Unfortunately, these fake sites are hardly needed given the criminal-level misreporting by the mainstream media:
… the oft-quoted figure that 20,000 new residents from Haiti have settled in Springfield is not accurate. The real number is likely around half that amount. Here’s how we know.
In addition, I have yet to see an article that acknowledges the fact that while Springfield has a population of 58,662, the actual metropolitan area tops out at 136,001. Despite the picture drawn by the MSM, we’re not actually talking about some rural hamlet in the middle of nowhere. The city is 25 miles (a half-hour drive) from Dayton with a population of 814,049.
So, basically, the Agencies Formerly Known As the KGB run their disinformation campaigns the way the oligarch SuperPAC’s spawned by Citizens United do: tacit coordination with the campaign.
The only questions are whether Trump’s people are actively communicating and coordinating with them on the downlow the way they do with the SuperPAC’s and whether Trump had gotten his cut.
“Rural” Ohio often includes towns with tens of thousands of people or counties with over 100k. I didn’t understand what rural really meant until I moved out west, where the nearest gas station might be 50 miles away.
It’s amazing to me that with our intelligence agencies like the CIA we are not able to do more to shut down these troll farms. They are not covered by free speech since they aren’t citizens, and the speech they peddle threatens the nation and its citizens.
Echoed or originated the GOP’s false narratives about non-citizen voting? I mean how much of the current GOP is just a front for Russia’s disinformation campaigns?
It’s not the most surprising thing considering this is a resurgence of the “Know Nothing” Party*, though they themselves probably don’t know that…
* As I look at the Wikipedia page, I see the name wasn’t chosen as an explicit rejection of knowledge and enlightenment thinking (that seems to have been more incidental).
They could (and probably have) shut down some of these troll farms. However, this is the classic tension with intelligence gathering - do the actions of these troll farms rise to the level that it’s worth potentially burning the assets we have within Russia to shut them down?
So far, it looks like the US intelligence community assessment is no, this level of disinfo isn’t worth that risk. I’m inclined to agree with them as keeping intelligence flowing from Moscow to Kiev via Washington (to help Ukraine’s war efforts) is more important than shutting down these poorly made disinfo efforts. However, that calculus would change if Trump did win in November due to Russian disinformation. It’s such a tight needle to thread that I’m glad I’m not the one who has to make that decision.
I don’t know if it is fair to call Barack Obama a chickenshit. He’s an institutionalist. For all of the racist GOP hair on fire bullshit about Obama being a radical leftist, he’s actually a solidly center-right politician and that is the way he governed. He believes in capital and markets and bankers and, as such, he protected them. He’s not a chickenshit, he’s just not the guy that you (and I and many others) wish he was. (You can be forgiven for wishing Obama was someone who he is not. His oratory is quite soaring, but his policies as President were solidly earthbound.)
We need mandatory classes in highschool on how to fact-check and how to actually research a variety of subjects. Compare and contrast. We have had classes at our public library on how to spot disinformation.
@noonm - I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been in locations in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho where I had to plan where to get gas so I wouldn’t stall in the middle of nowhere with zero cell coverage. I would consider Springfield a suburb of two very large Ohio cities, by anyone’s definition.
The Christianists and tech bros have been teasing the idea of disenfranchising wonen for sometime now. Given the substantial rights removed already it would be lame to discount the threat entirely. They may well have figured that the trad wives would be the easiest target with no allies.
