U.S. election 2016 was a big win for Russia in a decades-long war

Lots has been written about “fake news” in the U.S. election cycle, often tinted by the idea that much of it was the creation of money-grubbing, unethical loners exploiting people’s political leanings for a quick buck. But at least some of the false news that spread in the last few months of the campaign appears to have had much more serious geopolitical implications and was spread thanks to “a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign,” reports the Washington Post, which cites two recent expert reports on the issue.

The campaign, which included thousands of botnets, a network of propaganda-friendly sites and social media accounts, relied on U.S.-made technology platforms to essentially attack U.S. democracy and make Americans question the trustworthiness of their voting system. Among the claims that were pushed by the propaganda efforts there was a particular focus on Hillary Clinton’s supposedly declining health, the supposed payment of anti-Trump protesters, and lots of efforts at pushing the storyline that the election was “rigged,” as Trump often claimed during the campaign.

Although eroding faith in American democracy has long been one of the top goals of the Kremlin since the Cold War days, this has suddenly become a lot easier in the social media era. “They want to essentially erode faith in the U.S. government or U.S. government interests,” said Clint Watts, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who has tracked Russian propaganda for years. “This was their standard mode during the Cold War. The problem is that this was hard to do before social media.”

Before, the propaganda efforts had to rely on actual people and organizations. Now Moscow can directly target those they know are eager to believe what they’re selling. “During the Cold War, gray measures used semi-covert Communist parties, friendship societies, and non-governmental organizations to engage in party-to-party and people-to-people campaigns. Today, gray measures on social media include conspiracy websites, data dump websites, and seemingly credible news aggregators that amplify disinformation and misinformation,” write Watts, Andrew Weisburd and JM Berger in a paper that is one of the sources the Post uses for its story.

The Post also got an advanced look at a report by a group called PropOrNot that is dedicated to identifying Russian propaganda online. The report “identifies more than 200 websites as routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season, with combined audiences of at least 15 million Americans,” reports the Post. “On Facebook, PropOrNot estimates that stories planted or promoted by the disinformation campaign were viewed more than 213 million times.”

L0RD Republican Thoughts wrote:@sassy
On what grounds do you justify your concerns and prophesies of doom?  That sounds like hysteria, to me.

Can you point to anything Trump has done in the past or present to support your claims?

It's just like when Obama won the election in 2008.  All the right wing kooks and their angry conservative talk-show hosts predicted the end of the USA as we knew it.  The world was going to explode and it was because someone they believed to be a radical socialist Muslim leftist had become POTUS.

Guess what?  America is still here.  Not much has changed since Obama took office because he wasn't much for doing things.  Except golf.  He loved golf.

Point is, most on the left are already agonizing a horrific and dark future... and the guy hasn't even been sworn into office yet.

You lefties need to chillax.  You're predicting a book's story after only glancing over the cover.

eddie wrote:I think he's on a wind-up.

sassy wrote:

eddie wrote:I think he's on a wind-up.

From previous posts I have read of his, I don't think he is on a wind up at all.   I think he is a typical Republican neanderthal.

eddie wrote:

sassy wrote:


From previous posts I have read of his, I don't think he is on a wind up at all.   I think he is a typical Republican neanderthal.

I don't know where he's from either. I think Ben may have said once but I can't remember.

veya_victaous wrote:Indie is an American, not associated with any previous forum memebers.

I'm pretty sure anyway, I don't think he is from shortnews but is quite similar to some posters that where there.