Current Events > It's amazing how Russian misinformation has destabilized the US

(+) Yeah! (+)

Basically, a large percentage of misinformation blogs that target the far right are either directly run by Russian misinformation networks or are funded by them. They also own a huge number of fake Twitter accounts that put out anti-vaccine/antimask rhetoric often focusing on distrust of Health authorities. The inability / unwillingness of the far right to fact check anyone they want to agree with makes them perfect sitting ducks for this kind of misinformation

Yeah it sucks

DarkRoast posted...

Basically, a large percentage of misinformation blogs that target the far right are either directly run by Russian misinformation networks or are funded by them. They also own a huge number of fake Twitter accounts that put out anti-vaccine/antimask rhetoric often focusing on distrust of Health authorities. The inability / unwillingness of the far right to fact check anyone they want to agree with makes them perfect sitting ducks for this kind of misinformation

The report into Russia's disinformation campaign during the 2016 election found that they had taken out as many pro left ads on Facebook as pro right. Updated analysis of the 2020 election found they actually mostly attacked center and right positions. Part of the problem is that people are aware of the disinformation but are so happy being able to point to the other side and say look at you stupid people falling for this that they're completely oblivious to the fact that in doing so they are doing exactly what Russia is hoping they would.

Take this topic, for example. You could have simply talked about Russian disinformation, but you made the conscious choice to frame it in a way that demonizes the right. Did you do that because you thought it would help counter their influence? Or did you do it because it made you feel good?

Source:
2016 election:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/05/11/what-we-found-facebook-ads-russians-accused-election-meddling/602319002/

Of the roughly 3,500 ads published this week, more than half about 1,950 made express references to race. Those accounted for 25 million ad impressions a measure of how many times the spot was pulled from a server for transmission to a device.

At least 25% of the ads centered on issues involving crime and policing, often with a racial connotation. Separate ads, launched simultaneously, would stoke suspicion about how police treat black people in one ad, while another encouraged support for pro-police groups

2020 election:
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-election-facebook-russia-idUSKBN25S5UC

Investigators at social media analytics firm Graphika studied the operation and said Peace Data predominately targeted progressive and left-wing groups in the United States and Britain, but also posted about events in other countries including Algeria and Egypt.

It said in a report that the website pushed messages critical of right-wing voices and the centre left, and in the United States "paid particular attention to racial and political tensions", including civil rights protests and criticism of President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, Joe Biden.

You upset a right-winger

dont question the programming s0nicfan!

It's very common knowledge by this point that Russian disinformation spreaders target everyone and are just in general trying to cause instability, rather than to push either specific side.

The United States won the Cold War with Levi's. Russia won the Cyber War with Facebook.

Trumble posted...

It's very common knowledge by this point that Russian disinformation spreaders target everyone and are just in general trying to cause instability, rather than to push either specific side.

I mean, they deliberately got Trump elected dude.

COVxy posted...

I mean, they deliberately got Trump elected dude.

...the result of which was...?

s0nicfan posted...

The report into Russia's disinformation campaign during the 2016 election found that they had taken out as many pro left ads on Facebook as pro right. Updated analysis of the 2020 election found they actually mostly attacked center and right positions. Part of the problem is that people are aware of the disinformation but are so happy being able to point to the other side and say look at you stupid people falling for this that they're completely oblivious to the fact that in doing so they are doing exactly what Russia is hoping they would.

Take this topic, for example. You could have simply talked about Russian disinformation, but you made the conscious choice to frame it in a way that demonizes the right. Did you do that because you thought it would help counter their influence? Or did you do it because it made you feel good?

Source:
2016 election:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/05/11/what-we-found-facebook-ads-russians-accused-election-meddling/602319002/

2020 election:
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-election-facebook-russia-idUSKBN25S5UC

And yet it was the right that stage a fascist coup.

@Error1355
Go use your mod powers to remove this Russian disinformation off of the rest of the internet please. We wanted to keep you here to protect only us, but that was selfish and wrong. We know that now. Go and save the entire US of internet!

Trumble posted...

...the result of which was...?

You're right, Trump isn't right-wing lol.

The whole "they also targeted the left" is kind of a silly point, because what they were doing was increasing the presence of stories that would drum up support via outrage from the right.

Rupert Murdoch has a bigger impact than all of these bots put together.

There should not be a far right anymore. We need to get rid of everything far right.

Social media was a mistake, tbh

Also, people are generally, as a population, incredibly stupid and gullible

AngelicRadiance posted...

You upset a right-winger

Yeah but at least he used appropriate sources, so I think he made reasonable points.
But I also feel like despite those efforts to mislead the other side, it's quite clear that the current election and coronavirus misinformation network is targeted specifically at the far right.

DarkRoast posted...

Yeah but at least he used appropriate sources, so I think he made reasonable points.
But I also feel like despite those efforts to mislead the other side, it's quite clear that the current election and coronavirus misinformation network is targeted specifically at the far right.

Do you have evidence to back that up other than an anecdotal observation? I'm not trying to be argumentative, and I appreciate you defending my post earlier, but in the spirit of seeking the truth is your conclusion evidence-based, or one that simply reinforces your current perceptions? Were you aware of how the 2016 and 2020 disinformation campaigns or slanted? If not, is it causing you to reevaluate your opinions or did you just blow it off?

Here's a report I found cataloging Russia and China's disinformation specifically around covid.
https://cepa.org/jabbed-in-the-back-mapping-russian-and-chinese-information-operations-during-covid-19/

With separate brands targeting right-wing and left-wing Anglophones, Russian media could amplify domestic extremists on its widely followed accounts across Twitter, YouTube, and, to a lesser extent, Facebook, aggravating pandemic-induced unrest.

Before exaggerating the pandemics severity to left-leaning audiences and understating the threat to right-leaning audiences, these narratives laid the foundation to distort and manipulate public opinion by creating a base of trust and establishing Russian outlets as a reliable source of information on COVID-19. This content had a negative sentiment, reflected in the prevalence of words like death, infection, and hospitalizations, and in line with an understandable and near-universal portrayal of the pandemic spread as negative.

In line with narratives already circulating in right-wing circles in the US and UK, one RT op-ed claimed lockdown-induced suicides to be a greater threat than the pandemic.24 For left-wing audiences, Watching the Hawks focused on corporate profiteering during the pandemic from Big Pharma, to rumors of landlords exchanging rent for sex from downtrodden tenants, to continued budget expansions for the US military.25

Just another reason why I always say that social media has ruined society

Do you have evidence to back that up other than an anecdotal observation? I'm not trying to be argumentative, and I appreciate you defending my post earlier, but in the spirit of seeking the truth is your conclusion evidence-based, or one that simply reinforces your current perceptions? Were you aware of how the 2016 and 2020 disinformation campaigns or slanted? If not, is it causing you to reevaluate your opinions or did you just blow it off?

So I will start by fully acknowledging that I am using my own anecdotal observations, and in addition I am limiting what I'm talking about to primarily covid misinformation on twitter. That said, in my experience, there seems to be a very coordinated and very specific fusion of the old Anti-vax guard and tropes (RFK Jr, pseudo-experts, etc) and the semi libertarian wing of the GOP through essentially meaningless buzzwords like "health freedom" that has allowed an insidious amount of old school anti-vaccine rhetoric into the discussions I've seen with my fellow conservative friends. As you may recall, I am still a Republican and I was conservative for decades. So I have a large number of conservative friends, and without question the sheer volume of misinformation coming from them is nothing short of classic Russian-era Firehosing

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/6/3/AAeEwGAAC4Sv.jpg

It doesn't matter how many times they are disproven, it doesn't matter how many stories turn out to be false, they just keep retweeting it and posting it. They literally don't care if it's true or not at this point; it's almost like a badge of honor.

It also reminds me a lot of the post-2020 election QAnon "follow the White Rabbit / Kraken" stuff in which deliberately vague and pseudo religious imagery is used to imply that a new world order is trying to take control. That sort of thinking has bled over into nearly mainstream Republican ideology, and it's very dangerous. Because it's predicated on the belief that you can't even trust objective reality, which means now sources like Epoch Times (which is literally owned by a doomsday cult, seriously) are given undue credibility.

Russia: "It can't be that easy"
Russia: "It's that easy."

It's tragic that the Russian government has gone all-in on tearing down other countries instead of trying to build up their own.

UnholyMudcrab posted...

It's tragic that the Russian government has gone all-in on tearing down other countries instead of trying to build up their own.

It's how "strong men" work. Most strong men are fortunately incompetent, but Putin isn't.

s0nicfan posted...

The report into Russia's disinformation campaign during the 2016 election found that they had taken out as many pro left ads on Facebook as pro right. Updated analysis of the 2020 election found they actually mostly attacked center and right positions. Part of the problem is that people are aware of the disinformation but are so happy being able to point to the other side and say look at you stupid people falling for this that they're completely oblivious to the fact that in doing so they are doing exactly what Russia is hoping they would.

Take this topic, for example. You could have simply talked about Russian disinformation, but you made the conscious choice to frame it in a way that demonizes the right. Did you do that because you thought it would help counter their influence? Or did you do it because it made you feel good?

Source:
2016 election:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/05/11/what-we-found-facebook-ads-russians-accused-election-meddling/602319002/

2020 election:
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-election-facebook-russia-idUSKBN25S5UC

If right wing viewers would stop believing Russian propaganda hook, line and sinker I guarantee you they would stop spending money disseminating it.

It's not that Russian misinformation specifically targeted a political side in the US. It's that a certain political side has generally proven to be more susceptible to such misinformation. Hint: it's the side that allowed themselves to be convinced that electing a whiny, inept, corrupt, arrogant, childish, vindictive, unpredictable drama queen of a media personality with no prior experience in government to the highest political office in the land was somehow a good idea.

Deflecting to Russia is what they want you to do, because then the rot in American politics can be someone else's fault. The truth is that Americans themselves are to blame much more than any Russian misinfo campaign, it's Americans who keep supporting the same neoliberal politicians who send people off to die in far-off wars for the sake of the military industrial complex, who buy everything that the corporate media tells them and would rather complain about human rights in China or Russia than campaign for paid vacations or maternity leave in the US.

BlackOmnimon posted...

Deflecting to Russia is what they want you to do, because then the rot in American politics can be someone else's fault. The truth is that Americans themselves are to blame much more than any Russian misinfo campaign, it's Americans who keep supporting the same neoliberal politicians who send people off to die in far-off wars for the sake of the military industrial complex, who buy everything that the corporate media tells them and would rather complain about human rights in China or Russia than campaign for paid vacations or maternity leave in the US.

Remind us why your main is always in purg LNSS

DarkRoast posted...

Do you have evidence to back that up other than an anecdotal observation? I'm not trying to be argumentative, and I appreciate you defending my post earlier, but in the spirit of seeking the truth is your conclusion evidence-based, or one that simply reinforces your current perceptions? Were you aware of how the 2016 and 2020 disinformation campaigns or slanted? If not, is it causing you to reevaluate your opinions or did you just blow it off?

So I will start by fully acknowledging that I am using my own anecdotal observations, and in addition I am limiting what I'm talking about to primarily covid misinformation on twitter. That said, in my experience, there seems to be a very coordinated and very specific fusion of the old Anti-vax guard and tropes (RFK Jr, pseudo-experts, etc) and the semi libertarian wing of the GOP through essentially meaningless buzzwords like "health freedom" that has allowed an insidious amount of old school anti-vaccine rhetoric into the discussions I've seen with my fellow conservative friends. As you may recall, I am still a Republican and I was conservative for decades. So I have a large number of conservative friends, and without question the sheer volume of misinformation coming from them is nothing short of classic Russian-era Firehosing

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/6/3/AAeEwGAAC4Sv.jpg

It doesn't matter how many times they are disproven, it doesn't matter how many stories turn out to be false, they just keep retweeting it and posting it. They literally don't care if it's true or not at this point; it's almost like a badge of honor.

It also reminds me a lot of the post-2020 election QAnon "follow the White Rabbit / Kraken" stuff in which deliberately vague and pseudo religious imagery is used to imply that a new world order is trying to take control. That sort of thinking has bled over into nearly mainstream Republican ideology, and it's very dangerous. Because it's predicated on the belief that you can't even trust objective reality, which means now sources like Epoch Times (which is literally owned by a doomsday cult, seriously) are given undue credibility.

Given your profession it's probably fair to say your observations carry more weight and you're bringing up fair points about the danger of the specific messaging being used. I guess my point is mostly just to be a general reminder that disinformation takes many different forms and while vaccine sentiment may be specifically targeting one portion of the population, other portions are being targeted in different ways around covid specifically to try and make it worse.

I think the most productive thing to do in terms of countering disinformation is to not give in to the us versus them mentality that Russia is trying to stoke. That doesn't mean you can't be frustrated with people falling for misinformation, but the less we can make it about putting down others the more likely we are to succeed. It's a pretty well-known aspect of psychology that people tend to further entrench themselves if they feel they are being antagonized. If it's already difficult to convince people to get the vaccine, painting it to look like they are somehow uniquely poor in their ability to avoid being influenced is definitely not going to change their minds or make it any easier.

I don't think the right wing is any more fundamentally susceptible information than the left, but the right wing has for decades promoted heavily the idea that the media is fundamentally biased against them. That created an opening for Russian misinformation to provide an alternative source of news, and simply by that news existing and being opposite of the mainstream, the right wing is much less likely to question it.

masterpug53 posted...

It's not that Russian misinformation specifically targeted a political side in the US. It's that a certain political side has generally proven to be more susceptible to such misinformation. Hint: it's the side that allowed themselves to be convinced that electing a whiny, inept, corrupt, arrogant, childish, vindictive, unpredictable drama queen of a media personality with no prior experience in government to the highest political office in the land was somehow a good idea.

This is incorrect. The goal was to get Trump elected. This is very well estabilished.

Its hilarious how even on CE users will post some random anonymous Twitter post with a bunch of likes/retweets to seethe in solidarity over it when its more than likely just a troll job, foreign or not.

Its even more hilarious when real media outlets/journalists do it.

Both sides are getting their chain yanked and neither side cares because it feeds their biases.