Facebook uncovers "Russia"-funded misinformation campaign

[Hawkeye10]

That's the benchmark now, isn't it. For everything. Is it legal? Yes? Then stop complaining. Everything from advertising on social media to the behaviour of the highest leaders in the country, so long as it's not actually indictable, it's acceptable.
You sure you're not conservative? Because this reliance on legislation to define the limits of acceptable behaviour is a very conservative trait.
Know what? To hell with that. Lots of stuff that's perfectly legal shouldn't be tolerated and I don't mean it needs to be made illegal either. I mean it needs to have a spotlight shone on it, it needs to be pointed at and loudly protested and not left alone till the situation smartens up.

Our laws inform us on what is expected of us, and our lawbook is very large, so yes that is the benchmark for claims that we have been grossly violated, which is what so many claim the Russians did.

 

[Hawkeye10]

I agree with your sentiment about click bait and "will wine help or hurt", etc.

The issues here are as follows:
1. facebook denied this for months, publicly. Now they finally admit it. That's no small thing.
2. The purchase of those adds may be in violation of U.S. election laws.
3. Based on it being a potential criminal act, it can be investigated, and they may find evidence that it was directed by, influenced by, in some way, someone from the U.S., which is a crime.

In these sorts of criminal investigations (Mueller, etc.), they have to find nodes, which open up doors to everything they connect to, in a sort of step by step discovery. they can't always proceed broadly, without getting something real first to justify a deeper dive.

Whether or not the methods Russia used to try and influence the election are good, bad, would have worked on you, etc., IMO are irrelevant. I look at nearly all right wing media and wonder "how in the world would anyone buy that B.S."? And yet hundreds of millions do...call me befuddled as well.

If Obama was not intending to influence the BREXIT vote then why was he talking?

Ya, "Influencing a foreign vote is a crime" does not pass the laugh test.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

Yes - the Constitution is for Americans, and they can be any color. It isn't for Russians, and it doesn't give them the rights and privileges given to Americans. Freedom of speech is guaranteed for Americans. .

That is not actually true. Freedom of speech is granted to anyone on U.S. soil.

 

[Oreo]

facebook is just one platform which Kremlin thugs use in the hybrid war against western, democratic civilization

ps

fight back Olgino trolls with facts and truth :


Syria Gas Attack ‘False Flag’ Accusations And Why They’re Totally Wrong


On Tuesday at least 72 people were killed in what is widely believed to have been a nerve agent chemical attack by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

But according to one of Donald Trump’s favourite news sources, Alex Jones’s Infowars, the reality is rather different.

“The White Helmets, an al-Qaeda affiliated group funded by George Soros and the British government, have reportedly staged another chemical weapon attack on civilians in the Syrian city of Khan Shaykhun to lay blame on the Syrian government.”


The Infowars article outlines a number of points which it claims all indicate a “false flag operation”, carried out as part of a shadowy New World Order plot to bring about regime change in Syria against the wishes of Assad’s main international ally, Russia.

Why? Well according to an Infowars broadcast on the subject, “Assad and the Putin regime [are the only things stopping] bankers taking over the ME”.

Here’s why they are very, very wrong.

1) ‘The White Helmets are an al-Qaida affiliated group’

This allegation originated in 21stCenturyWire, a pro-Assad website whose current front page includes stories such as “The West’s bizarre anti-Russia hysteria” and “FBI trove of 9/11 Pentagon photos refuels conspiracy suspicions”.

The original article failed to provide proof that the White Helmets had any ties to terrorist or rebel groups other than the fact they operate in some of the same areas which, seeing as their aim is to rescue those caught in government attacks, makes perfect sense.

2) The journalist who ‘knew the attack was going to happen’
From Infowars...

A day prior to the attack, Gulf-based Orient TV announced “Tomorrow we are launching a media campaign to cover the airstrikes on Hama country side including the usage of chemical warfare against civilians.” This shows clear foreknowledge that the rebels were going to stage an attack by Orient TV.

Again this is demonstrably false.

A translation of Karam’s Facebook post reads: “Tomorrow starting a media campaign to cover the density of air raids on rural #hama and use #chlorine _ poison against civilians.”

Hama is a completely different area to Idlib where Tuesday’s attack occurred.


etc.

Syria Gas Attack 'False Flag' Accusations And Why They're Totally Wrong | HuffPost UK

The worst one was the Pizza Gate--where a man walked into a Pizza Joint in Washington D.C. loaded to the hilt actually believing that Hillary Clinton and John Podesta were running a child sex operation out of there. Even the owners were getting death threats. The moron walked in their loaded to the hilt--and fires a shot through the ceiling.

Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, walked into D.C. pizza restaurant Comet Ping Pong armed with an assault rifle on Dec. 4, apparently to "investigate" a fake internet conspiracy. Here's what we know about him so far. (Deirdra O'Regan/The Washington Post)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-ping-pong-restaurant/?utm_term=.9b9c133c0aa8

We have people (younger people) that live on Facebook, and will not watch regular news or read verifiable articles from trusted news sources. They don't know what FAKE news is. This one came from Russia also--and it's clear that this idiot believed it.

 

[Mach]

If Obama was not intending to influence the BREXIT vote then why was he talking? Ya, "Influencing a foreign vote is a crime" does not pass the laugh test.

That's British law, this is about the U.S., and Trump. Nice try though, that definitely qualifies as a double.
But Obama. But the UK

Unrelated, can you evidence it was a violation of British law? Even if so, what would that have to do with anything, anyway? We can't drag the Russian government into the U.S. to face charges. And no one is trying to do that with Russia, or Obama. And if they did, it would make no difference on the significance discussed here.

Following the 1996 elections, the Republican Party concluded that the victorious Bill Clinton had benefited from foreign intervention in his election. Its Senate majority organized hearings, chaired by the late Senator Fred Thompson, who opened then with the declaration that high-level Chinese officials had committed substantial sums of money to influence the presidential election. The ensuing investigation, which included a parallel criminal inquiry, did not live up to Senator Thompson’s most dramatic claims, but Congress later amended the law to tighten the long- standing prohibition against foreign national spending in federal elections.

You can thank Trump's party, the Republican party, for strengthening the "long-standing prohibition against foreign national spending in federal elections". It resulted from the Republican party's witch hunt against Bill Clinton, that didn't pan out for them...

It opens real doors for investigators, this is not a matter of a "smell test".
Facebook denied it 2-3 tiles before admitting it, not a matter of a "smell test".
If it is believed to be a crime under federal law, which it appears to be, this means if a U.S. citizen were involved, it will be another stack of evidence sitting on top the larger stack of "wikileaks email/hacks" that is already in play.


sources:
"When Collusion with a Foreign Government Becomes a Crime" -

 

[Hawkeye10]

That's British law, this is about the U.S., and Trump. Nice try though, that definitely qualifies as a double.
But Obama. But the UK

Unrelated, can you evidence it was a violation of British law? Even if so, what would that have to do with anything, anyway? We can't drag the Russian government into the U.S. to face charges. And no one is trying to do that with Russia, or Obama. And if they did, it would make no difference on the significance discussed here.



You can thank Trump's party, the Republican party, for strengthening the "long-standing prohibition against foreign national spending in federal elections". It resulted from the Republican party's witch hunt against Bill Clinton, that didn't pan out for them...

It opens real doors for investigators, this is not a matter of a "smell test".
Facebook denied it 2-3 tiles before admitting it, not a matter of a "smell test".
If it is believed to be a crime under federal law, which it appears to be, this means if a U.S. citizen were involved, it will be another stack of evidence sitting on top the larger stack of "wikileaks email/hacks" that is already in play.


sources:
"When Collusion with a Foreign Government Becomes a Crime" -

The argument is "We have no right to bitch when others do to us we we do to others".

 

[Mach]

The argument is "We have no right to bitch when others do to us we we do to others".

No, that misses 4 of the 5 remarks I made.
I like the hypocrisy though, it's quite fitting. Republicans pursued Bill on this, failed, but still strengthened the law, which play a role in helping Trump say goodbye.

 

[Grand Mal]

Our laws inform us on what is expected of us, and our lawbook is very large, so yes that is the benchmark for claims that we have been grossly violated, which is what so many claim the Russians did.

Remember that category-5 a**hole named Schkreli who bought the manufacturing rights to an AIDS drug and cranked the price up something like %5000? Perfectly legal- does that mean he should be immune to scorn and abuse? Does that mean he's still acceptable in decent society? He's been arrested and charged, yeah but for things he did as a hedge-fund manager (which might highlight society's odd priorities) but he was rightly considered a pariah for his greed before he was arrested for his crime.

 

[Litwin]

The main focus is Russian Propaganda in support of their military action in the Ukraine. Not a big shocker.

yes, in order to get Crimea + land bridge Muscovy needs to destroy Ukraine as a state


Russian politician proposes new divisions of Ukraine - Reuters
Page Not Found | Reuters.com...

24.03.2014 - A prominent Russian politicianhas proposed dividing Ukraine along the lines of ... Romania and Hungary, Vladimir Zhirinovsky also suggested those ... which the Soviet and Nazi German foreign ministers carved up the area.

 

[AliHajiSheik]

I agree with your sentiment about click bait and "will wine help or hurt", etc.

The issues here are as follows:
1. facebook denied this for months, publicly. Now they finally admit it. That's no small thing.
2. The purchase of those adds may be in violation of U.S. election laws.
3. Based on it being a potential criminal act, it can be investigated, and they may find evidence that it was directed by, influenced by, in some way, someone from the U.S., which is a crime.

In these sorts of criminal investigations (Mueller, etc.), they have to find nodes, which open up doors to everything they connect to, in a sort of step by step discovery. they can't always proceed broadly, without getting something real first to justify a deeper dive.

Whether or not the methods Russia used to try and influence the election are good, bad, would have worked on you, etc., IMO are irrelevant. I look at nearly all right wing media and wonder "how in the world would anyone buy that B.S."? And yet hundreds of millions do...call me befuddled as well.

Facebook has incentives to not have close scrutiny on their advertising engine. We use them and they are very effective in identifying people who have characteristics which are not user provided.

Facebook can proceed in their analysis any way they want and they probably do. They are not obliged to share that information unless compelled to do so.

 

[Renae]

yes, in order to get Crimea + land bridge Muscovy needs to destroy Ukraine as a state


Russian politician proposes new divisions of Ukraine - Reuters
Page Not Found | Reuters.com...

24.03.2014 - A prominent Russian politicianhas proposed dividing Ukraine along the lines of ... Romania and Hungary, Vladimir Zhirinovsky also suggested those ... which the Soviet and Nazi German foreign ministers carved up the area.

I get their goals. Don't agree with or support them. That whole thing is a freakin mess.

 

[Mach]

Facebook has incentives to not have close scrutiny on their advertising engine. We use them and they are very effective in identifying people who have characteristics which are not user provided.Facebook can proceed in their analysis any way they want and they probably do. They are not obliged to share that information unless compelled to do so.

I agree with all that too. Which is why evidence of an actual violation of the law is important since it may give investigators leverage to compel that information. Without it, they may not have been able to.

Whether facebook would have been better served by saying "we have no evidence of it *but we will look into it*", vs denying it outright then eating crow, you're correct, that's their call to make. But it's still fair game for us to thrown peanuts at them if we don't like the way they handled it.

 

[Moot]

That's not against the law either.

Actually, it is.

 

[MaggieD]

Actually, it is.

Please explain what law posting lies on Facebook violates.

 

[Mach]

Please explain what law posting lies on Facebook violates.

*edit, I assume it was not Facebook per se that violated the law, but the [Russian operatives].

The specific law mentioned was this one, to save you the read if you just wanted the law.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/11/110.20

I got it from here, it was pretty neutral and seemed to my untrained eye to have a lot of info.
Conclusion being the author felt it may or may not pan out to be of moderate importance to the ongoing investigation, and is likely to be less important than the wiki/hacks info distribution.

"When Collusion with a Foreign Government Becomes a Crime" -

 

[Litwin]

I get their goals. Don't agree with or support them. That whole thing is a freakin mess.

from a well known expert on this subject :

Anne Applebaum — "Russian" propaganda and fake news

 

[Mycroft]

my question is simple, how we can keep our forum from paid - Olgino trolls and misinformation?

"
Facebook says it has discovered a Russian-funded campaign to promote divisive social and political messages on its network.

The company said $100,000 (£77,000) was spent on about 3,000 ads over a two-year period, ending in May 2017.

The ads did not back any political figures specifically, but instead posted on topics including immigration, race and equal rights.

Facebook said it was co-operating with a US investigation into the matter.

The advertisements directed users towards around 470 accounts that spread false information or were otherwise in breach of Facebook’s terms and conditions, the site said.

“The ads and accounts appeared to focus on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum,” the company said in a blog post published on Wednesday."

Facebook uncovers 'Russian-funded' misinformation campaign - BBC News

I guess my question is...why did it take FB this long to find this out...and what are they going to do with the ill-gotten gains of their unsavory commerce?

 

[Litwin]

Please explain what law posting lies on Facebook violates.

1) Hate crime
2) INTERFERENCE in US election
3) Seditious conspiracy

etc.

 

[Litwin]

I guess my question is...why did it take FB this long to find this out...and what are they going to do with the ill-gotten gains of their unsavory commerce?

FBI/CIA have said it many , many times . and Facebook is just a small part of this hybrid "war on USA"

 

[jimbo]

they are allowed to spread KREMLIN PROPAGANDA . or you are ok with KREMLIN thugs ?

Every country spreads their propaganda. Is this something new?

Obama flew to England to spread our brexit propaganda.

The bothersome French sent troops, arms, and support when England got into the scuffle with a colony a couple hundred years ago.

And we did so a few times in between.

 

[Mach]

Every country spreads their propaganda. Is this something new?.

Only relevant if it violated U.S. law, which it appears to have done.

That every other country also has criminals, is not relevant.

 

[Lethargic Aptitude]

Scotus has ruled that money is speech and that the Constitution is not only for certified Americans....correct?

I say let's be consistent.

I also say that if the laws are bad then change the laws, and that letting some people slide because their genetics are "right" (black or brown skin) but jamming up others because we have decided that we dont like Em (Russians) is not Justice.

It looks like their propaganda campaign worked well on you.

 

[Hawkeye10]

Remember that category-5 a**hole named Schkreli who bought the manufacturing rights to an AIDS drug and cranked the price up something like %5000? Perfectly legal- does that mean he should be immune to scorn and abuse? Does that mean he's still acceptable in decent society? He's been arrested and charged, yeah but for things he did as a hedge-fund manager (which might highlight society's odd priorities) but he was rightly considered a pariah for his greed before he was arrested for his crime.

Or the Epi-Pen being triple the cost it should be, and I was just yesterday arguing against price gouging in disasters, I routinely rail against the corruption and sadism of this society as we find it in Washington DC especially......Look, I am agreeing with you except to point out that there are levels of justifiable outrage. When our medical system in general and our patent law on drugs in particular have been such a wreck for so long and we never bothered to fix it we lose some of the force of our objection when bad things happen. When we glorify greed as we have and stand by as increasingly corruption and winner take all and lack of caring about others takes hold we lose some of the force of our objection when individuals take advantage of the situation to drive personal wealth at the expense of the collective by buying drug companies and jumping the price 500% so that they can line their pockets. What we do is not take care of business and then when the inevitable happens because human nature is a known we point to the worst of the worst and yell "He is an asshole, hit him hard to teach everyone a lesson!!" which might or might not work to tamp down the abuse for a short time but others will come along and do the same thing probably sooner rather than later because we never seem anymore to get around to the heavy lifting of fixing the underlying dysfunction to include most notably our bad law.

Our very very broken justice system.

We are to blame for that.

 

[jimbo]

Only relevant if it violated U.S. law, which it appears to have done.

That every other country also has criminals, is not relevant.

Russians taking out Facebook ads violates US law? Then we need to serve papers immediately.

 

[Rogue Valley]

The pregnant lady below in the red dress is Margarita Simonyan. She is the head of the Russian state-owned media giant RT (formerly Russia Today). She is giving Russian president Vladimir Putin a tour of the RT/English-language studios. The RT YouTube Channel has the most videos hosted on YouTube by a large margin. Mrs. Simonyan is also one of the highest officials on Putin's national reelection committee.

RT Managing Editor Margarita Simonyan and Russian President Vladimir Putin

All media is Russia is governed by Roskomnadzor, the state media watchdog (censorship) agency. All content is monitored. All content has to be available to the state ... print, radio, television, internet. All Internet ISPs must comply with Roskomnadzor demands for any user's personal data. All Internet providers operating in Russia must have their servers physically located in Russia (with back-doors for the Russian security agencies). This includes foreign providers such as Facebook, Google, etc. The owner of Russia's version of Facebook (VKontakte) Pavel Durov, fled to Europe rather than obey a Roskomnadzor order to provide them with the personal information of all Ukrainian VKontakte users. Any Russian organization/NGO that receives even $1 in foreign funding is classified as a "foreign agent". Any Russian blog that receives 30 or more visitors a month must register with Roskomnadzor. The last truly independent TV station in Russia, Dozhd (TV Rain) now only broadcasts intermittently.