Why Should Anyone Care About Russian Troll Farms? What's The End Game?

a reply to: airowineSailorcat

What does that even mean? From your perspective not someone else's.

a reply to: kurthall

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. That's not the information spread by the troll farm. But this thread is about the idea of an open internet and people from another country posting about our elections. Stay on topic.

a reply to: Dfairlite


The funny thing about it all, lets look at ATS for a second, how many of the Europeans here tried to explain how bad Trump was, and that was ok.

Yet a Russian says bad things about Hillary on the interwebs and we must have a multi-million dollar investigation into how this happened.

The end game is to make you hate Russia. You need an enemy.

We know it is legal for the government to use propaganda against it's civilians

You were told to hate the middle east, you were told to hate the Chinese. You were told to hate Korea, you were told to hate.....and you hated them.

Every time you fall for it, you will fall for it every time.

Keep fuelling the weapon industry, keep fuelling the hate.

As an American, as a westerners in fact, it is your duty to hate. Obey.

Ever one has Forgoten that the CIA IS spoofing fake
internet locations for some of the things they do.
So they can send attacks or facebook stuff!
and it has a russian IP start location.

they can even cut in to the internet cables
of any country and use the internet.

Did the infomation Snowden give us never happen?

because they want you to believe only the propaganda they feed you about the world outside the u.s .

otherwise the entire house of cards would collapse if americans learned what the rest of the world is actually like .

a reply to: Hazardous1408

Good luck and God help you if you allow Russia to do exactly the same.

In western society, do we not embrace freedom of speech?

So do I want other countries impeding on our national opinion? Not particularly.

But I don't want to create a system that blocks ideas because of content or source. Where would that leave us in the future should we set the precedence.

Was Obama supporting Macron collusion or meddling (I don't really think so, but it begs the question).

Have we maliciously meddled in elections? Absolutely.

So what do you suggest we do when we ourselves break the rules we are so aggressively complaining about right now?

Will anyone take us seriously if we continue to have double standards for the conduct of our own nation, and those less powerful?

a reply to: Nexttimemaybe

I don't hate any of those countries. Well, I don't take kindly to rocket man's getting nukes and continually threatening. But I still don't hate that country, they just need a better leader.

a reply to: kurthall

Because it was a multi million dollar troll factory, with one thing in common, get trump in office and spread misinformation about Hillary, and judging from some members on ATS it WORKED, because these people I am referring to, spread the misinformation on ATS over and over.

I know you've never acknowledged that the DNC paid Russians for OP research on Trump.... Or the fact that Russia offered to sell the NSA and CIA back their stolen documents and throw some Trump dirt on as a bonus to sweeten the deal.

If Hilary won, we'd be having a similar argument. And to be honest, this did happen and it's not stopping anytime soon (because we're not stopping our meddling globally any time soon).

So when a Democrat wins next, and they most surely will have put some sort of a Russian stamp on their campaign, will you call it a rigged campaign?

The argument when a Democrat wins with "Russian help" (I don't believe it to be true but they'll be sure to plant "evidence" to make it look true) the dems will say "well you Republicans didn't refute Trump's win", and the Republicans will say "but you refuted Trump!".

They know us well. And this will continue as long as we feed this narrative as one that decides our politics.

originally posted by: Painterz
Putin has always been quite open about his goals too. He wants to humiliate the Americans the way the ussr was humiliated when it broke up.

So drive so much division in American society that the states can no longer hang together, so they split apart and go their own way, thus destroying America as a super power.

Proof for this is how the Russians are the originators of the Texas and California independence memes online. It's a narrative they push.

Likewise the Russian pushing of brexit. Strategy is break up the EU.

With these two power blocs broken, Russia is free to expand her borders and gain more influence.

Wow, this is a really good hypothesis...
I think you are into something here. Did you read this somewhere or think it on your own?

I'd to read it if you saw it.

It makes a lot of sense to me. Just like in Ukraine, "they are Russian people, not Russian military" and we have the same thing going on here. Russian nationalists.. definitely a trend that can be connected.

Why Should Anyone Care About Russian Troll Farms? What's The End Game?

They shouldn't.

For a country that had this set in stone over 200 years ago.

Amendment I Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

www.law.cornell.edu...

Me thinks the nazi book burners doth protest too much.

a reply to: Dfairlite

Good foryou, you are seeing clearly.

How can anyone be mad when they are exposed to opinions and propaganda from outside of the US on the internet?

Its easy to lie to people, building up a whole network of big lies, one little lie at a time.

The Propaganda machine in the West labors so hard to convince us all of these big lies, then one alternative news source brings the whole house of cards crashing down. You bet they are mad in the Ministry of Information.

Just keep laughing at them, they have no defense against it.

a reply to: Dfairlite

Oh wow...

Lets see... Because human beings are easily led, easily directed, often over willing to hand over their free will and prepared to follow anyone who makes noises that activate their amygdalas, and reinforces whatever idiot thing they feel or think on a given day?

Perhaps because using comment bots to fluff up the numbers of Trump supporters, is a tactic which happens to be very strong, because of that tendency to accept leadership that people have, and because the more people seem to be intending to vote for someone, the more other people are likely to turn around and vote for that person, simply because idiot morons out there like to be on the winning side, rather than the team that played best?

Perhaps its a problem because these were not just posts from outside the US, they were not just posts from non-Americans. These were comment bots commenting on an election, with the EXPRESS design of changing its outcome, which no group of people, other than the people of the United States ought to have been able to do in any fashion what so ever.

I mean... wow. The fact that you are even asking the questions you are asking, or trying to make the points you seem to be making, mean that either you do not understand the importance of a free and fair election, or worse, that you do not care.

originally posted by: Dfairlite
Why should we care about russian troll farms or any troll farms, really? I find it an odd thing to even bat an eye at, much less think is criminal. We live in a world with the internet. The internet is a global network. How can anyone be mad when they are exposed to opinions and propaganda from outside of the US on the internet? I get ads from countries around the world, china, Australia, Thailand, Taiwan, Germany, etc. Are those a problem too?

Since when is being exposed to information (or misinformation) a bad thing? More voices is always better than fewer. That's the entire idea behind freedom, is it not? To be able to believe what you want, whenever you want. To be able to say whatever you want, whenever you want. To be able to do whatever you want, whenever you want. But people are outraged that there was money spent to run ads on facebook/twitter/instagram? Since when did those companies only serve the USA? Are we going to start arresting Australians who post on reddit about American elections or candidates?

While I've been mulling this over I keep coming back to the question: Why? Why do they want people to care about internet posts from outside the USA? Nothing makes sense to me except for censorship. They want people to demand they cut off outside opinion or wrong-think. Maybe there are other ends that I'm not thinking of, if so chime in.

Because info will be stated on ATS and elsewhere as fact... and that's already the case to a lg. degree.

ya, let's just ignore the indictment that outlined the actual crimes that were committed in the normal operations of this troll farm. I'm sure that none of yous will mind if they choose to steal your identity next!!!

people can't make sound judgements if they don't at least have some confidence that they know what the facts are... drowning them with lies and half truths on a daily basis serves no good purpose and that is what is happening! people are walking away with this idea that they can't really trust anyone, who knows what really is going on, should I squirrel my money away for a rainy day, should I buy a tent and some survival gear and head out and hide in the woods for a decade or so, does any of this crap matter anymore???

I haven't been back on facebook for more than a couple months and I am already sick of it. since the florida shooting it's been flooded with mimes and posts, for or against gun restrictions, two sides fighting for you to take their side.....
neither side is 100% right, neither side is 100% wrong... personally, I wish the gun rights people were right because I really want my tank and missile launcher, but, well, no, I know the gov't have every right to restrict some kinds of arms from me... I will never be able to legally own either, which is probably a good thing for all concerned...
but at the other end, every person has the god given right to go in search of their own food supply if they find that society and the economy has let them down. they have a right to have hobbies and past times, or which marksmenship is one. so no, we aren't ever gonna be able to ban all guns... common sense would tell us that the solution doesn't have anything with picking a side but rather having the two sides come together and meeting somewhere in the middle...
but you need to be informed of facts to see that... not lies being produced by an outside force who's goal is to see our country's downfall..

originally posted by: Irishhaf
a reply to: Dfairlite


The funny thing about it all, lets look at ATS for a second, how many of the Europeans here tried to explain how bad Trump was, and that was ok.

Yet a Russian says bad things about Hillary on the interwebs and we must have a multi-million dollar investigation into how this happened.

This.

There are also several non-American ATSers who will argue for hours that the term 'natural born citizen' includes anyone who acquires U.S. citizenship at birth -- regardless of their parents' foreign citizenship and birth outside the U.S.

I am confident the drafters did NOT intend for there to be any foreign influence regarding that term as used in the Constitution.

a reply to: Irishhaf

OH, hahahahahah! Yes! Hilarious...

That you even think that there is anything REMOTELY similar going on in your example.

When someone from Europe expresses their opinion, based on their experience and without any other motive than wanting to see good things happen to their friends across the pond, or more importantly, not wanting the worst things (a right shift of any nature, at any time, for any reason) occurring in a country populated by people they care deeply for, it is NOT the same as a Russian bot farm, trying to influence the outcome of an election for reasons having entirely to do with the will of the Russian government!

NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO EXPLAIN THIS CRAP TO YOU IRISHHAF!

For CRYING OUT LOUD, WAKE UP AND SMELL THE DAMNED COFFEE!

a reply to: TrueBrit

Eh, there were similar shenanigans online to Hillary's benefit, too. In fact, in August 2016, I authored a thread on the bots at the DailyMail who were upvoting pro-HIllary comments and downvoting pro-Trump comments by the thousands and tens of thousands.

It was annoying, but I didn't think it warranted a special prosecutor and $10 million investigation. In fact, DailyMail never made any comment on it and we still don't know who was behind that.

Care about all of it or none of it...just don't cherrypick what to care about.

a reply to: MotherMayEye

I assume that you found and published actual evidence of this, rather than rumours, theories or the like? If so, I would like to see that evidence, because your thread escaped me entirely, and also because I frankly do not believe that your assertions are accurate.

The reason I do not believe your assertions are accurate, is that there is no more right wing, mainstream publication than the Daily Mail, and they have been staunchly pro-Trump in comparison to other, more relevant and for the people publications.