Russian Trolls Created Facebook Events Seen By More Than 300,000 Users (cnn.com) 220
"Posing as American activists, Russian government-linked trolls created 129 Facebook events between 2015 and 2017," writes CNN. An anonymous reader quotes their report:
On multiple occasions, the events prompted real Americans to take to the streets. In a written statement Facebook gave to the Senate Intelligence Committee released on Thursday, the social media network said that the events created by one Kremlin-linked troll group were seen by more than 300,000 Facebook users. About 62,500 users marked that they would attend the event, and an additional 25,800 expressed an interest in attending.
Facebook told Congress it does "not have data about the realization of these events," but CNN has previously found evidence that the Russian group successfully convinced Americans to attend the demonstrations. The events were organized on a range of divisive issues and were designed to pit Americans against each other.
"The company also told Congress it had removed Kaspersky Lab from a list of free anti-virus offerings it provides users."
Facebook told Congress it does "not have data about the realization of these events," but CNN has previously found evidence that the Russian group successfully convinced Americans to attend the demonstrations. The events were organized on a range of divisive issues and were designed to pit Americans against each other.
"The company also told Congress it had removed Kaspersky Lab from a list of free anti-virus offerings it provides users."
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Chill (Score:5, Insightful)
On what planet did Putin and his cronies think the West wouldn't throw the kitchen sink at them in retaliation for the election hack?
Did these mongs REALLY think they could hold us off forever simply by gaslighting us on Twitter? ("there is no proof of collusion, there is no proof of hacking, whatabout this, whatabout that, etc etc). So fucking stupid.
The arrogance and naivete defies belief.
First of all, chill. The purpose was to get people riled up and divisive, and by being outraged you are playing into their hand.
Furthermore, if you are outraged don't propagate by posting about it - that just amplifies the effect.
Secondly, does this de-ligitimize at least one major riot here in the US? Was there (at least) one instance where US people did not feel strongly enough to protest, but were egged on by outside influences?
Doesn't that mean that there is *less* discontent in the US than what might be inferred from protests?
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Are you being a posterchild for divisiveness ironically, or is it just a 24/7 state of being for you?
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We sure wouldn't want to create any divisiveness with foreign powers who want to manipulate our elections.
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First of all, chill. The purpose was to get people riled up and divisive, and by being outraged you are playing into their hand.
If Americans can stop calling each-other Nazis and snowflakes, and instead unite around Fuck Putin, I'm okay with that.
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One US political leader went to more parts of the USA and gave good speeches the people in that state responded to.
During the election they voted. The votes got counted and the vote got observed by party officials. People recalled who visited their state and gave a good speech.
People recalled who stayed in the costal states and did not give good speeches.
Be nice to more people all over the USA and win an election. No "election hack" needed.
Just find a candidate who can give a
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Jesus how long did you have to wait for that first post. You seem to fail to grasp the better the first post, the more likely a paid US government propagandist. Yeah the US government staged coups and murdered millions, when Russia does that in the US, then complain otherwise STFU. The US deep state is disgusting, murderous filth, held in contempt globally by all reasonable people.
Don't first post morons, you makes you look really stupid and like you have no idea what so ever about the history of /. but ke
Devil Made Me Do It (Score:2)
If the Devil lights your cigarette, can you blame him when you choose to inhale?
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>mentally vulnerable people
The American Public are retards? That's your argument?
>looks at Trump
I think you have a point.
--
BMO
Sounds like fun... (Score:1)
Oh no, Facebook events! (Score:1)
Who's really responsible for the events "success"? (Score:1)
Call me crazy, but no one forced these people to go to these events. Were the meetups for the same political topics in person that they were advertised as? Was there some "bait and switch" thing going on here? Did people leave when they found things aren't what they expected?
If these participants all got together and found solidarity in their shared views, then I'd say the events functioned exactly as they should -- regardless of who organized it. Maybe the people who went are just embarrassed to admit to t
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>Call me crazy, but no one forced these people to go to these events
Please. Obviously nobody was forced, noone said that anyone was.
They were manipulated. Sounds a bit like you have been too.
Re:Who's really responsible for the events "succes (Score:4, Insightful)
The goal is to cause chaos. The bait-and-switch approach is that you take advantage of a shocking event (mass shooting, disaster, etc) and let loose your army of bots to organize protests with 100,000 followers on one side, and an opposing event with 100,000 followers on the other side.
If nothing happens, meh, it cost you nothing except paying some guys in St. Petersburg to shitpost. Try again after the next shocking event.
If you get lucky, you get 500 protestors on one side of the street, and 500 counterprotestors on the other side of the street, and they start throwing insults, bricks, and molotovs at each other.
Then you sit back and enjoy the chaos you've created -- not just the localized disruption of the riot but the fact that everybody you lured into a riot leaves with hardened feelings against their opposition.
Lather, rinse, repeat. More chaos, more violence, and maybe you get really lucky and kick off a civil war. Your greatest geopolitical adversary basically punches itself in the face and off the global stage while you sit back and way "Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!"
Look upthread -- notice that some of the ACs are vehemently supporting one side of the story, and some of them are just as vehemently supporting the other side. Maybe only a few of them are actual information warfare guys. But it only takes a few to get the rest of the ACs (sincere readers with partisan opinions) to tear at each other's throats.
Basically, they're doing this in real life: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/trollbait-nobody-is-right [knowyourmeme.com]
And they're going to keep on doing it as long as it continues to work.
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People all over the USA, in all professions, retired, mil, gov had the freedom to listen to the speeches and vote for who they wanted.
More states liked one candidate who could give a great speech in their state over a candidate who used short media releases.
So.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Some make believe accounts made some make believe events that other accounts (make believe or not) said they were going.
"not have data about the realization of these events," WFT, CNN?
A reporter reports about half the story, how hard can it be to research if these said "events" were real or not? My guess, none ever happened. But, isn't a quality news report one that has the complete story? This report isn't sufficiently researched to have any utility besides stirring the pot.
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If you just finished reading the sentence you quoted...
but CNN has previously found evidence that the Russian group successfully convinced Americans to attend the demonstrations
300,000, That's it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Look, I'll admit I'm a rank amateur up front. But I reached 1,000,000 eyeballs during the 2016 election.
If the Ruskies can only pull off 300,000 eyeballs then I am pretty damn impressed with myself.
Re:300,000, That's it? (Score:5, Insightful)
300k is just the fake events that apparently some Americans did actually attend. The number of people who saw Russian posts is higher.
Anyway, eyeballs are not a good metric. Influence is, but influence is hard to measure. This story is very significant because it appears that there is evidence that people definitely were influenced to the point of attending protests organized by Russia.
We are slowly moving towards acceptance. First it was "this never happened", then it was "the posts only reached a few hundred people", after that "no one was actually influenced by this stuff".
Um, Russian trolls are posting here Slashdot (Score:2, Interesting)
Read the post histories of some of the folks on these threads where Mueller, Russia, Trump are involved and try to guess who is associated with Russia propaganda mills. Then go look at the user histories. You think there isn't Russian propaganda active today on /.?
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I used to post and interact here a lot, but this place has gone the way of reddit and r/theDonald... sad to see a once-relevant tech site get so taken over by politics and shit-posters. Between this and the "5G IS BEING SOCIALIZED OMG FEAR THE CHINESE" article above... wow. Just, wow.
STOP WITH THE RUSSIA STUFF (Score:3, Insightful)
Jesus christ.
This story never ends, Russia did this, Russia did that, always very little or circumstantial evidence, or something like "up to 6 fake accounts were made, with over 32 followers!"
Unless something significantly concrete, ground slamming and thorough comes out which outright proves some kind of real huge conspiracy, then all this looks like is crazy people on a witch hunt.
FUTHERMORE even if it were real, it's up to people to vote with their conscience / brain, assuming they have one.
On top of this, even IF the Russia email hack Hillary thing is real (or was Russians) the point should be the bloody evidence revealed, don't play the distraction game, if her emails clearly proved she was a liar or trouble or whatever (I don't even know what it was) why are we desperately trying to look the other way?
Note: NOT an American, didn't even vote in your election and I know Trump is an idiot, but the republicans didn't win your election, the fucking democrats lost it by omitting Bernie.
So tired of this political stuff on /., what next? Another in depth article about how every single white male programmer is without question a rapist or something?
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Re:STOP WITH THE RUSSIA STUFF (Score:5, Informative)
Why hell, Russian hackers in Cozy Bear were caught red-handed by the Dutch
At the risk of being called a troll (look at my posting history and tell me if I am one), but for that there really is no proof.
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Do you honestly believe that Russian hackers not only had an internet-connected camera running inside their national spying agency, but in fact had it aimed so you could see the Red Square? Because while that may make perfect sense in a movie, it really doesn't in real life.
And why would the Dutch give away such a massive advantage? Why not just keep spying? Ah wait, let me answer that: because in the Netherlands there is a lot of discussion at the moment about a new law that would massively increase the po
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Obviously it was liberals that were conned into attending these events / protests. Conservatives rarely demonstrate because they're too busy WORKING.
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No demonstrations in Charlottesville at all, no siree.
Correction: seen by ONLY 300,000 people (Score:1)
You're kidddin, right? (Score:2)
"Posing as American activists, Russian government-linked trolls created 129 Facebook events between 2015 and 2017,"
What, 129 "events" over the course of three years? That isn't even one a week!
Too bad CNN lacks the ability to research any of these so-called "events", I guess they don't have access to any historical information about what went on in the country between 2015 and 2017.
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and 300,000 people saw them....so essentially, almost no facebook users even saw these "events"
Reminds my of our pathetic marketing department trying to justify our website almost no one looks at...so they count "impressions" rather than report the dismal number of unique visitors.
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that's an average of over 3 a month, maybe not quite once a week, but not infrequently.
But it only takes 1 post to inflame opinions which might lead to those people inflaming OTHER people.
Let me give you an example of an instance on Slashdot. I don't believe it was russian trolling but an example of how one person can inflame opinion.
There was a discussion of how tech had changed how EBT (Food stamps) operated. Someone, I can't remember if it was an AC or not mentioned that they'd seen someone getting cas
Hero of Labour of the Russian Federation (Score:2)
That's what the head of that organization in St. Petersburg deserves. Seriously, to start multiple street demos, brawls and riots in a different countries just by few keystroke.
!
"CNN" was one reason I cut Cable TV since 2000 (Score:2)
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Re:Why is Slashdot obsessed with this witch hunt? (Score:5, Funny)
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The war in Syria is about a Natural Gas Pipeline [middleeasteye.net] that the west wants and Russia does not.
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You might need to work on your English phrasing and comprehension, Ivan. You used English in ways a native English speaker wouldn't.
It's kind of like how some guys in eastern europe actually think that "terribad" or "nothingburger" are real english words rather than meme-words made up by some people for whom english isn't their primary language.
Or how some misogynist "anti-feminist" AC's on slashdot use "the females" where a native english speaker would use "women"
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That's right, it's a feeding frenzy. Definitely draws a crowd.
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Well I appreciate it because it confirms a personal belief I've been holding since the elections: Russia (the nation.. not the "people") has been playing both sides of the board. A divided USA would be nothing but beneficial to them. A new civil war (wishful thinking on their part) would be a wet dream come true. The same assholes you see screaming about Trump are the same assholes you see screaming about Clinton. Both sides want to create bandwagons to "stop" the other.
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Re: Why is Slashdot obsessed with this witch hunt? (Score:1, Insightful)
Parent posts demonstrating the two truths and a lie technique. The reddit-style one sentence per line formatting makes it a weaker post than it could have been, so take care to learn from his mistakes.
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LIke the 20k emails? Or maybe the server that should not have existed? How about the dude deleting emails that should not have been? The smashed phones? Or the emails that talk about blaming russia? Or the billions missing from haiti?
As fun and serious as watching that?
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Sigh.
--- ...when the adults are back in charge in Washington, there are going to be SERIOUS, life-changing repercussions for Putin and his friends.... This is going to be FUN to watch."
"Trump is totally, unbelievably fucked...
---
Good fucking grief, the party-rah-rah-rah in this. Your 2018 is going to be as disappointing as your 2016.
The adults who gave us 17 years of perpetual war? (Score:1)
The adults who wage drone strikes and blow up civilians routinely and call it "collateral damage."
The adults who implemented the largest spying apparatus in world history and directed it against the public?
The adults who loot and plunder the savings and livelihood of the people through the Federal Reserve, then steal nearly 1/3 of our income to pay the interest to the bankers?
What a swell group!
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Adults don't think treason or confrontation with Russia or anything resulting from the whole situation is FUN. In fact, calling a national disaster fun because it humiliates a political party you dislike is the sort of thing Trump does. You're just another symptom of the same juvenile insanity Trump suffers from.
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Nice deflection attempt. Try harder, though.
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But we do carpet bomb them with smart ordinance, like cluster bombs. Cluster bombs where the bomblets look like toys to children. So when it's unexploded ordnance, they can play with the bomblets. Until they go boom.
So that's different, right?
But they hate us for our freedoms.
"They're American bombs. They hug you to death." -- Jimmy Dore
--
BMO
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The West doesn't carpet bomb entire villages with dumb ordinance, WW2-style like the Russians do.
No, the Americans just used WW1-style* white phosphorus bomb during the siege of Raqqa and Mosul. [nytimes.com]
*White phosphorus ammunition was first used by the British in 1916.
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Four Trump campaign and administration officials have been charged with serious crimes.
For lying either after the election or crimes long before the election. Which makes the special investigation moving beyond the original intent and your next point rather moot.
Donald Trump committed treason with Russia, and committed obstruction of justice in his cover-up.
The investigation about Trump Russian collusion only has arrests for things that never occurred during the election in which said collusion was supposed to happen. You know it's a witch because the scope has moved beyond "Trump Russia collusion during the election". Now, it's about " find any dirt and use that hopefully to impeach Trum [go.com]
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It's a fucking witchhunt generated by a secret society of FBI agents (their fucking words) and paid for by Democrats. It's never been remotely POSSIBLY true. If you weren't so blinded by bias, you'd stop and think for a moment: what would Trump or Putin gain by actually colluding?
1. The words you are quoting were a joke. They recovered the other emails to prove it. People like you who stretch tiny things like a single text message into vast conspiracies really need to get mental help, or at least change to some slightly more ethical job.
2. Putin hated Hillary. Trump was seen as more useful to Putin's goals and he has been particularly useful. I'm not going to list them all, but needless to say Putin thinks he can get by with more on Trump's watch.
Trump is pushing protectionism a
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That is how propaganda works. You keep repeating a lie and eventually it will become the truth. This is standard propaganda 101 so please keep up :P
Re: Why is Slashdot obsessed with this witch hunt? (Score:2, Funny)
The US would be a land of harmony and zero social division, governed perpetually by enlightened Democrats who are our intellectual superiors, if only Russia hadn't bought 100k worth of Facebook ads.
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1) http://www.foxnews.com/politic... [foxnews.com]
2) FSB is a domestic intelligence service. Foreign espionage is not their duty.
So yes, it is completely pointless comparing the two, but not for the reasons you've stated.
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NICE!! you wont find much unbaised posts here. US propaganda = GOOD, Russian propaganda = BAD.
But i'm with you and do love these posts.. as you said, the US has been doing the exact same thing for decades against many countries, but the US citizens seem to have a serious issue when it is done to them? They didnt seem to mind having decent democratically elected leaders thrown out to bring in tyrants in the name of "freedom".
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Wipe that froth off your chin, motherfucker.
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"Russia gets no respect, because it is run by a bloodthirsty fascist who is morally depraved on just about every axis you want to compare with the West."
There is not a day that goes by that Trump doesn't exhibit himself to be a sort-of dumb Mussolini, without the dignity or humility.
You may call Putin a fascist, but Trump is also that, without being able to get the trains to run on time.
Respect is to be earned. It's hard won and easily lost. Whatever respect we had as a nation, is fucking gone.
>epic pu
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I suspect that they post these articles not out of any particular political allegiance, but simply because they get more traffic and therefor generate more revenue.
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Are you kidding? There are more libertarians on slashdot than there are libertarian voters in the country on election day.
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And there are zombie accounts that hatch like little reptiles with modpoints. It's how creimer gets his spam links modded up. It's also why all of the sensible posts are modded down.
Notice how two years ago you could say something and not be modded down purely because someone disagreed you? Remember two years ago when all the stories were actual attempts at tech news and not biased anti-Russian spam?
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I'm a libtard.
The Hillary viewpoint with the DNC and Podesta Emails boils down to this:
"We would have won if those meddling kids didn't expose our lies"
It's literally something out of Scooby Doo.
Trump and trumpism isn't the result of the goddamned Russians, it's the result of 40+ years of stultification of the American Public. Ever since the Southern Strategy. The Republicans have been courting the idiots ever since then, and don't fucking argue this point with me, because it was Nixon's own words as to w
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Actually, it's "we would have won if those meddling kids had exposed our opponent's lies evenly with ours." There's no doubt the GOP does plenty of unsavory things that would come out if you dumped their server contents, but the leak selectively left them alone.
I don't excuse the democrats for anything, they dug their own grave, but they are correct that they would've won if they'd had the company they deserved in the grave. Because apparently
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It's hard for the Dems to attack Trump on policy, because he has made any attack on populist ideas into "political correctness" and other easily dismissed slogans.
He's very hard to criticise because he's already so offensive and so far divorced from reality that any sort of appeal to the decency or truth is ineffective. In fact his base revels in him being that way.
Short of creating some kind of left-wing version of Trump to oppose him, which let's be honest none of us want to see, the only thing anyone can
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He's very hard to criticise because he's already so offensive and so far divorced from reality that any sort of appeal to the decency or truth is ineffective.
Speaking of being divorced from reality, AmiMoJo, remember how I adopted the sig "The one straight white male in new Star Trek will be portrayed as evil or incompetent" back before Star Trek Discovery premiered? You know, because he was the only straight white male on an SJW show, and so I knew that he would ultimately have to be revealed as either evil or incompetent--because SJW's, as much as they would deny it, really HATE straight white males.
Remember how an enlightened SJW like yourself corrected my fo
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Re:Why is Slashdot obsessed with this witch hunt? (Score:5, Interesting)
The worst part is that we knew it was going to happen and exactly what they would do. The leaked GCHQ manual on trolling laid out all the techniques that Russia is using. GCHQ uses them too... But apparently forgot to develop any ways to detect or defend against them.
Since GCHQ knew, that means the NSA knew as well, as also failed to do anything about it.
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>Social media is a dream come true for the practitioners of the Soviet-style dark arts of mass brainwashing and information-attack
Two words:
Dulles brothers.
>social media almost destroyed a republic
That's like blaming radio, TV, the telephone system, printing presses, etc. And how do you propose that such propaganda be stopped? You can't without tearing the First Amendment to shreds.
It's like blaming violent video games for school shooters.
--
BMO
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>They sniffed their own techno-libertarian farts
I love you.
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Jack Ryan? I thought you were a fictional character.
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Re:How many (Score:4, Informative)
Whataboutism at its finest. Good work AC (anonymous comrade). It will work better next time if you at least go to the trouble to set up a sock-puppet account. Spread the word to your team.
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Believing a different source uncritically doesn't make you a skeptic. It just makes you another kind of fool.
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Or just old (Score:2)
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It also happens in the other direction. According to http://mentalhealthdaily.com/2... [mentalhealthdaily.com]
Quote
These days, a consensus of neuroscientists agree that brain development likely persists until at least the mid-20s – possibly until the 30s.
The fact that our brains aren’t developed until the mid 20s means that “legal adults” (those age 18+) are allowed to make adult decisions, without fully mature brains. Someone who is 18 may make riskier decisions than someone in their mid-20s in part due
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typical trump supporter right here.
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Re:300,000 people!?!?! (Score:4, Informative)
Trump was elected by a mere 79,000 votes in some heavily targeted districts. So, 250% of Trump's "margin or victory" Very significant.
So, take heart Anonymous Comrade, you may have gotten Trump elected.
Re: Russians: they look almost human (Score:1, Insightful)
Speaking of inviting hatred and fear, isn't it funny you're defending Russia, who literally did that via social media propaganda?
Makes you think about the projection so common to some political parties these days.
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oh look another typical classy trump supporter.