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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow Russia Harvested American Rage to Reshape U.S. Politics
All of these were recorded, posted or written by Americans. Yet all ended up becoming grist for a network of Facebook pages linked to a shadowy Russian company that has carried out propaganda campaigns for the Kremlin, and which is now believed to be at the center of a far-reaching Russian program to influence the 2016 presidential election.
A New York Times examination of hundreds of those posts shows that one of the most powerful weapons that Russian agents used to reshape American politics was the anger, passion and misinformation that real Americans were broadcasting across social media platforms.
The Russian pages with names like Being Patriotic, Secured Borders and Blacktivist cribbed complaints about federal agents from one conservative website, and a gauzy article about a veteran who became an entrepreneur from People magazine. They took descriptions and videos of police beatings from genuine YouTube and Facebook accounts and reposted them, sometimes lightly edited for maximum effect.
. . .
This is cultural hacking, said Jonathan Albright, research director at Columbia Universitys Tow Center for Digital Journalism. They are using systems that were already set up by these platforms to increase engagement. Theyre feeding outrage and its easy to do, because outrage and emotion is how people share.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/technology/russia-election-facebook-ads-rage.html?_r=0
Cary
(11,746 posts)You have white supremacists, emboldened by Bannon and the Mercers. You have the insane clown. You have 35% of the population that's just incredibly stupid. You have a venal and craven Republican establishment that's stale and devoid of logic and reason, and has primed low information racists to be lied to and exploited.
Initech
(100,079 posts)I feel like they could be the missing link between Trump, Facebook, and Russia. I think Mueller needs to take a look at this angle.
Cary
(11,746 posts)Remember, he left a million dollar plus a year job to investigate this, along with his 16 or so other investigators. I believe he will leave no stone unturned, and when this stuff starts hitting the fan these mopes are going to be ratting each other out right and left.
Initech
(100,079 posts)Not too far from next November.
malaise
(269,028 posts)It is how powerful countries achieve 'regime change' as they call it.
Either countries are sovereign or they are not. When Reagan was shouting tear down that wall, did people in America think that mashing up the Soviet Union was going to be acceptable to the power brokers in that region?
Putin's sole goal is to do the US what was done to the Soviet Union.
What is stunning is the American silence when the US government intervenes in elections and politics overseas. It is as if Americans are OK with that - as if might is right - as if we are playthings.
You cannot claim to support democracy at home and interference for all who don't see things your way.
I wish more Americans would read the views of millions of people from the rest of the world.
You know what's worse - the said New York Times and other media are never objective on these matters. All that matters is what is in the US interest for the vast majority of American folks.