Absolutely concur with the OP that this article has very limited credibility and much of the emphasis is based upon speculative and conditional language. As for Russia upsetting the delicate balance of those imaginary forced for good that have supposedly been in power for decades, let us not forget that the seat of the EU Brussels has the questionable title of being the state with the longest history of no government to lead it. The Russians have no need to undermine the so-called democratic institutions of Europe they are doing just fine themselves at that effort. One merely needs to look at the rampant social unrest, the high taxes and the widespread social discord to realize that the utopian dream is far from being just that...utopian.
A piece of mostly good news to keep in mind:
The polls are very close between La Republique En Marche! & the far right. Every few weeks, they exchange 1st & 2nd place with each other, but they remain very close. In a way, it is good because the polls are looking to be that abstention will either be the same or even lower this year. My prediction is that the La Repbulique En Marche! will overtake the far right & win the most seats with a slight lead, while the far right lose a few of their seats. The abstention will likely be lower this year due to the decisiveness of this year's European Parliament Election. I also predict that the A.L.D.E, the moderates including La Republique En Marche! & the Greens will over take the far right & the A.L.D.E's allies will form a new pro European alliance with the Greens & some social democratic parties to team up with the A.L.D.E & to fight the far right.
In other words, the polls are very close & despite the far right's slight lead in the polls, this could actually backfire on them as voter turnout becomes more important & Macron regains his lost approval which will hurt the chances of the far right winning the most seats in the European Parliament election this year.
Lastly, the A.L.D.E & the moderates are winning more seats than the entire far right put together as well & is looking to go that way. Higher voter turnout & higher confidence in the E.U are the key(s) here.
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1128014718252343298
We have deleted all Facebook accounts. Shouldn't you?
2
knowing pompeo, he will say publicly russia did not meddle in the elections and won't meddle in the next one. gotta keep in trump's good graces.
What is the benefit to target elections? It is not in Russia's interest to negotiate with all nations of Europe, they rather deal with a single market. Leaving the EU and NATO is a fringe position for the hard right and the Russian elite doesn't want nations who act completely unilaterally in terms of trade/visa regimes.
It’s obvious! Populists, Nationalist and Far-Right Conservatives are Begging for a Third World War! Any conscious person need only read history to see differences, but most frightening, the similarities.
2
There is a very stange fact: the very far right organisations which stand as patriotics are very friendly with Putin who is our enemy .
7
Please People of Europe,
Read the writing on the walls; Putin, Murdoch and, to a lesser degree, Xi hav eyes on bringing you down. Putin desperately need talented bodies in the millions to just explore his own vast lands and the people of Russia have put a firm cap on having more babies for him to enslave. Murdoch is just unbridled greed. He wants to control the western money/finance through control of the main media. When the EU did not allow him to control TV and Print media, he set to destroy the EU. The UK provided him with the minions to devastate the EU. The US GOP just made a deal with that devil. That is how they kept power.
2
The Republican agenda to “dumb down” society thereby limiting informed, critical thinking is leveraging the Russian agenda to subversively undermine. There is so much wrong in the world today. I wonder if we will ever recover.
4
We must be willing to bend our laws to combat these evils. The Far-Right thrives on upon our innocence. It is time we outlaw far-right ideology. They will never stand for western liberal democracy once they gain power (as seen in Poland and Hungary, and to some degree in our very own USA).
3
EU is Russia's largest and most important trading partner. Russia would have nothing whatsoever to gain from sowing discord within EU. That's what Putin answered when these conspiracy theories first appeared some years ago. Russia is dependent on trade for it's very existence.
This NYT article has in part striking similarities - in insidious dramaturgy and conspiratory arguments - with the depressing and despicable online activities it condemns.
2
We need a Magnitsky Act for the whole European Union. Targeted sanctions hurt the Kremlin kleptocrats more than any military action short of deposing them.
2
I love the United States of America, so much so that I served her for more than fifty years. Who can deny such loyalty to any other country? We protect our alliance through Patriotism and a belief in our beliefs in our cause. Democracy depends on our resistance to outside influence that challenges our Democracy. Social media, including tweets from the POTUS, Russia, and China (amongst others), presents a challenge to our beliefs. Hold firm, America and all other countries. Believe in who you are. I recommend all other countries do so. Your citizens are the core of your alliances and your survival. You can work with other countries and other philosophies but hold firm to who you are. Anything else is tantamount to treason.
1
@David Communism worked for the USSR for more than a half century. Yes, a Democratic Republic worked for us in the United States more than a century longer (with the aid of Russian Tsars, by the way - read about John Paul Jones). USSR also includes the word "Republic." I don't believe they, or any other entity, have the right to interfere with our elections or any other country's elections. I also believe that all countries need to guard against interference in their elections. Best way, limit influence from the outside, be it Russia, China, Korea, or the US, or any other country. Crack down on "social media" to limit the amount of interference they can inject in elections and decision-making.
4
“It is to constantly divide, increase distrust and undermine our faith in institutions and democracy itself. They’re working to destroy everything that was built post-World War II.”
That is brilliant. That is like if the Soviet authorities complained that the West was "constantly dividing" and "undermining faith" in Soviet institutions with its propaganda on Voice of America, and worked to "destroy everything" the Soviets built "post-World War II". And look now, the West did in fact destroy everything the Soviets built post-World War II. So it is only fair if Russia tried to destroy at least something back. But seriously, when I hear that Russia propaganda is the only thing "destroying faith" in the Western institution and without evil Russia that faith would be unbreakable and eternal, I understand that we don't need Russia here at all. But every little bit helps in removing those propaganda blinders. So thank you very much, RT, for that.
2
The West destroyed nothing that Russia built that was worth having.
3
These are the new media companies that have run so many established agencies out of business.
Editorial standards are a cost center. If your incumbent competitors are subject to regulatory oversight, but you somehow aren't, disrupting their market is just free money for the taking.
Societal consequences? Externalities, and unpriced anyway.
2
Re Right wing influence, we’ve seen more authoritarians taking power in countries without a long tradition of democracy and rule of law. Many of them were ruled by Communists or Nazis in the 20th C.
Many other democracies are resisting the right wing.
Their rw parties may have gotten more votes than previously, but they didn’t get majorities. France’s Le Pen didn’t win, nor the far right in UK.
Also the EU regulates social media more than the US, with more privacy protections for citizens.
These countries also have generations of health care for all and more supports for workers and families.
When citizens see their govts not supporting them, they take to street protests---such as the French yellow vests. The US middle class doesn’t do much protest. The working class has had to put up with decades of jobs offshored, and unions destroyed and millions uninsured, with resulting bankruptcies..
Our extreme rw party has used regular media to propagandize US voters---Cable TV and its state media apparatus FOX News. It justifies its aim to destroy what ACA progress we’ve managed to achieve--- with still the world’s most profitable HC system, with millions left out or burdened with high costs.
Many other advanced democracies wouldn’t put up with what Americans tolerate. Now we see new progressives that may have some chance at change. Maybe this is the result of the Trump insult to our political culture, which has gone far beyond other traditional democracies.
5
I think you need to re-examine your analysis of the world, to include lobbing together all right wing parties around the world as if they are the same. This onto itself is false and miss-information. It's unfortunate, that so many right wing varieties have sprung to life these past years, but really the fault lies in these false representations of intentions by politicians, Merkel in Germany, EU politicians, various liberal/extreme left types here in the USA(thankfully not all), many, that have gone bananas on the illegal/refugee/immigrants... Whatever you want to call this tidal wave of people running over Europe and USA, all in an attempt to change numbers and overall voting blocks to change future elections. The Politicians are dirty, even more dangerous then the Russians since they hide under the cover of being an American, or German, or others. Russians you can spot a mile away.
2
It's outrageous that this is happening. No one should be permitted to express anti-immigrant or pro-Russian points of view on social media. Tech companies must engage in much stricter control to prevent this from happening. The failure by governments and social media companies to clamp down much more firmly on unacceptable points of view is a major threat to freedom.
10
@JasonM While I agree with your conclusion that governments need to clamp down on social media companies and control the ability to spread lies, I disagree that anti-immigrant and pro-Russian points of view should be restricted. People need to be able to openly voice an opinion as long as they back it with factual information. I don't agree with their views, but they should be free to express them. I don't know what the answer is here. We really should be fining companies that allow their platform to be used as a tool to spread misinformation and should be forcing them to educate people on the tricks that these entities use and how to critically think about online content.
An ex-founder of Facebook has called for splitting it up and while that could be a viable solution, I think there are other ways. I don't know about others, but at my work, I have to complete Compliance Training multiple times a year, otherwise I cannot continue to work. What about something like mandated training (15 minute information and then Q&A where they must achieve an 80% pass rate) before users can use social media? This is something the government can mandate? I'm aware there are issues with this idea...but it's better than the current state.
8
@JasonM
So you're saying that we have to protect our freedom by preventing the expression of unacceptable ideas.
Does anyone else see a contradiction?
12
What's an "unacceptable" point of view? Who decides what is and what isn't? This is a wildly slipperly slope and reminds me of the rhetoric of totalitarian regimes. Everyone should be entitled to an opinion, whether it's a popular one or not.
Foreign interference in state elections is a wholly separate issue and undermines democracy. Democracy is what allows those in the West to express their opinions freely.
7
For over two years a vast portion of American media has embraced and disseminated the false narrative that Donald Trump “colluded” with Russia in affecting the 2016 election. It was aided in that endeavor by current and former US government employees working in CIA, National Intelligence Service, FBI and the Justice Department. Unlike the “fringe” websites and social media accounts the Russians and their “far-right” copycats depend on to spread disinformation, the aforementioned parties were provided carte blanche opportunity to spew their unproven aspersions 24/7 on major cable news outlets. How many times did we hear John Brennan accuse president Trump of treason? How many times did we hear James Clapper predict the president would be indicted? How many more times will James Comey be afforded the moral superiority to trash the character of AG Barr and others serving the Trump administration on cable news outlets?
What is astounding to this reader is that the NY Times would choose to publish a front page article on obscure websites and social media outlets while it ignores American media’s complicity in facilitating and perpetuating the very strategies it accuses the Russians of engaging in.
23
@tim k. He did collude with Russia. Why do you think his team had 200+ encounters with them. If there were recorded conversations he would have been impeached by now.
22
@tim k
Let’s see now:
Every member of Mr. Trump’s campaign team had contacts with Russians, either officials like the Ambassador to the US, oligarchs and other shady people. His son-in-law went to the Maldives to meet w Russians in order to set up a back channel for communications (what was Kushner afraid would be exposed?), they had a meeting in Trump Tower (a few floors above the 3 controlled by the Chinese Government) hoping to get dirt, Trump openly asked Russia to get Hilary’s e-mails and the next day they hacked the DNC, AND...AND... Then the all lies about what they did: even Jeff Sessions had to twice amend his testimony to the Senate. Then Mr. Trump had a secret meeting in the WH with the Russian Foreign Minister and ambassador while the only people present were a Russian translator and a Russian press photographer. No one knew about the meeting until the Russian press posted the pictures.
Yep, no collusion. You know that if Mr. Obama had committed any one of those actions that you would be calling for his impeachment.
30
@tim k
With the fast p. ace of events, its hard to keep up. BUT several members of the Trump campaign did admit to contact with Russians, Jeff Sessions had to recuse himself from decisions because he had contact with Russians (which, like Jared Kushner, he forgot to mention when getting his security clearance)
When Donald Trump Jr was told the Times would break the story of his June 2016 meeting with Russians, he first denied it ever happened, then stated a different purpose, and then stated that it was to get political dirt on Hillary Clinton that the Russiians somehow acquired.
Repeated contact with Russians would attract the attention of our CIA FBI and other agencies. And this does not seem to be the behavior of people with nothing to hide.
3
This hysteria about 'Russian' meddling is ridiculous and misses the real problems of the West. Think logically. Any propaganda works when you have limited sources of information. The citizens of the Western countries has array of informational sources that are free of Russian influence, as matter of fact you have to look for specific sites in order to be exposed to Russian propaganda. By default the Western citizens get their information from TV, newspapers, mainstream sites. Why would they go looking for obscure Websites? Isn"t it because they don't trust the mainstream media to start with and WANT to find the information to confirms their biases, or reflects their views because mainstream media does not. So, the real problem is why the Western citizens do not trust mainstream media and are looking for alternative news?
11
@yulia The point is that not only are official Russian propaganda sources among the freely available mainstream" media (RT, Sputnik, supposed "think tank" websites etc.), but that people can receive targetted messaging unwittingly, directed by exploiting the algorithms of the social media, and services such as Google News and Youtube (which is a sort of social medium itself). Western opinion influencers also avail themselves of media such as RT as platforms to publicise their views. This algorithmic steering is very difficult to measure, and only Facebook and Google (and possibly Apple and Microsoft) can say or do anything about it, which for many powerful reasons they are very reluctant to do, since the algorithms and ensuing data on users are the source of their immense wealth and power. At some point, all nations will need to do what China and Russia have already done, defend themselves by strictly controlling access to and from their networks. "He who controls the routers, controls the Internet" (my conclusion from 34 years working with the Internet).
5
But in order to send a targeted message, you need to have the target. Algorithm is helpful only if you have data. So, in order to become the target you need to conduct some activities that will indicate that you are the potential target. Meaning that you already visited the sites with alternative news. Question became as much value such target has, it is like preach to the choir
1
@Yulia’s very active defense of targeting those folks for propaganda who show sign of uninformed, or outside mainstream thinking amplifies disinformation propaganda. Circular, crooking thinking will not in itself harm, perhaps. Taking that individual’s mistaken premise, warping it further as Yulia here does, and resending it, seeks to harm.
Platforms who perform as journalists require the ethical training of journalists. Readers themselves need work, starting in school, to recognize the basis of journalistic fact.
3
It seems to me the centrist Governments of the West list the touch with ordinary people. The Governments were too preoccupied with economic growth disregarding what this growth cost to ordinary people who didn't see the benefit of this growth. You don't need to have the Russian influence to be angry on such situation. However, before Internet there was just few places where you can hear alternatives, and the Government, dominated by the centrist parties, control the situation. But Internet changed that equation. Now people don't need to confine themselves to the Government-controlled news, they can read whatever news they want, and it turned out that there are plenty of people in the Western World that are not satisfied with their lives and want to change it. Fortunately for them (unfortunately, for the centrist Parties) Internet also gives people took to organize themselves, that's why the smaller party that had no way to reach voters in pre-Internet era, are doing now much better. On the other hand, the centrist Parties that didn't have competition before, now face stuff competition from many smaller parties, that cater to specific voters much better than the traditional parties. The parties turned out to be unprepared to such turn of event, and instead of trying to claw back some voters by modifying their platform they just blame Russian influence. It is comfort to the supporters of these parties, but definitely offensive to supporters of new parties.
9
@yulia One of the give aways of Russian disinformants and sowers of discord is a "reasoned" argument about why facism is a legitimate alternative for those "disaffected" by "elitist" politicians and urban-dwellers. The other dead give away that usually accompanies this faux rationality is the awkward use of prepositions such as "Russian influence to be angry on such situation," and "The parties turned out to be unprepared to such turn of event."
13
You just illustrated why the centrist Parties are losing their influence. They can not reason their position or their opposition to alternative, but instead they rely on labeling and on accusations. Such approach hardly could win them many supporters.
1
@yulia
Saying something like this without offering a shred of empirical evidence doesn't make it true.
And going to left or right extremes isn't going to do anything other than split the country further apart. Guess who benefits from that?
8
>>> "Fringe political commentary sites in Italy, for instance, bear the same electronic signatures as pro-Kremlin websites, while a pair of German political groups share servers used by the Russian hackers who attacked the Democratic National Committee."
This is an utterly meaningless assertion, aside from the fact that it is offered with no supporting evidence.
"[T]he same electronic signatures" is an expression that could mean anything or nothing. Applied to websites, it likely means nothing significant, since a "website" consists of a group of files that can be downloaded (you do that every time you view a site), copied, shared. altered . . . by anyone in the world. Anyway, the very nature of a website is that it does not and cannot have a "signature" that reliably identifies anything.
As for sharing servers, the vast majority of websites around the world share servers and those servers could be literally anywhere with a good Internet connection. Most site owners probably have no idea where their servers are physically located, because they don't need to and hosting services often don't provide that information routinely. Further, it is common for hosting companies to be interconnected with others and/or to operate under different names in different markets and countries.
This alleged news story is just more propaganda, designed to stir up the already-convinced American masses.
51
@Douglas The supporting evidence is in the story. The Italian websites were linked using the Google analytics ID number. Web developers include this signature so they can track their sites' performance. Using the same ID number for multiple sites allows the developer to see how all their sites are doing from a single screen, rather than having to log in and out of Google for every site they manage. So there are in fact electronic signatures in websites. Hope that helps.
96
@Matt Apuzzo: Please, Matt, that's not even close to persuasive -- except, of course, for the vast majority of people, perhaps including you, who don't understand that it's trivially easy to include inaccurate, fake or fraudulent Google Analytics tags in HTML.
You could, umm, you know, Google it.
17
@Matt Apuzzo
My understanding is, thanks to leaked NSA toys, electronic signatures/fingerprints can be faked.
14
The government is trying to tell people that they aren't divided, and that they really trust institutions and government.
And that democracy is not really bought by the highest bidder.
They are probably going to tell us that there is only minor income/wealth inequality.
Citizens should know that digital fingerprints can be faked, thanks to some of NSA's digital toys being leaked.
In reality, a huge number of ordinary citizens, possibly more than a majority in the US and Europe are increasingly aware that the post World War II order has led to enormous income/wealth inequality, and that serious changes are needed.
Citizens should know that digital fingerprints can be faked, thanks to some of NSA's digital toys being leaked.
The US and European Establishments intend to maintain the status quo by any means.
Their attempts to derail left wing populism are less visible, because it is more acceptable to go after right wing populism.
Any leader who is elected whose ideas threaten the status quo will be blamed on Russia.
Citizens need to remember that the US has meddled extraordinarily in elections around the world for decades, with the intention of protecting capitalism, not democracy.
The US has always had propaganda efforts, again aimed at promoting capitalism, not democracy... such as Voice of America.
There will be a huge struggle for change that benefits the people in the bottom ninety percent of us and European economies.
17
Can we just ban Russia and China outright already? No more internet access. No more owning property here. etc. etc. etc. All they're doing is working to destroy the rest of the first world for their own benefit. It's madness to keep letting them. Better to be at war with them outright than let it continue. Shows how many politicians here are in their pockets.
7
@Sparky
Good luck with that. Unlike a real highway, the internet has place shifting technology like VPN's.
As for property ownership, we have the same issue. But in order to run deficits, you need to keep folks buying your debt. We do too.
1
And how do you want to convince people that democracy is superior model of society, when you propose to borrow methods from Chinese authoritarian regime's playbook?
1
@Sparky, not a bad suggestion. Been this way for a long time unfortunately. Could use a bipartisan reckoning. It was, of course, Bill Clinton and the DNC who accepted illegal campaign finance dollars from the Chinese (via John Huang) for the 1996 elections, for the alleged quid pro quo of (1) killing Jordan Commission immigration reform, which China did not want; and (2) laying groundwork for China to be admitted to WTO, which China did want.
Clinton delivered on both. After all, money matters more than human rights violations, intellectual property theft, etc.
2
But what prepared the soil for dangerous social media to undermine US democracy?
Russia has its oligarchs and so does the US, and both have outsized influence on govt. What's our excuse? Our democracy and constitution go way back and was once a world role model. Russia never had a democracy.
Putin has his state media, the US GOP has its state media--FOX News, which supports Trump's lies daily coast to coast--the most watched cable news.
Let's be aware how our home grown elites spread rationalizations for their dominance of our economy, and lawmaking. Our campaign finance laws legalized turning our elections over to mega donor financing. The media just keeps score.
Our Supreme Court pushed the Trump type lie that big money in politics is 1st Amendment protectd free speech. That went out to the public through traditional media.
The lack of regulations and fair taxes on big corporations is propagandized as American Freedom from big govt interference in private profit. While we the people lack representation for our needs.
So US voters have been conditioned for years to rationalizations, while their rights and financial security are weakened. Most blatant example---our still inadequate health care --leaving out millions-- the world's most profitable---and our huge college tuition debt.
Any policy for the public interest is just slapped with a left wing radical label---and it's sidelined. Social media may just intensify what's long manipulated US policics.
3
This NYT piece is excellent journalism.
Like the Washington Post and others, journalists will not let Democracy Die in Darkness.
Keep shining the light on the deceivers of truth.
8
“networks of Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts, WhatsApp groups and websites are spreading false and divisive stories about the European Union, NATO, immigrants and more”
Seems pretty clear who the enemy is: social media.
4
Russia waging disinformation war on US and Europe the goal from all this to keep both US and the EU and NATO on the defense shake the foundation of the American institutions and creat division in the American public , divide and conquer and alienate America leadership in the world.
For the EU Russia love to see EU dissolved , look at the Brext in Britain.
Putin dream comes true he playing the same game the USSR played back since The end of World War Two , he has presents all over the world.
3
It's shocking how many people, despite a failure of the special counsel to recommend criminal charges, still insist the president colluded. The Russians could not achieve this level of dissembling if they tried.
5
We can and should call this a de facto conspiracy between Russian intelligence and our own white supremacist or neo-Nazi groups and individuals.
That should give all of us pause. According to the FBI, those white groups have perpetrated most of the terrorist acts on American soil since 9/11.
It is wrong to say this is bigger than any election, in the sense that the full force of these efforts will always bear on the election at hand, in the same way that Trump was on every 2018 ballot.
Cynicism is the same as a direct intervention on behalf of Trump, or any of the other corrupt, white nationalist, pro-fascist leaders like Trump. If everything and everyone are so bad, how can Trump be worse?
As noted here, "... for every example spotted by investigators, many more went undetected."
2
IMHO we have to use different sources of credible information in order to get a general idea of what looks to be "true".Avoid to get your infos from one national source;you have acces to a lot of daily english news all around the world.
4
How is it that I frequently read of the “far right” in NYTimes but never the “far left”?
3
That $100K Russians spent on Facebook ads is definitely the reason Hillary lost. She only spent $768M and Trump only spent $398M.
5
@Joe
This is the umteenth time you bring up Hillary Clinton and how she lost. In fact, she won the popular vote by more than 3M votes. She did not campaign in those States which usually vote Blue. She lost those Electoral College votes, necessary to be appointed to the Presidency. Finally, we now have an unqualified man who is in debt to Russian financiers in London. We have a President who humiliated himself and the U.S. in Helsinki when he groveled in front of a man known to have imprisoned and murdered a fair number of his own people. Hillary Clinton is no longer in the WH; she is no longer in the Senate. She does not direct the Clinton Foundation, nor does she profit from it. What is your obsession with Clinton? You have no opinion about a President who is always under investigation for financial links to foreign countries?
6
Is this Russian fault that the US has electoral college that allows a loser to be winner?
This is worrisome enough, but what is worse is that the American right wing is copying Russian disinformation tactics. Trump has demonstrated that there is no downside to lying. If you are called on it by the news media, you discredit the media. And the Republicans in the Cabinet and in Congress are in lockstep with him. An example is the widespread distortion by the Republicans of the conclusions of the Mueller Report. Expect the 2020 election to be the worst ever. Not just because of Russian interference, but also because of the welcoming by the Republicans of that interference and their adoption of the disinformation tactics employed by Russia.
9
One of the astounding aspects of this whole Russia thing is how it is being used to question the validity of results of elections if the results do not agree with the establishment narrative. In other words, the choice that people make are not the choices made of free will, but rather result of some kind of hypnosis by a foreign entity and hence not valid. It is in effect disenfranchising the people of who voted against the establishment.
As already pointed out by other comments here, the Russian social media messages were a miniscule percentage of all the messages that appear on social media. Another question on which there is not much reporting at all is whether such messages were posted previously (i.e. prior to 2016 elections, such as in the 2012
election or even at other points) or was it exclusive to this election.
Basically, the reasons based on which people voted a certain way should not matter for the results to be valid.
4
Russian did hack into the Florida voting machines the Mueller investigation found. Every American needs to read the Mueller Report to understand what happened in the 2016 election. We need to protect our elections. Trump needs to stop pretending Russia didn't interfere in our elections and start doing something to prevent more interference. And if he won't, he needs to be impeached because it is a national security problem at this point and needs to be addressed if we are to keep our elections safe from foreign rigging. Russia should pay dearly for attacking our country.
9
RT has a response to this report that's worth a look at
https://www.rt.com/usa/459165-russian-interference-european-elections/
PS: I'm not a Russian blot
2
@Michael Munk, why would any American care what RT, Putin controlled press, has to say about anything?
7
Apparently, Americans do care, otherwise how would Russians influence the American election? You can not have both way. American don't care and Russians influenced American election. Choose one and stick with that.
2
Unfortunately, we seem to be focused only on large entities when it comes to their support of terrorist or illegal activities. However, like gang and drug related violence, much of the support of far right fringe groups draws support not only from national entities like Russia but also individuals like Robert Mercer and Rupert Murdoch.
Russia's philosophy seems to be simple : To hurt all NATO countries however it can. The objectives of the named individuals is a bit more insidious and stems from a desire to benefit from starting culture and race related splits in society.
Maybe, the funding source of all far right activities ought to be traced and the individuals held accountable ?
10
Seems the reporters are making a mountain out of a molehill. Shame on the editors too. If these minor incidents threaten our democracy God help the USA.
5
Blaming elections on a foreign power, while it is your own citizens who have voted the governments in. The last time I heard, there is no evidence the voting machines have been hacked.
It gets old and it's embarrassing. Look in the mirror.
5
@Avi, yes, there is evidence they hacked into the Florida voting machines. Read the Mueller Report; it's in there.
9
Did they alter the results?
If democracy is that vulnerable to tinkering, so be it.
I would suggest the American media, especially the NY Times, to stop blaming Russia - unless it has directly hacked the voting machines, it's the Americans who have voted the clown into the White House.
I understand it's hard to blame 40 some percentage of the population from a new media. But let's face it. You can blame the old relic electoral system, but whatever voters deserve whatever government the voted in.
3
It's almost feel like the END GAME...sorry for depressing thought.
2
Something has to happen to break up this crazy fever engulfing all parts of the world.
We've been talking about cyber wars forever, but somehow been caught off guard, and the big question is WHY?
It was happening all over Europe for quite awhile, in Asia, Israel, China, Africa...every part of the world.
Were our intelligence agencies sleeping on the job?
We couldn't believe it could happen here?
Why not, is our democracy perceived to be so solid, that nothing would shake it up...far from it.
With all due respect, we can't claim to be more sophisticated than Europeans, they are much older and in general pretty smart.
Wasn't obvious that the world order shifted in a very negative way?
That power of the people disappear in a thin air, and BIG MONEY took over the whole planet, to the point that humans don't even bother about climate change and eventual complete extinction, that happening right now at the rapid scale?
Are we all so stupid?
Do we think that we can invade other places in the Universe, correct every evil we've done to our planet, somewhere else in a endless Galactic.
Would any GOD, if exists would give us another chance and hand to us planet that has few essentials for humanity to survive, like
Air. Oxygen in one of the most essential human needs. ...
Alkaline Water. Apart form air, water is the most essential element to life. ...
Food. The body can survive quite a while without food. ...
Shelter. ...
Sleep.
Looking on Earth Job Report, it's very much in doubt.
3
Kind of like the 60's when a Russian under every bed in the free world. Somehow they've managed to infiltrate every bedroom and dorm in the twenty-teen's. Being called red back in the sixties was not a good thing. Now in the teens...hey wait a minute someone must be putting me on.
I await the nytimes expose on America's influence of elections around the world past and present. I might sound a little unpatriotic paranoid even but all nations do it. Boy's will be boy's, right. And while you're at it can you look who's controlling Green Peace and the Green Party? Who had the Big Idea that we for the sake of millions of endangered microbes should limit the population of the world?
5
When are our national security agencies going to mount aggressive counter responses to these pervasive Kremlin cyberwarfare programs by revealing to the Russian people the full extent of Putin's ill begotten billions and those of his complicit oligarchs, in addition to their other acts of corruption? Why on earth should we hold back at this juncture in attempting to reveal the systemic criminality and resulting illegitimacy of the dictator's completely foul regime? Does Putin's buddy Trump have anything to do with this unexplained restraint by those American agencies?
7
It's important to Russia to disrupt because its leadership has stolen from - and deformed - the government and society. Putin is estimated to have tens of billions of money he's stolen from his people and parked in banks outside the country. We built the internet and am hoist on our own petard as deplorable around the world use it to steal, destroy and misinform. They can't organize their societies to thrive but their well-educated STEM grads can disrupt and destroy.
8
Please. Stop. It's all too over the top.
Propaganda has been around, and in play, in many ways, since the beginning of mankind. That there are new ways to propagandize doesn't make this news. Nor has the utilization of propaganda ever been labeled "an attack" on our nation, or "interference" before. False narrative.
Propaganda is a zero sum game, in actuality, when you consider that opposite sides are equally able to use propaganda for the purpose of influence, and have ALWAYS been equally able to use propaganda to influence others, again, since the beginning of mankind. This isn't new, nor is it "news." It's just the way it's always been, and the left is making a boogeyman out of it.
Russia (USSR, or The Soviet Union) has been spying on us for decades, and using what they find to propagandize, and influence forever. The irony, to me, is that throughout many decades, these same people that have been "attacking" our country with Fakebook posts have actually used far more nefarious, and criminal things to foster influence in US "direction." Including murder. And today, I'm supposed to be outraged by their attempts to influence me with Fakebook posts when I don't even have a Fakebook account? Or InstaFake, or TwitFake account so for that matter? Really?
It would be more surprising to me if countries like Russia WERE NOT using propaganda to influence Americans. Just know that for every person that thought Trump might be better, there were two "others" posting for Hillary ...
10
The USSR could not export Stalinism to create the world wide "dictatorship of the Proletariat". But, they are winning the Cyber War exporting Russian and Chinese "capitalism", by destabilizing capitalist societies by playing their own game. And, on top of it all, like iN Russia, and China, creating personality cults in each nation they touch; including the United States.
The world is quickly heading towards Capitalism with a Maosit-Stalinist face. And, the oligarchs, in Europe, and the US, are more than happy to concentrate their wealth further for Russian/Chinese world order.
The United States may have invented the Internet, but those who invented it never envisioned that the Internet would be used as a weapon. The openess they designed into the Internet, made it even a more powerful weapon.
To try to secure the Internet, in a cycber war, would be like herding cats. And, to try to secure it, would mean government would have to control it. Probably control it to the point the way China do right now. In the US that would mean giving up First Amendment rights in the name of national security. Effectively government controlling the flow and content of information.
Thus, Russia and China, who are winning the cyber war, can bring down democracy as we knew it.
6
If you’d like evidence for SOMEBODY pumping out a great deal of disinformation and a lot of suckers swallowing it, look no further than some of these comments.
They’re word for word, accusation for accusation, bizarre fake fact for bizarre fake fact, childish insult for childish insult, narcissism for narcissism, exactly what you hear on Hannity or Rush five days a week.
They’re fired off in the same order, the same tone, again and again without letup. There’s no change, no adds or subtractions, no new jokes, just rote repetition.
I dunno if that’s Russian-based, but it sure is helpful to Vlad the Putin.
10
Russia has found the secret of late capitalist culture at its peak in the US: "all we want is to be entertained". Hence Russian success influencing us, hence Trump. We need a revolution of cognition and of character.
10
And Steve Bannon is cheering them on
13
Too bad facebook doesn’t have a ‘dislike’ button that makes the offending post *less* likely to appear in other people’s feeds. Because, well, business model.
10
Responding to the supposed Russian 'conspiracy' on the health effects of 5G intimated by the NYT in the parallel article in today's headline: first, thanks for disclosing your conflict of interest in the matter. You did not mention, however, the name of the other scientist pictured in the article, Martin Pall https://hibr.nih.gov/member/martin-pall professor emeritus of biochemistry and basic medical sciences who has published a number of papers on intensity microwave frequency electromagnetic field (MWV-EMF) effects. But Dr. Pall is far from the only scientist researching in this area who is sounding deep concerns. Yet, you seem to conflate the long-studied medical use of very low electromagnetic fields (i.e., the not-mentioned pulsed electromagnetic field PEMF, see for example https://www.npcf.us/what-is-pemf-therapy/) with high-intensity wavelengths of 5G. In recent months the NYTs has warned us about the dangers of multi-vitamins, saturated fats, and coconut oil, and now suggest that the science is settled on blanketing humanity in a controversial new technology.
4
Oh, please.
Martin Pall is also into Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and abolishing smart meters, and—now here’s a shock—pals around with Joe Mercola, he of, “big doses of chelating agents will purge your kid of the aluminium that they were given via vaccines and cure their autism,” fame.
Big on Quackwatch, too, for some reason.
Thanks, though, for illustrating how the pseudo-science quacks work. Mention Russian disinformation campaigns, and they yell about PEMF. If you’re foolish enough to go through PEMF, it’ll be vaccines. Pretty much trying to get you haring off endlessly; I suspect that if you were silly enough ti stick with them for a gew minutes, they’d loop right back around to where they started.
8
@Robert
Industry claims it is safe, so I guess that is all that matters to you.
3
I allus enjoy seeing guys from the multibillion-dollar quackery industry try to pass themselves off as distilled water.
Thanks.
It is coming time for western democracies,including the US, to call upon Russia to stop their propaganda campaign of trying to influence national policy as an act of war and not a simple political game any longer. Russian meddling in European and US political campaigns as a serious breach of international protocol that should result in serious sanctions. Unfortunately we have a US administration that is too casual in their relationship with a rogue power.
9
“The goal here is bigger than any one election,”... “It is to constantly divide, increase distrust and undermine our faith in institutions and democracy itself. ”
The same goal can be attributed to our president.
14
I wish we could return the favor and interfere in Russia's elections. But Russian elections are a farce.
9
not more farce than American election that are bought by the big money of dark figures.
4
Yes, much more of a farce. The results are in before the vote takes place. Putin is a corrupt tyrant.
8
@Benjo The result of Russian election were known because the opinion polls were public and clear indicated the winner. Contrary to the US, the Russian President is popular. Although I guess, in real democracy you would expect that the person with lower approval rating will win.
1
Wouldn't it be safe to assume that Kim Kardashian has bigger impact on social media than all of the Russian social media activity combined? Judging by the number of followers, likes, clicks, reach. So, if she called for the Americans to support Trump, wouldn't she had more influence on the voters?
16
Sounds like they are practicing to interfere with our 2020 efforts for regime change while they continue to influence civil discord and fuel extremists as they pursue their core mission to unravel democracies.
9
I hope the Times has reporters on the even more urgent story of Russia's plans to interfere with our 2020 elections, with (what can no longer be denied or described as anything but) the enthusiastic and eager approval of the the President of the United States.
12
There's something disturbing in this reporting. But first let me make it clear I am STRONGLY opposed to Putin, his policies and actions.
What I find disturbing is that this reporting makes it seem as if any political opposition to the mainstream is illegitimate, pernicious, and working hand in glove with Russia.
"amplifying distrust in the centrist parties that have governed for decades."
There are LEGITIMATE reasons to be very concerned about the "centrist parties that have governed for decades".
There are LEGITIMATE reasons for some citizens of EU members countries to NOT want EU to become a Federation, which is the direction it is moving.
There are LEGITIMATE reasons to hold views contrary to the views of the "centrist parties" on a host of issues. That is what democracy is all about, resolving those differences.
I have NO doubt whatsoever that Putin is using social media and other tricks to try to manipulate. But if the "centrist parties" are going to use this as cover to try to take down legitimate political opposition, they are destroying themselves and democracy.
13
As far as the US election 2016 is concerned I rather agree with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedmann that „Fox News, Breitbart and Trump’s own Twitter feed“ kept Trump's base, and the American public in general I might add, " in a state of constant agitation“ . They did the job and helped Trump win the election. Plus the millions of dollars spent for the Trump campaign by superconservatives Koch, Mercer and Singer, or the manipulative digital help of Cambridge Analytica . The alleged Russian influence in the US election 2016 I consider to be rather overestimated in comparison. And as far as meddling in the upcoming elections in Europe is concerned I rather fear former Trump aide Steve Bannon who opened offices in Europe to spread his rightwing thinking and is meeting right wing politicians reaching from AFD in Germany to Orban in Hungary or Salvini in Italy or Marion in France. By contrast, alleged disinformation campaigns of Russia would have no chance whatsoever in German media and newspapers.
5
See Yuri Gerasimov and the "Gerasimov Doctrine". From our own Army War College... https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/issues/winter_2015-16/9_monaghan.pdf
3
I hope the Times has reporters on the even more urgent story of Russia's plans to interfere with our 2020 elections, with (what can no longer be denied or described as anything but) the enthusiastic and eager approval of the the President of the United States.
9
Unfortunately if you subscribe to liberal media you will be ignorant of the steps our country is currently taking to combat the Russians. Trump’s Administration has been harsher on Russia than Obama’s. Silly to rely on his comments to evaluate things.
6
Yeah, FOX and the Blaze...sturdy defenders of Truth, all right.
8
Trump and Putin are likeminded blood brothers with devotion and acclaim for each other. They think about each other constantly, call and chat for hours. They use the same English tailor, Sir Oswald, and the same Italian shoemaker, Signore Benito. The architect Speer built Putin's Dacha and Trump Tower. They like each other and enjoy allegiance to the Federation .
2
In the US it seems to be good-old Fox News that spreads the right wing propaganda. Is Murdoch mobbed up with the Kremlin?
4
It doesn't help to have Donald Trump as Russia's biggest defender.
12
Reminds me of the Russian collusion narrative pushed by democrats like Adam Schiff and the media.
9
@AACNY, narrative? Mueller proved collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in his report. It's high time you read it.
5
@kay
Proved collusion? The finding: No collusion. High time you accept it.
2
@AACNY
Don't forget to add that traitor, former Marine and combat hero, Mueller. Surely he is part of the same anti-America "deep State" Adam Schiff and others support. Fortunately for those of us who are ignorant of the facts, the Times prints the real truth via your letters.
2
Does anyone remember Project Birmingham? It was perpetrated by a left-wing group called American Engagement Technologies that was run by a former aide to president Obama and financed by internet billionaire Reid Hoffman. It used the same tactics adopted by Russian operatives who spread social and political unrest on Facebook and Twitter during the 2016 presidential election. In Alabama, its backers even introduced fake evidence that automated Russian accounts, called bots, were supporting Republican Roy Moore in the Alabama senate election to replace Jeff Sessions. The fact that Democrat Doug Jones won that election probably explains why it and other far-left copycats have escaped notice by the NY Times.
6
It was on the Times’ front page, actually, as were their critics and their apologies.
4
You can take the Russian campaign to “widen political division" seriously only if you think political divisions weren’t widening before Russia allegedly began its social medial campaign in 2014. Anyone who thinks Russia’s Internet Research does as much to widen U.S. political divisions as CNN or Fox News is crazy.
The Mueller report describes the Russia social media campaign as systematic and extensive, but puts it in perspective.
According to the Mueller report, Facebook “identified 470 IRA-
controlled Facebook accounts that collectively made 80,000 posts between January 2015 and August 2017.
However, Every 60 seconds, 510,000 comments are posted on Facebook every 60 seconds. Users share about 4.75 billion pieces of Facebook content daily.
The Mueller report says that “Twitter publicly identified 3,814 Twitter accounts associated with the IRA. According to Twitter, in the ten weeks before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, these accounts posted approximately 175,993 tweets, approximately 8.4% of which were election-related.”
However, every second, on average, around 6,000 tweets are tweeted on Twitter, which ads up to 350,000 tweets per minute, 500 million tweets per day and around 200 billion tweets per year.
37
>>> "However, Every 60 seconds, 510,000 comments are posted on Facebook every 60 seconds."
Yes. Facebook reports of posts served to US users during the same period use the total *33 trillion.* That's about *413 million times* the number of allegedly IRA-linked posts.
The notion that those posts could have had any significant effect on the US election is laughable. Well, it would be laughable if it hadn't driven so many Americans into and irrational frenzy.
18
@William Case valid points, but if you have the stats that separate political statements from kitty pictures it would be nice to know. When it comes to influencing minds it is easier to push something in the direction it's falling.
8
@William Case Russia is our main enemy. Right wing and Trump attack China; a convenient target. Russia is our Enemy. Ray Sipe
8
As a Facebook user, I’m particularly frustrated by the complete disregard for fake profiles.
I have an acquaintance IRL, who lives a couple of thousand miles away— we’ve long lost touch. Clones of her account have tried to “friend “ me repeatedly. Some sleuthing on my part uncovered 9, 10, and counting fake accounts, at least three of which are using unattractive photos taken with her own laptop camera. The others use stolen photos.
The clone accounts linked to real and fake accounts for some of her relatives and friends. Other “Friends” of her accounts indicated not Russian, but Middle Eastern Facebook accounts. She’s older, has always lived deep in the US, and these are simply not people she would have friended.
Repeated efforts to alert Facebook of this extensive network of faked accounts have failed. They are all still online.
2
All the while trump denies it is happening and refuses to increase funding and efforts to thwart this cyber warfare from Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, et al. Instead he remains focused on HIS phony trumped up border "crisis". Party OVER Country republicans such as mcCONnell and others refuse to weigh in supporting our increased vigilance, defense, and offense against cyber warfare. Why? Because in their view ANYthing that helps them retain power trumps what's best for the country. McCONnell infamously refused to sign Obama's bipartisan statement about Russian hacking before the 2016 election, stating he'd attack Obama for undermining our election.
McCONnell and his spineless allies in the senate have destroyed any sense of true bipartisanship in favor of their party retaining power... tax cuts, and CONservative partisan judges. Until they and trump are defeated and gone the USA is on a dark destructive path.
4
Trump is absolutely right to deny and condemn the “collusion” charges. Mueller has shown them to be baseless. Of course Trump should deny them.
7
@AACNY, if you actually read the Mueller Report, you'd know he found plenty of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. You should read it before you post nonsense.
4
@kay
The Russians tried and failed to influence the
Trump campaign. Not unlike our own intelligence operatives, it appears.
Gee, I sure hope these same hackers don't target the US election in 2020! They wouldn't do that, would they? After all, it might call into question the voting for "America's All-time Favorite Imprisoned President".
3
The very rich, very successful businessman who leads this country has taken disinformation to new levels. Putin is undoubtedly jealous of Trump's prowess even though he has the Donald in his pocket.
1
We have always known in the UK that we are being gamed, as you say. However, the Russians are never mentioned. Our primary bogie-men are global big business, shadowy billionaires and the far right.
Although our current political paralysis in the UK is entirely home grown!
5
Unfortunately partisanship provides a lot of cover and blinds people to real problems. For example, identifying domestic political opponents as the “perpetrators” while the real ones operate freely because they don’t have an “x” on their backs simply for being on the opposing side.
3
The Russians helped push you into your current political situation, actually. They provided plenty of Leave propaganda.
5
Oh, these mighty Russians they definitely know how to push the buttons of American, British, Germans, Spanish. How do they do that: know all these voters better than the local politicians?
3
The United States should be the leader in using its technical abilities to fight this menace. Instead we have a leader who's more concerned about proving: "no collusion" and a Senate majority that has profited from this previous activity that blindly follows him.
What will happen to democracy? Destroyed from within in country after country with the US leading the way.
31
One could argue that falsely accusing a president of collusion is a bigger waste of time. How much time and money have we wasted focusing on this false narrative?
10
@AACNY
Less time than has been wasted tweeting and playing golf, I'll bet...
8
@AACNY, Read part one of the Mueller Report. Plenty of collusion between Trump campaign and Russia was found.
10
Of course Russia will interfere in European elections and elsewhere.
It has worked very well right here in the USA.
Putin got the results he wanted without any real consequences.
So what has he got to lose to continue his havoc on democracy?
Our president will not utter a word on this matter. According to Trump in Helsinki Putin told him he didn't do it.
Why would he? Yup, our president believes all dictators but not our intelligence agencies.
These are not normal times and we must not let all of our president's erratic behavior and lawlessness become normalized.
If we do then we have only ourselves to blame.
2020
33
@Charna
Also bear in mind the agency with funds and werewith all, CIA has seen fit NEVER to do anything to hurt Putin. Everyone on planet earth knows he is the worst megalomaniac whose love for power knows no bond. Any one speaking out against him signs his own death warrant even if they live abroad.
We living in the free West know Russia has no economy so to speak of. That Russia is over 100 years behind the industrialized West. All or a good part of their national wealth is controlled by a handful of his sycophant cronies even though value of Russian Ruble keeps falling every day and yet no attempt has ever been made to pacify Western banks who were badly burned when Russia defaulted on their State obligations twice. Knowing all this our CIA has seen fit never to shared this piece of information with poor Russian people as this may undermine his chokehold
on his poor subjects.
One has to wonder whom this spy agency is really serving.
“A longstanding debate has been whether this material changes behavior or votes, especially as tech companies have worked to stamp it out. But security researchers suggest that swinging elections is a stretch goal for this kind of campaign, if that. The primary point is to muddle the conversation, make people question what is true, and erode trust.”
Of course this influences votes and helps to swing elections, particularly now there’s copycats.
I really wish people across Europe, and particularly here in the UK, were more aware of this. It rarely gets any attention.
People need to wake up.
3
What I am surprised at is some commenters’ vehemence that this is a hoax, and not true.
What the reaction should be, rather, why this is not a surprise... what took you so long to report on it?
Masses forget, that there could be a fringe group of 300 members but via social media, their impact can be punching 1000 times above than their actual strength.
And the generation Z and millennials, since they have grown up with social media as their “news-source”, unlike generations born before the Internet age... I grew up listening to radio bbc morning news-service sound coming from my parents’ room 6am sharp.
In hackers’ parlance, real world is meat-space, vs. cyberspace... and they use a phrase, “ain’t no difference between the two!”
This subversion is as harmful to the target as actual espionage interference, perhaps even more because of the number of people thus effected.
What all of us can do, is to question dubious news and confirm it at media outlets with a strong and ethical footprint.
Ask, “where is the evidence?”
The denial and skepticism needs to begin in the mind first to lessen the impact.
5
@Ash.
I have spent considerable time over the last 20 years or so taking both in-class and on-line classes as an Elder Student. What has struck me most, as an attribute both of younger students and many of the teachers who are under the age of about 40, is a startling and obvious inability to 'sort for relevance'.
Meaning that the teachers have a really appalling tendency to throw everything they can find that even peripherally pertains to the topic at hand up on the 'electronic wall' and then hold the students to account for All of It, (even though as often happens, the teachers themselves really aren't up to speed on it).
The students, naturally, feel overwhelmed (unlike me, they are usually taking several such classes simul-taneously) and just sort of skim through the materials, cherry picking points which support their particular position.
Never, anymore, do I encounter classes which state things like "This is of primary importance, these articles provide supplementary information", etc.
The Information Tsunami has just jumbled everything together into an unsorted flood tide. Many commenters here have mentioned that critical thinking skills have been lost and must be regained; a good foundation for doing just that is teaching how to 'sort for relevance', which used to be part of a public school education but apparently has fallen by the wayside.
5
>>> "Masses forget, that there could be a fringe group of 300 members but via social media, their impact can be punching 1000 times above than their actual strength."
Well, yes, but "masses" also fail to understand the relative values of very large numbers. Here are a couple from a September, 2018 Times story about the Russian Internet Research Agency Facebook posts:
". . . 2,700 fake Facebook accounts, 80,000 posts . . ."
The reporters were citing a Facebook internal investigation. Sounds pretty impressive, doesn't it?
What wasn't reported is that, during the same time period, Facebook served US members *33 trillion* posts.. That's *413 million times* the reported Russian posts.
Oh, by the way, those Russian posts were served from a period from 2015 well into 2017, well *after* the 2016 US election.
If you doubt this, just review the testimony of Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch, before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is the source of the numbers and, supposedly of the cited Times story.
Skepticism is a very good idea. People who have uncritically accepted that evil Russians are responsible for rigging our presidential election should try it.
2,700 fake Facebook accounts, 80,000 posts
3
There would be much less hysteria over Russia if it couldn’t be used as a cudgel on Trump. Someone very cleverly in the last Administration made him the scapegoat.
3
Our fellow citizens voting for Trump, McConnell et al take this all in with a smile on their faces. Any action that perturbs the 'elites' (has any rhetoric promulgated by conservatives ever been more ironic?) delights them, regardless how much it may harm them or their prospects or those of their children. At this point, i'd expect a Trump or McConnell voter to snap to attention these days at the first strains of Alexander Alexandrov's anthem played on the National Mall has n the fourth of July.
9
Consumer Reports tests cars, appliances and other products. Maybe a nonprofit, non-partisan agency could test media for truth. Possible??
2
Sigh.
Factcheck.
Quackwatch.
Snopes.
New york times.
6
It looks like the US will have to wait to fight this type of interference. Currently any effort to circumvent Russia is an attack on the current President's legitimacy.
Trump will have nothing to do with reality that doesn't put him in record breaking territory, even if he has to make it up.
6
What if he continues to be re-elected because of russian help though?...
2
Seems like we are at a point in history similar to when iron swords or machine guns were introduced. Facebook, Google and the rest of the marketing mind control complex have developed algorithms designed to brainwash people to buy products, and Russia has melded those algorithms into a monstrosity designed to brainwash people to want totalitarianism.
5
So what's new? I lived in Europe in the mid-70's and USSR agents were all over the political scene in even worse ways than today. They infiltrated labor unions and sponsored terrorist organizations, causing turmoil in numerous ways to undermine democracy. Now, as then,it's up to an informed public to discern truth from fiction as they see it based on personal experience. Western journalists often don't get it right either in my experience there, some working to an agenda at odds with the situation on the ground. Also, those who think many Europeans are obsessed about Trump (or any American politician) like the American left is, should get out more.
9
Please dot call it populism. In the US the more popular positions are not what Trump and Putin represent. I believe these divisive policies should be called what they are without referring giving them even the veneer of acceptibility associated with policies that are actually popular.
7
Our society is built on freedom of speech with the extremes canceling each other out. We will be alright. I also question their efficacy when people know a foreign power is trying to divide us and when data scientists like on 538 show it is a futile effort to include their noise in a sea of free speech. I consider this to be free speech practice for Russians to perfect their message to create awareness and momentum for changes within their country. If we were smart we would allow Russian forums for dialogue that are outside the reach of the state. If we believe that free speech and debate create the best outcomes for any society then this will only help us and Russia.
4
The United States before Trump would have taking election tampering seriously and they would be the world leader in combating election interference.
The Mueller report lays out how Russia was responsible for putting Trump in office. I’m surprised that just about everyone says “no collusion” based on Mueller’s report. The Mueller report shows that the Trump administration cooperated willingly and extensively with Russia and they’re still at it.
While I respect and trust Mueller I think that he is not perfect like everyone else in the world. I think Mueller unintentionally left a slight opening that Barr exploited to let Trump off the hook in regards to Russia.
It’s obvious that the Trump administration cooperated with Russia to get Trump elected. John Bolton is supposedly in charge of cyber security but he fired the person in charge of cyber security. Bolton has shown that he doesn’t care about our country being attacked electronically.
We need to stop Russia and other countries that are effectively attacking us in cyber space.
7
Well. it worked previously in the USA (Trump) and in Britain (Brexit) - Why not do it again ?
Trump and his team encouraged interference in the 2016 election, and Trump still fails to blame Russia for meddling in the US election. Russia got exactly what they wanted - it worked perfectly. Trump and Vlad even had a good laugh about it.
Why would Russia not continue with it's program to disrupt democracies around the world, when the "leader" of the free world encouraged the practice, and fails to condemn the Russians for doing so ?
7
When we refer to "Russia," we should distinguish between the Russian people on one hand and Putin and the current Russian kleptocracy on the other. The Russian people are currently hostages to Putin and the kleptocracy. Robert Gates today on CBS Face the Nation referred to countering the current Russian disinformation campaign by educating the Russian people with the truth. The truly illegitimate election was that of Putin and the truly illegitimate government is that of Putin and his kleptocracy.
8
The incredible irony here is that one of the greatest inventions for the expansion of human knowledge since the printing press, is now being used to limit, distort, and obfuscate it.
When television first came about, intelligent visionaries thought it could used to provide everyone in the country with a first class college education right in their living-rooms. Instead, it has been mostly used for mindless, time-wasting entertainment and the selling of needless products. Eventually, the medium was weaponized, by some, into a platform for the dissemination of lies and extremely dangerous propaganda on a 24/7 basis. And I think we all know exactly who and what I'm referring to.
With the advent of the internet, what many saw as a tool which could be used to bring about a new kind of Information Age is now being used in an attempt to take us all back to the Dark Ages. Certainly InfoWars was an aptly named outlet - and not for the reason Alex Jones thought it was.
Instead of illuminating and freeing the mind, the internet is now increasingly being used as a means to subjugate it. How much easier it will be to bring about the dystopian world of 1984 using 21st century tech.
And if you still wonder what kind of change Artificial Intelligence and advanced robotics is going to bring us, I suggest you ask the ghost of Robert Oppenheimer what happens when extremely powerful technology is used and controlled by the worst elements of society for wholly nefarious and self-serving ends.
3
The evidence certainly suggests that Putin has succeeded in his quest to weaponize "social" media and is now winning the propaganda war. Prior to 2016, the warning signs were there with Poland and Hungary.
Now, of course, Putin has his man in the WH. The consequences for the world could be dire.
3
Great article. The best defense is to keep reporting.
6
There are SOOOOOO many disturbing things that the contents of this well-researched article relate to. A central one is the "post fact world" phenom: a growing percentage of people around the world are increasingly ignoring logical, critical, clear-minded thinking and starting to believe whatever suits their whims at the time, with little or no regards to such niceties as fact-checking everything you have any doubts about, or looking for logical fallacies (errors in logic) in questionable material that one is presented with. I lay part of the blame on our educational system: learning how to think clearly and how to analyze information in logical ways, as well as learning how to be as objective as possible in emotionally charged situations.... these skills should be VIGOROUSLY taught from the earliest grades. That they are not, speaks volumes to our society's priorities. For example, a bunch of elected representatives in Texas recently spoke out loudly against teaching children how to think clearly and objectively, for fear that they might start to question things such as the religious beliefs of their parents. My friends, we are truly living in the proverbially cursed "Interesting times".
2
@Joseph Ross Mayhew
You are correct. Look up the Iran-Contra affair on Wikipedia, there is a link to “post truth politics.” Can’t help but notice that every important player in that scandal now works at the highest levels of the Trump Administration. Education has been laser-focused on standardized test scores for almost 20 years now. Kids growing up with the internet reflexively believe nothing, as a defense mechanism. Once you believe nothing to be true, everything is pure entertainment. And here we are.
3
Make sure to include the political parties when examining purveyors of falsehoods. Democrats just managed to convince their constituents that the middle class didn’t get a tax cut despite the fact that all tax foundations, on left and right, have reported otherwise.
1
@AACNY, I'm middle class and I did not get a tax break. There are millions of middle class who did not get a tax break and got a tax increase instead. You should read more.
4
“Still, a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest.”
Foreign influence operations are real. Misinformation by political parties and partisans is also real, and always has been.
But with so much focus on what is being said and how it’s being disseminated, we are losing focus on why people are actually listening.
Again, why are people at all points on the political spectrum receptive to these messages, regardless of the source?
10
@John, exactly. If the two parties had worked together to enact immigration reform as recommended by Barbara Jordan in 1995, even though such reform was against the wishes of the Koch Brothers; the Chamber of Commerce; and the likes of India's Tata Industries & the US Senate India Caucus (formerly led by Hillary Clinton), would someone like Trump have been able to gain any traction in 2016?
If President Obama had delivered on his many promises and soaring rhetoric from 2008, such as closing Guantanamo and ending the Forever Wars, not to mention bringing accountability to national security state abuse and overreach, would someone like Trump have gained any traction? Instead, Obama continued Afghanistan his entire 8 years, regardless of killing Osama Bin Laden; continued Iraq his entire 8 years, with some troop variations and then trying to hide continued involvement by taking a page from Bush-Cheney playbook and outsourcing to thousands and thousands of private military contractors; and expanded the neo-con, intervention first regime change to Libya, Syria, and Ukraine.
The obsession with Russia coming from today's Democratic Party and much of the main-stream media seems similar to their obsession with extremist identity politics. A vast diversion and red herring to distract from self-examination and why someone like Trump could win to begin with.
6
@John Read the second post above yours for one of the reasons. Education and critical thinking have a lot to do with it.
3
@Kay
With due respect, I would encourage you to consider how your response is representative of the problem.
Essentially, you argue that people believe certain messages because they are “dumb”. (my word, but your meaning, I think)
This absolves us of having to actually listen to others, take them seriously, and have empathy. Worse yet, it enables us to ignore, demean, and even demonize those with whom we disagree. (I’m not saying that you personally do this.)
I have good friend and close family members from both sides of the political spectrum. The majority of them have college degrees and most have graduate degrees. They are by no means uneducated, but they do seem to have retreated to their respective echo chambers created by a limited number of self-selected media/social media sources.
Honestly, the only way that this country will come together is if we all decide to listen more than we speak/right. I am trying to do this myself, and hope that you will join me.
1
In grade school our teacher had us pupils line up in class. I think my class had twenty some students. She then whispered into the ear of the first student in line something she read off a card. That student then whispered it into the ear of the next student, and this continued on down the line of students until the last in line, who wrote on the chalk board what they had heard. The teacher then wrote what was on the card on the board. Naturally by the time this statement was passed between twenty some individuals, it was altered, quite a bit if I can remember.
It made an impression on me anyway, as I have a hard time believing anything i'm told by someone without verifying it myself.
I'm a voracious reader, and love researching topics that interest me. I find the internet very useful for this, but for news, the internet serves more emotion than information. It's easy to find conflicting news stories on the same topic, published on the same web site. That should be notice to do your own investigative research, dive deeper and search other sources for information. It's not easy, but I don't think anyone ever said the truth was simple.
8
@aearthman, where we get our news matters. Papers of Record for over 100 years like the NYT are not equivalent to questionable websites that opened up in the last decade or two. Teachers need to teach their students what reputable newspapers are.
4
The best defense in an open society such as ours is an educated population. Schools need to emphasize critical thinking skills while our kids are growing up, teaching them how to recognize legitimate information sources and spot those which have an agenda.
Remember, if someone is telling you something you want to hear, be suspicious.
11
The Democratic presidential candidates are missing a big opportunity by focusing solely on the obstruction of justice aspects of the Mueller Report. They should be hammering home the message about how Russia interfered in our elections in 2016 and 2018 and will do so again with greater knowledge and fiercer determination given their success. They should be hammering Trump for his failure to take any discernible action to protect our democracy. This, on his part, is a tacit form of collusion with the Russians.
18
I think, also, we, like, getting inflamed. In some senses we can easily live lives of 'quiet desperation' and, if something comes along and hits a nerve and we become impassioned, or we get inflamed, suddenly life gets infused with an energy and a passion that we secretly cherish, because, suddenly, life has great purpose and meaning.
*But, by way of a [fake] conjure? Cannot we get inflamed by infrastructure, by affordable care for all?
Is all that too realistic, too hard to do? Have we been disappointed too many times by the real things that we can do?
7
Since Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" we have had influencers.
4
I am in Germany right now, surrounded by people in politics. Nobody is talking like the NYT about the “bad” Russians meddling. Of course, Russia has its country’s interest at heart, so does the US.
12
We are next and Tweety is intentionally ignoring the problem to improve his chances. It might not be collusion but it is certainly complicity.
10
France was successful at protecting their elections. They shut down social media prior to the elections and made sure their polling data was secured. We should learn from France. If FB, Google, etc don't want to help, shut them down.
15
I'm no Cold Warrior and I don't desire needless confrontation with the Russians but this is just getting out of hand. It's time that the US take the offensive and gobsmack Moscow hard for its serial bad behavior. Otherwise, Putin's mischief-making ways will inflict increased misery on us and our allies in Europe. It's time to make them pay - bigly.
This ought to be a covert war to counteract the Russians' use of asymmetric instruments to pursue their foreign policy ambitions. We're pretty good at this. All that's lacking is the will.
12
The issue highlighted in both Europe and in the U.S. is a flight of humanity away from poverty, destruction, into parts of a more stable and prosperous globe. It would be more helpful if we examined the problem as if we were inside a satellite looking downward toward earth, than an identity war, demonizing the other side. Once that problem is recognized, our task is to help in terms of economic progress, peace, human rights, while guarding against the zealotry and oppression of governments and special interests with special mention toward Middle Age religious dogma, hatred and violence.
12
@tennvol30736 agreed, what would be ultimately most effective would be the eradication of ethnicity (i.e. ethnic and racial identities which are basically tribal and arbitrary), and organized religion as now practiced( again an arbitrary irrelevance). With a homogenized human equalitarianism , there would be no flight.
1
Neither the article nor the comments thus far seem to make the obvious point that it will be impossible to fight this sort of cyber subversion as long as the President of the United States denies that it exists and his party--the Republican Party--backs him 100%.
In order to make progress in Europe we must first make progress here. And that means defeating Trump in 2020, keeping the House and taking the Senate. Otherwise history will record that Putin won WWIII in 2016 without firing a shot. And what you are seeing now in Europe is a mere clean up operation.
192
@Bob
Putin has the full support of Trump and the GOP. The republicans refuse to even ask what Putin/Russia have as their endgame. This article finally seems to realize Russia's agenda is targeting the US and others by using the republican ideology that took credit for taking the USSR down.
20
@Bob, so in other words, for the people with all the right answers such as yourself, the application of these cyber means is perfectly fine? Just want to be clear on that.
2
@Bob
''In order to make progress in Europe we must first make progress here'' wrote Bob
Stay home. Don't worry. Europe will be ok without America's Team Liberty.
3
I am a German citizen and therefore also able to vote. I find it extremely worrisome that social media has such a big influence on the outcome of an election.
Most people reading the NYT would not be tricked by this kind of populism, but younger people growing up with social media cannot differentiate between well researched journalistic entries and populist posts.
That is really why I am worried about the future of democracy.
It is hard to make up an own opinion without being influenced by the media you consumed to make up your mind.
The problem of influence on minors was always present, but with social media it got exaggerated.
222
Most public schools incorporate in civics classes topics about disinformation and sourcing of materials. I think it’s more the older generation who use Facebook in particular and who watch Foxnews as their only source of information that have the problem with identifying disinformation. Plus there is absolutely NO public service announcements or education about this for older people.
29
@Bob, that's very true.
If Russia’s disinformation campaigns against western democracies are a form of modern warfare, why are we not hitting them back? There are endless reports about the lengths that Russia and China are willing to go with cyber attacks on our infrastructure and the abuse of social networks, but you read next to nothing about what the US and western countries are doing to retaliate.
When bad sovereigns discover there is a big price to pay on the cyber battleground they will think twice. It’s the only language they understand.
158
@Clyde Bartel
Obviously Trump does not care, in fact, probably encourages the Russian interference. It got him elected in 2016 and he’s sure not trying to prevent it since then. Sad state of affairs.
52
I am certain we are, in the exact same way - we just don't talk about that, because then we'd have to concede a degree of hypocrisy.
17
@Clyde Bartel: We don't read about it, but it is happening.
14
What I find more disturbing is not that people spread misinformation but that they uncritically and unquestioningly believe it. There is no rational reflex to check whether this information is accurate, where it comes from, whether it can be verified with information from other sources etc. This phenomenon is not new in human history but the Internet age highlights how inadequate and powerless our educational system and democratic culture are in the face of technology.
202
@Christopher Over time, people will get better at thinking critically about the content and source of their news. I think we've gotten better even in the years since the 2016 election.
"Algorithms reward content that keeps users engaged, which means posts that stir anger spread and get clicks." This model is not sustainable, as we become desensitized to the shock value of ridiculous posts, and our rational minds kick into gear.
13
@Janet
You may have far too much faith in people's "rational minds"; the cognitive psychology literature I'm familiar with seems to point away from such faith (for instance, up to 85% of adults across cultures, with only small variation, seems unable to follow a deductive syllogism, searching instead for more confirmatory evidence rather than attempting to eliminate any contradictory evidence--the only way to logically prove the claim).
23
@Christopher In America, we have the unholy trilogy of
poverty
weak public education
heavy religiosity
Fellow citizens in this category will never be able to rise to this challenge.
Republicans love it and work for more poverty, weaker education, and more "religion."
It's their base.
34
Why is it so difficult for people to understand that the western alliance, the NATO countries, and by association, any pro western government, have been under attack from those who came to power after the collapse of the old Soviet Union; Putin and his band of oligarchs, which fear his wrath more today then ever before.
Trump’s elevation to the highest office in the land was one minor victory in Putin’s scheme to disrupt democracies. It wasn’t as complete as he would have liked, Democrats are still around, but he’s happy anyway because of the greed of the Republicans who willingly continue his disruptive plans. Putin undoubtedly supports their efforts, with members of the GOP openly seeking his support, i.e. Giuliani, Senators Ron Johnson, Shelby, Daines, Hoeven, John Kennedy, Moran, Thune, Kay Granger, and that great defender of American democracy, Rand Paul.
11
"Believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see" a mid 18th century saying. Imagine! They knew about social media back then.
14
Brainwashing using Facebook and the other tools is unstoppable. We might as well accept that democracy is over with. The US and British governments have no tools to deal with it, partly because it grew too powerful too fast to be regulated, and partly because the rightwing beneficiaries have taken over both places.
Ironies abound in this story. The wellspring of these tactics is Silicon Valley in the famously liberal San Francisco Bay Area. But Zuckerberg and his ilk think only about money, while Putin uses them to wage and win a war against western culture, a war that most westerners don't know is happening. Reagan may have "defeated Communism," but Russians are still the best at chess.
2
@Blandino
Actually-"brainwashing" doesn't work unless the washed are prepared to believe. This was found to be true by numerous researchers from the 50's on.
2
Since when did The Right Wing take over Facebook? The only thing I see on my feed, besides motorcycle races, are pharmaceutical ads. I get no Right Wing Propaganda. Maybe it's those sites YOU visit.
1
@meloop
Everyone wants to believe, we are softened up by consumerism.
1
"Investigators have found hundreds of Facebook and Twitter accounts, more than a thousand examples of WhatsApp messages sharing suspicious materials, and a hodgepodge of dodgy websites that launder varying degrees of misinformation — whether conspiracy theories or polarized slants on the news."
Hundreds?
Thousands?
How many people will read this article and tens of thousands like it which seem apparently aimed at influencincing our elections by undermining the legitimacy of the president?
5
Beyond noting that that is one big honking leap of logic you got there, the point might be made that nobody, but nobody, has done nearly as good a job of undermining the President’s credibility as the President has.
Guy’s a genius.
3
The Trump administration was complicit in the run up to 2016, and continues to be by virtue of its unwillingness to publicly acknowledge or act against the activities. Indeed, the Trump administration and the GOP has systematically attacked and removed many of the top cyber intelligence experts at the FBI and intelligence agencies, evidencing a continued cooperation with the attackers and their agenda. Add Trump's private, non-recorded / no note conversations with Putin, to get his next marching orders. All in plain sight.
5
Uh, Dave? There WAS no Trump administration before the election. He was a private citizen, remember?
1
In the digital electoral war the Russians fought with the US, the Russians easily won. To the victor belong the spoils: They placed Trump in the White House and weakened this nation beyond calculation
2
I think its time to do something useful. Its not simple but could be effective. attack russia by turning off all IP traffic from all domains and servers in russia. and stop all traffic by fining amazon and hosting companies for allowing these rouge sites to exist.
3
Democracies are only effective with a reasoned and informed citizenry.
If people get their news from junk sites, does it matter if the site is from Moscow Russia or Moscow Idaho?
Many Americans support Trump’s ethno nationalist views with eyes wide open. Trump is very transparent on what he wants the country to look like. Russia may have helped bring the message to light, but it did not create the message.
2020 will determine whether a just and equal multi-ethnic / multi-racial society with freedom of religion is still worth pursuing. As usual, it will be the meekest of this country and the world that will continue to suffer as they have for hundreds of years.
12
@Practical Thoughts
"Democracies are only effective with a reasoned and informed citizenry."
In our country, the Democrats put over 400 operatives in the field collecting early ballots from people who couldn't tell you which party they belong to or name a major candidate even under prompted recall.
"...the meekest of this country ... will continue to suffer..."
They may be suffering but fewer are suffering as much. In the last 32 months, 5.7 million people have escaped the welfare dependency of foodstamps and in 2018 alone, ten all-time records were set for combined employment of Blacks and Hispanics.
4
Has NATO lost it's mojo, what happened to an attack on one is an attack on all?
6
@anjin
It's not NATO that has lost its mojo -- it's the U.S. by undermining it.
5
The mainstream media lied for 2+ years about Russian-Trump collusion. But they want to shut down social media and any access to competing news sources. They are aggrieved that they can't control the narrative for their liberal patrons and political associates. They don't want you to know about Kathleen Kavalec and Bruce Ohr's readouts on the dossier, or the way Steele played the State Department, Sydney Blumenthal and the press on behalf of the Clinton campaign. So by all means, let's just shut down social media so we can get our news filtered and politicized by the mainstream media. The ferocity with which they attack Trump everyday shows it was nothing more than a propaganda machine/state controlled media for Obama for eight years.
15
@TL An excellent demonstration of what somebody who has fallen for Russian propaganda efforts sounds like. The kind of person that needs to be protected from such things.
11
>>> "They are aggrieved that they can't control the narrative for their liberal patrons and political associates."
Make that "neoliberal," for improved accuracy. That said, and noting that we probably have quite different political views, it should be pretty obvious to any critical observer that the whole "Russiagate" narrative has been fundamentally manipulative and deeply dishonest. And it would have been difficult for it to have been accepted as widely (and wildly!) as it has been if virtually the entire mainstream media had not gone all-in on it.
Admittedly, the background environment has been nearly perfect. Much of the American populace has been unable and unwilling to accept that a combination of deeply-reactionary segments of our population with a terrible Democratic candidate and campaign and an electoral system that favors right-wing pockets and small states ended up putting Donald Trump in the White House, and has therefore been eager to believe that some outside evil force is responsible.
3
@TL According to the Mueller Report, there was plenty of collusion between Trump's team and the Russians. Maybe you should read it.
1
I think if someone hacks into someone else's e-mail account and steals and uses the private messages stored there for political or personal gain, that is immoral and unethical, and the perpetrators should be jailed for a good, long time. At the same time, in the world of international espionage such conduct should also probably be recognized as par for the course. If Russia or anyone else wants to contribute commentary or propaganda to a particular discourse, however, we should be able to tolerate that as people who value free speech, and make good decisions notwithstanding as we weigh all available information and use our own, independent minds. That said, if the private entity Facebook wants to remove that Russian content, it should do so, and when the NYT makes us aware of the efforts of the jealous, petty, and underperforming Putin regime's efforts to take advantages away from us and our allies with obtuse propaganda purporting to come from other sources, that is a public service.
5
@Joe
"... if someone hacks into someone else's e-mail account and steals and uses the private messages stored there for political or personal gain, that is immoral and unethical, and the perpetrators should be jailed for a good, long time. "
Will Mueller be tried for his crimes?
Will the GRU be given the Pentagon Papers award for exposing fundamental, important truths?
2
I am wondering what would be reaction of Dems if somebody steal and post the Trump's tax return? I bet many of them would be delighted and no problem with morals
1
social media have became a huge propaganda machine for the international thugs, until we can come up with something to control it, i would suggest we just shut it down , at least for now.
6
Why don't we shut down all the "social" sites right now and call it a bad experiment.
9
@Bonnie Balanda: For the same reason we don't abolish the First Amendment and call it a bad experiment.
4
Both Putin and the Wikileaks founder got their ideas to publish illegally-obtained emails ‘in batches’ straight from our accountable U.S. Government which always publishes any publicly-questioned emails in batches to prove their validity to our American Free Press and our American Public.
Any government, group, or individual, willing to accept the illegal-consequences, could illegally obtain a political-opponents email if capable and ‘count-on’ that candidate critics in his own party, or the other party, ‘seeking out’ accusations amidst the hundreds or thousands of emails. There are no special-Putin brains about it. As a matter of fact, it appears that Putin got his idea ‘from’ Wikileaks, and that’s why he thought he could easily hide his espionage behind the anti-government group.
2
The failure of one country that has been victimized by election interference threatens all countries that claim to hold open, free and fair elections. The United States President, by his unwillingness to admit Russian meddling in United States elections and by his failure to confront Comrade Putin over this matter, weakens freedom, elections, and democracy everywhere. Because Trump won't stand for fairness and freedom, voters should expect other (and all) elected officials, regardless of party affiliation, to work diligently to protect and defend the underpinnings of our democratic society, i.e., our right to vote without meddling or interference. What a naive but necessary idea.
8
@Nate Grey
Maybe, maybe not.
Aren't these just more first amendment voices?
We have over 20 million citizens from other nations in our country. Shouldn't their voices be heard? Aren't their voices heard?
1
"Websites promoting what appear to be two local German anti-fascist groups, Antifa West Berlin and Antifa Nord Ost, share a server used by Russian government hackers who attacked the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election."
Are those real groups, or are they just groups that were created online for the purposes of helping the media help right-wing extremists in the AfD and other fascist political parties portray themselves as victims of the left?
AfD definitely exists and it definitely gets logistical and financial support from the Kremlin to undermine Germany and its role in Europe.
However, in the larger misinformation campaign, it is easy enough to create a website inventing opposition groups and point journalists to them, as "proof" that Russia is not sponsoring fascism, and that fascists are the real victims.
5
You mean they are forcing citizens to develop clear, sensible and independent systems of thought about their values and governance?
“Oh, please stop that!”
12
It’s time for the west to digitally and economically brutalize Russia until all of the propaganda in the world can’t hide the fact that Putin’s leadership strategy is a failed ideology.
7
With successful interference in the US elections, it is natural for Russia to hope for a repeat success in other democracies too.
4
When adults have control of government again, I, for one, want the West to wage digital warfare on Russia. That we tolerate this so quietly amazes me. It has gone on long enough.
7
@X : "Wars tend to cause more problems than they solve."
- HZ
1
Isn’t part of the reason why America found our election’s-edge manipulated by Putin is because ‘both’ Trump and Putin were at some level, deceptive con-artists, which didn’t reflect the true opinions of most American’s for the election to be satisfactory? Therefore, if Europe’s candidates don’t possess the same deceptive-conning qualities as Putin and Trump, how can those methods of election-influence work the same for any political group in Europe?
What does it matter if Russia or these far-right groups say the same things? Aren’t certain public opinions of the same, then, just sensationalized in a different way?
@HonorB14U : Fortunately, there is more awareness of this type of interference.
We do have to, "source," the information we read, see, hear.
There are [good practices] which consumers of information and [news] will have to learn, and use.
1
The US/UK governments and their media have never, never interfered with elections in Russia or in the affairs of any other country. We should be proud of ourselves as indeed we are.
5
@Dominick Eustace: If Russia were a democracy that held free and fair elections, you might have a point.
7
Hiya Joe. Thanks for replying. Russia held democratic elections several tines in the past twenty or so years - independent external observers claimed that they were as fair as elections can be - in any country - including yours and mine. We- our media and government spokesmen - interfered - opposing both the major parties. Putin won and won again - and again - with over 70% percent of the votes. I would not have voted for him nor would you - but he nonetheless he won. We should accept that . World peace is more important than the constant harping on division and hostility our "liberal" media indulges in.
1
@Dominick Eustace, Putin has "fair" elections? You must be joking or work for him.
1
Bring back paper ballets. End of story.
6
Overpopulation and income inequality are more potent than propaganda campaigns in causing division - social conflict. Let us pretend neither overpopulation nor income inequality is a factor - just blank their existence - then look for instigators. That would be Trump and his good buddy Putin, isn't that so?
3
This is important information. I now know that not everyone on the internet is who they say they are and that not everyone on the internet tells the truth. Gee, imagine that.
Is the millennial generation, who was raised in the facebook instagram world, that gullible?
4
@Brewster Millions
its...not millenials, millenials just don't vote, like each young generation. Those being influenced by propaganda, trolls and fake news are middle aged and elderly. Millenials DO know better, the boomers, not so much.
3
more. but, they didn't invent it.
I find the argument that Russia is targeting elections banal and antiquated. We live in a world that is completely connected by information. We, the voters, consume the information and make decisions and exercise our conclusion through a vote. If I have a masters degree in Russian, I can still vote for Trump. Patronizing voters the way the media and NyT and Dems consistently do will only diminish our democracy.
7
@Pilot
No, we are not independent thinkers and we don't really make well-reasoned decisions. Instead information continually manipulates us. Whether we want to believe so or not.
It's like walking into a supermarket, you always walk out with food that is bad for you.
6
Right, but we have a number of information sources, including traditional media. Question is why people do not believe information from these sources (that are readily available ) but instead they go to some unknown site for information?
1
@Pilot : Self reliance, independent thinking, ability to learn what is fake and what is real about a given story, might be skills with which one is simply born.
I think many of these, skills of independence, for many daily folks, may have a lot to do with whether they have good teachers, or not. Some relevance? No? No?
Or is everyone a truly self reliant and independent actor?
If so, where did we go wrong? All? The fault of the Nanny State, and related mentalities? But? What about being human?
1
We are seeing those who reject democratic institutions attacking those institutions. And you also get into the situation of “the other guy is doing it, so I gotta do it to.” That is what is happening with the elections in India. The populace is being bombarded with fake news and conspiracy stories from all sides that it has become impossible to sort out real information. The result will be the collapse of the electoral system.
The only good news is that for my undergraduate students “The Daily Show” is their major news source.
4
You think NY Times prints "vetted news"?!
People waste too much time worrying about interference in our elections. Even the parties and candidates, not to mention super PACs, seek to influence voters by dubious methods. The U.S. actively seeks to influence the politics of foreign nations (reference Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Ukraine...the list goes on).
As responsible and contributing citizens of this country, we are supposed to have minds of our own. We are supposed to use our wisdom and intelligence to sift through the noise and discern the truth and form our own oponions. Just because some entity attempts to influence our actions doesn't mean it's going to happen.
This is one of the great mistakes of Democrats these days. They treat the supporters of this administration as if they were ignorant bumpkins, easily influenced and manipulated. Perhaps there is LOGIC behind their support, not just for President Trump, but for what he represents.
7
@Raz
But people are very easily influenced and manipulated. We get hit with programming continually throughout the day starting from kindergarten onward. It's so overwhelming it becomes our identity. We go to war because our programming tells us to.
And part of that programming is a subroutine that programs us to not question our independence.
We make all our decisions based on emotion and then rationalize them with intellect. What you think of as independent thought is just rationalization. Many studies have shown that you are 95% controlled by your subconscious.
4
So we are mindless robots? Loser talk.
I don’t understand the attraction to “pro Kremlin” websites when Russia is run by an oligarch kleptocracy and has the GDP of Italy. If you find that attractive, it seems you’re a national negative, not positive. Russia wants to grind democracy into the dust and then co-op what remains into power/profit relationships. Putin would love Europe to be governed by a whole set of oligarch kleptocracies, all sympathetic and “in business” with him. Look at Hungary. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban described his vision for Hungary as an “alternative to liberal democracy”. He has rewritten parts of the constitution, redrawn parliamentary districts, and stacked the courts. All this, and yet, the U.S. Ambassador to Hungary said, “I can tell you, knowing the president (Trump) for a good 25 or 30 years, that he would love to have the situation that Viktor Orban has.” We are in a fight for honorable civilization....ours and the world’s.
9
That is the problem of the Western governing elite. They don't understand why their citizens find the pro-Kremlin sites so attractive, and therefore, could not efficiently counter it's influence. My guessing will be that the pro-Kremlin site speaks to people's worries, that are independent from the size of GDP. Inequality is the problem in Russia, Italy, US and many other countries. You would think that solution to this problem will be interesting to everybody no matter where these solution came from. By the way, Putin will be glad to have friendlier to Russia Governments in Europe, no matter what kind of ideology these Governments represent.
1
I think it is interesting that they are supporting the electing in of right wing parties. Please explain that, someone.
We had protests groups - all right wing pro oil and gas industry - that were paid by crowdfunding. They definitely had an impact on our provincial election. Is there a historical precedent for this?
5
"It is nearly impossible to quantify the scale and resonance of the misinformation. Researchers say millions of people see the material."
Advertising works. But what does it work to do?
Does it convince people of lies? Does it get people to think things they'd never otherwise think? Can enough advertising buy an election?
Or does advertising encourage people in what they are already ready to believe? Does it sharpen what they already think? Does it get up enthusiasm for a candidate they'd like anyway, if only they knew it?
I think the power of advertising is more limited. That is why the design of ads and products, and who's the candidate, is so important. Ad agencies exist because these factors are important, and can be manipulated but not invented.
For these political campaigns, this offers much to counter them.
Why are people ready to believe this stuff? Because they fell they have been failed and betrayed.
Why do they already think such dissatisfied thoughts? Why is it enough to sharpen their anger?
Why are they not enthused about the candidates we think they should elect?
This is fundamental politics. Blaming the other guy's success is avoiding the issue of one's own failure. Political machines long knew they had to get out into the wards and use up shoe leather, use walking around money, and actually help people to get what they need, jobs, housing, basic needs. Then take credit for it.
The big political machines first of all produced for those voters.
6
You had me until you said "the candidates we think they should elect."
You don't speak for me or tell me what to do.
3
@Brewster Millions -- Didn't mean to.
I'm trying to say that a bad candidate and a bad campaign will lose, and no amount of advertising can overcome those real failures.
Blaming the other guy is pathetic.
To win, produce results. At least promise them in some specific, credible way, and do things to help produce it.
Politics has been failing voters for a long time. Yet the political machine thinks it can spend more on advertising, or silence others, and somehow get away with that yet again.
Failure must be owned, and fixed.
7
@Mark Thomason I love your positivism, and I wish what you said was the whole story. However "advertising" is just a commercial variant on propaganda, and propaganda definitely works. Minds are changed buy incessant repetition, outrageous lies and misdirection expertly applied, and the Russians are world class propaganda experts. One of their favorite tricks is to convince folks that "results" have been accomplished, when the opposite is true.
2
Russia has been trying to undermine US democracy for over a 100 years so that isn't new, what is new is that because of social media they are now having real success. There doesn't seem to to be any real answer when it comes to social media because it is designed to widely share information. One thing that should be done is to strengthen our institutions that are dedicated to seeking the truth. This includes newspapers, libraries, colleges and universities, and public schools, Believing in conspiracy theories seems to be a common human trait and Russia is taking advantage of it as is the right wing in the United States. The enemy of Russia is the truth and we have to hope that the truth wins out.
11
>>> "Russia has been trying to undermine US democracy for over a 100 years . . ."
Gee, that would have been just about the time the US and its allies invaded Russia in an effort to help the losing side in the Russian civil war (see American Expeditionary Force in Siberia, 1918). I wonder if there might be some connection. ;^)
7
Americans and everyone else have been trained for decades to no longer seek news. Instead they are fed a combination of entertainment news and yellow tape journalism (stories of crimes and disasters), that offer little insight into the challenges we face when as citizens we are asked to choose policies and leaders. (This may have something to do with the lack of trust Americans have for the profession)
When the Russians discovered that Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes had reinvented Pravda with their own disinformation service, Fox News, they suspected it might be possible to tilt coverage to favor Russian interests. They weren't that far apart to start. Then, Trump showed up, and Putin did his happy dance.
The sad truth is that Putin won - He split the country with a lot of help from right wing media (and GOP enablers), and a bit of help from the ultra-left. They were both perfect targets for Russian meddling.
15
Unified Europe has kept Russian empire in check for the last 70 years. Weakening of NATO and EU is the only way for Russia to restart subjugation of neighboring nations again. Russia failed it's attempt in Ukraine in 2014, but they will try again. Isolated European countries would be too weak to oppose Russia's aggression. European politicians who want to dismantle EU and NATO serve Russia's interest best.
16
@atk, even the nationalists that don't support Russia have very little plans to try to counter Russian aggression. The good news is that although they are expected to win more seats, they are rather divided on many important key issues which means that their efforts to destabilize the E.U will not likely work. Meanwhile, you see parties that want to push European federalization & unity like En Marche!, members of the A.L.D.E & the Greens gaining in the polls as well. Not only that, despite some minor disagreements, they are very united & voter turnout, especially among demographics that re more pro E.U namely young people, urban residents & those with college education is likely to be much higher this year. It's unlikely despite the current polling that the far right National Rally will once again become France's largest European Parliament Party for example.
I see we have an awful lot of "whataboutism" in this comments section. I think we readers should be skeptical about the provenance of some of these comments as well. Perhaps any Russians or Russian supporters who are commenting on stories like this could spend a little time reading the rest of the New York Times and appreciating how powerful it is to have a nation with a free press. Our press isn't always perfect, but it is one of the greatest strengths our nation has. I wouldn't want to live in a place without it.
18
>>> "I think we readers should be skeptical about the provenance of some of these comments as well."
Comments like this, which pop up whenever anyone dares to challenge the "Russiagate" narrative in any way, would be funny if they weren't also both pathetic and dangerous to open democracy and principles of free speech.
2
It is kind of difficult to appreciate the power of free press amidst all this whining about Russian interference through Facebook that will doom democracy if we not regulate Facebook (and freedom of speech). If freedom of speech is so powerful, why is there such outrage against few fake news in the sea of information? After all freedom of speech allowed people to choose their sources of information, and if they chose pro-Russian sutes, whose fault is it? Russians because they know how to attract people, or the Western press who for years of freedom of speech was not able to get respect and trust its own citizens?
1
@RVC, this is the kind of comment one frequently sees whenever a life-long US citizen and former Clinton-Gore; or Kerry-Obama voter makes some suggestion that perhaps the Democratic Party might not want to focus on abolishing ICE or might want to support broader immigration reform more reminiscent of the Jordan Commission than solely a path to citizenship for the estimated 10 million to 22 million illegal aliens without any other real reforms. Any support for something that goes against today's Democratic Party orthodoxy is apparently only because of comments originating from Russians or Russian trolls.
And, yet, strangely, when Bloomberg News reports on a thriving Russian birthright tourism industry in the United States to take advantage of US birthright citizenship laws, designed in an era long before globalization and the invention of the airplane, today's Democratic Party is deafeningly silent. It's so confusing. Are we supposed to worry about Russia or not?
1
The Far-Right in Europe doesn't need any help from the Kremlin. Brussels and Merkel have done more than enough the energize the Far-Right with their policies.
6
Look toward Sri Lanka: regionally shut down broadcast capability on facebook, whatsapp groups, and all other broadcast platforms 3-4 weeks before an election. Allow only one-on-one contacts until election date.
8
@Erik van Dort: Facebook is, like it or not, "Speech." Shutting it down before an election is a violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution. There is a very good reason that the writers of the Constitution put Free Speech first in all the Amendments. It is because tyrants and dictators hate Free Speech,
4
See the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Consult experts if confused.
2
@Douglas
That's rich, considering the U.S. Constitution is under assault these days and no one is listening to the experts.
4
"Build it an they will come," was the phrase from a baseball movie of 1989, Field of Dreams.
It applies here. If the opening is there, they will come and use it.
Who is "they?" Everyone who can. It isn't just the Russians, and wouldn't be just the right wing.
Dirty politics has a long history in the US. Would Richard Nixon have done it? Of course, if it worked, if he thought he could. Who else? That is a partisan question, but the answer we should all agree on is that there would be someone nasty enough.
We need to protect our election process, and not just from the Russians. If it can be corrupted, someone will come and do it.
8
@Brewster Millions
Care to offer an explanation of just how Hillary did it? -- I'm actually surprised you didn't blame every Democrat, the liberal media and Obama as well, since that's the usual trope response.
5
You are right. And don't ignore the fact that hillary did it.
5
The United States of America is getting upset. In the light of the fact that Russia is using American tools and tactics, is upsetting the U.S. For years and years the United States of America has been using those tactics in the entire world, particularly in Latin America, that the U.S. considered belongs to them. Endemically the United States of America has supported right-wing dictators, undermining elected left leaning governments. What is the surprise here? Because Russia doesn’t is wrong now?
3
".....spreading disinformation, encouraging discord and amplifying distrust in the centrist parties that have governed for decades.
The sad part is that demagogic bloviating of anti-government advocates like Ronald Reagan, Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich, and finally Donald Trump prepared our country to accept this propaganda.
7
The amount of misleading or straight lying memes circulating pretty much everywhere is simply staggering. The paid or “pro-bono” propaganda groups produce and circulates so many of those, it’s simply impossible to keep up. The populist/ far right has taken over this style of propaganda and perfected it. The free social media is a ripe propaganda medium that now reached saturation. It is impossible to go anywhere without seeing a piece of propaganda popping up.
5
What’s really sad is that people fall for theses ads and deceptions in the first place. Say what you will about the Russians but all they are doing is stoking existing prejudices and bigotry. If the prejudices and bigotry didn’t exist in the first place then their efforts would be moot. And that’s clearly our fault. Somewhere along the line we lost our way as a country. We used to celebrate our diversity and now we mock it. Social media is the single biggest reason for this change. It has spread the filth and falsehoods of any bigot with a computer or smartphone. And many people simply eat it up instead of seeing it for the lies and bigotry that it is.
25
Of the 19 graduate students I teach, not one reads the NY Times. They get all their news online, without regard to whether it has been vetted or not. When I asked them what I meant by vetted news, only two hands went up. As I said, these are graduate students....
70
Unfortunately, you are describing graduate students without any critical thinking skills on affairs of state as it relates to their country. This is what I feared would become of future generations when social media platforms were first introduced.
10
@Muddlerminnow
The American Library Association has been doing great work in teaching students how to vet information.
http://www.ala.org
12
Having been a grad student back thirty years or so ago, I assure you that we were also idjits.
3
“Russia did it” seems to me to be a false “boogaboo” left-over from the Cold War Years. Russia today, despite “Czar” Putin, is a shadow of its former self despite the occasional saber rattling in the Ukraine and Arctic areas. China is the more powerful one to watch, or a United China-Russia alliance would be the power of change, but that’s unlikely...
13
@Moe The new thing about the old art of propaganda is the Internet. A country need not be more than a "shadow" to practice Internet propaganda with great effectiveness. It is a weapon that almost everyone (except propagandists) vastly underestimates. We are being invaded big time in a new kind of war, and the invasion is so successful it is recruiting turncoats at a record pace.
Oh, and I agree with you about China, but Russia is the grizzled old master propagandist with most of the chops.
4
When did we become so afraid of "manipulation" by false stories and false polemics? Isn't the constitutional notion of free speech based on the belief that bad ideas are best dealt with by robust discussion or debate?
Really, who cares if the Russians communicate with us, even with sinister motives?
13
Every piece of information a person receives should be looked at as possible propaganda or purposeful misinformation. That is were critical thinking comes in.Russia is no worse than the United States.We are just at a point where our Secretary of State goes on national t.v. and declares we are trying to overthrow Venezuela because it has oil.The arrogance is astounding.
18
It's even worse in Europe. They populate entire neighborhoods in the poshest areas.
3
@George: I think you posted a response to a different story.
“Algorithms reward content that keeps users engaged, which means posts that stir anger spread and get clicks.” Something similar seems true of the Times’ own editorial algorithms. Articles spreading anger against the regime’s adversary, Russia of course, keep your users engaged and “get clicks”. And surely please the regime, the “American authorities” whom the authors cite as though theirs was the word of god and god would never lie.
While the Times sadly continues to hype the conspiracy theory that Russia seeks to weaken Western institutions via Facebook and other internet platforms, you redirect from the actual problem.
We do indeed face a terrible danger from misuse of social media. But the adversary is the system of surveillance capitalism itself. The adversaries are the tech giants, Google, Facebook and the rest. They are the ones, not Russia, whose thirst for “clicks” have built the very privacy-destroying machines - the algorithms - which are *designed* to “modify the behavior of individuals, groups, and populations in the service of market objectives”, in the words of Shoshana Zuboff in her important book, “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism”. In the service of their objectives, rooting out disinformation is not a priority. This “radical indifference” means that “surveillance capitalism must be reckoned as a profoundly antidemocratic social force.” (p. 512)
Please spend less time demonizing Russia. and more on the valuable “Privacy Project”.
13
Conspiracy theory? Read the Mueller Report, an unbiased investigation into what has been going on the past couple years. Or is an investigation into events that support your agenda also a conspiracy?
19
Thank you for raising this point. Russia is indeed but one client and actor.
I too would appreciate a more in depth analysis of how clicks and likes mold our behavior patterns like Pavlov’s dogs and how daily circular social media pats on the back lock us into subgroups of people who reinforce their own beliefs.
6
Sounds like another weapons of mass destruction story. What's next, invade Russia?
14
“We are fundamentally dealing with a security challenge,” said Nathaniel Gleicher, head of Facebook’s cybersecurity policy. “There are a set of actors that want to manipulate public debate.”
The pot calling the kettle black!
I charge that the people at Facebook, Google, etc. are actively and unashamedly manipulating public debate by shutting down sites THEY don't agree with.
14
Isn't a military confrontation with Russia the perfect answer to the Democrat Party leaders' problem? No need to worry about those expensive programs demanded by your base but hated by your big donors--As long as the war fever rages. Let loose the dogs--Bolton and Pompeo! Venezuela, Iran then Russia.
5
Russia has declared war on democracy. Isn't it time for the democracies to bomb Moscow to smithereens?
1
Who is profiting from the division that is leading to the dissolution of Western Liberal Democracy? Mark Zuckerberg, that's who.
4
The USA would like to assist, but the so-called POTUS calls this all a Hoax.
Oh, and Putin told him to stay out of it as it will only help him.
6
Try and try and try, but people want to be free!!!
2
We did this to ourselves. We provided unfiltered and unlimited access to the eyes and minds of our citizens for anyone who wants to pay. We didn’t stop there.
We also provided detailed profiles so the buyer could micro-target those most susceptible to his message.
Still today, this continues and our society is being fractured by those who stand to gain from chaos, both domestic and foreign.
And yet, in the face of evidence many of us still oppose any protection or regulation against deliberate manipulative exposure on the Internet, calling it censorship and fascism. As we drift to fascism precisely because of legal propaganda...
9
The kinds of mis/disinformation war accelerated by the nationalist movement is not new at all and has been always in active in human society from the day one as long as there is to be found a conflict and animosity among people which is the inherent nature of human beings. It can change its forms and methods constantly by co-opting whatever communication technology available at the given point of time no matter how hard facebook like online platforms try to prevent them.
The best way to deal with this epidemic of the mis/disinformation and fake news is to understand the root cause of the main originator, the nationalist movement gaining momentum or far right resurgence which is the perfect opportunity for the Russians to use for its information war against the West.
A difficult question to ask, because of a fear of being in political incorrectness, could be that without social upheaval like the mass migration to the West from the Middle East and Africa at such unprecedented pace within such a short time, would we still have witnessed this sudden rise of nationalist movement across the EU and even Brexit in the Britain?
Far right, far left, nationalist, Anarchist and Marxist of whatever extreme persuasion, they have been always within us in active or latent like virus waiting to be activated by internal/external threats or impacts like mass migration from without. Blaming this cyber war solely on the online platforms and Russian seems to be beating the dead horse
5
The CIA thought they were so clever destabilizing other governments by helping certain constituents of a foreign adversary. Now we have given our adversary all the tools to do the same to us and our allies. You do not have to conquer a county if you can install a friendly government. Sadly we and our allies are vulnerable to this.
10
“Intelligence officials have not publicly accused the Kremlin of backing specific candidates in Europe in the way that American authorities say that President Vladimir V. Putin sought to promote Donald J. Trump in 2016.”
Who exactly are these “American Authorities”? Are they Russians or more likely those in our own country?
Well, they’ve had a good deal of practice over here.
1
“The election has yet to come, and we are already suspected of doing something wrong?” the Russian prime minister, Dmitri A. Medvedev, said in March. “Suspecting someone of an event that has not yet happened is a bunch of paranoid nonsense.”
Really? Since when is meddling in the weeks leading up to an election not a "thing" Is it only meddling afterwards?
8
The penultimate paragraph disturbs me, with this sentence:
"In Germany, Avaaz found dozens of racist and anti-immigration messages." Why should an anti-immigration message be suspect or censored or eliminated? Millions of people the world over, good citizens, want less immigration into their nations, as is their privilege as free citizens with their own opinions and their own votes. This telltale sentence suggests that the internet's official meddlers in free speech are not neutral overseers but are trying to enforce their own pro-immigration views by censoring those who disagree.
5
Democracy is messy. So is free speech. But, they are better than the alternatives.
Concerning “false information” allegedly spread by the Russians. Spreading falsehoods are bad. But, lets face it, propaganda has been around since the beginnings of human language.
The US does it too. The tools have changed, the intent is the same. Voice of America, which is funded by the US government, broadcasts news from an American perspective, to all who choose to listen. It does so today, though in the age of the Internet, its role is diminished.
And there’s the New York Times. The Times international edition is distributed worldwide. The Times very much has a point of view; it is biased, and not an objective purveyor of information. Most of the Times' biases are reflected in the paper’s coverage of US politics and President Trump. But they go beyond this. For example, about a month ago, the Times ran a major story about the Times’ competitor, Rupert Murdoch. The teaser at the top of the home page of the US web site stated that Murdoch and his right-leaning news sites were “destabilizing democracies.” Not what most would call objective reporting.
Ultimately, the onus is on the public, and consumers of information, to distinguish truth from fiction. The solution is to spread more information, not censorship.
A closing note to the Times’ editorial board. SCOTUS got it right in the Citilzens United decision. Free speech and a free press matter. The Times should support these freedoms.
5
“SCOTUS got it right in the Citizens United decision.”
This statement is simply wrong.
Again, the right is cancer upon our democracy that must be excised.
6
It is utterly depressing to think of the resources in the world that are being wasted on the means to wage war, discredit and obfuscate democratic processes, reduce transparency of governing bodies, stifle press freedom, limit the choices, voices, and lives of citizens, discredit science, exploit the flaws of economic systems, and rape the natural world. All for the short term gain and power of the few.
4
Our American corporate media reported that Russian-trolls were on our mass-shooting articles, as well. What does anybody want to guess the Russian motive was for wuss-Putin, who still can’t communicate his true opinions at face value, there? Attempting to lead the world to believe that America is a violent society instead of a peaceful society, for the most part? Masking as hostile and violent leaning gun owners to make America look bad? (Meanwhile, while Putin was slaughtering non-fighting Syrian’s of all ages in the streets; the Russian’s put up a statue of the Russian maker of the AK-47. This would be like the U.S. putting up the maker of the U.S. Tank during the Waco, Texas U.S. Military tank fiasco.)
3
Interesting. And Donald Trump, instead of casting our European allies to the wind - he loves and sides with Russia!
Please let us not hear the word democracy come from Donald Trump’s lips.
6
How many more times do we have to sit through this useless exercise? Demonizing Russia is not going to get a Democrat elected in 2020.
13
Western democracies MUST find ways to fight far right hate & disinformation if they are to survive.
4
"Our faith in institutions" has been hurt far more by those organizations themselves, including the EU, then any number of false posts or conspiracy theories could ever do. There is room for a healthy dose of Euro skepticism in the EU parliament, despite this article seeming to imply there is something wrong about that.
3
"Further complicating [Facebook's] efforts is the dissemination of articles that are exaggerated, slanted or inflammatory but not obviously fake. Deleting this material raises difficult questions about the boundaries of free speech."
Such as this article that, like many similar ones, uses numbers out of context and probable coincidences to present superficially alarming reports that in practice probably describe relatively inconsequential matters.
For instance, " Investigators have found hundreds of Facebook and Twitter accounts, more than a thousand examples of WhatsApp messages sharing suspicious materials, and a hodgepodge of dodgy websites that launder varying degrees of misinformation..." That is, about one Facebook or Twitter in a million is claimed to be problematic, and maybe as many as one Whatsapp message in a few billion. Whatsapp processes about 60 billion messages a day, but the article provides no reference for the collection period for the examples claimed. These numbers, in context, do not suggest much reason for concern, especially as those for opposing views are unreported but probably considerably larger.
Again, "Antifa West Berlin and Antifa Nord Ost, share a server used by Russian government hackers who attacked the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election." That the server almost surely is provided by a commercial operator is unmentioned despite its obvious relevance.
34
@Thomas D. Dial The server in question is called Carbon2U, a domain name server registered through an anonymization service located in the Bahamas. Carbon2U has been studied at length by security researchers because it is used in spearfishing attacks and similar cyber operations. True, Russians are not the only ones who use it, but this is not a situation where you or I could set up our website and be surprised to learn that we ended up working with the same DNS as Russian hackers.
61
@Matt Apuzzo: Carbon2U provides DNS services for hosting services with contact addresses in various places including, in a sample of 11 users: Lithuania, Ukraine, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands (US based multisite hosting service), Switzerland (Swiss service provider, Hong Kong administrator), Switzerland (Swiss service provider, Panama administrator), Russia (service provider), Russia, Netherlands, Russia (service provider, Netherlands IP address, United States (service provider).
Carbon2U apparently has been used by various dodgy organizations, it is not clear that all of its customers all are in that category.
3
Mr. Dial picks at nits while the entire article shows the pattern and practice the pervades the attacking menace. This is a typical disinformation-like method.
8
I lost count of the number of references to "far right", but saw precious little defining what exactly the authors believe that to be. What were these websites, accounts and pieces of misinformation actually advocating?
10
@Adam, far right despotic rule. See what happened to Turkey and Italy for an example.
The Russians and right wingers have seen how successful their efforts have been in the US and would be nuts not to use the same methods elsewhere.
5
It's clear that Putin is interested in having Russia be the world's puppeteer. Trump is just one link in that chain.
4
Surely Holland is more educated and sophisticated than America and would never fall for the social media campaigns from the Russians and the right wing xenophobic nut cases. The Dutch could never elect a Donald Trump like we Americans. Coud they?
1
@RLW I thought the same of Austria. Now look at them.
1
They already did, in the last local elections the party of a populist called Thierry Baudet won most votes.
And you’d be hard pressed to find a country that is better governed than the Netherlands: full employment, strong growth, excellent public services, universal healthcare, great tuition free education system, reasonable taxes (compared to Nordics), budget surplus etc.
None of it could compete with the message that Holland is losing its culture and identity because of immigration and globalization.
1
One could believe that the Austrians, prior to 1938, were more inclined towards antisemitism and national socialism than were the Germans.
1
NYTimes has no shame. No government or news outlet has suggested that Notre Dame fire was a terroist incident. As for Russia being anti-Europe that is also false. Rather it is Steve Bannon subverting the EU and supporting Brexit, not Russia. Furthermore he is doing it openly for all to see. Russia has a simple goal: separate the US from Europe. To do this it needs a united Europe. This is why the US is doing everything to disunite Europe. Is it going to work? That is the question. Furthermore, the "far right" does not want to break up EU, it wants to dominate it. One would be hard-pressed to find anyone on the continent who wants to go back to a Europe of small states. And, BTW, Brexit has not happened yet. There is an incredible debate going on in the UK and no one is sure how it will end up.
12
I’ll tell you what’s difficult to discern: the lines between Russian propaganda, far-right disinformation and whenever Sarah Sanders opens her mouth.
21
you are correct sir.
5
Putin might want to devide Europe, but so do the Republicans.
9
It's deja vu, all over again.
1
I found it is ironic that Western media is blaming Russia for peddling conspiracy theories, while itself promoting conspiracy theory about mighty Russians who could alter the mind of the Western citizens just by planting the stories on obscure Websites or post some comments on Internet.
18
@jaco
U.S. INTELLIGENCE has reported Russian attempts to cause discord -- and they don't amplify.
Your insistence on blaming the "progressive" media for everything is incoherent and incorrect, even though it adequately reflects the ideology of this current administration.
5
@Eyes Wide Open, the relationship between the IC and the "media" was exposed back in the 1970's during the Church Committee hearings. Operation Mockingbird put CIA assets at various main-stream media organizations to shape the narrative the way they wanted. It was also exposed that CIA and FBI "lied their eyes out" (in the words of former House Majority Leader Hale Boggs) to the Warren Commission; and again, engaged in obfuscation and lies during the House Select Committee Investigation on Assassinations.
It was thought the Church Committee reforms would mean a reformed and more independent media (not to mention a reformed intelligence community) but over time, it turned out not to fully be the case. Although it is not fair to monolithically label the "media" since there are so many different media organizations, made up of so many different individuals.
1
@jaco Well, it is difficult to defend the elections as legitimate when the winner lost the popular vote. Of course, you can argue that is the rule of the games, but I guess the majority may feel that the rules are not fair, and therefore, is not legitimate.
Mitch McConnell, Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes have aided and abetted the Russian G.R.U. military officers to violate America's 2020 election.
Most Republicans have turned a blind eye to Russian campaign donations.
They are good cossacks.
8
It’s hard to imagine the US taking action against Russian/alt-right cyber propaganda until the peabrain in the While House figures out whose side he is on: the traditional allies of the US or Russia and other rogue states.
It sickens me that so many Americans support an offensive, narcissistic buffoon like trump for many reasons, but perhaps the main reason is that they are blind to the fact that he doesn’t seem to care in the slightest that American democracy is under siege. Surely “cares about democracy “ is one of the job requirements...?
4
Perhaps the time has come to sink several Russian submarines. War is war, after all.
2
Pot calling the kettle black.
Perhaps this paper should also look how it is responsible for spreading misinformation. I first noticed when Judith Miller was used on the front page to echo what Dick Cheney told her, to push for the Iraq War. Now I can see the push for the coup in Venezuela to install our puppet for corporate plundering in Venezuela ( largest reserves of oil in the world), and against the elected President Maduro (Guaido not recognized by 140 of 150 nations, and not on the election ballot for president) - in other words beyond election interfering being pushed here, just like all regime changes, wars and coups are supported. US supports with military aid 73% of dictators, so we do not care about democracy.
The US needs Russia as an enemy to justify dramatically escalating military war spending. Fighting terrorists cannot justify spending on nuclear bombs, air craft carriers and other large weapons systems. The US will spend over $700 billion on our military while the Russians spend $66 billion. The US has 800 military bases and the Russian 12. The US has been doing regime change coups that have ousted democratically elected governments that wanted to provide social services such as health care and education for authoritarian governments favorable to our corporations ( Confessions of an Economic Hitman - John Perkins) for a long time, with the help of papers like this.
13
@steve
Thank you, Steve. Absolutely right and right on.
Come on, New York Times — I’m afraid there is some truth to this (understandably): when push comes to shove, it’s all about your supporting international policies that will keep the big corporations who advertise on your pages happy.
5
When Mitch McConnell refused to support Obama's wish to call.our Soviet interference in the 2016 election (belatedly late) he solidified the Russian playbook and earned the title McConnell, Destroyer of Democracies
6
Geez, Russia still meddling in elections, including gearing up for ours in 2020. But let’s spend ALL our time investigating Trump’s 2006 tax returns....
2
Better to investigate Trump now as he denies all the current Russian efforts. We need to know if he is actively abetting them.
7
There is a lot of chatter about Russian interference by the mainstream media in the Western world. I have no doubt that Russia is involved. However, the mainstream media conveniently thinks that they are the only ones distributing truthful news. Mainstream media is also bias, whether it is Fox or CNN, and they have help create and amplify this problem and caused more division. Now the rest of the story: SpaceX will shortly launch a new type of satellite(s) called Starlink (about 12,000 near earth satellites). This will be a game changer for authoritian regimes, since Starlink will bring inexpensive internet service to the world. It will be hard for all governments to spin the news to their liking and it will be very difficult to jam or control information that will flow through this new communication link. Technology will continue to change the dynamics on how news is distributed. Let's see what happens.
3
It will be game changer for the traditional parties because now they will have to fight much more alternative ideas and news, and as the experience shows they are very badly equipped to do that.
1
Well the center right and left have made a right mess of things something is going to fill the vacuum just look at you guys in the US remember 2016
1
@Darren
Speaking of "mess". Germany isn't looking too great these days either. The SPD is falling apart, the AfD is gaining traction, the Conservative CDU/CSU still can't get it together and Die Grüne (Greens) are the only ones making sense, but they're still sidelined.
My point? -- Unlike Germany, the U.S. does not have a coalition government, so that might be something you should take into consideration.
Hummel, Hummel...
1
Over the history, the number ONE reason for death and destruction has been religion, which promises to bring people together, but has caused division.
Now, "social networks" promises to bring people together, but is actively used to sow chaos and division.
Religion, with his history, is over any mitigation.. meanwhile we still have some time before we stop Zukerberg and his friends profiting from death and destruction..
The question is will anyone step up to do anything to safeguard our future?
3
It sounds like the old days when so-called antifa-groups share a common interest with Russian propaganda servers against the AfD. Reminds me of the communist era in West-Berlin. And why just this AfD should rely on Russian support is quite beyond me. So the far left and the far right are both fighting the EU arm in arm?
1
How is this any different than the tactics Rupert Murdoch has used in the U.S. for the last 20 years? “The goal here is bigger than any one election,” said Daniel Jones, a former F.B.I. analyst and Senate investigator whose nonprofit group, Advance Democracy, recently flagged a number of suspicious websites and social media accounts to law enforcement authorities. “It is to constantly divide, increase distrust and undermine our faith in institutions and democracy itself. They’re working to destroy everything that was built post-World War II.” Sounds like he is describing Fox News.
8
The russians have learnt their lessons. During conflicts in Chechnya, Georgia and Kosovo, Russia was painted by Western media as a bad guy, rightly or not, even when Nato bombs were falling on civilians. They saw the power of controlling the narrative. Add to this Putin's love of KGB techniques and propaganda, and you have the result we have today.
Besides, everybody could see how Bush Jr used US media to validate an invasion of Irak. Putin took notes.
7
The article asserts that “President Vladimir V. Putin sought to promote Donald J. Trump in 2016,” but the Mueller report shows Russia supported any candidate who opposed Hillary Clinton.
The “main event” of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election was its “weaponization” of hacked Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign email. Guccifer 2.0—assumed to be a GRU persona—allegedly weaponized the hacked email by providing it to WikiLeaks. However, the Mueller Report reveals the motive behind the Wikileaks exposé was to help Bernie Sanders, not Donald Trump.
According to the report, WikiLeaks told Guccifer 2.0, “if you have anything hillary related we want it in the next two (sic) weeks because the DNC [Democratic National Convention] is approaching and she will solidify bernie supporters behind her.” When Guccifer 2.0 replied “ok . . . I see,” WikiLeaks explained, “we think trump has only a 25% chance of winning against Hillary . . . so conflict between bernie and Hillary is interesting.”
Although Sanders benefitted from the WikiLeaks exposé, he is not to blame for it; neither is Trump.
The Mueller Report shows that the Internet Research Agency began its social media campaign to disrupt U.S. politics in 2014, long before Trump became a candidate. It began supporting Trump and disparaging Hillary once Trump became the Republican nominee.
6
As Bernie is a Socialist, perhaps an investigation is needed to examine his ties to Russia,Cuba and Venezuela. If he spoke to even one Russian. The public has a right to know. lol
1
What about the Israelis or the Saudis influencing US elections? A lot more "evidence" that this is the case.
12
The Muller report puts the social media campaign conducted during the U.S. 2016 presidential election in perspective. by Russia’s Internet Research Agency in perspective.
According to the Mueller report, Facebook “identified 470 IRA-controlled Facebook accounts that collectively made 80,000 posts between January 2015 and August 2017.
However, Every 60 seconds on Facebook, 510,000 comments are posted on Facebook.
According to range Mueller report, “Twitter publicly identified 3,814 Twitter accounts associated with the IRA. According to Twitter, in the ten weeks before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, these accounts posted approximately 175,993 tweets, approximately 8.4% of which were election-related.”
However, every second, on average, around 6,000 tweets are tweeted on Twitter, which adds up to more than. 350,000 tweets per minute, 500 million tweets per day and around 200 billion tweets per year.
4
It turns out candidates and the groups that back them can openly conspire with the Russians to cause chaos and discord in elections and face no consequences.
Sounds familiar.
3
This kind of mis/dis information war is not new at all and has been always there in human society from the day one as long as there is to find a conflict and animosity among people which is the core of our human nature. This type of invisible war in information and psychological influence can change its forms and methods very easily with constantly coopting whatever technology of communication tools available at the given point of time.
The best way to provide the cure for this epidemic of the mis/disinformation is to understand the root cause of this nationalist movement often called “far-right” sometimes rightfully or in other times deliberately exaggerated and colored by those of far leftist political persuasion, anarchists and Marxists.
A difficult question to ask could be that without a recent social upheaval like the mass migration to the West from the middle east and Africa at such unprecedent pace within such a short time, would we still have witnessed this sudden rise of right, far right and nationalist movement across Europe and even the Brexit in England?
Far left, far right, nationalist, Anarchists and Marxists of whatever extreme persuasion as to how the society should form and operate, they are always there in active or latent in our society. They are simply activated like virus by external impact or threat like society disrupting mass immigration. Blaming on the communication platforms for this information war is like beating the dead horse.
1
I have smart, very well educated friends on social media (graduate school level education, most from top 10 universities). Yet every week, someone posts fake news that can easily be refuted on Snopes. Recent examples: One posted a photo of snow on the pyramids of Egypt. Another posted a video of animals skiing. Both completely doctored of course. But they believed the photos. My point is, anyone can be fooled.
3
Participating in online political "debates" (ego contests), and letting oneself get wound up by a 24 hour news cycle where most of it is either unhelpful noise or misinformation, is a really unproductive and useless way to spend one's time.
2
It’s not easy to have an open society, where the right to free speech is a guarantee. Let’s face it, in this kind of environment you will always be open to incorrect information or even downright lies. Like the newspapers, Facebook is a private enterprise and entitled to print or not print whatever it wants. In days gone by, if a newspaper publisher deemed a story false, unfit, whatever, they simply didn’t publish it. So the guarantee of free speech had its limitations. The Left, as usual, sees conspiracy everywhere, as in a mirror reflection. The Russians, the Far Right, the God Knows Who are dropping informational H-bombs on the free world in a colossal effort to make us doubt our own institutions. I tend to agree with the Russian prime minister that this smacks of paranoia. Just watch the Dems and Republicans duking it out every day on cable and network TV with wild accusations on all sides, and you’d have to wonder why any other country in the world would feel any need to sow discord where there was already plenty in abundance!
2
Russian, far-right and Republican distorations are a real problem. But the divisions already exist as a result of neoliberal policies pursued by both Democrats and Republicans for many years. Blaming Russia allows centrist Democrats to avoid looking in the mirror at their own record of austerity, more prisons and globalization for the wealthy. Nobody votes for Trump or the European right because they are manipulated. They vote for the right because they see their own racism and hatred amplified. Voting for the far right is the result, not the cause, of the problem. Clinton and Biden are perfect examples of centrists who for decades help form the very policies that created class divisions. How convenient to blame the Russians and wash their hands of blame.
6
Facebook and Twitter: two utterly useless and now destructive "free" technologies that the US exports. "You get what you pay for."
2
When Benedict Donald is finally routed from office, we will be able to turn our attention to returning all sorts of favors to Putin. Sanctions, counter cyber operations and crushing retributions will be the order of the day. There is hope. Yes we can.
3
The US should stop interfering in other countries' elections, before teaching others.
10
Lawyers and bankers know about and facilitate the works of various business entities and trusts of wealthy Russian oligarchs, corrupt Chinese officials, petro royalty, cartel members, etc. If you speak to those in the 0.5%, you will notice many are apathetic toward human rights violations or democracy. Their party is green and it doesn't care about patriotism or nationalities or white supremacy.
Unless we who are liberal and champions of the Enlightenment strike back forcefully, they will win. First, we must defeat the Republicans and the 40% of Americans who support them. Then, we must strengthen Oceania, Canada, and Western Europe against undemocratic China and Russia.
2
This is on McConnell and the Republicans in Congress who did no Presidential oversight for two while Russia conducted and is continuing with unchecked cyber warfare.
The impression that Russia can successfully win and continue a cyber war against the super powerful United States is chilling. It emboldens every other United States adversaries like North Korea, Saudi Arabia.
5
I thought the latest studies showed Russia had actually stopped setting up its own social media accounts. They are no longer necessary and highly problematic. The Russians simply give the material to groups inside each country. When citizens of each nation post the the items provided by Russia, the items become constitutionally protected speech. This same thing happened in the Indian elections. Social media was full of outrageous and hateful claims yet no evidence appeared that foreign nations posted anything. The items posted were not illegal for citizens and FaceBook et al could not remove them. Look for the same in any future election.
2
Ordinary war is expensive and messy but nuclear blackmail is neat and tidy and costs next to nothing, in case the opposing party has nothing to counter with. European nukes are at a huge disparity with mine to begin with, but even better if Britain and France can be pried apart from the rest. The very first thing do would however be to sever the transatlantic connection.
Could be thoughts of a modern Napoleon-wannabe, as he/she leans over a world map, drawing lines and planning.
The United States government should welcome Russian interference in EU elections, as the EU is the main competitor and an adversary. Even Trump agrees,
Blaming Russia will not heal the division. Of anything it will just deepen it, because it questions smarts and loyalty of the citizens who supports the new parties. Offense is never good for healing. Of course, the main parties could limit access to Internet, but it will just confirm the suspicious of the citizens that the centrist Parties are all about power and will curtail freedoms including freedom of speech in order to stay in the power. Of course, most logical step for the main parties of the free World is to modify their platform to include the interest as many people as possible and form alliance with smaller parties that they have common ground, as Socialists did in Spain. By the way, the rumors of Sanchez giving Catalonia independents were bound to exist, considering that Catalonian party is one of the Sanchez allies. It is no brainer for opposition to accuse Sanchez to be in cahoots with Catalonians. No Russian influence needed.
1
Putin's Russia is a country with a declining population, decaying infrastructure and a dysfunctional economy, ruled by kleptocrats who dislike making productive investments in their country because they'd rather embezzle the money. Given Russia's weakness (as opposed to the strength it tries to project through maskirovka, such as animations of imaginary new weapons systems), it's hardly surprising that Putin and his allies want to use traditional KGB methods, adapted for the internet, to compete with other countries not by becoming stronger than those countries, but by trying to reduce those countries to a state of weakness comparable to Russia's.
6
Is there a simpler explanation for the rise of populism in Europe?
Maybe some/many/most of people just feel a greater affinity to their nation than to the European Union. Maybe their nationality is core to their very identity, and they are afraid of losing this.
Maybe they reject an ever more powerful, federal Europe and want more local/national control, which would be more understanding and responsive.
Maybe all of these reasons are why they gravitate toward messages and candidates aligned with their feelings and interests.
If so, are they really so wrong?
And even IF they are in the minority, can the majority find a better way to ease their transition?
I don’t know the answers. I’m not even sure that EU supporters are even asking the questions.
7
Much of the ability to affect people has been through social media. The world was just fine a few years ago, before 'social media'. Email was a standard way to use the internet, and we were happy with that.
Consider suspending social media. We do not need it.
10
I lived in East Germany. None of this surprises me.
This is the way Russia operates, and its goals never change.
Undermine Democracy by sowing chaos and disinformation. And oddly enough, that's exactly what Mr. Trump is doing here in the U.S. either with or without help from Russian agencies, which of course he's always quick to deny.
However his modus operandi is too similar for it to just be coincidence.
Americans will sooner or later wake up to the dangers they're now facing with a president who is not only content to make himself an absolute ruler, but an absolute ruler for life.
There may not be proven "collusion", but influence and interference is undeniable.
70
@N. Smith I agree with what you say, except for the bit about Trump trying to "make himself an absolute ruler, but an absolute ruler for life." This just cannot happen in the US, and it would be very difficult to change the 22nd Amendment, which would require effectively a 2/3 majority in both Houses or of State legislatures for proposal, and 3/4 of State legislatures for ratification. There is very little chance that the Republicans would have so much power after the 2020 or 2022 elections, although a substantial majority is quite possible.We need to remember that even in the depths of WWII, elections were held at the constitutionally stipulated times, and a catastrophe which would suspend elections is too awful to contemplate, so I do not see any way that Trump can be President for more than 8 years in total even if he is re-elected in a landslide next year.
@czarnajama
No offense. But I'm HERE and I see what's happening.
You may not be able to see any way that Trump can be President for more than 8 years -- but he does.
And we are now in a fight to keep the U.S. Constitution intact.
9
Perhaps our efforts to stop the disinformation criminals has been too defensive in nature. I think that we need to more frequently educate the public as to their criminal efforts, but also maybe we ought to after these entities as robustly as they go after us.
5
Paradoxically, Europe, which has been gamed by Russia and the U.S. CIA for decades, is far better conditioned to exercise skepticism. The vulnerability is when divisive nativism is invoked in rural areas. But, even here, Le Pen came up short.
10
Here in the US, Russia and the far right get a lot of help. Institutionalized cheating by Republicans has become the norm, not the exception.
The GOP’s plan: prevent voters from voting: "a strategy to reverse these losses: change the rules. Five months after being trounced at the polls, Republican legislators across the country are not trying to convince voters to support them; rather, they’re passing legislation that will make it more difficult to unseat them."
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2019/04/26/the-gop-plan-prevent-voters-from-voting/rktnd2ym5rgTNuQfGTC8UO/story.html
Of course, a little hacking will help. But we had Diebold in the late 20th and early 21st century, now folded in to the Republican control of the literal as well as metaphorical (human) machinery in the form of local authorities, many state governments, and courts.
43
What does this say about the Russian form of governance that encourages attacks on the "mainstream" democratic organizations of other countries in order to strengthen its own political system, which would not survive on the basis of its own merits? What does this say about Donald Trump's affection for Vladimir Putin and his attempts to destroy NATO and the EU? How many MAGA-hat wearers in this country would be happy living in Putin's Russia?
9
Why are these European nations still involved with any kind of trade or diplomatic relationships with Russia?
6
We’ve know this for several years. It will not get better if we do nothing to counter. It will get worse.
Congress: wake up and do your job on this!
11
Enough whining about social media, Facebook, et al. I don't form my opinion of candidates from these sources. I actually have a brain, and can determine who I vote for without social media. The solution is to IGNORE SOCIAL MEDIA. We didn't have it a few short years ago, and we don't need it today. Harumph!
16
@nhhiker
The problem is the world is full of non-thinking folks who have little time or appetite to dissect a statement looking for the truth.
2
@nhhiker
You may think you have a brain, but it's not really yours. Although you own the hardware, you lease the programming from the media. To become free you must cut off all media, including the mainstream.
Because we need our continual media addiction fix, to feel superior in our chosen point of view, this is not easy.
Let's face the Truth here. Homo sapiens are not advanced far enough on the evolutionary tree that we can trust democratic forms of governance to actually rule our every day lives. It would be nice if we could all agree to some form of Democracy where we strive to give everyone (yes, everybody) the best possible living conditions. But in reality we are just tribal animals who seek comfort in the immediate circle that we associate with, be it racial, religious, ethnic or "political". It is either Us or Them. And, no matter how educated we may think we are, we will always choose those who push our tribal buttons over those who appear different. How else could America have elected the government we now have?
2
When all of the concern about Russia started to emerge in 2016, I made a point to read something nonfiction written by a Russian,knowing that the last thing I had read was fiction: Chekhov. So I read The Gulog Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn. Therein lies the answer to why Putin isn't happy being a wealthy Oligarch, committed to just pillaging Russia and leaving the rest of the world alone. He is former KGB who remembers the ways of Stalin. What he did to his own people was beyond shocking: the level of cruelty unimaginable to most. And what was the first tactic he used to achieve this; dividing the citizens and turning them against one another. Taking away any level of trust, even among family members. Sound familiar? Beware. Our POTUS is doing the same thing.
19
According to Mr Trump Putin did not interfere with our election. It took the Mueller report to show it happened. We need to go back to pen and paper ballots in the free world elections to make every one comfortable agaain about out Democracy. Paper ballots worked since 1775 and i am for bringing them back. We know Russia is corrupt when it comes to their ideology and should not be trusted in the internet world.
11
@D.j.j.k. Paper ballots work perfectly well in Canada and many other countries. And the results are known even more quickly!
2
“The election has yet to come, and we are already suspected of doing something wrong?” the Russian prime minister, Dmitri A. Medvedev, said in March. “Suspecting someone of an event that has not yet happened is a bunch of paranoid nonsense.”
Notice that he never denied the accusations.
11
And if he would deny, you would 'lady doth protest too much'. Face it, no matter what Russians say, you will never believe them, and they know that.
@yulia facts are facts, yulia. Mueller already proved they interfered and Putin already admitted in Helsinki that he directed his officials to help Trump on live television. Look up the Helsinki summit and not the reporters last question and how Putin responded. Also, read the evidence Mueller found in Part 1 of his report.
1
How does one go about distinguishing between misinformation and news (political) that is sourced, researched and reported by an industry in the US populated almost entirely by persons sympathetic to one party in a two party system. There are many who welcome "misinformation" as an antidote to the one sided news that is force-fed in America. At least now, citizens have learned to scrutinize what is being aired, written and televised with a more skeptical approach. The days of what the NYT and the networks put out taken as gospel truth are gone forever. That genie is never going back in the bottle.
5
If the lack of regulations of informations medias endanger the fabric of democracy, it has to be fixed. Maybe a professionnal order like for lawyers, with a board assembling the best persons of the profession, could regulate de information medias. Along with a set of rules making social medias as accountable for their contents than information medias. Same rules for all. It would make disapear all the trolls who could not hide behind alias and could be sued for their comments.
Rules to block all social or information medias not falling in line with regulations.
2
Are we to believe that we and the EU members do not do the same in Russia and China to spread dissension there. Come now!
3
“Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”
Charles de Gaulle
Putin understands this impulse better than anyone in Europe. It’s the convergence of these two passions he is manipulating to sow discord. Love for your own kind can not be helped. Hatred for others is optional. But when love of country merges with hatred for others, you get nationalism, fascism, and supremacists. Putin, Trump, the entire Pan-European right wing cohort knows this. The internet is their fulcrum, nationalism their lever. The problem for modern democracies is love takes generations to foster. The fire of hate can be lit in an instance.
11
Medvedev's statement (that Russian trolls are meddling in foreign elections is 'paranoid nonsense') belies what has already been shown to be true. He and Putin, leading an autocratic kleptocracy in Russia, must be laughing at us, able to trick democracies in doing their bidding with such an ease it is dangerous and shameful; all with the passive allowance of the terrific powers of News Media, quite unregulated for what we suspect is the profit motive, for the unwillingness to do needed supervision to weed out hackers. Isn't it sad that, having such a wonderful technological advance, the Internet, to democratize information, we are being inundated by disinformation instead, our knowledge hampered by skepticism for this toxic mixture of facts with fiction? While Europeans are trying to fight this assault on their democracies, Trump seems to welcome Vlad's meddling, given it allowed him to assault the presidency in 2016...and looking forward to 2020 for a repeat?
8
Oh for god’s sake. Hit them where it hurts most, in the wallet.
1) The western nations, that allow all financial institutions to operate in their countries, demand said financial institutions freeze all Russian and suspected Russian monies.
2) The WWW has to enter and leave Russia through a boarder, either land, sea or space. Cut the cord.
Putin is not omnipotent in Russia. Strangle his crime family’s money and he’ll wither away in months. Good for the Russian people and the rest of the world.
16
@JIm Read
Easier said than done. You might recall that our own president is trying to build a tower in Moscow. I sincerely doubt he'd be willing to give that up for the good of America. I doubt the situation is any different in Europe.
2
Oh, the West lost all hope that its own citizens will ever believe or trust the Western Governments, so now they will use the Government control to silence the voice of dissent? What a great idea, right in the vein of Democratic values.
@JIm Read
Putin has the highest domestic approval rate of any politician in the world.
How can we counter these attacks when the President doesn't acknowledge it exists? He said he believes his pal Putin instead of our intelligence community.
8
I'm wondering why the name Steve Bannon didn't come up in this article? Isn't his mission in Europe spreading misinformation and distrust in government in order to bring about the destruction of democracies? I wonder how much of the incendiary misinformation and misdirection come from him?
14
@krw
Don't believe that everything in the mainstream media, which is designed to support the status quo, is correct.
And don't believe that what Bannon says is necessarily incorrect or misdirection.
And, by the way, we are not living in a democracy, except in name only.
@krw, I noticed that too. Bannon was just in Italy sowing discord and supporting right wing fascism. He was doing the same in other parts of Europe. He was also behind Cambridge Analytica attacks on our democracy. The guy is a terrorist.
Underestimated almost to the point of ignoring them are the "Comments" sections of almost every site that allows them. Much improved over 2018, much subtler and hard to ID, trolls and bots are saturating these discussion with divisive content. There is little or no effort to stop these pernicious propagandists if they aren't on Facebook, Twitter or the other social media sites. Keep you guard up for "comments" that fire up your anger, justify your outrage, etc. Chances are you've been successfully trolled.
10
Excellent point. Remember our ‘friend’ DC Barrister in these comment sections up until the 2016 election? He was ostensibly an expert in everything and all his expertise pointed in the direction of Sec Clinton being the anti-Christ. He was long-winded, claimed intimate knowledge of inside players, and feigned pity for those of us less knowledgeable than him.
After the election, we never heard from him again. I assume he retired to a dacha in the Urals.
3
During the epoch of the Cold War, one of the paradoxes in my view, was that in attacking the inequities of their enemy, both the Soviet Union and the United States along with democracies generally tended to cause their doppelganger to work to improve their society.
It can be convincingly argued that labor reforms, civil rights legislation, and environmental activism in the United States, often found bipartisan support not because of any idealistic aspirations, but as answers to Communist Threat. Similarly, relaxation Soviet society of the grip of the NKVD post-Stalin, was often supported as an antidote to the "poisonous propaganda spread by America" via cultural foment through cultural initiatives and even Radio Free Europe. Post, WW2, one of the first critical acts of the U.S. Army was to send in a team to Der Spiegel and provide for the first time an accurate translation of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.
With the fall of the Soviet Union, unmoored KGB products like Putin found power and stability aligning with the Russian mob in St. Petersburg and tightly controlling kleptocrcy instead of eliminating corruption.
The result is the uber right wing oligarchal socialism that we see Putin pursuing to hold onto power and accumulate offshore wealth as so well documented by the Panama Papers. So the "Far-Right" in Europe 'shares fingerprints' because it is literally from the 'same hand.'
24
@jwp-nyc
“unmoored KGB products like Putin”
That right there, folks, is all you need to know about why Putin in charge of Russia is possibly the most dangerous thing, below climate change, facing this planet.
I’ve so hated to face this late realization but Mitt Romney, to our liberal chagrin, was right.
2
One way to combat this problem is to never trust ANY news - even ideas with which you agree - coming from unknown or obscure sources on Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, etc. Better still, delete Facebook and Twitter altogether.
This will not solve the problem of Russia and far-right groups targeting elections. But it will help starve them of the attention they need to succeed.
12
@jrinsc - FSB uses FB and Twitter, Instagram, etc. to 'float false narratives.' They use fringe blogs (PJ Media, Breitbart, etc.) to repeat these memes, then "pick them up" in fringe news-sites in order to get them picked up by content hungry free lancers at Politico, The Hill, Huffpo, etc. to show 'credence' by 'crossing over.' Then they amplify when their meme or fake news item is either covered as 'alleged' or 'denied' in the MSM, through bots and comments. Then the story achieves 'validation.' This pattern clearly emerged in 2013, but has gained discipline and form.
Groups like Trump, and Cambridge Analytica have opportunitically mimicked this series of actions, and they have been tutored by the Saudis and Israelis along the way.
What a world we live in.
7
@Chris Todd
Thank you for the additional clarification, frightening though it is. I remember watching a documentary that discussed how Russia adopted a similar approach planting a false narrative about AIDS as virus created by the U.S. government. Eventually the story got picked up by CBS News and others. That went all the way back decades ago. Same strategy, different media.
What a world, indeed.
2
@jrinsc, the problem is that trump's fan club feeds on this stuff. Tabloid style lies, insulting the 'other side' with literally unbelievable claims? That's sweet, refreshing kool-aid to his adoring followers. They don't actually believe it, but it's like living in a malignant Disneyland of make believe, all designed to assure them they're superior. Worse, they lap up trump's assurances that only HE is the arbiter of truth. This doesn't ring any warning bells to trumpists; they actually lecture others on the need to honor the presidency! They worship an infallible king; how did that happen??
1
No one disputes that the Russians disseminate misinformation on the internet. But nobody confronts the crucial question, probably because it is much harder to answer: is it effective?
Some analyses suggest that that material largely reaches those who already agree with it. After all, that is where it seems to be targeted. You can't change the opinion of a reader who already believes. Then the misinformation is recirculated heavily, but within relatively closed groups of people who are already sympathetic.
We do not have solid data that the Russians are accomplishing much of anything. That is no reason to be complacent, but it is also no basis for panicking.
5
Was there any real evidence that the Russian FaceBook ads in 2016 actually accomplished anything? Even though Secretary Clinton lost, coincidence is not causation.
2
@ERP Promoting awareness of the process and skepticism is the best antidote along with sunshine.
2
How many elections are we targeting? Even more important, how many countries are we targeting because we don't like their elected governments?
As for our elections, our best defense is electoral reform that limits dark money and PACS, guarantees equal media coverage to all candidates, stops poll purging and other barriers to voter access, ends the electoral farce and requires re-countable paper ballots.
28
@Al M
How many elections are we targeting?
We are targeting none at all. It is our masters and our rulers that are doing the targeting, they are also targeting us.
1
Extreme conservatism, in this country and others, is not interested in democracy. Democracy remains a radical idea to many and it is more than clear that the death of democracy in this country will come from the right and not from the left. We're almost there.
82
Suggest you take a look at the currently fashionable idea on the Left that because an imagined apocalypse sure to come from “climate change,” it will be necessary to give up capitalism and democracy (for those who can’t or won’t think the right way), and to give the government full control over every industry and facet of people’s’ lives. This nonsense is much more likely to cause the death of our democracy than anything coming from the Right.
3
@Bob
Suggest you take a look at the thoroughly reviewed scientific papers (the National Climate Assessment and the fifth assessment report of the IPCC) that seem to counteract your notion that climate change is an "imagined apocalypse" or "nonsense."
I do not think that it is necessary to give up capitalism or democracy to fight climate change, but I sure wish the Right would do more than just shrug their shoulders and hope the invisible hand will wipe this mess away.
8
@Kris
Suggest you look at the assumptions that went in to the NCA. Specifically, I suggest you look at the fact that the apocalyptic forecasts are all based on the IPCC's RCP 8.5, which is (a) described as a "pathway" that could theoretically get you to a particular forcing, and is neither validated nor in any way considered to be a forecast, and (b) achieves its result based on assumptions that are patently ridiculous.
RPC 8.5 was created by the IPCC as a description of what it would take to achieve a particular forcing, and the answer appears to include a climate sensitivity to CO2 that is several times higher than that observed, a massive explosion of human population and increasing need for power per capita, an immediate cap on power generated from all sources other than coal for the remainder of the century, and numerous other things that will never transpire.
Despite this pathway not having been created as a realistic forecast, or even as a forecast at all, the NCA has taken it to be its Base Case Scenario. This is simply ludicrous. Not only is it ludicrous, but even if you accept all of the premises in the NCA, the total cost to the nation from "climate change" will supposedly be a cumulative reduction of around 2 years of economic growth over the entire next century, which is fairly trivial, or roughly equivalent to one recession a hundred years from now.
There is no apocalypse coming from climate change that will occur using any assumptions that are sane.
1
The problem appears to be the business model of social media companies, which is to provide a "free" platform by gaining advertiser income according to the number of clicks. This puts inflammatory content at a premium, as Putin has gleefully discovered. But there is nothing sacrosanct about this business model. It is decisively not equivalent to "free speech," just as crying fire in a crowded theater is not free speech. Regulating advertising algorithms is not the same thing as regulating free media. Liberal democracies regulate market failures in many ways to make free markets work more efficiently and without negative externalities. This is the latest manifestation of the need for government regulation.
16
With another U.S. President, the lead in combatting this would be taken by us. However, since Putin apparently has some control over Trump, we do nothing. A democracy is maitained by checks and balance and a committment to defend those that we may disagree with at the ballot box. Are our best days behind us? Too early to tell, but it doesn't look good.
51
The problem here in the U.S. is that we have a president who not only refuses to defend us from the attackers but himself attacks those who do try to deal with them. For some odd reason, that's not considered a crime.
99
It is due time to deal with this in an orchestrated manner by the combined EU governments. But in the US the current US president has to go first - he is part of the disinformation, the very embodiment of the chaos and havoc these movements are trying to wreck.
26
The fact is that this state-led meddling is occurring after Russia, China and other authoritarian states have effectively muzzled their own social media. This means that the West cannot retaliate in kind as a means to get them to stop. The kind of divisive misinformation Russian operatives sponsor in the United States and Europe would never be tolerated at home. It's an inherently unbalanced match.
8
@Portola: During the darkest period of Stalinism the Samizdat were covertly copied and circulated within the Soviet Union. I doubt that Russian citizens, now, are less resourceful and resilient that the zeks of that time.
There is a determined effort by the European Union to blame its deficiencies on outsiders; Russia in particular.
Please remember that digital fingerprints are used by the USA to spread disinformation.
16
@Robert Jennings: Yes Boris, have a potato.
1
Well the Trump administration has declared that this sort of thing is just fine with the United States. We were going to send Ghouliani to the Ukraine to ask them to get involved in our elections. It only follows that now that such behavior has been sanctioned more and more of it will occur.
14
Russia was successful when they made Trump into a Manchurian Candidate, and cyber attacked American democracy.
Why is the nation of America accepting Trump and his Russia loving ideology and tactics.
Russia just wants all trade blocks to be lifted, which Trump tried at the beginning and failed.
Russia has historically had/have the ideology of revenge
and the destruction of the American influences around the globe, and they are succeeding because Trump is helping them in dismantling American global power.
Russia's American intervention/invasion has and is a success, so why should Putin stop now, when Trump and the
Republicans are doing nothing to stop Russia.
14
I’m on Facebook, Twitter and You Tube - if the Russians are placing misinformation on those sites, I could care less. If you believe everything you see on those websites...well, you’ve got a problem. The Russians have very little, if any impact, on the lives of daily Americans. I could care less about whatever propaganda they may place on social media. I have to listen to politicians in this country saying things they don’t mean all the time.
20
@JMS
I think you mean you COULDN’T care less. Plus that strategy is very effective. Look what happened in 2016.
2
@Ziggy
I didn’t vote for President Trump in 2016 - what happened in 2016 wasn’t because of the Russians - that’s a pathetic excuse being used by the Democrats because they’re worried they won’t be able to field a candidate capable of defeating Trump in 2020, so they’re going to try and discredit him - or try to impeach him or whatever. It appears to me the Republicans and Democrats have reached new lows in their abilities to relate to most Americans. It’s either one end or the other - there’s very little in between.
1
"far-right groups is spreading disinformation, encouraging discord and amplifying distrust in the centrist parties "
Isn't it super hypocritical of the American media to say this? Actually pretty funny considering that's exactly what the mainstream media did the past couple of years.
18
The intentions are stated clearly “...to constantly divide, increase distrust and undermine our faith in institutions and democracy itself. They’re working to destroy everything that was built post-World War II.” I regret that the article could not weave our participatory POTUS in this piece as it is obvious that he is surely a player.
10
Russia is actually undermining its own position. The disinformation coming out of Russia is so pervasive, so extensive, that we (the World), can completely disregard everything that comes out of its mouth.
It’s like ‘cry wolf.’ At some point, Russia will be legitimately asking for help and the World will ignore it.
3
All during the days of the Cold War, the Western powers blasted "Radio Free Europe" out over the Soviet bloc hopping it would help to bring down the curtain on communism.
Paybacks have taken a most unpleasant form.
6
Yet another argument supporting Jaron Lanier’s Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now.
3
The other day FBI Director Chris Wray stated that Russia's interference "was at full speed" during the 2018 midterms, which "was just a dress rehearsal for 2020." Thanks to the NYTimes and articles such as this one, more people are being informed of Russia's bad deeds to undermine elections and democracy everywhere. Obviously more reporting and public warnings are needed, especially in the run up to the next presidential election.
I understand all the ramifications related to Article I free speech, and censorship, but I for one would love to see Facebook, Twitter and all the other social media platforms literally shut down two weeks to a month prior to Nov. 3, 2020.
11
Russia’s intrusions into democratic nations , our country and many others should be viewed as a hostile action. Authorizing criminal tech organizations to carry out their lies, propaganda and divisiveness is tantamount to carrying out a new form of war.
I term these activities “infowar” . Sanctioned by Putin and other disrupters.
Where are the real patriots in business, government and citizens can step up and begin to realize that our country is under attack?
Somewhat do we do? I am confident our young brain trust can develop algorithms to sort out these disrupters, and post on their Social media postings foreign content.
4
@Dave Martin I think that so many businesses, corporations and, in some cases, citizens, are so intertwined with businesses and social affairs, globally, that it's difficult to separate them. As in the arts and sports, it's a nonjudgemental way of looking at the world, at people......look at the Olympics, Nobel, Pulitzer Prizes. This is the way it should be. Bring in politics and the fighting begins. I think Education is a potent force......more critical thinking skills developed would be helpful, here.
So even after all we've learned about disinformation on the internet, millions of gullible people still fall for whatever junk conspiracies they come across, without considering the legitimacy of the source. That's the real problem.
4
Is there a reason why we don’t treat Russia like SPECTRE (in the Bond movies)?
I presume it’s only because the Russians have nukes.
Then, Is there a reason why we must go through the charade of treating Russia like everything is normal and that it isn’t a rogue organization spreading destabilization in the world?
I can only think of lack of courage and political leadership in the White House. ANY other US President would have called out Russia for its actions and tried to impose consequences. You know as LEADER of THE FREE WORLD!
Yet, here we are. When the Man in the White House is accused of being a Moscow Candidate. And he’s not held acccountable by his own party: one of the two major political parties in the country and the Party of Lincoln.
Any guesses why they are all spineless and the ‘Lindsey Graham syndrome’ impacts them all?
Is it self-interest (re-election) or self-protection (Kompromat)?
In either case: let’s start acknowledging that we are owned by Russia... till the Democrats take the White House and Senate.
5
"Distinguishing Russian interference from clickbait or sincere political outrage is difficult."
As Peter Cook said (in reference to his chosen career of teaching ravens to fly underwater) 'in utilising the word "difficult" you have made a very appropriate choice.' (It's on YouTube)
But it is true. At a time when encumbent centrist parties across Europe are facing a genuine crisis of confidence and loss in popularity, it's all too easy to cry foul and claim that there are Russians behind every piece of strident opposition that appears on the Web. We should be very, very careful. And we should not forget the past excesses of McCarthyism.
4
In the old days, this would simply be called propaganda. Sometimes, the people are smart enough to see through it.
2
Sometimes is not enough, unfortunately. Propaganda may not convince the majority, but it often can tip the scales.
3
Isle, One would think that people would think these type of social media postings are deceptive, unpatriotic and just plain lies.
Keyword is think, critical thinking is not a current practice in my opinion most people do not think critically, they just believe what they read.
2
The extent of these manipulations go well beyond facebook, I believe, to include Youtube and Twitter. The deluge of damaging "comments": extreme racism, dehumanization across ideology/"tribe", the hopelessness.
The solution lies in regulation: Why does Twitter not verify that all accounts correspond to actual people?
Does google do the same? I think not...
2
This is why Trumps recent phone call to Putin, telling him that the “Russia hoax” was now all behind us, was more than just narcissistic political self-promotion by Trump. It was the essence of failure in moral leadership in world affairs.
Trump identifies American national self interest with his own self interest; and he identifies moral good with American national self interest.
For him, the notion that Russia might be interfering in free elections is neither right nor wrong. It just does not matter.
If it does not matter, it does not exist. If it does not exist, there is nothing to criticize.
That is our US foreign policy on Russian (and other fascist) interference in democracy.
It is disgraceful, dangerous, and delusional.
5
The answer to this problem is as straightforward as it is difficult. Such measures as the Russians (and others) are employing only work because the vast majority of people are unwilling to do the actual work of becoming educated and really thinking rationally about the issues. It's easier to just be outraged about things, even if some of the problems don't really exist.
In short, all of the technology deployed by Facebook, Google, et al will be only marginally successful; it is on us, the voters, to equip ourselves with the tools needed to discern good arguments from bad; at the centre of this is the necessity of reliable, credible news sources (which eliminates Fox News). If we stop relying on Facebook/Google for news, its power to influence us, and the ability of others to manipulate us is decreased or even eliminated.
1
@Danny
If you want to learn how to discern good arguments from bad, go to college for 4 years and get a liberal arts education.
If you want to get a job, go to community college for 6 months and learn coding.
P.S. A 4-year liberal arts education costs ~$100,000 and can put you in debt for the rest of your life.
1
@Norman. Would that it were that simple; after all, Trump has a four-year college degree (though not in Liberal Arts), and he's not an example of anything good.
The far right has been using am radio an the internet, the church for nearly 25 years now to organize and perfect their message in the US. Europe mirrors what the US does, but it usually takes them about ten years to catch up. This is why we need a strong moral leader that shows the rest of the world the way, or else this kind of thing will grow. When Regan announced the end of the cold war, I knew it would never really be over until the cold war generation that included Putin are replaced with younger leaders who weren't from that era. In fact if you look at Iran, Israel and the US the same thing can be said, we need new vision and leaders that are moral and have a vision for the future for all.
9
>>> ". . . the cold war generation that included Putin . . ."
. . . and many of the most influential players in US governance and foreign policy. It takes two sides to wage a cold war and we have a large, experienced and committed team here.
I believe the French do not allow any political commentary in the media either social or print, or poling a couple of days before their elections , this would be a good model for the other EU countries to emulate . If for no other reason it would not give the Russians an opportunity to concoct any last minute fake news surprises . Furthermore if there is concrete prof that the Russians are interfering in the European democratic system it may be time for the Union as a whole to start implementing economic and diplomatic sanctions against Russia . The bottom line is that the Russians need the EU economically in order to survive , a freeze on Russian assets and Russian owned property in EU countries would in my view be a starting point. The United States 'if we had a functioning government' should also implement similar sanctions if evidence is found that the Russians continue to attempt to interfere in our Presidential election in 2020. Of course we all know under Mr Trumps "leadership' that will never happen.
9
Expect Russia to be even more active in our 2020 elections than they were in 2016, since their efforts were so successful. And we're doing far too little to stop them. Trump's chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, warned Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of Homeland Security, to stop bring the subject up because it would just make Trump angry. And Trump's anger was cited by AG Barr as a legitimate reason for obstruction of justice.
Trump benefited from Russian meddling in 2016. He expects to benefit again in 2020. And discussion of these threats to our democracy aren't good for his brand, which he values more than he values our Constitution.
123
@Robert Jennings
There is unanimous agreement among the 17 United States intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in our 2016 election. Current intelligence agency heads, appoint by Trump, agree. This is also a major conclusion of the Mueller report. Hardly "a few handpicked American individuals", since Trump picked the current agency heads.
I know that Putin disputes this, but he's as reliable a source as Trump.
Denial of these facts is adding to the danger. Fortunately, very few Americans agree with you, but patriots have to work around President Trump to protect our elections.
32
It just shows that the intelligence community is affected by biases as everybody else. If you believe in something, you are just looking for confirmation and disregard all information that doesn't confirm your suspicions. That's how the people in the US came to believe that Saddam has WMD, despite the absence of any evidence.
6
@David Trump has also sent one of his attorneys to the Ukraine with explicit orders to recruit foreign help for his 2020 campaign. Even though "collusion" may not be explicitly defined as a specific crime, this sounds like collusion to me.
7
Freedom is a rare thing.
Over the ages history is dominated by rulers, kings, dictators, authoritarians, and aristocracies.
Freedom is rare and precious. It is why our forefathers had to fight to gain it. And it is why we must fight to maintain it. We must stand against those who want take for themselves our freedom by proclaiming freedom is gained granting them the freedom to do as they wish. It is an insidious and cynical weapon of the right to convince people that freedom is only deserved by a few and that freedom for all detracts from their freedom.
If those who believe in freedom and a civil and enlightened society don't stand up to those who would bend and twist meaning and institutions to serve their needs we will once again find ourselves living under autocratic rule, dominated by the will of an aristocracy.
The question is why are some so intent to remove freedom and force people to live under the strength and will of a dominate ruler, where freedom is not freedom for all but freedom for the strong, to do as they will? I believe that not being so removed from animals there are large number of people who crave, who need, to be dominated or to live under the rule and perceived safety of the alpha pack leader. Safety that is, until they show signs of weakness when the alpha will turn on them too.
39
"It is nearly impossible to quantify the scale and resonance of the misinformation. Researchers say millions of people see the material."
Putin and other anti-Democracy groups or leaders have discovered the Holy Grail of disinformation campaigns: user addiction to social media platforms plus an inability or unwillingness to fact check information.
Nobody can force anyone to believe what's clearly untrue, However, the more ignorance and conspiracy thinking drives users online, the more effective anti-democracy propaganda will be.
Just think: without spending a dime on costly weapons systems and/or the demands of physical warfare, Russia is managing to upend western democracies by turning freedom of speech itself into lethal weapons that change hearts and minds.
176
@ChristineMcM I agree with most of what you say, but take issue with your implicit sense that it is evident what is "clearly untrue." Ultimately, you need to be able to drill down to a trusted source. I can't think of any source that the majority of Americans trust...not the NYT and publications like it, not the government, not academia and the scientific establishment. It leaves us in a genuine conundrum.
4
@ChristineMcM
Thanks for that. What a Cheap way to fight a world war and never fire a missile.
So the gift of the internet for all from America has become the finger on the trigger for Russia and others to bring down Western Democracy.
Who would have thought? Eh?
8
@JP: I disagree. First off the bat, why anyone would use FB for news after all that's been revealed is beyond me. Second, I trust the NYT, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Atlantic, and a whole host of media publications that follow the rules of sound investigative reporting. I also trust government agencies (that haven't been gutted by Trump) such as the CDC, the FDA, etc., as well as professional organizations not aligned with any political party. I realize I may not be the majority, but I do have a college degree and I know how to fact check. If something sounds strange, it demands fact checking. And I never ever go to social media for information beyond things I want to see from my family and friends.
2
“A longstanding debate has been whether this material changes behavior or votes, especially as tech companies have worked to stamp it out. But security researchers suggest that swinging elections is a stretch goal for this kind of campaign, if that. The primary point is to muddle the conversation, make people question what is true, and erode trust.”
Where, please, is the difference? Sowing chaos is all that is required to bring down democracy and empower Russia.
21
While it is important for platforms and authorities to investigate and try to thwart these attempts by disrupters with malign intent we forget that we each have the power to neutralize these bad actors.
It is incumbent upon every citizen to know and consider the source before it believes and shares misinformation. It is really not that difficult now, given what we know. If people get their information from credible and diverse NEWS organizations (this eliminates much of the Fox network and even some of MSNBC) and disregard or approach the rest with skepticism we can render the maligners impotent.
During WWII our government put out educational films alerting the public how to identify propaganda meant to divide and incite us. Of course, we can’t expect that from an administration that promotes its own disinformation but it’s truly not that difficult.
147
@DMurphy
"It is really not that difficult..... ."
I respectfully disagree.
It really IS that difficult - in fact it is well nigh impossible, especially with a poorly educated and lazy populace that has been dumbed-down for many decades by Republican disinformation, 24/7 propaganda from Fox News and Rupert Murdoch's puppets and stooges, serial lying and deliberate misinformation from DJT and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, inability for anyone to truly control the genie that has escaped the democracy bottle - widely popular social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and internet websites operated by extremists and the lunatic fringe. Sadly, most Americans have neither the intelligence nor the patience to sort out the truth from the myth. Rather, they seek websites that reinforce their own prejudices and hatreds.
22
@DMurphy You can't put Fax News in the same sentence as MSNBC. Not if you are trying to help people find a good source of information. The Pres. and Murdock are besties.
9
@DMurphy
It's not as simple as "credible" sources. I find a lot of good material on RT, which is funded by Russia. For example, I just saw Chris Hedges interviewing Mike Taibbi on his new book, which argues that cable news has shown the media that they can succeed by getting their audience to see the world as fight between good and evil, and getting them to hate the other side. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTf4KHe-M8I RT used to distribute Thom Hartmann, who said that they had never tried to influence his content.
Similarly, Al Jazeera, which is funded by Qatar, has mideast coverage with Israelis and Muslims on all sides of the spectrum.
(I used to read the Wall Street Journal editorial page, but after Rupert Murdoch bought it, the WSJ wasn't worth $400 a year.)
8
This should be countered in several ways. Vis a vis Russia, cut them off with more sanctions, universally. As well counter these forces for ill with a more forceful campaign of information and warning about what is at stake. Respected leaders should stand together as well on this but also show the proof of the various investigations. Regulate social media.
Taking advantage of people's ignorance and vulnerabilities, as Trump proves here, is a very powerful weapon. Treat it as you would a pandemic or disease.
56
Amazing. To have the biggest country on Earth. To have enough resources and commodities to have just every possible prospect of becoming rich, happy and flourishing. And yet to spend all your money, will, time and energy on destroying wellbeing, trust, democracy in other nations simultaneously suppressing even semi-rational activity amongst its own citizens, imprisoning or killing them just by mere truth seeking. Why doesn’t Russia want to be just happy and rich? Why all the auto-aggression which Russia tries to spread over the rest of the world?
209
Putin's motives in weakening the West are that he is playing the Great Game, and he plays it well. Social media have provided him a golden opportunity. We cannot expect him to retire from the field voluntarily, on the contrary, every indication is that, having tasted success, he will ramp up the use of divisive disinformation to the maximum. The question is, why are so many in the West, including President Trump, remaining complicit facilitators?
73
@Jkesil
This isn't about prosperity. It's about ego and power. Putin wants to restore the former glory of the Soviet Union, when he was a young KGB agent.
54
The super-rich Russians who control the country fear democracy and free press, because that would destroy the basis of their power and wealth. That is why they want to destroy the EU. The EU is doomed. Putin wants to destroy it because he fears democracy, and Trump wants to destroy it because the EU is a competitor on the world market. Two super-powers who can agree on only one thing: eliminate the EU. Too bad for Europe.
27
Undermining western democracy with cyber warfare is as harmful as any terrorist activity. We must build a coalition and sanction Russia like Iran and North Korea until they cease all of this activity. This is the only actions Putin will comply with.
53
@JRoebuck: Western Europe is highly dependent on Russian natural gas. No way are they going to sanction that!
I think you have that backwards, the Russian economy is dependent on energy sales to Europe.
This is by design, by the way. Europe still believes in the post WWII idea that trade is the best way to keep peace.
2
@JRoebuck Can we sanction the US for a host of issues including electoral interference?
2
Russia will always try to interfere in elections, and the far-right is learning to spread their propaganda from them. The problem has always been around and will never go away, the internet only simplifies the process for them. The main problem is ill-informed, un or under-educated people that believe all of the lies and disinformation. Some of the stuff put out there is so bizarre you’d think no one would ever believe it. Unfortunately, that is not the case. There are people out there that believe every word of some of the most bizarre conspiracy theories you could ever come up with. The only way I see to help curb the disinformation is by flooding social media with facts, actual true facts, not “trumped up facts”. Disinformation will always be around and can only be fought with truth, honesty, facts, and a quick finger on the delete key by responsible social media companies.
36
And yet we allow Russian oligarchs to have dual Western citizenship, buy property in the West, launder and hide their wealth, live here, educate their children here, and holiday here.
So many enjoy the privileges of access liberal, free market, democratic, rule of law whilst pillaging their own country, denying their own citizens access to fair justice and democracy ...
There should be a far, far greater crackdown citizens of an enemy state enjoying access to our society and its benefits.
317
@B Risk: There is something else to consider. When they own expensive condos in New York, they will be less inclined to bomb it. In any case they can buy what they want in this country though dummy corporations in those nations that specialize in such secrecy. Citizenship and passports also are for sale.
6
@B Risk Very true. London is infamous for them. Many of them are not exactly gracious and cultured people, to put it mildly.
9
@B Risk
Correct. Our freedoms are given to anyone who comes to America. We don't discriminate even against those who take advantage of those freedoms while plotting to hurt America and Americans.
6