US Politics Mega-Blog - Page 122

On December 29 2018 08:02 ChristianS wrote:

See, when you sweep the entire news industry into the generalization it's hard to follow you based on one example. I mean, when Jeff Gerstmann got fired it was pretty clear Gamespot had a problem separating its advertising business from its journalism, but that wasn't really sufficient evidence to condemn the entire industry as lying whores.

Like, Radiolab did an episode on Russian election interference. Am I to believe that Radiolab staff are all corporate shills reading a script handed to them by Warren Buffett? Or are they useful idiots for the corporate cause? Or does Buffett have some kind of kompromat on Jad Abumrad?

A lot of people thought the Russian influence campaign was a big story, in part because its efficacy was unclear (especially in such a close election). Looking back, I'd guess at this point it didn't have much impact, but it doesn't seem very likely to me that everybody writing articles about it from 2016 until now knew it didn't have much impact and just wrote about it to further their corporate overlords' interests. I don't know if that's what you're claiming, but if it is I'd certainly be interested to see more evidence.

Secret Experiment in Alabama Senate Race Imitated Russian Tactics

As Russia’s online election machinations came to light last year, a group of Democratic tech experts decided to try out similarly deceptive tactics in the fiercely contested Alabama Senate race, according to people familiar with the effort and a report on its results.

The secret project, carried out on Facebook and Twitter, was likely too small to have a significant effect on the race, in which the Democratic candidate it was designed to help, Doug Jones, edged out the Republican, Roy S. Moore. But it was a sign that American political operatives of both parties have paid close attention to the Russian methods, which some fear may come to taint elections in the United States.

One participant in the Alabama project, Jonathon Morgan, is the chief executive of New Knowledge, a small cyber security firm that wrote a scathing account of Russia’s social media operations in the 2016 election that was released this week by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

An internal report on the Alabama effort, obtained by The New York Times, says explicitly that it “experimented with many of the tactics now understood to have influenced the 2016 elections.”

The project’s operators created a Facebook page on which they posed as conservative Alabamians, using it to try to divide Republicans and even to endorse a write-in candidate to draw votes from Mr. Moore. It involved a scheme to link the Moore campaign to thousands of Russian accounts that suddenly began following the Republican candidate on Twitter, a development that drew national media attention.

“We orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet,” the report says.

The project had a budget of just $100,000, in a race that cost approximately $51 million, including the primaries, according to Federal Election Commission records.

But however modest, the influence effort in Alabama may be a sign of things to come.

On January 02 2019 21:56 GreenHorizons wrote:


This is one example of what it looks like. The $100,000 spent by these dipshits in a $51 million Alabama race is much greater proportionately than Russia spent for 2016 (notwithstanding a great deal of that spending by Russia had nothing to do with the 2016 election)

Yet NYT frames it as inconsequential to the race and literally calls it "modest"




www.nytimes.com

If nothing else Democrats should just hire IRA and let them run their campaign and save everyone about a billion dollars and beat Trump.

EDIT: To wrap up the point the simple juxtaposition of how much each group spent was a very rudimentary step that most corporate publications simply avoided in their non-stop coverage. Instead every number related to Russian influence was treated like a big deal and rarely if ever was what constitutes "an impression" dissected. Neither was the potential that many of those impressions were recorded from the bots themselves investigated. The narrative was that Russia interfered, it was one of the things that swung the election, anyone disagreeing has been compromised by Russian propaganda. More recently the push by corporate media to try to convince people that Hillary's performance sucked with Black people because of Russia and not her shitty record/campaign.

I suppose people could argue it's easy to not think to compare how much spending was done by various entities when talking about Russian influence but I'd argue they shouldn't be journalists/pundits making 6 and 7 figure salaries if they are that incompetent.

On January 03 2019 00:46 ChristianS wrote:

But "how much they spent" is a weird metric for Russia's 2016 activity. A big part of the supposed effectiveness comes from the deception of it - they're not going through normal political advertising channels, they're pretending to be grassroots activists and trying to trick people into following their will. In the stock market, for instance, I believe it's illegal to be paid to endorse a stock without disclosing that you're being paid to do so.

The side of this we're ignoring, by the way, is the espionage side of Russia's 2016 activity. Hacking one side and releasing all their private information is a big deal in a way that couldn't be dismissed by knowing the hackers weren't paid very much. This part of their campaign, by the way, was likely much more impactful than the social influence campaign, and for my money, easily impactful enough to change the result.

On January 03 2019 03:12 xDaunt wrote:
The phrasing was deliberate. The implementation of socialist policy is typically a matter of degree. Countries that crank it up to an 11 like Chavez did inevitably destroy themselves. Lesser implementations will cause harm, but not lead to "national ruin."

On January 03 2019 01:20 GreenHorizons wrote:


I was just giving you another specific example. How much they spent, how many impressions they garnered compared to the election in general, the significance of an impression and whether they can find anyone who reports being duped are all important factors that were largely or completely ignored.

As for the deception that was a big part of the story you're responding to so that's not different either.

It's clear they weren't investigating or informing people with relevant information, they were selling the idea that Russia's meddling was significant, not trying to determine if it was.

They sold it long before they had any data (as paltry as it is) to back it up. When they got the reports instead of stepping back and looking at whether it had been overhyped they took a Buff Bernie coloring book and some masturbation memes and did their best to convince people that's what cost Hillary the election.

EDIT: Can you show me any corporate publications that ever addressed that widely (and still) circulated fake news about the thousands that attended a rally organized by the Russians?

If not that seems like a pretty gaping failure of the media does it not?

On January 03 2019 03:16 GreenHorizons wrote:


But something like socialized healthcare would be an improvement correct? So perhaps the question would get a better answer if I asked, where (if anywhere) besides healthcare do you think socialism can be applied to our benefit? What benefits do you think it provides (when implemented correctly in your view)?

On January 03 2019 06:09 ChristianS wrote:

I'm gonna be pretty busy for the next week and a half (I'm getting married on Friday!) so I might have trouble getting back to you on this, but I'll try to remember to when I get back. Feel free to remind me

On January 03 2019 04:37 xDaunt wrote:



Offering a form of socialized healthcare does not improve health care services. It merely offers a solution to a political problem.