What Putin’s trolls did — and what Big Tech needs to do now

NY Post ^ | November 5, 2017 | Post Editorial Board

[Oshkalaboomboom]

Last week’s testimony by Facebook, Twitter and Google execs basically showed that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 campaign didn’t amount to much — but exposed real vulnerabilities that Big Tech needs to fix.

Yes, the headline statistics seemed scary: 126 million Americans reached by Russian trolls on Facebook, for $100,000 in spending. Plus 1.4 million tweets and over 1,000 videos uploaded to Google’s YouTube.

In fact, those numbers are tiny: Americans saw more than 30 trillion Facebook posts over the campaign, and the stats for other social media are similar.

The Clinton and Trump campaigns spent over $80 million on Facebook. Even if they got less bang for each buck than Moscow’s trolls, they surely got vastly more total bang.

Nor was the meddling targeted at swing states: Maryland (dead-safe for Hillary Clinton) got far more focus than Wisconsin, Pennsylvania or Michigan. The total spending on Wisconsin was just $1,979, and all but $54 was before the primary.

Russia’s focus plainly wasn’t on helping either side: It was on feeding extremism of all kinds, on both ends of the spectrum. The single biggest success was a post on the trolls’ “Blacktivist” Facebook page about a 14-year-old Black Lives Matters activist’s “slam poem”: It got 300,000 interactions.

The most troubling stunt is likely the rival pro- and anti-Islam rallies the trolls fostered in Houston on May 21, 2016. That produced an ugly incident, but happily not fighting in the streets. Yet it cost Russia an estimated $200; what might a larger effort do? The only legislation touching any of this is Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Honest Ads Act: It would require the same “who paid for this” disclosures as apply to old media. Yet that no-brainer wouldn’t have covered most of this trolling, which didn’t focus on any candidate.

[Oshkalaboomboom]

What a joke. Instead of fretting over Russian trolls the Post should be fretting over how Big Tech is making efforts to shut down Conservatives and push a left wing agenda, the Pravda of the Matrix.

[sparklite2]

The Clinton and Trump campaigns spent over $80 million on Facebook.

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And broken out, it would be something like Hillary spent $79,999,000 on Facebook and Trump spent a thousand. What the election showed us is that the ludicrous amount of money that goes to media in a election cycle is horribly misspent and with the right candidates, wholly unnecessary.

[ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton]

I find it staggering that the media and others are STILL trying to push the Trump/Russia conspiracy, even though it has been disproved.

NO INTEL AGENCY EVER EXAMINED THE DNC SERVERS.

See Comey admitting this here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqIY8KvuoJo

Also, the DNC email metadata proves it was LEAKED not HACKED:

https://www.thenation.com/article/a-new-report-raises-big-questions-about-last-years-dnc-hack/

Who could have leaked it?

Seth Rich, who was a ardent Bernie supported felt betrayed and Jullian Assauge of Wikileaks has hinted that he is the source:

http://www.newsweek.com/seth-rich-dnc-staffer-wikileaks-leaked-emails-fbi-610383

He was shot soon after with all his money, watch and credit cards untouched.

See this story:

https://www.thenation.com/article/a-new-report-raises-big-questions-about-last-years-dnc-hack/

So what explains this? Liars gonna lie is the only possible explanation.

[Eagles6]

Yep.

[SaveFerris]

It has become obvious they are not interested in truth nor facts. Theirs is a revolution that must serve their liberal gods; be that Obama or Hillary their end justifies their means. To them.

[McGruff]

Somewhere George Soros is laughing at us.

[Krosan]

It wasn’t really only $200 to organize this Houston fight. The $200 was only supporting expense papers cite for outrageousness value. I am quite sure that running this fake Heart of Texas secessionist group, that managed to gather quarter of a million subscribers, cost much more than a mere $200.

Then there was the fake Tennessee GOP account they ran for 18 months. The real Tennessee GOP had to file 4 complaints before it was taken down. Staffing and running it had to cost money for the Russians.

[ImaGraftedBranch]

I find it hilarious that the same educational system the left built to remove critical thinking skills in the children of the USA is also the unstated problem they have with those that would want to bend the same malleable minds.
Hoisted on their own petard.

[Tallguy]

Would anybody admit to being swayed by a Facebook ad/page/comment much less a ‘tweet’? Sheesh!

[cyberstoic]

What a joke. Would google and fakebook care to reveal how much their algorithms manipulate searches toward leftist causes, skew search results away from conservatives and manipulate news searches? Or how much they spend on trolls to direct conversations or disrupt them? And I am supposed to fear Vlad thousands of miles away but ignore the two government media complexers right here manipulating everything. Hour about a HilLiary -google collusion investigation?

[McGruff]

Peggy keeps sending me friend requests.

[Wuli]

One thing was always clear about Russian meddling in U.S. social media: it didn’t turn the election. At any time any of Russian placed posts might have mirrored sentiments already alive in the American population, but it did not create them and was not the deciding factor in who did and did not believe them.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Peggy keeps sending me friend requests.

I dated one of Peggy's sisters. Check her out!