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US Charges Russian Social Media Trolls Over Election Tampering (cnet.com) 503

The US Justice Department has filed charges against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian groups for interfering with the 2016 presidential election. From a report: In an indictment [PDF] released on Friday, the Justice Department called out the Internet Research Agency, a notorious group behind the Russian propaganda effort across social media. Employees for the agency created troll accounts and used bots to prop up arguments and sow political chaos during the 2016 presidential campaign. Facebook, Twitter and Google have struggled to deal with fake news, trolling campaigns and bots on their platforms, facing the scorn of Capitol Hill over their mishandlings. The indictment lists 13 Russian nationals tied to the effort.
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US Charges Russian Social Media Trolls Over Election Tampering

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  • by Anonymous Coward
    This is just the opening volley.
  • $100k (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 16, 2018 @01:46PM (#56136298)

    So these are the guys who spent less than 7 figures on propaganda and supposedly bought the most powerful government in the world?

    • If 7 figures can beat Hillary's ten-figure campaign budget, then all future campaigns will spend seven figures and pocket the rest!
    • It's weird how all the AC flame bait comments like this one were so quickly upvoted. . .

  • I want this to be investigated as much as anyone, but the feigned shock and surprise from some Americans feels naive. Considering all the meddling (or outright coup d'etats and invasions) our country has been involved in over the last 100 years, this almost feels a little like a sliver of long overdue karmic payback.

    More importantly, I don't think those who want this investigation to go on and on (for whatever reason) understand just how pious and insulting it sounds to those who chose Trump. I mean, dark m

  • by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Friday February 16, 2018 @02:16PM (#56136534)

    The Washington Post has a better article on this. [washingtonpost.com]

    One bit of info missing from CNET is that these indictments are the direct result of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation.

  • by frank_adrian314159 ( 469671 ) on Friday February 16, 2018 @02:16PM (#56136536) Homepage

    At this point, I just figure that anyone who posts idiocy about the Russians not hacking the US is either a Russian shill or one of their dupes. Either that, or they're so soaked in conspiracy theories that their brains are addled. It's really no use listening to them. Once you decide that false information is as good as real facts, your mind might as well be gone.

    And for the idiots referenced above who say that all this Russsia stuff is "fake", I'll take the CIA, FBI, and NSA's word about spying before any of you conspiracy-spouting morons in the peanut gallery - I do value professionalism, if nothing else.

    • or if nothing else to raise our voices and try to drown the shills out. Slashdot is a site full of older engineers and tech people (it's a site from the 90s after all). It's bound to be a prime target since older, well-to-do STEM professionals are going to prone to the right wing (since the right wing's co-opted conservatism and, well, like my history teacher used to say when you've got something to lose you get real conservative real fast). Our little community needs more voices of sanity to keep us away f
    • You need to give up on Slashdot.org. Slashdot has long since been over run with the worst moronic right wing global warming deniers and the lowest IQ types imaginable.

      Slashdot.org is dead to anyone who values facts and science.

  • by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Friday February 16, 2018 @02:48PM (#56136808) Journal

    Putin can't have witnesses. I'm betting we're about to see some dead Russians.

    If you were one of the 13 indicted Russians, would you be more afraid of the US Department of Justice or Vladimir Putin?

    • I doubt Putin will even care about any of this penny-ante crap. If he wanted to own a candidate, he would have just donated 0.1% of his personal wealth to the Clinton Foundation.
  • ... that everyone is going to prison. The President, his Cabinet, 100 Senators, 435 Representatives, you, me, really just everyone.

    Are Federal prisons privately run [bop.gov] yet, and are they publicly traded? Because I have some great investment ideas that involve 100% incarceration rates.

  • What Rosenstein says: "There is no allegation in this indictment that any American had any knowledge."

    What Rosenstein thinks: "Please don't fire me, please don't fire me, please don't fire me ..."

  • by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Friday February 16, 2018 @04:24PM (#56137768) Journal

    ...we could simply say "OK thanks Russia. You want to play 'media domination game"?"

    The US is already the most staggeringly dominant culture ever seen on earth, without really deliberately trying (not unlikely that's partly why).

    If we were a country with any sense of itself, any sense of unity of purpose, and not a fractious bunch of self-hating bitches, with Hollywood's expertise we could without batting an eye SWAMP Russian media, internet, and airwaves with a chaos of propaganda, infowar, fake news, with production values so sophisticated there would be NO WAY any Russian national could tell if that video was real or not, or that email was real or not, or that video of Vladimir Putin having a quiet, gay moment with a young Russian male model followed by an overwhelming wave of irrefutable evidence of that young male model being found murdered brutally and only the faintest traces of official security service involvement.

    They spent what, a few $hundred thousand influencing social media? We could drop a few $hundred MILLION and drive their society into outright civil war.

    There is no media culture as dominant or efficacious as the American culture in 2018. None.
    But we are our own worst enemy, and Russia can do this sort of thing knowing that Americans will cheerfully attack EACH OTHER over it long before they have the cojones to set aside their partisan bitching in favor of their own country's well being.

Were there fewer fools, knaves would starve. - Anonymous

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