, it's hard to tell a real extremist from a parody of an extremist. Trolls aren't doing anything to us that we're not doing to ourselves. Maybe they're doing it a little harder, and maybe they're doing it in a resonant way that turns a lot of little pushes into a big effect. But it's also entirely possible that they're just adding noise to a noisy system. American elections are nearly always close. It takes only a small nudge to have a large impact on the outcome. But there are also a lot of nudges, in both directions. I can't help but think of this article as chest-beating, precisely at a time when the election didn't especially go Russia's way. The result was mixed, at a time when the party in power was expected to lose dramatically. I do think America would be better off if we all learned to exclude the more obvious external trolling. But I also think we troll each other an awful lot, as a deliberate political strategy. It's a strategy that favors the status quo; it benefits those who don't want anything to change and makes coordination more difficult. Given the way it benefits some people, I don't see it changing any time soon. And the Russians can continue exploiting it, given how little it costs. But I'm not really sure it actually gives them any benefits compared to just letting us do it to ourselves.
082349872349872 4y ago
https://archive.ph/Ad3J2 https://archive.ph/Ad3J2 note the date
darthrupert 4y ago
Extremely good that they failed to affect the outcome this time, although they sure tried.

It did not work everywhere: https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/11/putins-chef-ridicules-us-news-outlets-adds-election-interference-comedy-sketch.html https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/11/putins-chef-ridicules-...

jfengel 4y ago

Well, yeah. Of course. The question is, how much did it matter? It's impossible to tell without a control. The answer is almost certainly "more than zero", but I don't know if it's significantly more than that. Under Poe's Law, it's hard to tell a real extremist from a parody of an extremist. Trolls aren't doing anything to us that we're not doing to ourselves. Maybe they're doing it a little harder, and maybe they're doing it in a resonant way that turns a lot of little pushes into a big effect. But it's also entirely possible that they're just adding noise to a noisy system. American elections are nearly always close. It takes only a small nudge to have a large impact on the outcome. But there are also a lot of nudges, in both directions. I can't help but think of this article as chest-beating, precisely at a time when the election didn't especially go Russia's way. The result was mixed, at a time when the party in power was expected to lose dramatically. I do think America would be better off if we all learned to exclude the more obvious external trolling. But I also think we troll each other an awful lot, as a deliberate political strategy. It's a strategy that favors the status quo; it benefits those who don't want anything to change and makes coordination more difficult. Given the way it benefits some people, I don't see it changing any time soon. And the Russians can continue exploiting it, given how little it costs. But I'm not really sure it actually gives them any benefits compared to just letting us do it to ourselves.

082349872349872 4y ago

https://archive.ph/Ad3J2 https://archive.ph/Ad3J2 note the date

darthrupert 4y ago

Extremely good that they failed to affect the outcome this time, although they sure tried.