How Russian Trolls Spread Propaganda Using Uplifting Tweets (rollingstone.com) 164
Two associate professors of communication at Clemson spent two years studying online propaganda and state-affiliated disinformation campaigns on social media. This week in Rolling Stone they explain how professional trolls share uplifting "Trojan horse" tweets meant to gain hundreds of thousands of followers, and then "use that following to spread messages promoting division, distrust, and doubt."
Professional disinformation isn't spread by the account you disagree with -- quite the opposite. Effective disinformation is embedded in an account you agree with. The professionals don't push you away, they pull you toward them... The quality of Russia's work has been honed over several years and millions of social media posts. They have appeared on Instagram, Stitcher, Reddit, Google+, Tumblr, Medium, Vine, Meetup, and even Pokemon Go, demonstrating not only a nihilistic creativity, but also a ruthless efficiency in volume of production. Russia's Internet Research Agency (IRA) has been called a "troll farm," but they are undoubtedly a factory...
The factory doesn't stop. They attack issues from both sides, attempting to drive mainstream viewpoints in polar and extreme directions. In a free society, we must accept that bad actors will try to take advantage of our openness. But we need to learn to question our own and others' biases on social media. We need to teach -- to individuals of all ages -- that we shouldn't simply believe or repost anonymous users because they used the same hashtag we did, and neither should we accuse them of being a Russian bot simply because we disagree with their perspective. We need to teach digital civility. It will not only weaken foreign efforts, but it will also help us better engage online with our neighbors, especially the ones we disagree with...
Russia's goals are to further widen existing divisions in the American public and decrease our faith and trust in institutions that help maintain a strong democracy... Their work was never just about elections. Rather, the IRA encourages us to vilify our neighbor and amplify our differences because, if we grow incapable of compromising, there can be no meaningful democracy. Russia has dug in for a long campaign. So far, we're helping them win.
Their article includes specific examples from two accounts later suspended by Twitter.
It also notes that "consistent with past Russian activity, they attacked moderate politicians as a method of bolstering more polarizing candidates."
The factory doesn't stop. They attack issues from both sides, attempting to drive mainstream viewpoints in polar and extreme directions. In a free society, we must accept that bad actors will try to take advantage of our openness. But we need to learn to question our own and others' biases on social media. We need to teach -- to individuals of all ages -- that we shouldn't simply believe or repost anonymous users because they used the same hashtag we did, and neither should we accuse them of being a Russian bot simply because we disagree with their perspective. We need to teach digital civility. It will not only weaken foreign efforts, but it will also help us better engage online with our neighbors, especially the ones we disagree with...
Russia's goals are to further widen existing divisions in the American public and decrease our faith and trust in institutions that help maintain a strong democracy... Their work was never just about elections. Rather, the IRA encourages us to vilify our neighbor and amplify our differences because, if we grow incapable of compromising, there can be no meaningful democracy. Russia has dug in for a long campaign. So far, we're helping them win.
Their article includes specific examples from two accounts later suspended by Twitter.
It also notes that "consistent with past Russian activity, they attacked moderate politicians as a method of bolstering more polarizing candidates."
Yeah right (Score:3, Insightful)
"decrease our faith and trust in institutions that help maintain a strong democracy"
Good luck with that. Faith in our institutions (e.g. mass media and the Federal Government) can't get any lower. And it has nothing to do with the Russians.
Re:Yeah right (Score:4, Insightful)
No, polarization benefits the establishment as well; many parties benefit from focusing on wedges rather than bridges, the Russians have taken it to a new level though, along with the right-wing “no compromise” media.
Quite effective. Previous mainstream distrust of the government was much more passive rather than disconnected.
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Right. It is the Russians and the "right-wing". Not "your team" of course. Seriously, you guys are pathetic. Wake up, it isn't the Russians. Did the Russians help Obama get elected for TWO TERMS? Where were the Russians then? Faith in our "institutions" has been failing for a long time. We get it: Trump got elected. We don't like it, but Americans wanted it. Live with it and grow up.
Re: Yeah right (Score:2)
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Right. It is the Russians and the "right-wing". Not "your team" of course. Seriously, you guys are pathetic. Wake up, it isn't the Russians. Did the Russians help Obama get elected for TWO TERMS? Where were the Russians then? Faith in our "institutions" has been failing for a long time. We get it: Trump got elected. We don't like it, but Americans wanted it. Live with it and grow up.
When we start gassing Russian traitors in America, you first comrade.
Re: Yeah right (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Yeah right (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, the 2016 election Presidential Campaigns and their PACs spent almost 2,000 times as much as the Russians did on social media.
So unless the Russians are literally supermen in their efforts, they had essentially no effect compared to the polarization and other negative effects on U.S. politics of the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) blaming them for Clinton's loss.
Re:Yeah right (Score:5, Interesting)
They're not literally supermen because no-one is literally Superman, but the Russians are damn good at what they do. It's the same approach that was used all the way back to the cold war, the US does things by throwing as much money as they can at it, the Russians don't have the money to throw so they work smarter. And when it comes to disinformation and harnessing social media's anger-made-easy capabilities, the Russians are the global masters.
Seriously, they are the masters in this, they have both the expertise and the government backing to make what they do incredibly effective, as well as an endless supply of useful idiots to amplify the message for them.
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This is a bull argument. Propaganda is essentially advertising, only less money efficient as it is done by a government.
Here we have a claim that Russians are better than Americans at advertising, and it is actually believed by the people that it has been advertised to.
This is further proving that the Americans are just so far above the Russians in advertising that it is not even funny.
Masters, LOL.
https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle... [rbth.com]
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They don't have to be superhuman. In 2016 all they did is phish the Democrat's electoral committee's email account. It's not something you or I would be good at doing, but it's something those guys were very good at.
Stored in those accounts was all the Democrat's electoral polling and advertising strategies. Again, they didn't have to be superhuman to exploit those. In fact they knew they would be so piss poor at using it, it was effectively
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So unless the Russians are literally supermen in their efforts, they had essentially
no effect compared to the polarization and other
negative effects on U.S. politics of the Democrats
and the media (but I repeat myself) blaming them for Clinton's loss.
Da, Comrade! Da!
Oops, I mean "Damn Straight, Bro!"
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Social media manipulators - whether commerical or government - make two kinds of social media posts: positioning posts and payload posts
Positioning posts are made to get followers. Payload posts are what the propagandist really cares about.
I see very few tweets I'm sure are payload from Russians. That would be stuff like claiming Assad didn't gas anyone, or that Magnitsky act style individually targeted sanctions are useless.
So this whole thing that they're "sowing distrust" is overrated. I think the vast m
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A lot of reports of russian evildoing assumes it is happening on a pristine background. Everything was going nicely until the russians added fake news , propaganda and sowing distrust. This is preposterous. We live in the west.
- democracies are systems of distrust. they rely on checks and balances.
- because democracies rely on convincing people they tend to develop extensive PR knowhow, propaganda and infrastructure.
- media need distrust to get momentum. information is boring without conflict.
So our system
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And actually, you just touched on why fake news is only a minor problem. There has been no build up of trust and hence little power to convince people. It is just viral messaging.
Bullshit (Score:3)
Obama went to the fucking headquarters of Facebook in 2008 https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
And look what he did with Facebook in 2012 https://adage.com/article/camp... [adage.com]
Trump was elected because liberals think their opinion is the only one that matters and their smug attitude towards anything else was the final straw. Hell you had people flat out saying that voted for Trump because "it makes liberals lose their shit". Now is that Trump's fault?
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Trump was elected because liberals think their opinion is the only one that matters and their smug attitude towards anything else was the final straw. Hell you had people flat out saying that voted for Trump because "it makes liberals lose their shit". Now is that Trump's fault?
Of course it isn't Trump's fault. As you yourself describe, it's the fault of a bunch of shortsighted fools who resent change but don't understand how comfortable their world is, and would gladly burn it all down to spite an imaginary group of evil liberals they've been taught to fear.
Re:Yeah right (Score:5, Insightful)
It has a lot to do with the Russians. Where do you think a lot of this post-truth and deep state bullshit is coming from?
The very fact that you don't believe this story, which is backed up by a long study done by experts that you didn't read but still dismissed out of hand proves it. It's not about the truth, it's about believing you are right.
Re:Yeah right (Score:5, Insightful)
It has a lot to do with the Russians. Where do you think a lot of this post-truth and deep state bullshit is coming from? ....
Are you saying that the trust in the media which has been dropping for the last 40 years is because of the soviets and the russians? Or is it because especially in the last 20 years, you're ignoring that the media has gone from reporting news to engaging in outrage chasing. Or that in the last 10 years, that the media is now engaging in partisan bullshit that hasn't existed at this level since the 1910's. To the point where they manufacture outrage and bait for clicks. You want to pretend? Fine. But tell me why you'll see social media posts, where the individual they're quoting is a literal nobody(low follower count/brand new account/etc). But the writers will use this as proof that their views are 100% correct.
Now I'll move on to the good parts. Journolist [politico.com] where journos were caught massaging, creating their own version of truth and facts, and deciding "how" to spin media to benefit only one side of the political isle(Gamejournopros was created in it's image Ezra Klein was also heavily involved in this one too). Wikileaks dump [theintercept.com] showing that major news publications were taking only DNC talking points as fact. Sending them news stories before publication and/or publishing their stories under trusted names. This was especially bad during the Obama era and during Hillary Clinton's run.
No, if you think this is "da russians" you're out to lunch. The media dug it's own grave, and when people said "Stop with the bullshit" they tripled down and went in even harder. People like milquetoast Tim Pool who worked for several sites including Vice have been writing about how bad the media has gotten for years.
Re:Yeah right (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Yeah right (Score:2)
You are part of the problem, spreading this crap about media being somehow different, like we're blind to what's really changed lately.
You've been seeing it (a story with blanks you need to fill in) happening more frequently because you're looking for it, idiots. It's always been there, and you have to use critical thinking skills to get to any truth, nobody can give it to you if they tried. It's like trying to divine reality from a painting, regardless of the artist's intent it will only ever be an appro
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30 years ago the media would report all pertinent information on the suspect of a crime. Race, nationality, height, sex, skin colour. Today the media won't even report that. How many times have you see a news story about a rape, murder, serious assault and the only identifying information is height, and maybe sex. That's with the police providing the media photographs or video of the suspect.
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Amounts matter. Much more important than presence of absence of critical thinking is the ability to be critical of things you trust. Groupthink is a situation where people are very gullible inwards and very critical outwards. The media have massive groupthink issues.
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Re:Yeah right (Score:4, Informative)
Are you saying that the trust in the media which has been dropping for the last 40 years is because of the soviets and the russians?
[Citation needed]
Convincing you and the rest of America that all news are the same and not to be rusted is the Russian's greatest achievement to date.
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Re:Yeah right (Score:5, Informative)
[Citation needed]
Citation given. [pewresearch.org]
Convincing you and the rest of America that all news are the same and not to be rusted is the Russian's greatest achievement to date.
Russia didn't have to do it, the news media did it all on their own. Ever wonder why they're the first ones who attack any new news outlet on the block? And in the last 4 years the news media's response to new kids on the block is to automatically label them as alt-right, nazis, racists, and so on.
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Son, that's not citation. That's just a collection of news clips.
Kid, that is a citation. Pew has been running those studies for years, if you're too incompetent or have problems reading them. That's not my problem.
Put up the data comparing "trust in the media" between the 1980s and now or shut the fuck up.
Oh, so you can't read. Maybe the NYT is more up your alley. [nytimes.com] Maybe Gallup? [gallup.com] Oh so difficult, so hard to read.
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The problem with exclusively blaming the media is two-fold: 1) The members of the media are culled from the general population, and 2) the general population continues to buy the garbage. The people who complain about the media bias continue to feed it! The trust in media statistic doesn't mean that people are really looking for more trustworthy unbiased news. It just means they complain louder whenever they see something they don't agree with. So Republicans don't trust the media, but they continue to
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First, the drudge report only aggregates news sites. It's not conservative, in fact there was a study done by the Society of Professional Journalists(SPJ) that showed the majority of information linked came directly from left-wing friendly media outlets. On top of that, it's pretty easy to find that despite all of the left wing whinging on it, it's used heavily by them as well. Around 40% of drudge's numbers are democrats, liberals and progressives.
Out of your list of trusted news media. Only The econom
Re: Yeah right (Score:3)
I didn't list Fix and CNN as trusted news sites. As for the others I listed, they seem good to me and that is backed-up by the links I provided.
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It's the Russians
Kinda crazy that there's no proof of that...it's like...a conspiracy theory.
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People in the West also have the freedom to comment on politics using art, cartoons, links, comments, news...
Again not "a lot to do with the Russians"....
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Okay I've read it ...
The main thrust was the high visibility IamTyraJackson and the sowing of division by PoliteMelanie. They left out where the former account sowed division and the latter account innocuously built an audience though. For all I know from the article IamTyraJackson never posted anything divisive and PoliteMelanie was simply full of ye average college student Christian / white / conservative bashing to begin with. So they got banned, great, but they still need to fucking show the pattern the
Re:Yeah right (Score:5, Insightful)
Where do you think a lot of this post-truth and deep state bullshit is coming from?
How is the Deep State bullshit, when now both Republicans and Democrats alike state publicly there is a deep state [slashdot.org] - and anyone with an ounce of common sense would find it an obvious fact that government agencies would prefer to not be tampered with, and thus resist any attempt from above or outside to do so.
Indeed a deep state in a way is working on Russian interests, so they seek as much as they can to hide that from most people.
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It's bullshit because it alleges the normal distribution of powers, the normal checks and balances are all part of some great, organized conspiracy for which there is no real evidence.
Your link is broken, by the way. Can you fix it?
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Where do you think a lot of this post-truth and deep state bullshit is coming from?
Supposedly "In war, truth is the first casualty" is attributed to the Greek writer/poet Aeschylus (525BC - 456BC). Sun Tzu also makes a big deal out of disinformation. Since the 18th century there's been rumors of "the Illuminati" running the show, just like anyone putting on a Guy Fawkes mask is "Anonymous". The truth is that in any conflict there's likely to be one side who could benefit from the facts and one side who'd rather have a smokescreen.
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Or, you know, you could not feed the trolls.
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Here is how the entirely bullshit story is created. First the number of Russian who speak English 7,574,303 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. So out of them, how many use Twitter and tweet in English, even a small percentage tiny is still a whole bunch of them and a whole bunch of tweets. They will all have varying opions BUT BECAUSE THEY ARE RUSSIAN THEY ARE ALL TROLLS.
So the USA story goes, ohh look drone missile strike, how many innocent civilians were killed, ZERO, because it was a USA drone missile s
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You're right...Except for basically everything you said.
Suspicion of, and contempt for the overarching power of the state has been frankly the foundationall force by which the United States were formed. Cf Shays Rebellion...even predating the union (war of regulation).
This country has always had a federalist strain in tension with a libertarian strain. With the massive growth of centralised state power over the last 2 decades, it astonishes me that people are surprised that there is a stronger, embittered
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i mean, yeah it's flamebait but also a fair point to an extent at least. Trump is nothing like Hitler; he's more of a Mussolini at most.
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he's more of a Mussolini at most.
I think you mean Obama. Or don't you remember all those creepy child praising and singing videos? And how the people inside his cabinet were all the fuck over them and promoted it.
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Obama is a fascist?
Sent guns to a foreign country that ended up in the hands of terrorists, and tried to use the entire thing for political gain and agendas. Engaged in extra-judicial killings without using the courts. Committed multiple acts of war and bombed other countries irregardless of any form of legality in play. Pushed operation chokepoint to try and kill the 2nd amendment and other 'subversive' things.
Yeah seemin' pretty fascist in those actions.
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Spoken like a true AC pussy.
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How about the massive number of posts here that constantly accuse the government and 'mass
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"decrease our faith and trust in institutions that help maintain a strong democracy" Good luck with that. Faith in our institutions (e.g. mass media and the Federal Government) can't get any lower. And it has nothing to do with the Russians.
See. According to patient zero, they're already successful.
Score one for academia (Score:2, Interesting)
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Unless this Russian conspiracy has been operating since the 50s it's not that. This isn't limited to people who were educated recently.
In fact this anti-academia thing is just another meme created to stoke division. Demonize the people who have access to our kids, enflame inter-generational tension.
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Bizarre. You see the "Russian conspiracy" as a determinant cultural relativism, rather than the other way around.
No, such relativism has been presented for millennia, including recently, and is as damaging in any century.
And, anti-academia is stated because it's richly deserved, as always. The state of philosophy, sociology and psychology, for instance, is incoherent. And academia likes it that way.
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People all over the world do have artistic and political skills. Some can tell jokes that are political too.
Some people do find them "funny" and can link to them... again not Russian "experts"...
The politics and leadership of many Western nations is "funny". Due to health problems. Their SJW topics at well controlled media events.
"Russians" dont set the town hall questions, Russian experts dont write the speeches...
That's all the inner workings of each "western" nations own S
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Unless this Russian conspiracy has been operating since the 50s...
KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov's warning to America:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Unless this Russian conspiracy has been operating since the 50s it's not that.
Because the Russians just woke up one day in 2016 and thought "Is funny to troll Americanskis on internet! We make them vote Trump, just think of look on faces!"
I guess the USSR just never really bothered. After all, the cold war was an invention of American plutocrats to keep the military industrial complex up and running. I mean, it's not like the USSR had an influence over communists around the world that was extremely similar to that which the Vatican holds over Catholics. It would be inconceivable
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I have two kids in public school in a suburb of Austin TX, you know, "the People's Republic of Austin". The American history they are getting is about the same as what I got in the Texas public schools in the mid-70's. The math is similar (algebra, geometry, calculus) but better. The world history is a lot more comprehensive and better.
Re: Score one for academia (Score:2)
Re: Do they teach economics? (Score:2)
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Russia! Russia! Russia! (Score:1)
You people really gotta stop with this charade... She didn't need their help to lose the election
Re:Russia! Russia! Russia! (Score:5, Insightful)
What if the goal was to make both sides furious with each other, regardless of who won, so there would be a furious resistance grinding things to a halt?
You saw how Fox News became the Benghazi channel for years to harp on Hillary, the presumptive successor to Obama?
That would be cubed, now.
The saddest long-term result from all this is CNN has thrown in the towel and become the anti-Fox News.
Headline on their site from last week: Ambassador (forget) Nails It!
A news headline.
Re: Russia! Russia! Russia! (Score:2)
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What if the goal was to make both sides furious with each other, regardless of who won
The ol' Divide and Conquer. That's what they are good at. Divisiveness is their goal, it's almost never about supporting any one particular candidate or issue. They'll back whatever causes the most disruption... and if an issue itself is causing the rift between people to widen, they are known to actually back both sides of the debate, just fanning the flames.
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There are no "Russians", there is no "CNN".
Heh, forgot, no "FOX" either. All those things can be turned off.
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This makes sense to me!!! (Score:1)
Generation P (Score:2)
Persuasion is a deceptively simple category of symbols and references and USians, with their chartered republic that gives priority to protecting the rights of an individual to freely express, can take a lot for granted when those rights are collaboratively
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Jesus Christ. Just shut up.
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bats lashes
Pray tell, what about my little post rankles one so???
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Prescriptive dictates such as yours are distastefully contradictory to that imperative.
I might have been more clear: Your personal attacks are sufficiently frequent in other threads to justify their anticipation...terms in contradiction are your self-styled aping of poss
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Having never heard of Generation P, I had immediately assumed the P would stand for "paranoia". Justified probably, that's the word that came to mind after reading the article. That's what will get us in the end.
Seemingly innocuous user accounts are being deleted after being identified as sock puppets of a hostile foreign power. They are allegedly manipulating the good American people into hating each other and thusly destroying the very fabric of the nation. All this may be true, but whether you think it
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The P stands for more than one thing, but the surface reference is Pepsi cola and the framing is a young advertiser acquiring the skills of his trade, initially, through the aid of a psilocybin experience.
I am supportive of your "tail wags the dog" interpretation of the controversy, if I have correctly read you.
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You could interpret it that way. What I'm suggesting is that the solution may be worse than the problem.
How influential are these accounts? How do they compare to native accounts? There are Americans doing and saying the same things - maybe they were influenced by trolls, maybe not - so when deleting accounts, do they control for divisiveness or foreignness? Do they do neither and simply claim they'll delete foreign accounts when they simply target inconvenient ones? I hope the people on my side think abo
stop using thia term (Score:2)
I wonder what dumbass "fellow kids" journalist decided to call this "trolling"
A litany of crimes (Score:1)
Go watch Heaven's Gate (1986) to see how much White Nationalism is a part of US zeitgeist and who it's meant to benefit: About the same time as the bloody Johnson wars, the fascination with corporatism began. There were little missteps all through the 20th Century: Demanding post-war Europe support liberalism while banning communism/socialism in the USA (Nazi Germany banned communism too.) Banning liberalism in politics to counter the leftist 1960s. The rise of SuperPACs, flooding politics with vote-bu
Harmless Trolls (Score:2)
FFS, the Russian troll crap is just an annoying red herring.
Russia is nothing more than a has been troll country . Its online trolls are nothing more that state actors doing shit for the lullz.
The true threat to the world is Han Chinese chauvanism and it's Nazi like racial obsession with them being the chosen people and country. Even Make Zedong warned of this being an issue.
Make no mistake, the Chinese are a far worse threat than the Russians will ever be.
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FFS, the Russian troll crap is just an annoying red herring.
Or maybe... just maybe... a clickbait farm is just that... a clickbait farm. They are present in every nation, targeting everyone in the world. They are agnostic.
Clicks = Money.
The Senate Intelligence Committee relied on New Knowledge to determine that it was "Russian influence" as none of the 3 letter agencies had any evidence.. New Knowledge was later caught operating alleged Russian bots/trolls, and that they in fact pointed at those bots that they were operating, and saying "see! russians!" This Fa
Article is Very Shallow (Score:3)
I checked out both the Rolling Stone article and the link to ScienceDirect.com. I wasn't able to dig deeply behind the ScienceDirect.com since the details are behind a paywall.
So, this all comes off as incredibly shallow. It doesn't give any examples of the "end game" for these accounts. They show attracting followers using posts that a certain group likes or agrees with. One example is someone sharing a poll about 55% of conservative Christians polled would disown their child if they found out they were a "homo sapiens". I get that it's supposed to build negative feelings towards conservative Christians, but it's a huge leap to say posts like that are what's fostering divide, specifically that it's something that comes from the Russians.
The focus seems to be laser-honed on the source, when the source is rather irrelevant. It feels like it's supposed to remove accountability from the people and puts it more on outside sources. I don't see anything that says that the Russians are the sources of extremists groups/ideologies (they aren't). There are people, people here in the US, who happily back those ideologies.
The focus should be on getting people to back down from the fringes. The extremists are awfully loud. It can be hard because they think that they're moral and correct. From everything I can read, this article comes off as total fear-mongering. It's the same shit as the DNC hacks. The focus is on who was doing the hacks, not what came of those hacks (really bad corruption in the DNC).
This is the problem. We're so determined to lay the blame on anyone but the individual. But I don't see anyone focusing on that, unfortunately. :(
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Seriously, this is sill being pushed? (Score:1)
The WaPo, NY Times, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and just about every other similar entity does exactly the same thing. Social media needs to stay out of it completely. Everyone of these entities are interfering.
If anyone believes this bull they deserve what they get.
This is just some entity trying hard to push the idea that a small entity can pit the US against itself and succeed. I'm afraid our media does that to us. Maybe these Russians learned from our mainstream media.
State-affiliated disinformation campaign (Score:1)
What did they find out about Cambridge Analytica and its parent company the SCL Group founded by Nigel Oakes and funded by the British state security apparatus and the Pentagon?
Who's behind the ‘dark money’ bankrolling our politics? [opendemocracy.net]
Russian hackers, trolls, and influence (Score:1)
Information Goulash For the Masses (Score:1)
If you catagorize people as "Americanese" and "Americans", making sense of the information buffet gets a whole lot easier in the states.
You could replace "Russian Trolls" in the title with with any ageing, failed institution and get the same playbook. It works on the global or local level.
Getting idiots to chase a boggie{man,woman,trans,non-binary} (-- politically correct?) a half-a-world away is a mildly entertaning theory
America's polarization is epic (Score:2)
Let's just drop the false notion that it's the Russians who somehow poisoned and divided an otherwise harmonious America. The tensions within the American society have reached epic proportions and the cracks are showing everywhere. The divide is between rural and urban America, between white and brown people, between rich and poor, the economic left and free-market capitalists, secular and religious people, feminists and gender conformists, etc. However, suddenly, grant-chasing academics, journalists, polit
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This is NOT NEW and has gone on for generations with only a short gap during the collapse of the USSR. It's quite slow and effective at destroying nations. It predates Russian refinement; the classic divide and conquer using your enemy's internal strife. Amplifying existing problems is how it works (and create new ones if needed; obviously, it's not needed in the USA.)
Russian tactics are known and for quite a while too. They've been doing it since the Cold War and a KGB man in charge of doing that stuff (fo
Social media needs ACCOUNTABILITY by users (Score:2)
Back in the 90s and early 00s,
THe problem is, that today, the true propagandists are those with multiple logons. They will use these to back up their own postings, and if caught, will simply revert to ACs.
What is needed is to have true vetted logons. For example, individuals such as Linus and Will wheaten, just to name a couple, used to post her
How Rolling Stone Spreads Bullshit (Score:2)
How The Rolling Stone Spreads Bullshit:
They publish The Rolling Stone.
I agree with one point (Score:4)
Always strive to treat the person you are talking to with respect and always try to assume good faith on their part, even if they won't extend you the same courtesies. People generally believe they're doing the right thing (or at least that they're right) and if you treat them like shit, they're going to assume you're the bad guy and look for reasons to dismiss or doubt what you have to say.
They're amateurs (Score:2)
Re:Not what I'm most afraid of, to be frank. (Score:5, Interesting)
How does anyone know you are not a Russian troll, just pushing the agenda while denying the story?
Re: Not what I'm most afraid of, to be frank. (Score:1)
Re: Not what I'm most afraid of, to be frank. (Score:4, Interesting)
While I agree in principle with the idea that there are too few readers to make a difference, I think that the rate of new account creation appears to be very high. Why? Fewer readers would result in account creation declining, not accelerating.
I can only conclude that the rate of new account creation suggests that /. is being targetted as a place to influence people.
Re: Not what I'm most afraid of, to be frank. (Score:2)
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What shill admin keeps modding every post of yours to +5? We know the people who run this site are blatantly anti Trump.
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You think Russia pays people to fight with the autistic neckbeards that frequent this site?
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No, the reason you're not on social media is because no one values the time or opinion of an AC pussy.
No one likes you. Might as well end it now.