Creepy. There is clearly much, much more to the troll farm activity. Thanks for continuing to chase these threads of the story down, Mr. Thielman - good work.
‘Why is Russia able to create fake Facebook pages that get more likes than we do?’
most of the likes being illegitimate due to russian bots?
That and being able to strategically make the most incendiary and provoking posts possible at all times without having to have any regard for the truth.
I think there aren’t many examples of social change that isn’t created by outside forces,” White told TPM. “Lenin was allowed back into Russia on German railroads while Russia and Germany were at war.
no dude, just no
They targeted these groups because there is absolutely no better way to rile up the white nationalists than for black people to be out there getting heard. None. Absolutely none. The goal is disruption and division. You can do all the Faux News, Breitbart, Stormfront misinformation campaign cultural resentment agit-prop you want, but without images and stories of uppity non-whites gathering into groups, empowering themselves, protesting institutionalized, systemic white supremacy and privilege, yelling, chanting, holding signs, confronting people, confronting SOCIETY as a whole, then you haven’t really brought it home to the target audience that they’re to be viewed as a frightening, incomprehensible, dangerous and most importantly GROWING from-within invasion force trying to disrupt the comfortable status quo “normalcy” of white dominance over the country’s governance, culture and IDENTITY.
Without the imagery to take out of context, without the stories to be spun, without the launchpads for spreading disinformation, all you have is an appeal to IDEOLOGICAL white nationalism. To reach beyond the confines of those who literally espouse the ideology, you need the visceral, the emotional, the fear and smear, the manufacturing of shock, dismay and outrage. Otherwise the would-be recruit-reactionaries really have nothing to react to…no cultural coup for them to fear and to enrage them. The ideologues are going to react anyway…they do what they do because they fervently, vehemently believe in it. But, if you want the otherwise moderate or a-political, not-so-informed, high school educated secretary mother of 3 in WI who voted for Obama to suddenly react, she must be made to feel like her life, her comfort, her safety, her children’s safety, her and her children’s futures are under unrelenting attack, in immediate danger of forever destruction, and for THAT, YOU NEED THE BOGEYMAN who is supposedly championing that family’s downfall. THAT is what they were doing by playing both sides. Faux News et al needed fodder and the Russians provided.
Far too few activists know the difference between encouraging reform and just causing trouble. The few who did saw right through the Russian infiltration, but there were far too few of them to prevent what eventually happened.
Or, maybe, the media loves to cover trouble and has little interest in covering people who are doing stuff that is boring as hell, however important the cause and successful the effort.
Yeah, deescalation sucks, no money shots…
I think you are absokutely right. I was scrolling down the comments hoping that someone would say exactly what you said. My guess is that the Russians/Trump campaign sliced-and-diced those videos and beamed them - with menacing music and commentary - to the white working class communities in the Appalachian parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin etc. Voila. Working class voters make president the guy whose whole career was built on stiffng the working class.
Just like Republicans…
OT sorta: It’s probably just a coincidence that Dotard has just signed an Executive Order making it easier to call up retired military officers just as this is about to explode.
Plus, there’s that pesky Niger thing. Gearing up for the Mother of All Distractions?
They are better at this shit than we are. That is because Putin has been in power for so long. Now, I believe we could catch up if DOTUS was in charge as long has Putin has been, but…
Well, probably the Russian fronts are also are able to work the algorithm so they get much more exposure on facebook, so they may get more legitimate likes as well as the bot ones. I imagine it’s like the early days of google, when some enterprises figured out how to get themselves to the top of search results; before long there’s a sort of feedback loop that boosts the ratings even higher.
‘Why is Russia able to create fake Facebook pages that get more likes than we do?’ Maybe the Likes were from Russian bots!
The thing getting pushed in Oklahoma right now appears to be, I kid you not, Satanic ritual child abuse. I thought we were done with that shit twenty-five years ago.
(It’s really tempting to make an observation about there not being enough black people in certain areas to make race anxiety potent enough.)
Sniffit does have it right. But in PA it’s more than the “Appalachian” parts. Up and down the I-80 & 81 corridors, outer ring suburbs of Philly and Pittsburgh, Lehigh Valley, more and more a commuter suburb of NYC _and new _ refugees - all Trump targets. For all the bullshit reasons they hear telling (white) folks they should live in fear, especially when Those People are seen as gaining power and influence. And look at the gerrymanders custom designed to create zones of white folk who will buy into the fear mongering -great for votes and fundraising.
POTY. Bravo!
Why is that not true…Lenin was exiled in Switzerland and was escorted back to Russia on a German train with German guards protecting him. That is according to Churchill…
Germany’s government did help Lenin return to Russia. He traveled by train across Germany to the Finland station. His travel was normal. He wasn’t in a “sealed train” like a virus - as later described in colorful propaganda and Churchil’s creative contributions to that myth