How the Russians did it

  • Thread starter Thread starter Stephen_C
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

Stephen_C

Guest
money.cnn.com

How the Russians did it

A federal indictment against 13 Russian nationals provides new insight into how the Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-linked Russian troll group, set up a vast network of fake American activist groups and used the stolen identities of real Americans in an attempt to wreak havoc on the U.S...
money.cnn.com
 
Blaming the Russians is a neat excuse for not admitting we fix our own elections.
 
Stephen_C said:
Like I said in another thread The damage is already done…
Click to expand...
It is true that a great deal of damage has been done. However, the strength of this country is in our democratic institutions and our people. Although this threat is especially insidious in nature, the good news is that every American who values American institutions and American society has the power to combat an army of trolls bent on disrupting our natural affection for each other by corrupting free speech.

In many cases, all we have to do is ignore specious comments - of which there are two examples on this very page.

spe·cious
ˈspēSHəs/
adjective
  1. superficially plausible, but actually wrong.“a specious argument”
    • misleading in appearance, especially misleadingly attractive.“the music trade gives Golden Oldies a specious appearance of novelty”
      ◦ synonyms: ◦ misleading, deceptive, false, fallacious, unsound, spurious, casuistic, sophistic “specious reasoning”
 
Last edited:
I believe the word Trump used was “rigged.” And he used it during primary season.
 
Last edited:
The hyperbole is tiring.

Some apparently fake news articles is not “wreaking havoc” on the political system.
Even if a nefarious Soviet Govt was behind this, the research has shown fake news has little to no impact.

If there is a problem, fix it. But stop pretending it explains why Hillary lost.
It really wasn’t ‘her turn’.
 
Last edited:
Understood.

It is often embarrassing to admit we’ve been hoodwinked.
 
Hereiam said:
Understood.

It is often embarrassing to admit we’ve been hoodwinked.
Click to expand...
Yes as NPR discovered, Democrats were key players behind fake news. It was a bit of a shock to their investigative team.
 
To ignore the significance of the Russian meddling is to support Russian interference in our democracy, but maybe the worse travesty is that Trump & Co. have said and done nothing to try and protect our system even though we have an election is less than a year.

Where’s the outrage from those on the right? The 2016 election is over-- you won-- now maybe think about the impact of what doing nothing might be on the next election and why so many on the right really don’t seem to care. This shouldn’t even be debatable, so I won’t.
 
I think it would go a long way in neutralizing the enemy that we face if we pose the question this way: What is our government going to do to combat this threat?
 
Since I stand of facts, the ground is stable.
You are wobbling like a water balloon however.
 
Major world powers have been conducting these kinds of disinformation and disruption campaigns against rival powers for centuries. The US does it. There is evidence that the Obama administration actively worked against Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel’s elections. We regularly interfere in the national politics of other nations to protect and further the interests of the US and its allies. The Russians have done this to the US, Britain, France, and other US allies for years. China infiltrates the US much worse than Russia; they have basically unchecked access to a wide array of US confidential research, data and information; have done for years. Obama’s track record of dealing with China and/or Putin and Russian overreach is not great - I will leave it at that. He also failed to maintain US cybersecurity. These failures were a widely known source of embarrassment and amusement when he was in office. These are some of the things that made me realize I had made a mistake in supporting Obama.
 
Just curious. You think we can link the sinking of the Titanic to Obama? All I am going to say is we have the current setting President who for a year or so was calling this all fake new. And has failed to inforce the voted on and signed by him sanctions against Russia…
 
FollowChrist34 said:
China infiltrates the US much worse than Russia; they have basically unchecked access to a wide array of US confidential research, data and information; have done for years.
Click to expand...
Yet the media seems focused on Russian interference, which is much less.
FollowChrist34 said:
The US does it. There is evidence that the Obama administration actively worked against Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel’s elections. We regularly interfere in the national politics of other nations to protect and further the interests of the US and its allies.
Click to expand...
It is OK if the US does it.
 
Last edited:
HCTC said:
I think it would go a long way in neutralizing the enemy that we face if we pose the question this way: What is our government going to do to combat this threat?
Click to expand...
I think the preliminary question is “What is the threat?” Is it really a tiny bunch (relatively speaking) of tweets, some by people who didn’t use English properly and the expenditure of about 1/1000 of the amount the Clinton campaign alone spent, and in an effort that Clapper, Rosenstein and Comey all say had no effect on the election?

Or was it to lay the groundwork for even more hostility within the American political system, leading, ultimately to internal litigation, prosecution, and paralysis?

If one assumes the Russians are smart, and there’s more reason to think they are than that they’re not, it will not be the former. It will be the latter. The second has been very successful.
 
Ridgerunner said:
I think the preliminary question is “What is the threat?” Is it really a tiny bunch (relatively speaking) of tweets, some by people who didn’t use English properly and the expenditure of about 1/1000 of the amount the Clinton campaign alone spent, and in an effort that Clapper, Rosenstein and Comey all say had no effect on the election?
Click to expand...
In my opinion, there is no activity; no amount of money; no degree of criminality; no incursion of any kind that would cause you to believe that Russian interference in the 2016 election is a serious matter.

The total financial investment that Russia made in an effort to influence the outcome of the 2016 election is not given in the indictment. However, as a point of information, Project Lakhta (which included the troll farm as well as activities such as the purchase of online advertisement in the U.S.) was registered in Russia in July, 2013, and the 1.25 million in U.S. dollars was their MONTHLY BUDGET. You do the math.

In the unlikely event that you are interested in getting information from the source document, here is a link to the FBI indictment:
https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download
 
Last edited:
Never did I say I don’t think it’s a serious problem. I have, in fact, said I think it is, just not for the reason you think it is.

And again, if the WaPo interview with a St. Petersburg participant is to be credited, most of the group effort went to Russian publications for Russian audiences.

The indictment does not tell us the degree, if any, the troll farm or whatever one calls it, actually affected the U.S. election. If Clapper, Rosenstein and Comey didn’t think it did, why should I?

I have said before, and I’ll say again, it seems more likely to me that it represented an effort to cause or exacerbate political dissention in the U.S. In that, it has been spectacularly successful. The complaint itself says creating dissention and governmental disruption within the U.S. was the purpose.

And the effects are still evident right now. We have the president of the U.S. under continuous and disruptive investigation, and many an unproven allegation is being made and published about him. When virtually all of them is from an unnamed “source”, how do we know the “source” isn’t foreign too?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top