How Russia used social media to divide Americans

a reply to: nwtrucker

I was born right here in the good old USA thank you very much.

originally posted by: Sillyolme
a reply to: nwtrucker

I was born right here in the good old USA thank you very much.

Didn't imply you weren't.??

a reply to: Damiel

the russians are not dividing the people. the news media is dividing the people. get it right.

seems the USA got an "sigar"from own box...

USA interfeered dutch elections to!

Instead of simply echoing the president’s demand for a boycott unless the players stood, however, the Russian accounts took both sides of the issue, spreading both the hashtags #TakeaKnee and #BoycottNFL.

I find this part interesting, it seems as if the Russians are trying to divide us further. CNN did an article about how Russian operatives were pretending to be Black Lives Matter sympathizers, and in this case, the Russians tried to get followers to play Pokemon Go at the sites of famous scenes of police brutality and set their username to that of the victim.

I am assuming the Russians are doing things like this to provoke conservatives in order to rile them up. It is too bad that conservatives don't see this as a problem, maybe they will change their tune if Russia starts spreading fake news about conservatives or leaks information about them. Not that they ever will - I was under the impression that Russia was supportive of Trump.

In all, it is good to know that Russia is infiltrating left-wing social circles as well as right-wing social circles.

originally posted by: Sillyolme
a reply to: Kandinsky

No one said he's affiliated. But why doesn't he condemned the actions? Why does he constantly deny this is happening? What's wrong with him just saying I stand for protecting ALL AMERICANS. Not just those that might vote for me.

Eh? Lots of people have been saying Trump's been in league with Russia since last year. It's a big thing!

The major powers are all in glass houses anyway so who cares when they decry the mischief? It's like the annual grievance about Russian air force planes entering UK or US airspace. We're all doing the same thing.

I agree with you about the denials. It's one thing to stay quiet and another to deflect or deny it's happening at all.

a reply to: darkbake

Or its all the CIA / Soros / etc covering their tracks.

Since it's the MSM (professional perception managers) as The Source for this whole shebang none of it is to be taken at face value.

a reply to: darkbake

Russia is not supportive of Trump, they are fomenting political chaos. When the time comes, Putin will chew Trump up and spit him out. Has it not occurred to you that some of the "leaks" are not coming from the White House, but from the Kremlin? An impeachment during an election would really make liberal democracy a tough sell.

originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

originally posted by: DJW001
a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Once again you demonstrate that you do not understand how journalism works. CNN trod the digital pavement, they have the privilege of asserting the claim. They are the ones making the allegation. They lay out the path they took. You can retrace it in an attempt to disprove their conclusions if you want, but you cannot reject the allegations without doing some work of your own.

And there's the whole problem.

CNN has lost all credibility.

You just don't gat it, do you? You don't even bother to read the original reporting, you just take RT's word for what it says, just like you believe a webpage that claims to be the the "official BLM site" is really affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement. Don't think no-one can tell that you use that abbreviation to dehumanize the movement and make it appear to be some sort of sinister agency. If you slipped up and said Black Lives Matter every time you wanted to demonize it, you would only remind people that it is a reasonable statement, and that opposition to it might make you look like an FR.

a reply to: DamielSORRY BUT I CALL BULL FODDER ON THE WHOLE RUSH PAID US TO RUN ADDS NONSENSE COMING FROM FACEBOOK. EVERY TIME I LOGGGED INTO FACEBOOK DURING ELECTION I WAS IMMEDIATELY BOMBARED WITH STORIES ABOUT HOW GREAT HILLY IS AND HOW YRUMP IS A JEW HATING BLACK HATING GIRLIEBITS GRABBING URINEFETISHET. I REPEATEDLY REQUESTED FACEBOOK TO STOP POSTING THIS STUFF TO MY FEED AND IT DID NOT STOP TILL HILLY LOST.

marks agenda failed so now he claiming boris paid him 10s of thousands of dollars to right fake adds to kill hillys election right what about the 10s of millions of free adds mark gave to clintons i am sure that is against the campaign laws.

what many people forget is that many of the men who rule Russia now are ex KGB. These people were trained and indoctrinated to hate America from a very young age and for some, the Cold War and the competition between the US and Soviets is alive and well. Anyone who knows Russian culture knows that revenge is a dish best served cold. It is clear that Russia has studied the tendencies of the two largest political factions in America and has determined that is can further sow the seeds of division, hatred and mistrust amongst Americans. They also know that the "conservative" faction in America has been trained by conservative media to think everything is a "liberal" plots ensuring that conservatives will always be directed and apt to suspect liberals, "the deep state" and George Soros.

a reply to: proteus33

they damn well did, but they didn't target conservatives, they targeted the people left of HRC. Putin was talking about the possibility of WWIII around election time due to Obama/HRC Syrian/Iranian policy, plus the Oligarchs have billions at stake when their various contracts come to fruition.

originally posted by: Kandinsky

Eh? Lots of people have been saying Trump's been in league with Russia since last year. It's a big thing!

Burr: Russia probe will expose erroneous reporting

Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) stopped short of endorsing Trump's Thursday morning call for a congressional investigation of the media. But Burr did predict that the final product of his panel's bipartisan inquiry into Moscow's disruption of the 2016 election would illustrate factual errors in some media reports on the issue.

"We're not going to investigate news organizations, but we will use the findings of our report to let the American people hold every news organization accountable for what they portrayed as fact, in many cases without sources — at least, no sources that would admit to it," Burr told POLITICO.

"And I think, when we finish our report, we will find that quite a few news organizations ran stories that were not factual," he added.

originally posted by: theultimatebelgianjoke

originally posted by: Kandinsky

Eh? Lots of people have been saying Trump's been in league with Russia since last year. It's a big thing!

Burr: Russia probe will expose erroneous reporting

Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) stopped short of endorsing Trump's Thursday morning call for a congressional investigation of the media. But Burr did predict that the final product of his panel's bipartisan inquiry into Moscow's disruption of the 2016 election would illustrate factual errors in some media reports on the issue.

"We're not going to investigate news organizations, but we will use the findings of our report to let the American people hold every news organization accountable for what they portrayed as fact, in many cases without sources — at least, no sources that would admit to it," Burr told POLITICO.

"And I think, when we finish our report, we will find that quite a few news organizations ran stories that were not factual," he added.

a reply to: proteus33



Erm, those are exactly the sort of ads they bought and yours is exactly the response they desired. The more you were bombarded with pro-Clinton propaganda, the better Trump looked in your eyes.

a reply to: DJW001

What are you trying to tell us with this picture taken from a thread of yours ?

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

SO many words but so little content of relevance.

originally posted by: Damiel

...Such is the focus on Russian meddling that congressional investigators are increasingly aggressive in asking the big tech companies to account for how their platforms became the staging grounds for an attack on American democracy.

Early next month that scrutiny will intensify, with executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter formally invited to appear before the House intelligence committee on Capitol Hill in Washington.

What has now been made clear is that Russian trolls and automated bots not only promoted explicitly pro-Donald Trump messaging, but also used social media to sow social divisions in America by stoking disagreement and division around a plethora of controversial topics such as immigration and Islamophobia.

And, even more pertinently, it is clear that these interventions are continuing as Russian agents stoke division around such recent topics as white supremacist marches and NFL players taking a knee to protest police violence.

The overarching goal, during the election and now, analysts say, is to expand and exploit divisions, attacking the American social fabric where it is most vulnerable, along lines of race, gender, class and creed.

... snip ...

The attackers appear to have a handy, if unwitting, ally in Trump, who is generous in spreading bile online.
In certain recent cases, social media accounts linked with Russian influence operations appear to have taken cues directly and immediately from the @realdonaldtrump Twitter account, according to analysis by the Washington-based Alliance for Securing Democracy, which maintains a daily tracker of the networks in question.

After Trump criticized the “poor leadership ability” of Carmen Yulín Cruz, mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, on 30 September, for example, Russian-linked Twitter accounts disseminated articles with “the primary theme of either discrediting” Cruz “or accusing the media of spreading ‘fake news’”, the alliance said.

The week before that, the clandestine network poured accelerant on the fight picked by Trump with the mostly African American players in the NFL who kneeled during the national anthem in protest of police violence.

Instead of simply echoing the president’s demand for a boycott unless the players stood, however, the Russian accounts took both sides of the issue, spreading both the hashtags #TakeaKnee and #BoycottNFL.

How Russia used social media to divide Americans

Dividing to conquer in action !

If Trump really wanted to unite the country
He should be advised to cancel his Twitter account
His tweetering spurs the division ever onwards and downwards

*Yawn....

originally posted by: theultimatebelgianjoke
a reply to: DJW001

What are you trying to tell us with this picture taken from a thread of yours ?

Quite simply, when the government starts to decide what news is true and what news is not it is censorship, and the first step towards book burning. A private media outlet, on the other hand, has a First Amendment right to exercise editorial discretion. If they do not want a group to use them to publicise their views, they can do that. It would not be censorship, as you know.

originally posted by: bgerbger
a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

SO many words but so little content of relevance.

You will note how vague Burr was. Why didn't he provide examples? The news stories are not classified, are they?