Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Secret Experiment in Alabama Senate Race Imitated Russian Tactics
NY Slimes ^ | Dec 19, 2018 | Scott Shane and Alan Blinder

Posted on 12/19/2018 7:43:02 PM PST by Brilliant

As Russia’s online election machinations came to light last year, a group of Democratic tech experts decided to try out similarly deceptive tactics in the fiercely contested Alabama Senate race, according to people familiar with the effort and a report on its results...

One participant in the Alabama project, Jonathon Morgan, is the chief executive of New Knowledge, a small cyber security firm that wrote a scathing account of Russia’s social media operations in the 2016 election that was released this week by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

An internal report on the Alabama effort, obtained by The New York Times, says explicitly that it “experimented with many of the tactics now understood to have influenced the 2016 elections.”

The project’s operators created a Facebook page on which they posed as conservative Alabamians, using it to try to divide Republicans and even to endorse a write-in candidate to draw votes from Mr. Moore. It involved a scheme to link the Moore campaign to thousands of Russian accounts that suddenly began following the Republican candidate on Twitter, a development that drew national media attention.

“We orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet,” the report says...

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Politics/Elections; Russia; US: Alabama
KEYWORDS: alabama; cybersecurity; cyberwarfare; democratscandals; despotism; dirtytricks; douchejones; dougjones; facebook; fakebook; falseflag; fascistbook; howtostealanelection; jonathanmorgan; jonathonmorgan; jones; linkedin; markzuckerberg; microsoft; moore; morgan; newknowledge; omidyar; pierreomidyar; propaganda; reidhoffman; roymoore; russia; stalinisttactics; zuckerberg
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-26 next last
Hmmmmmm... Jones v. Moore.
1 posted on 12/19/2018 7:43:02 PM PST by Brilliant
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Brilliant

“As Russia’s online election machinations came to light last year”

Oh, I must have missed that. Was that actually backed up with some actual proof?


2 posted on 12/19/2018 7:49:46 PM PST by DesertRhino (Dog is man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up. ....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant

Before the election, I saw a report that while there was bot activity on both sides, 60% of it was to promote the Democrats.

The left seems to believe that conservatives are incapable of thinking for themselves—that conservatives are just like leftist useful idiots. Thus, to would-be leftist dictators, these stories about Russian bots are supposed to portray conservative voters as mindless automatons who were deflected from voting the way they were supposed to by Russian bots. What apparently does not occur to them is that it is irrelevant to us how many people promote a point of view, because we look at the facts before we make a decision. If, after careful consideration of the facts, I decide that I support the pro-life, pro-small government, pro-freedom candidate, does it really matter what any bot says?


3 posted on 12/19/2018 7:51:31 PM PST by exDemMom (Current visual of the hole the US continues to dig itself into: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant

IMPEACH JONES! Muh Russia!!!


4 posted on 12/19/2018 7:51:44 PM PST by montag813
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant

In the Trump era, if the Russians didn’t exist, the Failing NYT would have to create an equivalent.


5 posted on 12/19/2018 7:54:01 PM PST by bkopto
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant
Sorry, but fake book did not get President Trump elected.

Russians did not influence us.

6 posted on 12/19/2018 7:55:48 PM PST by Deaf Smith (When a Texan takes his chances, chances will be taken that's fore sure)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant

They only way the Russians could have influenced the 2016 election would be to convince Hillary to run.


7 posted on 12/19/2018 7:58:22 PM PST by SecondAmendment (This just proves my latest theory ... LIBERALS RUIN EVERYTHING!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant

Pretty interesting - for those with short memories - the Democrat won by about 22,000 votes The number of write ins.

This is a federal office, so the Federal Election Commission wants to hear about this. At the least, I suspect it is a large and unreported in kind contribution to the Doug Jones campaign.


8 posted on 12/19/2018 7:59:02 PM PST by Wally_Kalbacken
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant

So they did what they said the Russians were doing on a national scale. First, if they truly believed it was meddling and immoral if not illegal nationally, then surely it would be in Alabama as well. It it truly did move the election results and cost Moore the election, then they are guilty. This would be like robbing a small bank to prove how a big bank was robbed. Still illegal, right? Maybe I’m just not thinking clearly tonight.


9 posted on 12/19/2018 8:03:14 PM PST by refreshed (But we preach Christ crucified... 1 Corinthians 1:23)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: refreshed

And it didn’t help us that Senator Shelby said “he” was writing in a candidate.


10 posted on 12/19/2018 8:07:23 PM PST by Tuscaloosa Goldfinch
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: DesertRhino

LOL. I only have ONE question for these “cyber security...experts”. How can you “hack” into a machine with 1950’s technology?


11 posted on 12/19/2018 8:24:19 PM PST by max americana (Fired libtard employees 9 consecutive times at every election since 08'. I hope all liberals die.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant

“I have no reason to doubt those women”[accusing Roy Moore of sexual assault]-—Jeff ‘the backstabbing rat bastard’ Sessions


12 posted on 12/19/2018 8:31:13 PM PST by Electric Graffiti (Cocked, locked and ready to ROCK!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant

>> a group of Democratic tech experts decided to try out similarly deceptive tactics in the fiercely contested Alabama Senate race

was their campaign funding and activity disclosed to the FEC?


13 posted on 12/19/2018 8:33:28 PM PST by a fool in paradise (Denounce DUAC - The Democrats Un-American Activists Committtee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant

>> The project’s operators created a Facebook page on which they posed as conservative Alabamians, using it to try to divide Republicans and even to endorse a write-in candidate to draw votes from Mr. Moore.

time was this would’ve been called “dirty politics” and “a smear campaign”

the kind of troll “f***try” that the Left always denies engaging in. Even when trolls like Moby encourage it in interviews.

Punk the prez? - Moby’s anti-Bush tricks
New York Daily News ^ | 2/09/04 | Rush & Molloy

One of Sen. John Kerry’s celebrity supporters is ready to pull out all the stops to get him elected. Republicans are shrieking over a suggestion by rocker Moby that Democrats spread gossip about President Bush on the Internet. “No one’s talking about how to keep the other side home on Election Day,” Moby tells us. “It’s a lot easier than you think and it doesn’t cost that much. This election can be won by 200,000 votes.”
Moby suggests that it’s possible to seed doubt among Bush’s far-right supporters on the Web.

“You target his natural constituencies,” says the Grammy-nominated techno-wizard. “For example, you can go on all the pro-life chat rooms and say you’re an outraged right-wing voter and that you know that George Bush drove an ex-girlfriend to an abortion clinic and paid for her to get an abortion.

“Then you go to an anti-immigration Web site chat room and ask, ‘What’s all this about George Bush proposing amnesty for illegal aliens?’”

Moby didn’t claim that he believed the abortion story.

Last month, Bush did propose reforms to immigration policy. But he insisted, “I oppose amnesty, placing undocumented workers on the automatic path to citizenship [because it] perpetuates illegal immigration.”

Republican National Committee spokeswoman Christine Iverson likened Moby’s proposal to “dirty campaign tactics we’re already seeing from John Kerry.”

“His campaign was willing to use these kinds of voter suppression tactics against members of his own party in Iowa and New Hampshire,” Iverson says. “John Kerry is a hypocrite. He pledged to run a clean campaign. Then he uses the lowest form of gutter politics to impugn his opponents, Democratic and Republican. It’s unfortunate but this is probably just the beginning of the kind of tactics we’re going to be seeing from John Kerry in the months to come.”

Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said, “I doubt that Moby was suggesting anybody suppress the vote. We did not use any dirty tactics against any candidate.

“When it comes to dirty tricks the Republic party wrote the book. We’ve already seen Republican attacks and we haven’t even won the nomination yet. The Republican Party is clearly afraid of John Kerry.”


14 posted on 12/19/2018 8:36:31 PM PST by a fool in paradise (Denounce DUAC - The Democrats Un-American Activists Committtee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: refreshed

the FEC does not care one bit about Rat crime. foreign campaign donations from the Chinese government, ballot stuffing, ballot destruction, voter intimidation, etc....

Only violations by Republicans are considered punishable.


15 posted on 12/19/2018 8:38:23 PM PST by a fool in paradise (Denounce DUAC - The Democrats Un-American Activists Committtee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant

The ones who influenced the Alabama Senate race in 2017 were the mainstream media. The same group butthurt they couldn’t pull Hillary Clinton over the finish line in 2016 despite their best propaganda efforts.


16 posted on 12/19/2018 8:39:11 PM PST by Trump20162020
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Trump20162020

And the criminal “Highway31 PAC”.


17 posted on 12/19/2018 8:47:27 PM PST by 2CAVTrooper (Democrats... BETRAYING America since 1828.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: Trump20162020

And the rinos and neverTrumpers who all but endorsed Doug Jones over Roy Moore.


18 posted on 12/19/2018 8:47:33 PM PST by Electric Graffiti (Cocked, locked and ready to ROCK!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: refreshed

Democrats were doing substantial bot-based social-media simulation in 2012, and massively in 2016.


19 posted on 12/19/2018 8:50:01 PM PST by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: 2CAVTrooper

and the women just magically go away right after the election.....

Just like that Ford with the high pitched fake voice

CPL’s Gang rape girl

Never heard from again


20 posted on 12/19/2018 9:12:10 PM PST by Trump.Deplorable
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-26 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson