Current Events > Do you believe Russia meddled in the US elections?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Sephiroth1288 posted...

Giant_Aspirin posted...

so why do you continue to insist there was "no meddling" despite the indictments that came out today that confirm exactly that?

Because I don't consider trolling on Facebook to be "meddling" in any meaningful way.

so you're basically redefining a term to suit your own needs. that's the level of mental gymnastics i expect
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Giant_Aspirin posted...

so you're basically redefining a term to suit your own needs.

Last I checked "meddling" was not legal terminology.
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Sephiroth1288 posted...

Giant_Aspirin posted...

so you're basically redefining a term to suit your own needs.

Last I checked "meddling" was not legal terminology.

I'm sorry, that's my bad for using the wrong word.

Do you believe that Russians interfered in the 2016 election?

if this entire back and forth has been hairsplitting over "meddle" vs "interfere" then just lmao
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Giant_Aspirin posted...

Do you believe that Russians interfered in the 2016 election?

In the most benign and ineffective way possible, sure.

Let's just stop pretending that Pepe memes are what swung the vote in Trump's favor though, k?
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Sephiroth1288 posted...

In the most benign and ineffective way possible, sure.

thank you. goodness that should not have been that difficult
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I think the point is that "meddling" and "interfered" are somewhat ambiguous. You can take their meaning in this circumstance as far as you want.

All in all though, you don't want foreigners pretending to be US citizens. You can't allow that. Which is why we need strict immigration laws.
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There was nothing ineffective about it at all.
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Ultima Dragon posted...

At the end of the day, if they don't actually hack into the voting system or have people paid or planted to vote a certain way, I don't see how anything can truly be considered "meddling."

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TrollSlayer11 posted...

Ultima Dragon posted...

At the end of the day, if they don't actually hack into the voting system or have people paid or planted to vote a certain way, I don't see how anything can truly be considered "meddling."

It's crazy you people don't see the issue with a foreign country conducting psychological operations in and against another country.

This is not how countries should act between one another.
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Hexenherz posted...

psychological operations

That's a funny way to describe "trolling"....
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Hexenherz posted...

This is not how countries should act between one another.

This is what America has done to literally every country for at least a century.
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Yes.
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Sephiroth1288 posted...

#Nothingburger

What happened to Mal_Fet? Say something naughty?
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Hexenherz posted...

TrollSlayer11 posted...

Ultima Dragon posted...

At the end of the day, if they don't actually hack into the voting system or have people paid or planted to vote a certain way, I don't see how anything can truly be considered "meddling."

It's crazy you people don't see the issue with a foreign country conducting psychological operations in and against another country.

This is not how countries should act between one another.

Where do you draw the distinction between PsyOps and biased journalism?

Domestic propaganda is okay but foreign isn't? Should we ban foreign news cuz it might make a candidate "look bad"?
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Sephiroth1288 posted...


intent matters. Russia's intention was to do more than just annoy people, which is the definition of trolling.
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At least $1M dollar monthly budget to meddle in our elections.

https://twitter.com/kevinallison/status/964572006535565314

I dont get why simple minded people cannot just be like. Well I dont think Trump was privy to this, but we need to stop Russia from interfering with our stuff and there needs to be consequences to their behavior

Like are some people that big of a tool they cant even go that far?

TrollSlayer11 posted...

Hexenherz posted...

TrollSlayer11 posted...

Ultima Dragon posted...

At the end of the day, if they don't actually hack into the voting system or have people paid or planted to vote a certain way, I don't see how anything can truly be considered "meddling."

It's crazy you people don't see the issue with a foreign country conducting psychological operations in and against another country.

This is not how countries should act between one another.

Where do you draw the distinction between PsyOps and biased journalism?

Domestic propaganda is okay but foreign isn't? Should we ban foreign news cuz it might make a candidate "look bad"?

Of course domestic "propaganda" is OK - that's protected speech under the First Amendment, one of the principle laws of our country.

And in reality yes we should ban some foreign-based news, or at least heavily restrict access to it, when it is directly funded by a foreign government and demonstrably has a clear political agenda to it. Thankfully we basically took a step towards this with RT back in November.
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CruelBuffalo posted...

At least $1M dollar monthly budget to meddle in our elections.

https://twitter.com/kevinallison/status/964572006535565314

I dont get why simple minded people cannot just be like. Well I dont think Trump was privy to this, but we need to stop Russia from interfering with our stuff and there needs to be consequences to their behavior

Like are some people that big of a tool they cant even go that far?

Yes, because apparently some people are incapable of looking beyond a black-and-white scale where the only political entities in the entire world are either republican or democrat.
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When the CIA says that it happened. It's likely that it happened. I believe the CIA over Trump any day. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/11/11/despite-trumps-comments-cia-stands-assessment-russia-meddled-election/855212001/

Trump fanatics seem to be the only people saying it didn't happen.

That said Russia has always had some influence in the elections so it's not a one-off.
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So far no hard evidence as far as we know.

Hexenherz posted...

TrollSlayer11 posted...

Hexenherz posted...

TrollSlayer11 posted...

Ultima Dragon posted...

At the end of the day, if they don't actually hack into the voting system or have people paid or planted to vote a certain way, I don't see how anything can truly be considered "meddling."

It's crazy you people don't see the issue with a foreign country conducting psychological operations in and against another country.

This is not how countries should act between one another.

Where do you draw the distinction between PsyOps and biased journalism?

Domestic propaganda is okay but foreign isn't? Should we ban foreign news cuz it might make a candidate "look bad"?

Of course domestic "propaganda" is OK - that's protected speech under the First Amendment, one of the principle laws of our country.

And in reality yes we should ban some foreign-based news, or at least heavily restrict access to it, when it is directly funded by a foreign government and demonstrably has a clear political agenda to it. Thankfully we basically took a step towards this with RT back in November.

So if Russians paid for a billboard would that be "meddling in the election" as well?

Y'all swear like they paid off officials or hacked voting machines.

No. They posted on Facebook.
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They obviously invested much more into this than just "a billboard". And can you identify any other country that operated in this manner leading up to the 2016 election?
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I mean, we know they meddled.

Whether that had an influence or not is another matter.
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Funkydog posted...

I mean, we know they meddled.

Whether that had an influence or not is another matter.

The fact that this meddling "controversy" is a thing to begin with is, in my opinion, pretty clear evidence that they did something right. This is something that everyone in a country should be able to easily unite against, and yet it's just become another source of division across the country.
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Hexenherz posted...

Funkydog posted...

I mean, we know they meddled.

Whether that had an influence or not is another matter.

The fact that this meddling "controversy" is a thing to begin with is, in my opinion, pretty clear evidence that they did something right. This is something that everyone in a country should be able to easily unite against, and yet it's just become another source of division across the country.

Unfortunately true :/
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KazumaKiryu posted...

They meddled as far as shitposting on the internet... there was no sort of rigging the actual election.

This.
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Shmashed posted...

KazumaKiryu posted...

They meddled as far as shitposting on the internet... there was no sort of rigging the actual election.

This.

There's no evidence that they rigged the actual election... yet. That's an important distinction. We knew, last year, that Russia attempted to gain access to private voter registration data. This year, we learned that Russia actually was able to gain read-access in dozens of major cities. Are you sure that's the end of it? I'm not.
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Polycosm posted...

Shmashed posted...

KazumaKiryu posted...

They meddled as far as shitposting on the internet... there was no sort of rigging the actual election.

This.

There's no evidence that they rigged the actual election... yet. That's an important distinction. We knew, last year, that Russia attempted to gain access to private voter registration data. This year, we learned that Russia actually was able to gain read-access in dozens of major cities. Are you sure that's the end of it? I'm not.

The question is "Do you believe Russia meddled in the US elections?". Based on the information currently available, I agree with the quote above. I'm willing to change my mind if evidence supports it.
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Shmashed posted...

KazumaKiryu posted...

They meddled as far as shitposting on the internet... there was no sort of rigging the actual election.

This.

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If some Facebook posts that CNN says got "hundreds of thousands of views" equates to meddling, we better round up the entire lamestream media and shoot them in the street for meddling.

Unless there's some evidence of a systemic hack, this is the same deflection used so many times the word Russian stops having meaning.
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