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Russian Propaganda Effort Helped Spread 'Fake News' During Election, Experts Say (usatoday.com) 272

Posted by BeauHD from the ulterior-motives dept.
According to the Washington Post (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternate source), the "fake news" phenomenon that circulated thousands of phony stories during the election was aided by a sophisticated Russian propaganda effort that aimed to punish Democrat Hillary Clinton, help Republican Donald Trump and undermine faith in American democracy. Slashdot reader xtsigs shares with us an excerpt from the Washington Post's report: The flood of "fake news" this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation. Russia's increasingly sophisticated propaganda machinery -- including thousands of botnets, teams of paid human "trolls," and networks of websites and social-media accounts -- echoed and amplified right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers. The effort also sought to heighten the appearance of international tensions and promote fear of looming hostilities with nuclear-armed Russia. Two teams of independent researchers found that the Russians exploited American-made technology platforms to attack U.S. democracy at a particularly vulnerable moment, as an insurgent candidate harnessed a wide range of grievances to claim the White House.
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Russian Propaganda Effort Helped Spread 'Fake News' During Election, Experts Say More

Russian Propaganda Effort Helped Spread 'Fake News' During Election, Experts Say

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  • Not (Score:3, Informative)

    by jbmartin6 ( 1232050 ) on Friday November 25, 2016 @08:29PM (#53362329)
    Just yesterday CNN was running some fake news about a researcher proposing a vote recount, and said researcher had to log a disclaimer. I suppose the Russians were behind that too. They must have also been behind all the fake news about iraq having weapons of mass destruction. Those cunning bastards! Time to call in moose and squirrel!

    • Re: Not (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Thanks, jbmartin6, for some additional fake news. There has been no "disclaimer." I even question whether you're a native English speaker, as a native English speaker would know that the correct word is "retraction" or "denial." So this is now it happens, Some makes an unsubstantiated claim, and those who would like to believe, do believe. Next time you post something like this "disclaimer" story, post a link so your claim can be substantiated, researched for verification by a reasonably skeptical perso

      • The story and the disclaimer (look it up in a dictionary, this is a correct use of the word. Even an AC can learn that being snide isn't productive.) were covered on /. [slashdot.org]
    • they're scientists. And scientists very, very rarely want to 100% commit to something without disclaimers. There are entire books that exist to prove 1+1=2.

      The public at large _hates_ all the uncertainty in real science. It makes science appear weak, and leaves it vulnerable to attack. This is why climate science is so easy to 'debunk'...

  • Experts Say? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by segedunum ( 883035 ) on Friday November 25, 2016 @08:34PM (#53362365)
    What a load of total and unadulterated crap. No one believes it because there's no evidence, they've been lied to before (Iraq, fake news?) and the 'mainstream' press have gone into a massive meltdown, looking for anyone, something, whatever, to blame apart from themselves. The fake news offensive is extremely ironic, and really quite sad.

    • Re:Experts Say? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by anarcobra ( 1551067 ) on Friday November 25, 2016 @08:48PM (#53362439)
      I'll believe it when they write an article citing specific "fake news" with proof that it was written by russians and helped sway the election.
      Until then I'm calling BS. You can call anything "fake news", and you can claim that everything online was written by the russians.

      • Re:Experts Say? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by wevets ( 939468 ) on Friday November 25, 2016 @08:57PM (#53362501)
        Actually, there's plenty of evidence. NPR had a piece recently which you can listen to at http://www.npr.org/sections/al... [npr.org], They found a guy, actually a Hillary voter, who made a reasonable amount of money putting out fake news during the run-up to the election. Listen, read, and see what you think. As a side line, I was a member of a right wing meetup group during the primaries. Someone posted a story that originated with that nut job Alex Jones (I hope he sues me) saying that some TV station in Wisconsin was reporting a guy who claims his vote was switched from Cruz to Trump (primaries). Their mistake was they cited the station. I called and they not only didn't put out the story but had never heard of the person alleged to have had his vote switched. By this time, however, the story had been widely spread throughout the Alt-Right bubble. Moral, don't believe a story until the source cites enough info, links, legitimate news organizations, or whatever so that you can verify the story yourself. Without that, there is a high probability that you're being lied to. BTW, I recently saw a news item that Trump was a paid agent of the KGB during the 1980's.
        • > BTW, I recently saw a news item that Trump was a paid agent of the KGB during the 1980's.

          Good one. lol

        • Re:Experts Say? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Uberbah ( 647458 ) on Friday November 25, 2016 @10:10PM (#53362829)

          Actually, there's plenty of evidence. NPR had a piece recently which you can listen to at http://www.npr.org/sections/al [npr.org]..., They found a guy, actually a Hillary voter

          So, not a Russian then. And it was known many months ago that David Brock was hiring people to troll on Hillary's behalf.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by wevets ( 939468 )
            Doesn't mean the Russians aren't involved. There are reports of a whole town in Macedonia alleged to be under the direction of Russian intelligence hosting up to 100 fake news sites and reaping lots from ad clicks. Check out https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com] It's silly to assume that because one person pushing fake news has been identified that there aren't lots of others doing it. This is apparently a growth business preying on the gullible, who seem predominantly to be conservatives. Are you silly? As

    • Re:Experts Say? (Score:4, Funny)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Friday November 25, 2016 @09:21PM (#53362607) Journal
      Please come back to our paper and subscribe. Enjoy safe news.

  • Oh Jesus. (Score:5, Informative)

    by 0100010001010011 ( 652467 ) on Friday November 25, 2016 @08:35PM (#53362375)

    Enough with the Red Scare.

    Paul Horner isn't a Russian and was paid $10k to write fake stories [nydailynews.com]

    The Macedonian kids aren't russian either. [slashdot.org]

  • really ? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Friday November 25, 2016 @08:35PM (#53362377) Homepage Journal

    As if HC needed help in not being trusted and being generally despised. She is literally the only candidate who could have possibly lost to Trump. The only person actually susceptible to his style of personal attacks and no content.

    With the DNC actions and the trickery and deceit they used to get Clinton past Sanders, no further propaganda was necessary to demolish HC. If some imaginary russian PR agency had been tasked with invention stories that put HC into a bad light, they couldn't possibly come up with such a shit. They would've been told "come on guys, it has to be at least borderline believable".

    Russia didn't need to do anything here. HC demolished her chances all by herself.

    • With the DNC actions and the trickery and deceit they used to get Clinton past Sanders, no further propaganda was necessary to demolish HC. If some imaginary russian PR agency had been tasked with invention stories that put HC into a bad light, they couldn't possibly come up with such a shit. They would've been told "come on guys, it has to be at least borderline believable".

      This reminds of me of my favorite quote. I believe it was Tom Clancy (or at least I saw it attributed to him) who said something to the effect of, "the difference between the truth and fiction is that fiction has to make sense."

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dbIII ( 701233 )

      Russia didn't need to do anything here

      Yes but it's possible they did it anyway.
      Putin has had intense personal hatred of Bill Clinton for years since Kosovo was bombed without Russia being informed - he just about built his political career on ranting about Clinton's America. He's not fond of Hillary either. Russia does that sort of shit and Putin has a motive so it can't be dismissed out of hand.

    • Russia didn't need to do anything here.

      That doesn't mean they didn't.

      We've been seeing stories for a few years now about Russian "trolls" as they're called in the media pushing political agendas. IIRC, it was a big issue in Finland a couple years ago.

      To think that Putin is really as non-chalant as he tries to appear to be about who the next President of the US will be is somewhat naive.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday November 25, 2016 @08:38PM (#53362387)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jeremyp ( 130771 )

      No, the difference is that now, a lot of people get their "news" off the Internet. It doesn't really matter where it came from there was a lot of outright lies posted, mostly about Clinton (but some about Trump too) and a lot of people bought them.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Bigbutt ( 65939 )

        I think most folks get their "news" from Facebook or Twitter and fail to read further or check such "facts" against other sites.

        [John]

      • The difference is that people no longer trust the MSM. I doubt they pay that much attention to the memes, but the MSM pretty much burned their credibility with a lot of people so we completely ignore whatever you're saying the same way we do with the people who constantly try to sell us viagra.

        I don't know why, but it might have something to do with crap like CNN lying and telling us it's illegal to read wikileaks [youtube.com] (as a lawyer, Chris Cuomo should've known better [popehat.com]), the DNC holding events with the Washington [wikileaks.org]

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dbIII ( 701233 )
          The "nerd virgins" social media shit certainly has hit this place with in the past with overt "astroturfing" (fake "grass-roots" activism) and overt product shilling by paid social media workers. I've almost given up on this place a few times when it got especially annoying.
          "Nerd virgins" sounds like exactly the sort of insulting term political staffers would use for the people they employ for social media PR.

          • If you click on the link, you'll find that "nerd virgins" is a direct quote :)

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by dbIII ( 701233 )
              Yes I know, I had to search for it in that long document and what I wrote relates to that segment.
              In that context it does very much look like exactly the sort of insulting term political staffers would use for the people they employ for social media PR.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jeremyp ( 130771 )

      The Turboencabulator thing dates to the 1940's btw, at least that's what Google tells me so it must be true.

    • That's "Retro Entabulator", bubb.

      (as I adjust my girdle spring and marzelpham)

    • Please stop beating the Russian horse. Occam's Razor argues that either there is a deeply clandestine and inexplicably state backed multi-million dollar effort from Russia to sway american elections for an equally inexplicable reason,

      It's not inexplicable. What is not explainable to you about a state pushing foreign elections in their favour? We've been doing it to others for decades, so it isn't inexplicable at all. In fact it would be more inexplicable if they weren't doing it (along with the Chinese, North Koreans, Iranians and every other enemy of the West
      If you think this is too clandestine and too expensive then I suggest some reading on the Soviet Cold War effort. Putin and his cohorts are ex-KGB, they were trained exactly in th

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skids ( 119237 )

      Please stop beating the Russian horse. Occam's Razor argues that either there is a deeply clandestine and inexplicably state backed multi-million dollar effort from Russia to sway american elections for an equally inexplicable reason, or, just maybe, hillary clinton was a turd of a candidate that rigged her own primary, had no tenable domestic or foreign policy outside the Harlem Shake, and spoke divisively against blue collar americans, and rarely if ever campaigned in their states on issues they cared about.

      ...or just maybe, that's a false dichotomy and multi-causal phenomena actually exist, like everyone knows they do except you.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday November 25, 2016 @08:52PM (#53362459)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Bigbutt ( 65939 )

      The problem is the folks who believe fake news _do_ vote.

      [John]

  • Feel free to stop fucking that Russian chicken... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Uberbah ( 647458 ) on Friday November 25, 2016 @09:19PM (#53362593)

    ...at any time. There is no evidence that Russia did anything whatsoever to influence this election, just assertions from the same people that told you that Saddam had dies to Al Queda and had a nuclear weapons program in 2002. This is asinine for two more reasons as well:

    1) The idiots pushing this story tend to be the same sort of person who scream and sneer that you're a conspiracy theorist for suspecting Saudi involvement with 911, that the OWS crackdown was federally coordinated, that the DNC conspired with the Hillary campaign to ratfuck Sanders...until information is leaked that confirms those "theories". At which point STFU because it's old news.

    2) The United States has been in the business of trying to spy on the communications of every person on the planet. As 911, the anthrax attacks, and the Boston Marathon bombing show, it's completely worthless in its advertised function - catching terrorist attacks before they happen. It would, however, be a great system if you want to engage in the exact sort of influencing of politics and elections that the U.S. is accusing Russia of doing.

    Lets be real here. Under Obama, the United States has been willing to murder American teenagers with drones, bomb hospitals, start wars without Congressional authorization, and overthrow democracies - and you think they're just sitting on all this illicit information that could be used to discredit or blackmail people it doesn't like?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbIII ( 701233 )

      There is no evidence that Russia did anything whatsoever to influence this election

      Apart from loaning Trump a lot of money?
      OK, you have a point, it's Trump, he probably won't pay that money back to the Russian banks and if he's been told to do something he won't do it, but he certainly has had a lot of direct financial support from Russia.
      Without their help he couldn't have done it. That looks like some sort of influence on the election to me. This fake news thing is shaping up to look like the financial

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quax ( 19371 )

      Russia has been running a disinformation campaign 24/7 since the Ukraine war started.

      Just because the US knows how to snoope and spy doesn't mean the Russians unlearned that trade since the cold war. And you can be assured the NSA had nothing on KGB and Stasi.

  • They consider elections to be the vulnerable moment for democracy? That suggests a very kinked view on what democracy is.

  • Bwaaahahahahaa!

    Oh, wait...you're serious? Let me laugh even harder!

    Bwaaahahahahhahaaaahahaha!

    https://youtu.be/_n5E7feJHw0 [youtu.be]

    Strat

  • This site is loaded with post-truthers.

  • 'member when TV "news" presenter Dan Rather was fired for those faked miltiary papers about George W Bush? They were allegedly typed up on a typewriter in the late 60s/early 70s but were actually typed up in Microsoft Word (and they would have gotten away with it if they hadn't used Times) and faxed a couple times to launder it.

    "Fake but accurate", he said.

  • I've been reading/hearing about people wanting to gatekeep/curate the news for the masses for many years now. This latest election will push that effort into overdrive.

    Educate people about what the Internet is [imgur.com], but don't allow greater controls on the flow of public information.

  • American news outlets helped spread fake propoganda about Republican candidate Trump. Chiefly among them the Washington Post and New York Times. Remember the story about the flight attendant that was supposedly fondled by Trump? Yeah...until she mentioned lifting the armrest in 1st class....except seats in 1st class don't have a movable armrest....and she claimed to be flying on a plane that was not in that airlines fleet - then or ever.

    In other words, the whole story was made up and once it was discovered

  • ... to how they approached the disinformation war when the Ukraine conflict was underway, you could have seen this from miles away.

    Open societies are vulnerable to this kind of attack, and other Western countries like Germany, with an upcoming election are ramping up their counter-intelligence efforts to not be rolled like the US.

  • Ah yes, the Washington Post, perhaps the most virulent and rabid anti-Trump publication, eclipsing even CNN in the vitriol and shameless bias it displayed in its coverage.

    The prosecution fucking rests.

  • Obama in 2013 signed in a bill that among other things, allows the use of propaganda on US citizens. That includes fake news. So whether or not the Russians did fake stories, our government allowed that sort of stuff to be used against us.

  • If the Russians needed a strategy to influence the US election and control the next President, consider 2 choices. Which one is easier to implement and more reliable?

    1. Use negative propaganda to knock down a candidate who is blatantly supported by the mainstream media -- in the hope of electing a billionaire who is (a) notoriously unpredictable and (b) difficult to bribe because he doesn't need the money. It may not be possible to add enough propaganda to overwhelm the lapdog media shills.

    2. Write a chec

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