|
Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On August 23 2020 06:27 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2020 06:17 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 23 2020 06:12 JimmiC wrote:On August 23 2020 06:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 23 2020 03:39 Doublemint wrote:Absolutely correct, the ugliness was always there. Weaponizing it this expertly by abusing the freedoms granted though is unprecedented. And with social media the reach is near unlimited.
The actual beauty of it is how they made it seem so organic. IIRC I also posted about it in the past with a fascinating WaPo article. //edit: Russian trolls can be surprisingly subtle, and often fun to read Oh god, we're back to how masterful the Bernie coloring book,Trump vs Satan ads, and pointing out 1+1 = 2 were... Do people think Russia is exponentially better at influencing elections/kindling divisions and stuff than the NSA/CIA/etc or what? I do not, probably very similar. Do you not think the US has influenced other countries elections? That would be pathetic given their relative size, budgets, and available tech. Of course they have. They've openly admitted to it several times. Up to and including helping to forcibly remove democratically elected leaders (you can think of Chile specifically) So what point are you making? If anything you are saying how careful the US needs to be. If anyone knows what is possible it is them. Social media, and the internet in general really evened the playing field.
The US is far more egregious an offender in every aspect and it's very much the cast iron calling the scorched aluminum black. People should be far more concerned about US interference foreign and domestic than they should be Russian trolls tweeting “Criticizing Trump in a book is just unfair. It’s like criticizing the Amish on television.”
I've seen dozens of stories about Russia's influence, but practically none about how US bots/trolls are deployed domestically (or in other countries) to manipulate the public.
Do people think the US isn't doing the same things to Russia with much more resources at their disposal? That the US has suddenly stopped funding opposition movements, providing tech, etc on top of employing social media trolls/bots to manipulate opinion in Russia and lots of other countries?
EDIT: The main point I was making was a simple one, their attempts weren't masterful at all, they were elementary af.
|
Northern Ireland26715 Posts
On August 23 2020 06:27 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2020 06:17 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 23 2020 06:12 JimmiC wrote:On August 23 2020 06:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 23 2020 03:39 Doublemint wrote:Absolutely correct, the ugliness was always there. Weaponizing it this expertly by abusing the freedoms granted though is unprecedented. And with social media the reach is near unlimited.
The actual beauty of it is how they made it seem so organic. IIRC I also posted about it in the past with a fascinating WaPo article. //edit: Russian trolls can be surprisingly subtle, and often fun to read Oh god, we're back to how masterful the Bernie coloring book,Trump vs Satan ads, and pointing out 1+1 = 2 were... Do people think Russia is exponentially better at influencing elections/kindling divisions and stuff than the NSA/CIA/etc or what? I do not, probably very similar. Do you not think the US has influenced other countries elections? That would be pathetic given their relative size, budgets, and available tech. Of course they have. They've openly admitted to it several times. Up to and including helping to forcibly remove democratically elected leaders (you can think of Chile specifically) So what point are you making? If anything you are saying how careful the US needs to be. If anyone knows what is possible it is them. Social media, and the internet in general really evened the playing field.
Why is the US so vulnerable to Russian interference and yet seemingly impervious to relative European norms in terms of influence and not exactly a huge fan of China all round?
Careful of what?
The world’s superpower in waiting apparently can’t wield this influence, a relatively joined up European bloc can’t but Russia can?
|
|
|
There is absolutey no reason to believe, that the USD would be more unstable with Bernie. Their goal is also not necessarily weakening the economy of the US. Their goal is to have a source for "but what about your democracy" and a right wing strong man is so much easier to use for this. "What do you mean Russia is a dictatorship, our democracy is like yours, it has problems, like people getting free university, good healthcare and surviving a pandemic!"
Doesn't have the same ring as "your protestors are being shot by your government, why are you looking at Russia."
|
On August 23 2020 06:51 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2020 06:39 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 23 2020 06:27 JimmiC wrote:On August 23 2020 06:17 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 23 2020 06:12 JimmiC wrote:On August 23 2020 06:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 23 2020 03:39 Doublemint wrote:Absolutely correct, the ugliness was always there. Weaponizing it this expertly by abusing the freedoms granted though is unprecedented. And with social media the reach is near unlimited.
The actual beauty of it is how they made it seem so organic. IIRC I also posted about it in the past with a fascinating WaPo article. //edit: Russian trolls can be surprisingly subtle, and often fun to read Oh god, we're back to how masterful the Bernie coloring book,Trump vs Satan ads, and pointing out 1+1 = 2 were... Do people think Russia is exponentially better at influencing elections/kindling divisions and stuff than the NSA/CIA/etc or what? I do not, probably very similar. Do you not think the US has influenced other countries elections? That would be pathetic given their relative size, budgets, and available tech. Of course they have. They've openly admitted to it several times. Up to and including helping to forcibly remove democratically elected leaders (you can think of Chile specifically) So what point are you making? If anything you are saying how careful the US needs to be. If anyone knows what is possible it is them. Social media, and the internet in general really evened the playing field. The US is far more egregious an offender in every aspect and it's very much the cast iron calling the scorched aluminum black. People should be far more concerned about US interference foreign and domestic than they should be Russian trolls tweeting “Criticizing Trump in a book is just unfair. It’s like criticizing the Amish on television.” I've seen dozens of stories about Russia's influence, but practically none about how US bots/trolls are deployed domestically (or in other countries) to manipulate the public. Do people think the US isn't doing the same things to Russia with much more resources at their disposal? That the US has suddenly stopped funding opposition movements, providing tech, etc on top of employing social media trolls/bots to manipulate opinion in Russia and lots of other countries? EDIT: The main point I was making was a simple one, their attempts weren't masterful at all, they were elementary af. Do you have a citation for the US manipulating their own elections in the last 20 years? Otherwise I think almost everyone here agrees the USA foriegn policy is bad. + Show Spoiler +And yes it is elementary and could and should be shutdown, but your leader is not into stopping things that help him regardless of motives and legality. Same with regulating the internet in any meaningful way, or cable "news" for that matter.
This was a pretty well known example
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
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.
A lot of Democrats argued Comey's handling of Hillary's emails was also intentionally manipulative. Specifically his/McCabe's commenting about the investigation.
+ Show Spoiler +that fact pattern establishes a clear story: Current or former FBI officials involved in investigating the Clinton Foundation apparently leaked information; Comey made his late-October announcement about the Clinton email investigation in part to get ahead of additional leaks; and McCabe publicly confirmed the existence of the separate Clinton Foundation investigation for similar reasons.
“The FBI agents had a legal and professional obligation to maintain the secrecy of the Clinton investigation,” Green said. “As law-enforcement agents, they, of all people, had an obligation to play by the rules. Violating their secrecy obligations in order to try to swing an election shows a fundamental lack of respect for the law.”
As to the Russia issue, I think this quote from the NYT is apt:
“If you ask an intelligence officer, did the Russians break the rules or do something bizarre, the answer is no, not at all,” said Steven L. Hall, who retired in 2015 after 30 years at the C.I.A., where he was the chief of Russian operations. The United States “absolutely” has carried out such election influence operations historically, he said, “and I hope we keep doing it.”
www.nytimes.com
EDIT: On August 23 2020 08:10 JimmiC wrote:+ Show Spoiler +I still do not know who you are trying to convince, I know the US does it, I don't think they should.
I know Russia does it, I don't think they should and they should protect themselves. Especially against Putin who just had another critic get poisoned and almost die.
I'll read your link later as it is behind a paywall.
But you really got to stop mixing and matching points. It is not an argument that US should let Russia try to manipulate their election because they have done it to others. The same as blaming the dems for the republican's racism. It is nonsensical stuff that makes it hard to take what you say seriously. + Show Spoiler +
The Comney thing is politicians being politicians the same way the Republicans say everyone was against Trump. I mean both sides ended up blaming Comney. Far from a campaign meant to destabilize a democracy. For us that value democracy it is pretty scary.
indeed.
|
|
|
On August 23 2020 02:57 Doublemint wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2020 00:52 Doodsmack wrote:On August 22 2020 14:51 Doublemint wrote:During a global pandemic that is still ravaging too many places in the US it is rather prudent to have the choice to vote by mail. It's easy, it's safe - don't forget that a huge portion of the electorate is boomer material and/or not in the best shape, two factors not in your favor in case you get infected( BBC) Data says its pretty damn secure as well. ReutersIncidentally NOW seems to be the perfect time to make sweeping changes( among "other cuts" - removing 671 sorting machines, roughly 10 percent of the inventory via @ Fox) to the institution crucial to delivering the ballots safely so they can be checked and counted. Months ahead of of the election. And with everything else going on like around a thousand people dying EVERY SINGLE DAY in the US due to the virus( Covidtracker), an economy in the tank, RECORD unemployment, and if there won't be any deal reached for another stimulus round in the near future in Congress I would imagine actual social unrest and chaos... THIS seems to be the priority. Oh and then there is this person in the oval office that's about as helpful in a crisis as gout. Shitposting from the sidelines about imaginary voter fraud and an impending election chaos one can't help but notice he not only appears to be warning about, but actually being involved in making it a reality. ( Fox) Thanks for the sources. I'm hesitant to assume a nefarious conspiracy based on general distrust of Trump, when it might still be the case that the USPS is capable of operating at full capacity even with less mail sorting machines. It has the smell of being another media-driven story, in line with Russian collusion and Russian bounties. No problem. A healthy portion of scepticism is totally warranted when consuming media sources, though your two examples are anything but "just media driven", there's some meat on them bones. I would for example just read the first 10 or so pages of the recent Senate intelligence report(beware, 1000 pages and for a pdf rather big file.) The willingness was there, the contacts on a lot of levels. Even exchange of information and timings of when to release which hacked docs. That it did not rise to the required level of the legal definition (debatable even) is in light of this kinda beside the point. I am not trying to say Trump won because Russia Russia, that's another point entirely and one I have no interest in discussing any further as it is history now. We should learn from that precedent and how to react rather. I am just wondering what they have got in store this election season, what kind of deep fakes? How will the (social) media channels react to it, the voters.
To be clear I find the timing to be an indication that there is no conspiracy. The plan to reform the post office was being put into motion in February, which I think was prior to the outbreak in the US and prior to any talk of mail in voting. They would have had to be predicting the course the events accurately, which I don't think anyone on the left believes they're even capable of.
|
|
|
|
|
It was super obvious mail in voting was going to be a thing even back then. The GOP has always been against mail in voting, even though there is 0 proof it increases fraud in any meaningful manner (it goes from literally nonexistent to something like .0000005%), because it increases voter turnout, which is almost always a negative for them, due to how many fewer people are Republicans.
They could easily have been trying to sabotage it in February, when it didn't appear that mail in voting would be so necessary, purely to drive down turnout. The issue with it now is that many of the voters who would be best off using it are those most loyal to Trump (the elderly)
|
Turning a public service into a private service isn't exactly new. Also, keep in mind that the bill that gutted the post office was passed unanimously back in 2006. Republicans are opportunists with the whole voting thing, but the fact is that the post office is losing money. You either consider it a service and write off the losses or you go private.
|
Trump and the GOP have always had an active interest in reducing turnout in elections, and have been crying mail voting fraud for years as a means of attacking it from that angle. It's only an especially poignant issue now that we're neck-deep in a pandemic. Like in many other contexts, the pandemic mainly highlighted things that were already broken in this country. This would've been happening regardless of whether there was a pandemic, so it's kind of meaningless to say the timing disproves it. It just makes it especially critical to highlight it and do something about it.
|
On August 23 2020 09:34 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2020 02:57 Doublemint wrote:On August 23 2020 00:52 Doodsmack wrote:On August 22 2020 14:51 Doublemint wrote:During a global pandemic that is still ravaging too many places in the US it is rather prudent to have the choice to vote by mail. It's easy, it's safe - don't forget that a huge portion of the electorate is boomer material and/or not in the best shape, two factors not in your favor in case you get infected( BBC) Data says its pretty damn secure as well. ReutersIncidentally NOW seems to be the perfect time to make sweeping changes( among "other cuts" - removing 671 sorting machines, roughly 10 percent of the inventory via @ Fox) to the institution crucial to delivering the ballots safely so they can be checked and counted. Months ahead of of the election. And with everything else going on like around a thousand people dying EVERY SINGLE DAY in the US due to the virus( Covidtracker), an economy in the tank, RECORD unemployment, and if there won't be any deal reached for another stimulus round in the near future in Congress I would imagine actual social unrest and chaos... THIS seems to be the priority. Oh and then there is this person in the oval office that's about as helpful in a crisis as gout. Shitposting from the sidelines about imaginary voter fraud and an impending election chaos one can't help but notice he not only appears to be warning about, but actually being involved in making it a reality. ( Fox) Thanks for the sources. I'm hesitant to assume a nefarious conspiracy based on general distrust of Trump, when it might still be the case that the USPS is capable of operating at full capacity even with less mail sorting machines. It has the smell of being another media-driven story, in line with Russian collusion and Russian bounties. No problem. A healthy portion of scepticism is totally warranted when consuming media sources, though your two examples are anything but "just media driven", there's some meat on them bones. I would for example just read the first 10 or so pages of the recent Senate intelligence report(beware, 1000 pages and for a pdf rather big file.) The willingness was there, the contacts on a lot of levels. Even exchange of information and timings of when to release which hacked docs. That it did not rise to the required level of the legal definition (debatable even) is in light of this kinda beside the point. I am not trying to say Trump won because Russia Russia, that's another point entirely and one I have no interest in discussing any further as it is history now. We should learn from that precedent and how to react rather. I am just wondering what they have got in store this election season, what kind of deep fakes? How will the (social) media channels react to it, the voters. To be clear I find the timing to be an indication that there is no conspiracy. The plan to reform the post office was being put into motion in February, which I think was prior to the outbreak in the US and prior to any talk of mail in voting. They would have had to be predicting the course the events accurately, which I don't think anyone on the left believes they're even capable of.
I am not (fully) sold on conspiracy either, however Trump going all in on the " voting by mail equals fraud" angle makes it hard to ignore as a distinct possibility. And at the very least it is gross negligence and incompetence to have those plans in early february and still go through with, especially under these circumstances.
An impulse driven, lacking idea executed to perfection for and by the "the government sucks" party. They stay on brand no matter what.
GH minimizing and "what about the terrible things the US did?" is par for the course and just getting old. If you actually think a Bernie coloring book was the extent of interference then more power to you.
To be perfectly clear just about everyone is susceptible to a well made disinfo campaign. You just make an easier target if you are already hell bent on seeing the worst in the US and its system of government as unfixable and ripe for a teardown.
|
GH minimizing and "what about the terrible things the US did?" is par for the course and just getting old. If you actually think a Bernie coloring book was the extent of interference then more power to you.
To be perfectly clear just about everyone is susceptible to a well made disinfo campaign. You just make an easier target if you are already hell bent on seeing the worst in the US and its system of government as unfixable and ripe for a teardown.
So much for history... I'm very familiar with the extent of their interference, I'm just tired of people pretending it wasn't basic af. The lede example for the article of this masterful manipulation was a mediocre joke at Donald Trump's expense. “Criticizing Trump in a book is just unfair. It’s like criticizing the Amish on television.” It's like seeing a toddler mystified by the thumb trick and marveling at the masterful craft of the magician that performed this unprecedented expert manipulation.
Just makes the person engrossed appear as easily manipulated as the ostensible target.
EDIT: Really what has been most devastating imo is how much responsibility Democrats have been able to dodge by blaming Russia and Trump instead of their role in the deep and bipartisan rot Russia attempts to exploit.
To me it's clear who the Russia stuff was meant to manipulate and how. It wasn't communists they were after, it was liberals and they took the bait hook line and sinker.
|
No one is after communists in the US. They are simply irrelevant in number lol.
What is it with this cheap trick you bring a simple tweet over and over?
Looking a bit further is seeing how they cultivated twitter accounts with a decent following (for different subgroups even - liberals, BLM, pro trump...) over years at least as far back as 2014 - and then go into overdrive when the time comes to spread messages that are not completely out of tune with the general posts but very much extreme and divisive in comparison to earlier ones.
I don't know if you ever had twitter, but it is stupidly time consuming if you actually want to build a following of many thousands in a certain amount of time.
It might seem trivial to you that they cracked the code to reach a lot of people and nudge them towards something but I assure you it is not. If their intentions were different they might become kickass influencers that just sell to whoever is willing to buy if orders change or they are no longer needed lol. There have been huge purges of russian and chinese accounts and botnets on various platforms after all.
So democrats complain a lot, big deal. Considering they were targeted and taken for a ride 2016 they are hardly to blame. That they made other huge mistakes that lead to their loss and Hillary sucks does not make it any less true.
|
On August 23 2020 15:22 Doublemint wrote:
No one is after communists in the US. They are simply irrelevant in number lol.
What is it with this cheap trick you bring the a simple tweet over and over?
Looking a bit further is seeing how they cultivated twitter accounts with a decent following (for different subgroups even - liberals, BLM, pro trump...) over years at least as far back as 2014 - and then go into overdrive when the time comes to spread messages that are not completely out of tune with the general posts but very much extreme and divisive in comparison to earlier ones.
I don't know if you ever had twitter, but it is stupidly time consuming if you actually want to build a following of many thousands in a certain amount of time.
It might seem trivial to you that they cracked the code to reach a lot of people and nudge them towards something but I assure you it is not. If their intentions were different they might become kickass influencers that just sell to whoever is willing to buy if orders change or they are no longer needed lol. There have been huge purges of russian and chinese accounts and botnets on various platforms after all.
So democrats complain a lot, big deal. Considering they were targeted and taken for a ride 2016 they are hardly to blame. That they made other huge mistakes that lead to their loss and Hillary sucks does not make it any less true.
It is trivial according to the former chief of CIA operations for Russia who routinely did this stuff and worse to Russia. It might seem like a huge unprecedented deal to you and others that got swept up in the campaign to manipulate the public (driven by US media) but the fact of the matter is that it was rudimentary and there's been nothing of significance demonstrated.
There's been dozens of stories about what they actually posted and it was all ridiculous (Trump vs Satan), c-tier influencer spam (the stuff in the article you posted), and/or basic facts that are often just quoting back things Americans say (most of the "stoking tensions" stuff falls into this).
The other major example they cite is this...
+ Show Spoiler +In June 2017, for example, @Crystal1Johnson, a troll account that participated in Black Lives Matter communities, tweeted to her more than 50,000 followers, “Daily reminder that the most educated First Lady in American history is a black woman with two Ivy League degrees from Harvard and Princeton.” This tweet gained almost half a million likes and retweets
Which was literally tweeted months before by a different (still active) account:
+ Show Spoiler +
Maybe that's also a Russian account that they just didn't discover in their investigations and my masterful googlefu uncovered this information? Or maybe you're being sold a bill of goods and taken for a ride?
|
Not all people are beyond reproach as you are, so sure why not. As a citizen of the EU I was the main target of US interference and taken for a ride.
And ain't quoting and giving credence to officials of institutions you view as corrupt to the core mighty fine when it fits you. Having your cake and eating it too!
How the internet infrastructure is setup in authoritarian countries makes it virtually impossible to "do this stuff and worse" routinely... but I guess you already knew that.
Maybe just agree to disagree? Beating dead horses is just no fun.
|
On August 23 2020 16:15 Doublemint wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Not all people are beyond reproach as you are, so sure why not. As a citizen of the EU I was the main target of US interference and taken for a ride.
And ain't quoting and giving credence to officials of institutions you view as corrupt to the core mighty fine when it fits you. Having your cake and eating it too!
How the internet infrastructure is setup in authoritarian countries makes it virtually impossible to "do this stuff and worse" routinely... but I guess you already knew that.
Maybe just agree to disagree? Beating dead horses is just no fun.
I mean sure? I don't know what argument you're thinking you have though?
It appears to be you just rejecting what happened.
|
Well, in a dispute with you I have none. Your standpoint is set.
|
Russia doesnt even have 1/100 th of the power the usa has when it comes to influencing public opinion on the usa. The whole notion that russia has this power and influence is laughable.
The influencing and controlling of public opinion in the usa,it comes from interest groups within the usa itself. (and the same goes,to a smaller extend,for europe).
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
