I also tend to use google, fact check, etc when something seems not quite right. If becoming annoyed is being manipulated, then perhaps I have been manipulated from time to time.

I remember during the election seeing crazy stuff on Facebook saying Hillary would be arrested anyday. A couple of times I started to become negative about Hillary but then realized it was bs.

Same here

... the constant smears and attacks on the Democratic party and our party's leaders ALL help to create distrust. Every attempt to divide and weaken our party benefits the GOP and by extension, Russia. I won't name-names for obvious reasons.

attack on her, that is a signal.

That is a sign.

That is SUPPOSED to tell us something, yet even you know WHERE this shit is allowed over and over and over again.

And then when I SUPPORT democrats and get called MINDLESS and SILLY, for all to see...what the fuck is going on here?

You have to take the time to analyze the criticism, the source, what their proposed fix is etc. Mindlessly saying if the person doesn't agree with you that the are Russian influenced is silly.

Russian trolls are pushing many of the attacks on Pelosi https://www.politicususa.com/2018/08/25/putin-pelosi-progressives.html

they are

ANY attack on Nancy tells me all I need to know about the person making it.

Since it is now CLEAR that the Russians and GOP are leading that attack, I dont know what else to say

Who they want to remain in place is obvious, as the Mueller investigation has revealed.

by someone on the right, and not confirming the information.

Even though I call them all liars all the time, I do sometimes assume they cant all lie about everything, can they?

Turns out they can.

Many are taken in like you say though, these attacks on Pelosi ALL comes from Russia and a certain group on the left here in America.

When in reality he was announcing his retirement from public life.

I figured it out eventually, but they had me convinced they were the squeaky clean haven of whistleblowers.

For a terminal 10 year old girl who said Aerosmith was her favorite band.

Don't know if the Russians were behind it but we know putin hates rock

if you were already solid on your own level of thinking...

I’m not just talking misinformation. I’m talking about endless flame fanning. Discouraging solutions and discourse. We’re all vulnerable on both sides.

Looking back, I think getting the left to unite against the shortening of an oil pipeline was one of the better Russian successes in a while.

people have to susceptible to propaganda and lies. I doubt anyone who really wanted a Democratic Prez stayed home, wrote in primary loser, voted 3rd party or for trump, who was not predisposed to believing obvious lies.

Hopefully not recently, but I can't say. I assume more subtle manipulations are being targeted at people who try to keep a fair proportion of award-winning journalists and widely respected experts in the mix.

Both the NYT and AP, and others, have disseminated highly dishonest and unethical political misinformation, perhaps not on behalf of Russia, but given the enormity of the betrayal nothing's ruled out. Some may or may not have been actively conspiring, but most were probably just tacitly pulling the same direction. Nevertheless, the GOP, dark-money right wing billionaires, the FBI, the NYT, the AP, and even a Democratic Party candidate in the left and dissident parties all knew or hoped their efforts would cumulatively defeat the person who became the Democratic candidate in 2016, and for some Democrats for all offices. Tough environment for voters to pick out enemy propaganda in.

But fwiw, I was rejecting Russian propaganda in elementary school when "communism" was still being discussed as a viable option for America. Not an ounce of intellectualism to it at that point, of course. John Birch Society hysteria probably kept the subject in the air, but there was plenty of pro-Russia talk. By 8 or 9, though, I was tending to think that any nation doing as poorly as Russia, even putting up walls to keep people from leaving, and not able to turn its ideals into reality was not a model to aspire to.

I still think that simple way. Conflicting actions and results still trigger distrust and examination of stirring, high-flying rhetoric.

They were really trying to split the party into the far left and the middle. I don't think that was all legit.

n/t

The head of my denomination published a retraction for something she had said a few weeks ago. Today's announcement went something like this, "I said that the GI bill didn't apply to black GIs, but it wasn't the government who denied them benefits. Instead it was banks and mortgage companies." I remember hearing about the original claim, that the GI bill excluded blacks. I remember being horrified, but it was only a year ago that I learned that Levitt Town (of "Little Boxes, All Made of Ticky Tacky fame) excluded blacks. So, given a trusted source I was was willing to believe this story too. Now I'm wondering if the head of our denomination was the victim, somehow, of Russian news/history fakery.

EDIT
After writing this post I thought to myself, hmmm...., was the Levitt Town story true? I found it in a NYT article. For sanity's sake I have to trust some sources. The NYT will be one. I will also continue to trust official statements from my denomination, because they took the trouble to correct an error.

Even that lack of trust of facts can be manipulated. I’m not trying to be paranoid but it’s an interesting ability now that there are so many inroads.

man urinating on a 5 year old black child?

Not ashamed to say I briefly fell for a fake story about Hillary during the primaries. Took me several searches to disprove it.

Ukraine crisis. I believed the nonsense about nazi influence within the Ukrainian opposition to, as it turns out, actual nazis within the fake “pro Russian” faction. I had no idea how deep into a fascist revival the Putin regime was at the time.

I've had to do my own research more than before but I do that before believing anything these days.

issue, who know EXACTLY how to get us at each others' throats. I have been pulled in by those.

There's also at least one long term member here who is clearly trolling for someone. Constantly. If he's not trolling for Russians, than at least republicans. So same thing.

media to their own advantage.

To be forewarned is to be forearmed. I have a strong partisan streak but know what to watch out for.

If there is a lesson there it's not to hold onto any idea too strongly. I know I cut Assange too much slack when he broke from the original wikileaks group. I had known of the early founders' work and should have trusted them when they claimed he was a danger and was hijacking the program.

Even just yesterday I was looking up some 2015 events in Moldova, tracking the Russian angle, and found a somewhat obscure American academic parroting the putin line, point by point. More recently he's written for some of putin's worst outlets and is a trumpist. Checked DU for any use of that source here, and sure enough found one, cited in a Forbes article and posted by a respected DUer who almost certainly had no idea. But that's history now.

We have to grow past the idea that russian trolls can't spell and are off on their grammar. The better ones will concede ideas that don't matter, then slip in the poison with ideas that taste great. Before you know it, you've taken home a red ballcap and don't feel very good.

invited to attend a Russian energy conference in Paris (big grin here). It was tempting as a means to expose the Russians. Silly Rabbit, it's just my imagination.