Facebook Ads Show Russian Effort to Stoke Political Division

DooKey

DooKey

[H]F Junkie
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Members of the House intelligence committee have released over 3,500 Facebook ads from the Russians that were placed to cause political division in the United States. There's a little bit of everything there from general issues to specifics like police brutality or promotion of Trump and Sanders. However, while this is all interesting, I don't believe these had any real influence on voters in 2016. There was more than enough legitimate information to make a decision one way or the other.

In February, special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians of an elaborate plot to disrupt the 2016 presidential election, charging several people associated with the Internet Research Agency with running a huge but hidden social media trolling campaign aimed in part at helping Trump defeat Clinton. The indictment was part of Mueller’s larger investigation into Russian intervention in the election and whether Trump’s campaign was involved. There has been no evidence that Trump’s campaign was in any way associated with the social media effort.
 
It's as if this was the first time in US history that the Russians tried messing with our elections. Typically they probably would favor passifist politicians.
 
Yeah so Foxnews or CNN can be up to bias reporting 24/7/365: no big deal.

Some dude with $1000 and a Russian IP runs garbage ads that get minimal impressions and even less click throughs we burn millions investigating how this caused the downfall of a US election.
 
Geforcepat said:
Whatever. nobody cares at this point. if you want to point to division in the usa in the last 10 years. then look no further than obamer.
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A lot of people do care, depending upon their political party, thinking this ranged from harmless, to the $100k spend single handedly won Trump the election. If you notice the ads run though, both Democrats and Republican ads each had one with hundreds of thousands of likes and shares.

But I'll save my rant for the Soap Box.
 
Nytegard said:
A lot of people do care, depending upon their political party, thinking this ranged from harmless, to the $100k spend single handedly won Trump the election. If you notice the ads run though, both Democrats and Republican ads each had one with hundreds of thousands of likes and shares.
Yeah, a lot of leftist do because they think trump and putin are BFF's and really believe that he helped trump win.:rolleyes:

But I'll save my rant for the Soap Box.
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Good. you do that.:cool:
 
For those of you that are willing to see why this matters and how easily people are influenced (reaffirm their bubble) PBS has a great 4 part series currently taking place.

A few discussion questions from the series "Who, what, when, where, why do hyperpartisan news sites exist?":
  1. Essential question: How does inflammatory news weaken a democratic society?
  2. What does it mean to be partisan? What does it mean to be hyperpartisan?
  3. What is the difference between junk news as described in this series and so-called fake news?
  4. What do you think Miles O’Brien meant when he asked Cyrus Massoumi if creating clickbait is ‘unpatriotic’?
  5. Do you think Massoumi should take more responsibility for his actions?
  6. Would you take a job spinning facts or creating inflammatory news if it paid a lot of money? Why or why not?
  7. How should the government respond to inflammatory news sites?
Part 1: Online anger is gold to this junk-news pioneer
Part 2: Why we love liking junk news that reaffirms our beliefs
Parts 3 & 4 have not yet been released.
 
Why is this even news ? You think facebook would turn down ad revenue from anybody ? What small percentage of people actually look at the ads, anyhow ?
 
The government is broken on both sides. Quit pointing fingers and start pulling together towards a common sense approach to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
 
Is it just me... looks like virtually nobody saw any of these. I'd be surprised if they swayed 100 votes, maybe 1,000 at most, but even then I think it's reaching. There had better be more, otherwise this looks like a total waste of time.
 
I still find it fascinating that people get their news from Facebook. It boggles the mind.
 

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cjcox said:
Is it just me... looks like virtually nobody saw any of these. I'd be surprised if they swayed 100 votes, maybe 1,000 at most, but even then I think it's reaching. There had better be more, otherwise this looks like a total waste of time.
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No, the problem is you're looking at it face value. It's real purpose is diversionary so you don't ask questions as to how we got the candidates we did in the first place. In a sense, both sides lost. Hillary lost the electorate vote, Trump lost the popular vote, and 42% of eligible voters stayed at home. That might cause some to raise some serious questions as to what's happened to our parties, candidates, process, etc. so better focus on uh, Russian ads!
 
tetris42 said:
No, the problem is you're looking at it face value. It's real purpose is diversionary so you don't ask questions as to how we got the candidates we did in the first place. In a sense, both sides lost. Hillary lost the electorate vote, Trump lost the popular vote, and 42% of eligible voters stayed at home. That might cause some to raise some serious questions as to what's happened to our parties, candidates, process, etc. so better focus on uh, Russian ads!
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Keep your eyes out for #VoterFraud, it may turn out she LOST the popular vote as well. #QAnon
 
If you're influenced by ads... never mind political ads, maybe you shouldn't be an adult.

Government should stay out of speech issues other than to protect your free speech rights.

If you have an issue with what someone says, vote with your wallet, ignore them, or if they knowingly lied, take them to civil court and try to prove damages.
 
Krenum said:
I still find it fascinating that people get their news from Facebook. It boggles the mind.
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Considering how often peoples faces are in their phone, either texting or looking at social media of one form or another, it's really not that surprising.
 
Nobody I know, no matter what their political affiliation seems to have seen any of these ads. Which I find very strange if they were that influential.
 
In 2012, Romney said (paraphrased) Russians are our greatest geopolitical foe/threat/risk. Then-incumbant President Obama was categorically dismissive of those concerns. Many people mocked the sentiment at the time, as I recall.

Perspectives have changed tremendously in 5 years, I guess.

Of course in fairness, wisdom in yesterday's environment is not wisdom today, and vice-versa, though we often reflect upon historic events with the benefits of revelations that hadn't happened yet.
 
Muh_Russia attempt number 2,585

Joust said:
In 2012, Romney said (paraphrased) Russians are our greatest geopolitical foe/threat/risk. Then-incumbant President Obama was categorically dismissive of those concerns. Many people mocked the sentiment at the time, as I recall.

Perspectives have changed tremendously in 5 years, I guess.

Of course in fairness, wisdom in yesterday's environment is not wisdom today, and vice-versa, though we often reflect upon historic events with the benefits of revelations that hadn't happened yet.
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Funny how bad Russia was suddenly after they stopped the zionist Syrian proxy war in its tracks.
 

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so when is the expose of how European entities (either directly or through PACs, NGOs , special interest groups. Example: Soros affiliates ) are involved in influencing the election?
 
Sounds like an extremely tame version of what the US government does everywhere in the world:







Obama admin. sent taxpayer money to campaign to oust Netanyahu


Just between 1946 and 2000, the US interfered in at least 81 foreign elections:



And here's a list of coups that the US government has enacted up to 2014: https://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peoples-governments-the-master-list


theBrownLlama said:
so when is the expose of how European entities (either directly or through PACs, NGOs , special interest groups. Example: Soros affiliates ) are involved in influencing the election?
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I bet a lot of people are waiting for investigations into Israeli and Saudi Arabian interference in US elections.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/n...nvestigate-all-interference-in-elections.html
 
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Geez, simple solution to this. Don't use Facebook! Better yet, ignore the damn ads!

I cannot recall ever seeing an ad, anywhere. I am sure they are there, but over the years and the mass pollution of WEB sites with ads, I have been desensitized to the point where I do not see them at all. If the ads make it difficult to view the content, then I just blacklist the site and move on.

I'll never understand what the deal is about this. Are people really that stupid and susceptible to manipulation? If so, then there is the problem which needs to be fixed.
 
IcePickFreak said:
lol wut? I'd love to see where/how you came to that conclusion from this thread, but I don't expect any response other than maybe some derogatory remark.
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Well, if I had to guess:

-implying the right / left divide comes down to Obama
-claiming the behavior of the entire left is no different than Nazis persecuting jews
-referening a theory promoted by 4chan, Alex Jones, and Sean Hannity that Trump won the popular vote due to millions of cases of voter fraud in Hillary's favor
-singling out George Soros for influencing elections financially with no mention of similar actors on the right
-a picture of Trump dominating over the Jew represented as the brain bug from Starship Troopers

could seem to give that impression to some.
 
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