200 twitter accounts plus a few hundred thousand "followers,"

Has anythong on twitter ever changed anyones mond about anything? It's a blatant wcho chamber.

The Russians thought it would.

Great argument.

Against a 1B Hillary bucks and the collusion of ABC, MSNBC, CBS, CNN, the WaPo, the NY Times. Yep, 200 twitter accounts should about do it.

OP is the one who claims someone is claiming they "swayed," the election. You are the one claiming it is a ludicrous claim.

You and OP have created the point you are arguing against by turning an attempt into a success story then making fun of your own extrapolation

Hillary Clinton herself believes she lost because of Russian interference. I'm not sure if you meant that 200 twitter accounts were not successful or that the Russians were not successful in general?

Another extrapolation.

Hillary says the Russian meddling was part of the reason she lost.

nservative media alternately claims she blames it all on Bernie

or All on being a woman

or all on the Russians.

So take your pick, which lie will you push this week?

She blamed it on all of those, moron.

Holy shit, boy, you could very well be the dumbest son of a bitch on reddit.

So, not "all of it" on one thing?

Tfw you insult someone that you seem to agree with.

I have a collection of insults from the conservatives for today, they don't get deleted or banned, aren't they special.

He may be the dumbest. All I said was Hillary blames Russia and he replied back "Hillary said Putin was PART of the reason you conservative blah blah blah!"

Literally...Clinton is saying Putin was one of the reasons she lost. What is that person even arguing? I have no idea and either do they.

I do love when we get brigaded randomly and hundreds come in upvoting in support of HRC.

You reached unprecedented levels of retarded with that post.

I said HRC blames Russia for losing and asked a serious question about clarifying your opinion further. You then respond that I'm extrapolating while also admitting she blames Russia as well....

I never said she blames solely Russia but you for some reason are using "conservative media" as my opinion. Media you didn't even provide a link for. Solid logic.

You: Jesussssss Christ she does not blame Russia 100% she only blames them 50%! Stop extrapolating!

Would NBC saying she blames Russia for losing be acceptable to you? Are they too conservative for ya?

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hillary-clinton-singles-out-putin-comey-election-loss-n696991

On Thursday Clinton said she wanted people to know about Putin’s impact on her ultimate loss because “he is determined not only to score a point against me, which he did, but also to undermine our democracy.”

You lost the argument when you called that person retarded, and not only that but "unprecedented levels."

No I provided facts. You provided nothing of substance.

Why do you conservatives have such bad manners, always the insults. Is it because you extrapolated and exported your brains. Now tell me where in your quotation does Hillary place 50% of the blame on the Russians?

Where did I say she blames them 50%? I made fun of the fact that you are actually trying to argue with my statement that "Clinton blames Putin for her loss."

I called your reply stupid because it was. Keep deflecting though. Don't bother to reply unless you'll actually answer how my statement was wrong. I've posted a MSM article that is the opposite of conservstive but you can keep saying that I'm reciting conservative talking points since that's all you have.

Either Putin is the greatest mastermind ever, or Americans are dumb as shit

Just one or the other?

Putins rise and stay in power are a clear example that he is somewhat of a mastermind. And the american public, as a collective being, is absolutely dumb as shit

Except for you. You got it all figured out.

Putin is an ex KGB operative who has his boot on the neck of the largest country in the world. He's not an idiot in any sense of the term.

Lol, his boot is on our neck?

Damn he's a genius. Too bad he can't run a successful economy.

say that to his face

both

I think you missed my sarcasm.

If you could see the comment replies I have been receiving today from conservatives, you would understand how I took your comment straight up. Thanks.

As someone often on the sidelines might I ask:

I think you are correct about Russia, but so what?

this is r/conspiracy

many of us are well aware of many different nations wishing to influence our policy making. The biggest one is probably Israel. Why the big fuss about russian meddling but the same types never mention how Israel and Saudi Arabia have a way bigger finger in the pie.

The primary difference is Israel is a client state and while it changed a few years ago there were important U.S. fortunes dependent upon Saudi Oil. There are still important U.S. fortunes tied to U.S. oil but different ones than before about 2014 or so.

Russia is openly hostile to any democratic nation and in particular any who are NATO members.

For her part, Hillary Clinton had by far the most negative coverage of any candidate. In 11 of the 12 months, her “bad news” outpaced her “good news,” usually by a wide margin, contributing to the increase in her unfavorable poll ratings in 2015.

https://shorensteincenter.org/pre-primary-news-coverage-2016-trump-clinton-sanders/

The biggest news outlets published more negative stories about Hillary Clinton than any other presidential candidate — including Donald Trump — from January 2015 to April 2016, according to an analysis of hundreds of thousands of online stories.

https://www.vox.com/2016/4/15/11410160/hillary-clinton-media-bernie-sanders

http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/12/report-general-election-coverage-overwhelmingly-negative-in-tone-232307

I bet you can't find any studies that prove this wrong but you'll still try to deflect or attack the source.

I bet you can't find any studies that prove this wrong but you'll still try to deflect or attack the source.

I bet you think the Bernie Blackout never happened.

I can post data that proves this wrong.

https://www.redstate.com/brandon_morse/2016/10/25/study-confirms-trump-received-vastly-negative-news-coverage-clinton/

In the twelve weeks since the party conventions concluded in late July, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has received significantly more broadcast network news coverage than his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, but nearly all of that coverage (91%) has been hostile, according to a new study by the Media Research Center (MRC).

In addition, the networks spent far more airtime focusing on the personal controversies involving Trump (440 minutes) than about similar controversies involving Clinton (185 minutes). Donald Trump’s treatment of women was given 102 minutes of evening news airtime, more than that allocated to discussing Clinton’s e-mail scandal (53 minutes) and the Clinton Foundation pay-for-play scandals (40 minutes) combined.

OP doesn't understand how bots are used to amplify the message. The lies spread by these 200 accounts are made "trending" by the bots. As a result they are read thousands of times by real people who sadly don't realize it's Russian propaganda.

Russia is capitalizing on a flaw in human nature, advertisers have long known. Repeat a lie often enough and people will believe it to be true.

You give twitter way too much credit. It's mostly a marketing tool. No one's mind gets changed about anything there. It's an echo chamber.

True, but echo chambers can cause people to be more extreme/zealous in their beliefs

Sure. But the argument is that it changes minds.

If you're on the fence, exposure to an echo chamber can "change your mind" by solidifying you into the dominant view of that particular echo chamber.

If you're opposed to an argument, but willing to listen on principle, constant expose to an echo chamber can make you less likely to be vocal about your opposition. This compounds the above effect.

This isn't "changing your mind," in the definition you're getting at, certainly, but that sort of worldview shift happens rarely. Changing someone's mind doesn't have to be making them vote for someone different--it's just as effective to make someone feel disinclined to vote at all.

There is thing called "undecided voters". I don't get how the election wasn't an obvious choice but some people need to be persuaded.

It's mostly a marketing tool.

WTF do you think marketing is? Selling to bots? Of course twitter has an influence and by that definition it should. Wouldn't a marketing tool be effective at marketing?

Buying a product and forming a world-view are two different things. The latter can definitely not be done by twitter. The argument is that twitter swayed or changed minds. I'm saying nothing on twitter has ever changed a mind on anything. Hence, echo chamber.

I disagree. Product advertisement is just as propagandized as politics. Twitter gets used regularly by 20% of the population. But I think we will just agree to disagree on this one.

If an in depth conversation on reddit won't change your mind on something this small... what makes you think twitter would? Unless, of course, you assume those people to be of a lesser intellect than yourself.

LOL love that slippery slope there but I never said anyone was of lesser intellect, you did. I dont not believe anyone with a different opinion than mine is inherintly stupid. People can be intelligent and make stupid decisions. Your decisions are reinforced by your current knowledge. Some peoples heads are filled with lies but are sharp as a tack.

No, twitter and other social networks just spread the ideas and add little to the actual debate. They muddy the truth to the point that the most intelligent person questions it. This is the intention of the entire operation.

Conversations such as this typically aren't the genesis of a viewpoint. We arguing our already concrete view points here in this useless back and forth.

However on twitter and other social networks, they are spreading the genesis of ideas(and lies), not arguing the validity of existing ones. For instance, they spread fake anti-fa tweets from an account actually in russia that says incendiary stuff. Then they use their bots to trend that topic. This leads many to give credibility to a post that has been trending. False or not.

This tweet does nothing for detractors or proponents of anti-fa. What it does is enforce the opinion of those on the edge of what anti-fa is(or what they want you to think).

So you see, it has little to do in the actual debate and more to do with the disinformation affecting the debates. This means it has little bearing on ones intelligence or susceptibility to debate. It has everything to do with muddying that debate.

Lastly, the ones who debate online, like you and I, typically are pretty hardset in our beliefs. Its those on the sidelines, watching our conversation, that they intend to influence.

My world view changed drastically in the early 00's thanks to talking to people on the internet. Do you come here to challenge your views or just to promote and solidify what you already believe?

Twitter gets used regularly by 20% of the population.

citation?

Buying a product and forming a world-view are two different things.

The average American voter appears to be just above functionally retarded. They 100% can have their world view shaped as easily as they can be sold something.

Yes oh enlightened one! Please keep informing me aboit how much smarter you are than everyone!

There wouldn't be billions of dollars spent in advertising research to figure out the exact type of music that makes people more likely to open their wallet if humans weren't able to be influenced. You sound like the exact kind of person that proudly proclaims you're immune to advertisement and propaganda because you're too smart for it. We are all susceptible to it and we literally have areas of America that teach children that a rubber cylinder you slide over your dick upsets an all powerful all knowing being that created everything in the known universe.

Humans are not smart creatures.

Yes an echo chamber. You know what's very easy to do in an echo chamber? Amplify a specific message very very loudly. You don't need to 180 someone's opinion, just nudge it 30 degrees so it ends up on the right path.

...marketing is about changing people's minds. If you couldn't change someone's mind through marketing, then there wouldn't be marketing.

Who do these Russians think they are trying to prevent us from fomenting a war with them?

So inform people with the truth. Problem solved. Going down any other route leads to censorship and loss of freedom.

Username checks out.

First of all, back in 2016, Obama couldn't warn people without appearing partisan. But the government did, the head of all 17 agencies concluded that Russia interfered with the election. As Comey put it during his congressional testimony, there is “no fuzz … whatsoever”. Yet, the message has not gotten out. So what makes you think 2018 will be any difference if we don't take stronger action?

Doesn't matter the number of accounts if they are able to attract and sway a large number of followers.

Source on the 250 million people. I'm confused as to where this number is coming from.

So I'm confused. These accounts swayed all of the US to vote for both Trump and Hillary?

330 million

Census

https://www.census.gov/popclock/

But you're probably right about the 20-50 mil.

But 79% of Twitter users are outside of US

https://www.omnicoreagency.com/twitter-statistics/

They dont list DAU for a reason. Everyone knows its a bunch of bots.

If you vote on what Twitter says without doing any research, you're most likely an idiot

Why would you need to sway 250 million people?

No one needed "swaying" to see HRC's corruption.

Whew, good thing we dodged that corruption bullet

You really thought it would be that easy?

But they did to not see Trumps apparently. I've never seen a more brazen corruption scheme in this country. And his followers can't even see it. Whatever caused that kind of willful ignorance is pretty damn effective.

I've never seen a more brazen corruption scheme in this country. And his followers can't even see it.

Thank you for expressing the very foundation of your problem. You've never seen this? You think this is bad?

Did you live through 9/11? Did you understand what all of us felt on a day like that?

Have you ever lost friends trying expose that corruption?

Never more brazen... grow the fuck up.

What friends have you lost exposing corruption? I smell a load of bullshit being peddled.

I'm probably older than you with more real life experience, have a family, a career, a kid, a house, a mortgage. Been grown up a while. I'm sure only people that supported the orange muppet felt bad on 9-11 though, good point.

Im talking about 9/11 being an inside job

Have you ever lost friends trying expose that corruption?

You're the one that decided to say that. Its not true, right?

About 9/11 being a Deep State operation? No. Not made up. Many CTers have.

You pretended to have lost friends exposing corruption. Now you seem like you prefer to change the subject.

But Donald's even more apparent corruption wasn't seen?

Which you believe more based on hearing it repeated a lot, rather than decent evidence.

For making a statement? I take most things with a grain of salt.

Like I said, I take most things with a grain of salt. If that's what you want to believe, go for it.

Oh I see now, you're the reddit police of this forum. A gatekeeper if you will.

Yes it is. Long time lurker, first time poster. Might as well take the leap, no?

I'll do so, thanks!

So did they? Or is it enough to just imply that they did?

It seems like it was effective to me. Trump is president, isn't he?

All Trump needed to win was Hillary as an opponent.

hottake there. Political scientists will eat this election up for years to come.

You realize both sides in the election did the same thing to a greater effect than Russia, right?

I'm not arguing that they didn't, nor is that the point OP put out.

Are you accusing the candidates of campaigning for their own election?

Exactly. So to say Russia was successful because Trump won is asinine. Not to mention didn't the Facebook story, expose that they posted ads for both candidate? Why would we expect Twitter to be different

I have not seen anyone reporting that the Russians were posting pro-Clinton info.

Literally John Podesta and Sheryl Sandberg (COO of Facebook) were talking about how they looked forward to working together to elect the "first female president"

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/15092

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/50406

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/56638

$100,000 dollars worth of memes didn't influence the electionm IMO. Trump campaign alone spent $90 million.

Be honest, do you truly believe any Facebook or twitter message had an effect on the election? Zuckerberg himself said 99% of the political content was organic (yeah sure) but said it came from both sides, you can read here

Remember not too long ago, when the Russians were accused of hacking voting machines and turned out they didnt. Give it a month and this story will have a similar tone.

The list of excuses for losing this election are endless, why is there no personal responsibility?

Just to confirm you aren't saying the Russians were posting pro-Clinton stuff?

The effectiveness of Russian influence is a moot point and impossible to quantify. The issue is their continued efforts and if any Americans are working with them.

So, with all these different influence on the election, you really think that somehow 200 twitter accounts made the difference in convincing people to vote? Do you have any proof for your accusation?

Trump is president, isn't he?

If you want, I'm sure I could link to the fake news posts put out on Facebook and Twitter about the pope endorsing Trump, among other stories: https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/30/read-all-about-it-the-biggest-fake-news-stories-of-2016.html

Social media has power.

Trump won because he ran a far better campaign than Hillary (which isn't saying much). You could blame a million things for Hillary's loss, and she has, but you could never prove that any of them actually caused her to lose. I don't know anyone who is remotely concerned about Russia in real life.

I believe a million reasons go into a campaign win or loss, including the candidate him or herself. I have no problem believing social media was one of those aspects.

Sure, but to imply that these supposed 200 Russian Twitter account caused Trump to win, as you did with your comment "Trump is president, isn't he?", is laughable at best.

Is he not president? Therefore, it played a role. I never said that that was only reason.

Is he not president? Therefore, it played a role.

Your logic doesn't follow. It very well could have played no role whatsoever, and he would still be President.

Trump won because he ran a far better campaign than Hillary (which isn't saying much).

No, Trump won primarily because he could "shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose voters". His followers were more concerned with liberal tears than actually electing someone who wanted to run the country wisely.

On the other hand, Hillary sent some emails that, taken out of context, sounded bad.

Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line.

Someone is still bitter!

I love that this is the attitude you used to decide if your grandparents get healthcare and how much money you want to fork over to the government each year.

I certainly don't support everything about Trump. Far from it, actually. But as for taxes, I'd rather have him doing tax reform than HRC.

Can't understand why. He's already shown he's fine with big cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

Did you look at the proposed tax plan? Its pretty much cuts simplification across the board. It actually looked pretty solid.

It's heavier cuts at the top with much smaller at the bottom. Where is all this lost tax money going to be made up? A sales tax increase don't mean dick for a rich person. Cuts across the board is going to hurt the lower and middle classes.

It's heavier cuts at the top with much smaller at the bottom.

That isn't what I saw, percentage-wise. Are you sure?

Where is all this lost tax money going to be made up?

Taxation is theft in a fiat currency, usury-based economy. The lower the taxes, the better.

Cuts across the board is going to hurt the lower and middle classes.

Cutting taxes means more money in their pockets, which is a good thing.

That isn't what I saw, percentage-wise. Are you sure?

Percentage wise doesnt matter. 10% of a million dollars is considerably more money than 10% of 1,000. That savings is negligible because of the next part.

Taxation is theft in a fiat currency, usury-based economy. The lower the taxes, the better.

Except thats not how our economy works. No accountant or CFO is going in front of a board of directors and say, sorry the recent tax cut affects our bottom line this year so we will be expecting less money than last year. That money will be made up else where. Thats capitalism. We dont just shrug and go oh well less money this year!

Cutting taxes means more money in their pockets, which is a good thing.

It will be more money in their pocket from taxes it will be less money from other things.

Hopefully your corporate overlords will share their tax cuts with you.

Huh? I don't expect them to. But I'd expect to save over $6K a year in taxes, which would be pretty nice.

What do you base that on?

The tax plan that was recently released. If I make above $200K this year I will save a lot more, assuming the plan is actually passed. With the Establishment blocking as much as they can, I sort of doubt it will be.

Trump lead a laughably bad campaign rife with corruption and sexual assault allegations. In the middle of his campaign his campaign MANAGER resigned in disgrace due to charges of foreign corruption to the tune of 8 figures. He himself was accused of sexual assault by double digit women along with an audio recording of him admitting to doing it at least once. The fact that he one speaks to the uneducated nature of the population more than it does to his ability to campaign.

And that tells you is just how bad a candidate and campaign HRC's was. Pretty pathetic that was supposedly the best the Democrats could offer.

She did win the vote. 60,000 idiots in 3 states with evidence of voter suppression gave us Trump.

He played the game the way he needed to in order to win. He campaigned in pivotal states like Wisconsin and HRC didn't even go. They both knew the popular vote didn't matter.

True. Cancelling the registrations of thousands of voters didn't hurt either.

Riiiiiiiiiight. You guys have like a million and one excuses for why HRC lost.

Which reality are you denying?

https://www.thenation.com/article/wisconsins-voter-id-law-suppressed-200000-votes-trump-won-by-23000/

It's an especially pathetic spin on the 'russia' narrative. The biggest funding of shills and bots happens within the USA. I dunno I feel like some high up people calling the shot have really lost their grasp on reality. Do they not realize young people are not watching corporate TV? You can't damper wikileaks by shouting 'Russia' for the next decade.

I think they're so set in their ways of thinking that they cant adjust to losing control of minds.

Also, the thing that always bothered me about the Russia narrative is how condescending it is toward the American electorate. As if anyone needed help seeing right through HRC's corrupt, lying nature.

With all the fake news stories and fake Clinton quotes floating around at the time help was definitely given.

Team Clinton spent over a million on its CTR roll-out and was defeated by 100k in FB ads? That doesn't say much about Team Clinton's ability to read or connect with the electorate. That's not making me regret my Stein vote.

This election had the strangest vibe of any in my lifetime. 2000 being the other time something felt off.

No, because Russia is evil-incarnate in the world and they want nothing more than to destroy our freedoms. And of course the only way to combat this kind of evil is to limit our freedoms ourselves so they can't accomplish their goal. Checkmate, comrades!

The "war on terror" I think has lost its appeal, so they needed a new boogey man as an excuse to curtail the internet. I don't think they could get away with some cave-dwelling Arabs "hacking" is into danger, but another government doing it, that could be a big enough threat for people to have a TSA-like hate for the internet.

'Boogeyman' is an underused term. Nice to see it being brought back. H.L. Mencken preferred the term 'hobgoblin' but both are good.

Oooh. I forgot hobgoblin. I'm using that one more fro now on. :)

This is brilliant! If our govt takes away out freedoms then Russia can't destroy them! EXCELLENT IDEA, COMRADE!

Yup... it's called the Scorched-Earth Policy, invented no-less by the devious and devilish Russians themselves who burned-up anything of use to Napoleon's invading army as they retreated deeper into their own territory leaving nothing and no one behind. A victory of ashes for Nappy who lost most of his army to starvation, disease, and a Russian winter he couldn't find any shelter from.

it's called the Scorched-Earth Policy, invented no-less by the devious and devilish Russians themselves

Yeah, the Russians didn't invent this ...

Similar tactics may have been used prior to that but the name "Scorched Earth" being applied to it originated and entered our vocabulary with Napoleon's defeat in Russia and the wholesale burning of the country, including the Russians own capital city of Moscow.

This is one of my favorite pieces of military history.

Russian cavalry's (mostly Cossacks) rear-guard actions of the Napoleon Invasion provided the bulk of the resistance, and they did employ a scorched earth policy, they did not invent that tactic.

Even with scorched earth, it was the superior horsemanship of the Cossacks, plus great Russian tactics (ride out to meet Napoleon, draw him deep into Russian winter), and the Russian winter than won the day.

Old as war itself.

So what is the solution? You realize Russia can't advertise on our evening news. But more Americans get their news from Social media than TV. So why should facebook and twitter be any different?

Are you upset that we have limited Russia's freedom to spread propaganda during the TV news? Why is this any different?

Because our government basically has a ministry of truth and has done away with the propaganda restrictions

blackguypointingathead.jpg

First, I just want to say thank you to the 1-week to 1-month old account who got in here quickly to dismiss the idea.

Second, yes, it's patently absurd. What I don't understand is how so many people stay as hyped up about the constantly deteriorating levels of the Muh Russia story.

It went:

• Trump directly colluded with the Russian government to get some sort of illicit assistance in the election in order to provide them help after becoming President. A treasonous quid pro quo.

• Some of Trump's advisors did the above

• Trump and/or his advisors illegally colluded with Russian government figures to create financial deals

• Some of Trump's advisors met with Russian people who are connected with the Russian government

• Wait, Russia hacked our election systems!

• Shit, no they didn't. But they tried!

• Shit, I mean maybe they tried.

• Russia was spreading pro-Trump fake news on Facebook!!

• Shit, actually Russia was spreading all sorts of fake news on Facebook.

• They have a couple hundred Twitter accounts and bot followers though!!!

Like holy shit it's just so ridiculous how the same level of hysteria has remained even as the story break down.

B-b-b-but Mueller!!!!!

Clapper lied. Either Comey lied under oath or Schiff lied. Leaks to the media about the investigation have been constantly wrong. I'm ready to hear what Mueller finds with an open mind, but the presence of the investigation itself is not enough for me to dismiss all the other nonsense that's gone on.

Of course the result of the investigation could change my mind on all this, I'm not pre-emptively dismissing the results. But I'm waiting for them.

It's just so crazy to me how the exact same tactics the military-alphabet industrial complex use every time are still effective here. It's so easy to whip people into a frenzy.

I think the hysteria is fake, no one gives a shit except msm and David Brock's army of shills

I disagree- many casual followers if msm have fully bought in, I still have coworkers talking about the golden shower dossier for fucks sake...yet none of these people know that we've been funding the terrorists in Syria...

Really? It's basically the exact opposite for me, everyone I know either doesn't believe the Russia horse shit or doesn't care.

Yeah it's insane- I get weird confused looks when I dismiss it or don't engage in the convo, especially because they know I'm not a trump supporter or republican

You've got a good circle of friends then.

Could be geography at play...I'm in a democrat stronghold, so the disillusionment is strong and people want a boogeyman

I live in California, doesn't get much more liberal than that

Same...maybe I just need a new job lol

I also live and work in CA and my experience is similar to yours

Yeah they have, even in the UK they are pushing this BS hard. Mind you it tends to be your typical baby-boomer slaves who're believing it.

The same people who trust in government, believe the CIA, mi6, etc are genuinely interested in protecting us and are more than happy to eat up the lies being spoon-fed to them by the BBC and Guardian who are basically ran by mi5 these days.

Lot of gen xers as well, that I know at least...I think it's cuz they don't really Internet that well, get most of their info from tv news or their friends' fbook posts

re: Mueller, when you look at the group of people he put together a bunch of them(himself included) walked away from big money jobs. Think about that. Whatever he showed them got basically every one to say fk yes I am in!!

If you liken the 200 accounts to what it takes to make a Reddit post take off, then yes, I can understand how only 200 Twitter accounts could be used to propagate and disseminate information. But why do you assume that the full might of Russian influence is limited to these 200 Twitter accounts? Like could you imagine that if Russia was truly serious about influencing populations around the world they would use every means at their disposal.

If you liken the 200 accounts to what it takes to make a Reddit post take off, then yes, I can understand how only 200 Twitter accounts could be used to propagate and disseminate information. But why do you assume that the full might of Russian influence is limited to these 200 Twitter accounts?

Because they are intellectually dishonest. This whole thing is an attempt to downplay Russia's online efforts.

Which, is a conspiracy in it and of itself.

These "people" spend so much time complaining about shills, CTR, and shareblue but then turn around and try to handwave and dismiss everything related to Russia's shilling.

Every single person who makes a post like this that seems to purposefully misconstrue the developments in this case leads me to 1 of 2 conclusions:

1. The American education system has systemically failed to instill reading comprehension in its students.
2. They have an agenda.

There are so many other influences on the election, like the MSM which was in bed with Hillary, that its crazy to believe the evil Russians had any effect. I can pretty much guarantee that the MSM had a bigger influence, and their collusion should be investigated and they should be punished.

You are correct but most of the MSM coverage of Clinton was negative.

Hah.

You disagree?

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-patterson-media-study-election-20161207-story.html

Yea, I was paying really close attention and there is no way that the media treated Trump and Hillary the same. And of course I wouldn't trust the media when they tell me that they did.

Has anyone done an analysis to prove differently? Everything I've seen points in the same direction.

This study was shit. That argument popped up shortly after the elections. I remember reading a link posted by some user. It was a typical statistics play, afair the news taken from all candidates was taken in different timeframes. Everyone with a clear mind saw what the media reported WORLDWIDE in the last few months. It was heavily anti-trump. Just to be clear, I hate this guy, but that was clearly against trump. In my opinion that was also a reason he got voted.

But not her studies? The point isn't that Trump didn't get negative coverage but that Clinton did too.

My personal opinion is, that this study is fake as it gets and it is an insult to intelligence to think that clinton got more negative coverage, it's beyond ridiculous.

Only if those 600 people are the same 600 in control of all media working towards a common cause.

At first it was Russia didn't do it. Then it was wheres the evidence. Then it was we've done it in other countries too so who are we to judge. Now it's yeah they did it but did you actually think they swayed the election.On top of numerous people within the campaign and administration lying,including Trumps own son, about meetings with Russians. Trump lying about financial dealings within Russia. People on both sides of the aisle saying yes Russia did this

I mean Republicans and Democrat politicians and intelligence personal agree Russia attempted to sway our election. They attempted this through flooding wedge issues onto social media platforms in specific areas to increase division. By spreading fake news through social media in areas where the race was close and hacked the dnc

Cite what? Republicans saying that Russia involved themselves in our election?

http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/27/media/facebook-black-lives-matter-targeting/index.html

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/how-experts-decided-russia-hacked-dnc-election/

An honest-to-god international conspiracy is afoot and this sub is posting government apologia, shit's gotten weird

It's hard to follow the conspiracy train when your god king is wrapped up in them.

They couldn't get the "muh russia" narrative to stick to any of their primary targets so now they're going after social media platforms. Need a reason to start officially censoring those platforms after all.

How many voters get their Political news from twitter? the debates are only on the MSM. The place where they attacked Trump with canned questions and gave sHillary the questions ahead of time.

Most people get their news from social media

Wow! Most people don't make sweeping generalizations that are hugely inaccurate.

soooo..., if I was a 2nd or 3rd world nation looking at this, it sort of looks like the US has grown weak and Russia is clearly ascending. If Russia can finesse US elections so well, maybe that's the trade partnership I, as a 2nd or 3rd world nation, would like to cultivate.

the Russiagaters are being phenomenally short-sighted. to anyone without an ideological dog in the fight, Russia is starting to look like the stronger choice to ally with. and that's even if the US wasn't letting internal political messes slop into foreign policy. the US is looking less and less like a stable country.

Yes, good point comrade. Let's ally ourselves with the nation state attempting to influence our election and population in a way that sows discord and weakens us.

I'm pretty sure all the evidence anyone needs to prove that the US is becoming unstable is that we elected a TV host President, no matter what the cause.

I find it comical to think that even the most robust propaganda network could elect Trump.

No, what elected Trump was Clinton alienating the Bernie supporters. When "BernieBros" were being called alt right misogynists by their own party, did the democrats really expect them not to jump ship? The Clinton emails were just icing on the cake at that point.

Russian Twitter has taken over the US? Please.

Laughable distraction.

CNN, reddit, FB, twitter all did much more to influence the election than the Russians. Why are they not being investigated?

Britain has 1,500 Facebook shills, who presumably have many accounts each.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/31/british-army-facebook-warriors-77th-brigade

Not sure how many the US and Israel have because they haven't admitted to the amount, but they have similar programs, as do many other countries and corporations.

Reddit and FB are being questioned iirc.

Lol this comments gets tons of upvotes and the ones around you all DOWNVOTED. Congrats you're message has been approved by the shills and bots who scour these posts and try to subvert the truth.

5 are ton?

Because it isn't 200 twitter accounts. It is a few hundred thousand twitter accounts,

Botnet:Animu:https://twitter.com/conspirator0/status/911025977219796992 Size 243.

Botnet: I'm From Ukraine UK USA France USA. https://twitter.com/conspirator0/status/900158639884955648 Size 63,100.

So why did Twitter crib from Facebook's search of a few bots they linked to Russian instead of actually looking?

Because 9~15% of twitter is bots. Not all Russian bots, but bots for any country or company. If they remove the Russian ones, they then admit they've been able to tell

Operation AntiFalse: https://twitter.com/OpWolverines/status/913548117206642689

Facebook kicked out 30,000 bots around the French election:https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-security/improvements-in-protecting-the-integrity-of-activity-on-facebook/10154323366590766

There were the Bots of May in /r/conspiracy. Russian bots created to influence the French election, then repurposed to for propaganda towards American. https://np.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/6eaaw6/clear_signs_of_bot_activity_what_do_you_make_of/

There were the Bots of May in /r/conspiracy. Russian bots created to influence the French election, then repurposed to for propaganda towards American.

It's very obvious to anyone that has been paying attention that the people responsible for the "clear signs of bot activity" were the same shills that come here day in and day out to parrot MSM talking points and bash Trump/anyone who isn't vehemently against him.

The way that post was shilled was the #1 tell. The fact that people like YOU are still trying to use that as an example is the second biggest tell.

Do you do anything else in life besides sit on reddit and blame everything on Trump and Russia? Literally like 90% of your posts have one of those two words in them.

Just because you don't understand message amplification doesn't mean it doesn't affect things

Oh hey look! Another red RES tagged user pops up to defend the other one... what a surprise!! /s

The fact you base how you are going to comment to someone and vote on their comment based on the tag you set for them some time ago is fucking sad. I bet you go around and downvote anyone with a "red RES" tag without context of what they are saying. I'm sure you got a color that mean auto-upvote for users too. You're playing psychological tricks on yourself and not even realizing it. Then you keep on buying into it each time you see the tag you set and not what they have to say.

And if you're going to claim that's not true, then wtf are the reasons for your tags on people? Especially since you color code them for some reason. It's fucking sad.

Oh look. Someone attacking the messenger instead of the argument. SHOCKER.

Users getting lots of upvotes while supporting the MSM narrative. Strange for this sub

I didn't say Russia hacked the election. I think people were fed up with the way establishment politics work. Doesn't mean they don't try to interfere with other people's politics. I mean, the US does everywhere else.

Side note...who gives a fuck what your RES tags say? Especially since you didn't seem fit to provide any context 😉

It doesn't on fucking twitter. Only some marketing works. You cant change someones entire world-view on there.

Where did I say they did? All they needed to do was convince people to either not vote because Clinton would be such a poor choice (not that I disagree, except given this specific alternative), or that Trump would be better than her. What part of that is a world view? It's a specific choice with 3 options.

You don't vote based on your world-view? Shit... what a wasted vote.

Where did I say that? My point is you don't need to change the entirety of that view when facing a specific question with limited choices for answers.

Dude, he's got probably 30 comments in this thread.. obviously, he's got an agenda. Oh, and account about a month old, as several others(with month old accounts) I'm seeing very active today on the many right wing posts all over the front page.

god this must be exhausting

Hey, mind if I just copy/paste what you've said as needed? Really good source of information. Also, I saw top minds linked to this post, and I posted this there since it was so good! Doubt anyone would disagree.

Do what you please.

Thanks. Curious, how did you originally find the guy who's tweets you linked?

His post on the 63,100 size botnet was on conspiray in new a awhile back, I saw in while browsing /new.

I'm kind of surprised you aren't getting attacked more, anything Russia related usually draws tons of negativity.. makes me think the info is just too solid to really argue.

Half the reason I posted a quote of your reply was because I half expect it to be removed by mods.. but I'm still generally new here, and not sure what direct action they're willing to take.

Quite comical. It's been pretty hilarious to see the "hacking" downgraded to "sabotage" downgraded to "infiltration" downgraded to "influence". But all my friends who read the Washington Post fail to see the humor.

They have only found 200 so far. If you think that's all there is then they really got you.

My friend... It appears they got at you instead.

have only found 200 so far.

Yes, only 200 forget to turn off geo-tagging. Never mind that if those 200 are retweeted by millions of bots, then the message will be seen by tens of thousands of real Americans.

TMoR alert.

Someone linked your post to r/Topmindsofreddit.

when you have enough time and dont have a job you can do this 200 accounts alone ... im sure

People don't understand how twitter works. Those 200 accounts can reach hundreds of thousands of Americans with millions of bots retweeting them, causing their message to trend.

Hell, 3 power users here are able to control the narrative pretty handily with nothing but prolific shit posting and a couple upvote bots.

yeah but those are real people. Not imaginary Russian Twitter accounts

the point is the signal amplification, which is what the bots do on twitter as well

I'll tell exactly what is happening:

The democrat elite have been dealt a shocking blow by Trump winning the election and are doubling down on privacy and free speech via these scare tactics and Russiaphobia in a power grab and for relevancy. The Republican elite don't care about this because they want the same outcome, which is further restrictions on social media and free speech. The Republican elite only cares enough when it comes to Trump-Russia and even then they have Mike Pence as a backup and Pence is the one they actually want in the Presidency. So both the democrat and republican elite play the citizenry like a fiddle and divide us via wedge issues all while they get a better grasp on social media and encryption services in the guise of "Russia! Russia! Russia!"

The art of subversion. It has to be beleivable. So you take an idea that is trending and run with it.

It's "comical" if someone suggest an actual state with resources, bodies and infrastructure, not to mention a vested interest did it to sway an election, but if I said they were Soros Elite Zion bots you'd up-vote it in a heartbeat. Man, I'm so done with this sub.

The people who believe either the 'Soros did it' or the 'Putin did it' narratives are both hopelessly lost. I feel for them, that level of cognitive dissonance would take its toll on the psyche.

Daily reminder that the characters on our telescreens are just that: characters.

The fact you got downvoted says it all. Both sides are shit.

Not even half as comical as this post... I love that we pretend a single thing like 200 twitter accounts swayed things when we have hard evidence that someone manipulated voter registration data in at least 3 states during the last election.

Since Wapo is cool on here again...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/dhs-tells-states-about-russian-hacking-during-2016-election/2017/09/22/fd263a2c-9fe2-11e7-8ea1-ed975285475e_story.html?utm_term=.9a767a461283

But since I don't trust them.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/22/us-government-notifies-21-states-of-election-hacking.html

https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/23/homeland-security-russia-hacking-elections/

http://abcnews.go.com/US/russian-hackers-targeted-half-states-voter-registration-systems/story?id=42435822

If you need more sources to make an informed decision I recommend search engines on the internet...

The electoral college thingy voted for trump.. popular vote was for Hilldog, So it all is pretty comical..

Even more comical that Hill dog won the popular vote in the 2008 election as well and not a word was mentioned

I thought she didn't run because in the pimaries the dnc decided to go with obama?

A post about Hillary on /r/conspiracy?

The post will be upvoted yet the "organic" comments will be deflecting, trying to debunk, attacking OP, attacking the source, attacking this sub, attacking conspiracies or trying to derail the conversation.

"Organic"

The whole sub is compromised by Russian shills.

You can't even have a basic discussion here without justification for he looting of Russia by Putin.

And he constant deflection away from Horner's murder.

Even more comical they tried to blame Russians on Facebook as helping trump but it turned out to be posts about BLM and LGBTQ issues

Subversive diplomacy is also not only aimed at undermining authoritarian regimes. State's Digital Outreach Team has been targeting individuals and organizations online since 2006. What began as an effort to promote soft messages about the United States among the Arabic blogosphere soon morphed into a much more tightly focused outfit dedicated to countering the rhetoric spewed by extremists online.

https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/22712

The good stuff starts around ctrl-f "global internet freedom consortium".

It's hilarious how obvious the shilling is based on the top comments.

People think that the Russians put more propaganda into the country than our own Govt? Goolag is censoring progressive websites and YouTube demonetizing people who spread the truth about what is going on.

You're absolutely right OP. You are 100% correct. Look at how conspiracy has been taken over and this post you have and all comments are DOWNVOTED into oblivion.

If the Russians have America by the nuts and if they have masterminded cracking reddit and flipping votes and hacking dnc and manipulating Twitter and Goolag and the news -- then why is ALL we ever hear about is how bad Russia is?

Why is reddit filled with anti trump subreddits and comments if the Russians are so good at what they do?

It's because it's the EXACT OPPOSITE. America has control of the propaganda in our own country. Just as China does. American govt wants to keep the citizens off base by blaming another county and keeping people from being able to discuss openly the propaganda being used on its own citizenry.

Just as China says "no tienamen square never happened" they control their own internal propaganda. I've been to China and westerns are told not to mention this to the Chinese. And definitely not ever talk about it on tienamen square. The Chinese are told it's a lie. Just like North Koreans paint us Americans as the enemy when really it's their own brutal regime that keeps their own citizens oppressed.

Welcome to America.

The Russian oligarchs used our own system to influence the election a little bit. Maybe enough to tip it. With just 600 fake social media users. That's impressive.

But it's downright terrifying to acknowledge that the influence Russia exerted was child's play compared to the control our own oligarchs have over the system. With our campaign finance rules and a heavily consolidated mainstream media that controls the national agenda, I would not be surprised one bit if near total control of our elections rests with well under 100 people.

Says a person on this sub who thinks 13 families rule the world. Why is not possible for Russia to actually try to be swaying the way we think through social media? It is a tactic.

It is a tactic. Our own government openly uses it everyday on us and also on other countries all around the world. But we talk about Russian "hacking" 99% of the time.

It had nothing to do with those emails that showed Hillary cheated. Nothing at all.

are we sure its only 200? i feel like its way more than that. Perhaps the 200 are only the accounts that we know of

When the Russians set fire to Moscow, their own capital city, even Napoleon was shocked and stunned. If there was some other instance of that in military history prior to that neither Napoleon or anyone else knew of it. So where and when did something else similar to that before it take place if you're so sure it did?

Let's try!! We need a counter attack campaign to fight back against Reddit, MSM, Hollywood, and World Governments. We are The People! They FEAR Us! We have the power! If we could only all get on the same page, we would literally be unstoppable. That's they reason they are going hard on the "Divide and conquer" tactics in the MSM. Creating race driven crisis to keep people from organizing together and rallying around a common idea.

This is how Iceland can put their corrupt bankers behind bars.

Popcorn.gif in this thread. It's like battle Royale of the shills.

By the way, fuck both your sides, your candidates, and the corrupt horses they rode in on.

The Russians thought it would.

Reddit and FB are being questioned iirc.

Hillary Clinton herself believes she lost because of Russian interference. I'm not sure if you meant that 200 twitter accounts were not successful or that the Russians were not successful in general?

Wow! Most people don't make sweeping generalizations that are hugely inaccurate.

Either Putin is the greatest mastermind ever, or Americans are dumb as shit

You give twitter way too much credit. It's mostly a marketing tool. No one's mind gets changed about anything there. It's an echo chamber.

Yup... it's called the Scorched-Earth Policy, invented no-less by the devious and devilish Russians themselves who burned-up anything of use to Napoleon's invading army as they retreated deeper into their own territory leaving nothing and no one behind. A victory of ashes for Nappy who lost most of his army to starvation, disease, and a Russian winter he couldn't find any shelter from.

I think you missed my sarcasm.

Have you ever lost friends trying expose that corruption?

You're the one that decided to say that. Its not true, right?

There wouldn't be billions of dollars spent in advertising research to figure out the exact type of music that makes people more likely to open their wallet if humans weren't able to be influenced. You sound like the exact kind of person that proudly proclaims you're immune to advertisement and propaganda because you're too smart for it. We are all susceptible to it and we literally have areas of America that teach children that a rubber cylinder you slide over your dick upsets an all powerful all knowing being that created everything in the known universe.

Humans are not smart creatures.

You are correct but most of the MSM coverage of Clinton was negative.

Has anyone done an analysis to prove differently? Everything I've seen points in the same direction.

I thought she didn't run because in the pimaries the dnc decided to go with obama?

Who do these Russians think they are trying to prevent us from fomenting a war with them?

The fact you got downvoted says it all. Both sides are shit.

As someone often on the sidelines might I ask:

I think you are correct about Russia, but so what?

this is r/conspiracy

many of us are well aware of many different nations wishing to influence our policy making. The biggest one is probably Israel. Why the big fuss about russian meddling but the same types never mention how Israel and Saudi Arabia have a way bigger finger in the pie.

So inform people with the truth. Problem solved. Going down any other route leads to censorship and loss of freedom.