First, the $100,000 may not be the full spend, it's just the minimum based on what has been identified as false-flag accounts linked to Russia. There may well have been orders of magnitude more spending that has not been identified as false flag accounts (further, it's not even the total expenditure of resources on the false flag accounts, just the part actually spent buying placement—when comparing to campaign spending numbers, when all the resources spent on content development, etc., and not just placement are counted.)

Second, people may discount messages that are official campaign messages (which have required disclosures to prevent falsifying origin), so there may be a significant influence multiplier for false-flag “astroturf” spending of the kind Russia engaged in.

The $100,000 may well have been a small fraction of what was actually spent, but until we have proof the outrage needs to be kept down. We're in real danger of revisiting yellow journalism and creating an even more polarizing political situation.

> the outrage needs to be kept down

No. If a foreign power attempted to influence one of my country's elections for its own gain, I am outraged. The amount of effort or money spent is quite immaterial to me.

You're American (USA)? How often do you get outraged about your country's government interfering with OTHER country's elections?

...all the time?

This line of questioning comes up a lot as the ultimate gotcha, but the people upset about Russian meddling today are also the ones most likely to be upset about American meddling in the past.

I'm curious about your opinion here. I haven't seen this idea that countries shouldn't try to influence each other's politics until last Fall. Not saying the idea wasn't out there, just never encountered it. I've seen plenty of dissatisfaction with things like American or Russian propaganda, but never anyone saying that it shouldn't be allowed at all.

So what would a world in which countries don't influence each other look like? When people have common interests, it's natural for them to try to push each other one way or the other. So there would have to be strict trade restrictions between countries to isolate their interests. We would probably have to get rid of the UN or any other global entity like the World Bank. We would have to severely restrict immigration so people didn't come to a country and try to influence its politics from the outside. Also we would probably have to end the whole idea of a multinational corporation and ensure that every business inside a country was local. Basically reverse the entire process of globalization that has led to this point.

But most of the people upset about Russian influence are also pro-globalization, so I don't quite get it. They're not complaining about the lack of disclosure but rather the whole idea of foreign influence on politics. How can you move forward with globalization and also stop every country from influencing another's politics?

I think it's not so much the fact of influence, as it was the nature of it.

If, say, RT runs propaganda pieces in favor of candidate X, and against candidate Y, that's fine, because everybody knows that it is Russian propaganda. They can factor that knowledge into their decision making accordingly (and it doesn't need to be negative - e.g. someone who is interested in warmer relations with Russia, for whatever reasons, might actually support the candidates they endorse).

Coincidentally, this is also the kind of involvement that US and other Western countries normally practice overseas. E.g. looking back at the Ukrainian revolution in 2014, it was very obvious and transparent which side was backed by the US government.

In contrast, what we've seen in this past election is covert foreign propaganda, that tries to actively conceal and misrepresent its identity (many of those fake FB accounts and groups pretended to be American). Not only there are obvious ethical issues aside, but - in US, at least - it also runs afoul of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which is a law that has been around for almost 80 years now. So you can hardly say that it's some new thing.

Then there's also the orthogonal aspect where a lot of that propaganda is blatantly false to an unusual degree. We're not talking about spin here, but actually manufacturing entire news stories around events that never happened, and facts that were never true.

But why is it that when Russia engages in covert foreign propaganda, it's bad, but when the US does it it's normal or expected and no one complains? Are you suggesting the US and other countries don't use blatantly, knowingly false propaganda as well?

Of course, from a political standpoint Russia's government needs to be penalized by the US's government. And of course, if there's any evidence of collusion between US politicians and the Russian government, that needs to be investigated.

But why should Russia's government be viewed as particularly monstrous for doing what the US and probably dozens of other nations do?

The actual monstrous stuff is the allegations of Putin murdering journalists and oppressing political enemies, though of course there's no smoking gun for many of those allegations (or at least the murder ones).

I'll be perfectly fine with other countries cracking down on covert US propaganda abroad, just as we do with FARA.

Whataboutism.

Example: Country A caught doing something bad. "...but what about Country B?"

Whataboutism is quite popular in discussions WRT Russia.

Either argument can also be a thought-terminating cliche.

Good one

This happens for just about every election. Obama spent money attempting to influence elections in Israel, France, all sorts of places. Look at what Clinton did to interfere in Russia's elections as lampooned in the Jeff Goldblum film Spinning Boris. Clinton just about ran Boris Yeltsin's campaign. You're on course for permanent outrage if you deeply research any particular election happening currently on this planet, I feel.

Quite a few people seem hellbent on being permanently outraged. They will even go so far as to invent reasons to be outraged. Outrage is currency in our post-modern society.

Sometimes, the outrage is legitimate. It isn't isolated to one side of the political spectrum. The right was outraged by everything Obama did. The left will be outraged by anything Trump does. Some people are outraged at the idea of transfolk being in their bathroom, some folks are outraged that people are outraged about it. Some people are outraged about speech, some are outraged that they are held accountable for speech.

The media cycles on it, the people thrive on it, and it escalates with each showing more umbrage than the last.

My conclusion is that if you seek umbrage, you will find it.

I'm outraged that the Russian's attempted to influence the election, but I'm not outraged that the Russians 'stole' the election for Trump because there's no proof of that yet. Many of the articles I've read on this topic just today (from CNN,BI and WaPo) seem to take it as a forgone conclusion that this paltry amount of money means that the Russians interfered with the election in a way that amounts to a political crisis.

Bush and Obama both had bogus crisis whipped up in an attempt to delegitimize their elections. This is an incredibly dangerous pattern in a democracy and one that I'm not really excited to see repeated again.

Is the SCOTUS ruling blocking Florida's statewide recount the bogus crisis you're referring to regarding Bush?

Did you hold the same view when the PM of Canada urged Americans to vote for Obama and went on TV to endorse him?

How is that even remotely similar to a covert psyops campaign by an enemy nation? Totally ridiculous to make the comparison.

Did you read the post I responded to?

Hm, now I think about it, what exactly are you outraging about? It's not like buying ads on Facebook or influencing people by showing them texts or pictures is illegal.

Hacking attempts, yes, are a big problem. Facebook ads - not a problem at all.

You need to step back for a minute. Think about a scenario where Russia actually did influence our elections. Do you think the response would be this passive?

All of this Russia talk is a farce. If Russia actually interfered with US elections, the US response would be awe inspiring.

So what you're saying is: we shouldn't react to this news, because Russia didn't actually influence our election... and we know Russia didn't actually influence our election, because we didn't react?

That's... impressively circular.

A scenario where Russia actually did influence our elections looks exactly like a scenario where Russia is merely accused of influencing our elections, barring irrefutable evidence. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Exactly.

Would you be equally outraged if your country interfered with someone else's elections?

Not necessarily. They are doing so on my behalf. I would be outraged if somebody punched me with what I perceive as poor reason, but I would not be outraged if I punched somebody with good reason.

There are times when the US has meddled in other countries' affairs that I don't agree with, but there are others, like covertly slowing nuclear proliferation, that I do agree with.

We are already in an era of yellow journalism, every angle, every sentence, every clip is contorted to reflect a narrative approved by corporate elites for publishing. All of this drama merely drives profits.

> The $100,000 may well have been a small fraction of what was actually spent, but until we have proof the outrage needs to be kept down

The outrage isn't about the amount spent, so why should it be kept down absent evidence of greater amount spent.

> We're in real danger of revisiting yellow journalism and creating an even more polarizing political situation.

I see no evidence of the former (at least not on this subject, though I think there are structural reasons to think that that's unlikely to be a useful reference point more generally), and don't see avoiding polarization at all costs as a goal.

But I can't see any reason to think that Russia would be the main actor in the "false-flag/astroturf space". I mean, it's hard not to think everyone with an interest in the outcome would be pushing here to get their interests served.

Certainly, the DNC emails seemed to demonstrate an interest in underhanded approaches (not that I'd discount a similar interest from the Trump campaign). And PACs that are actually independent would be jumping in the action, etc.

I believe the number of voters in key districts needed to swing the electoral college to Clinton was in the tens of thousands. If it was targeted perfectly (which of course is impossible), that's almost two dollars a person that needed to be influenced. How many Facebook ads impressions does that buy per person? While I think it's unlikely that anyone could have accurately targeted to that degree, it does put into perspective just how important targeted advertising might be to something like this.

Additionally (and I think more likely), the advertising might have been been used more as an agitation device, and to reduce the trust in traditional information through highly effective misinformation. If you can start viral memes, it doesn't matter how many impressions you paid for, what's important is how far the meme spreads in the end. A single shared article can lead to tens of millions of views and re-shares. In this case, money is purely a way to help get critical mass for your specially crafted meme, so it doesn't necessarily compare to candidate spending directly, which needs to both educate and counteract opponent messaging. Targeted disinformation can just ignore failed meme campaigns and counteractions to them and move onto the next meme, since it's effectively anonymous.

1: https://medium.com/@hoffa/hillary-only-needed-to-switch-53-6...

Did you change your vote based on memes or fake news?

So far, everyone I've asked has told me that they didn't. I can't find one person who admits they were influenced by memes or the click bait articles.

I'm sure a few people did have their views changed by them, but I suspect the number was vanishingly small. It's nice to find an easy reason and shuffle the blame elsewhere, but I think the election results can be squarely blamed on America.

Really, ask around. I've tried all sorts of variations on the question, and wasn't usually as blunt as I was when I asked you. It's not even really gerrymandering, at least for POTUS. Those are pretty straight districts.

No, we are pretty much entirely responsible for our election results. A good portion of the country still feels this is a good thing. If it helps, I did not vote for the winning candidate.

Well someone changed their vote based on news, right? From a source they trusted. But it wasn't fake news, it was real. Fake news is what they used to read back before they were enlightened.

> Did you change your vote based on memes or fake news?

No, but I'm not in a swing state, nor was I close to undecided.

> So far, everyone I've asked has told me that they didn't. I can't find one person who admits they were influenced by memes or the click bait articles.

That's not surprising. Do you know which stories you saw were fake? Are you sure you know them all? Does it matter that you intellectually know now that some might have been fake, or is the emotional response to them originally still present? How many people that were influenced are unconsciously using self self justification[1] to think they were unaffected (I'm sure we all want to think our news sources were unaffected)?

> Really, ask around. I've tried all sorts of variations on the question, and wasn't usually as blunt as I was when I asked you. It's not even really gerrymandering, at least for POTUS. Those are pretty straight districts.

I think all you can say from that is that you were self-selecting for people that think they were targeted and influenced by fake news, and by people self reporting, which is known to be a horrible way to get accurate data from people.[2] Additionally, unless you travel quite a bit and attempt to ask this question of a wide subset of people, you might find that your area is not a targeted population. Even if oyu did travel a lot to get an accurate subset of the population, and even if you get get perfectly accurate self reported answers, you would have to ask 70 people in a perfectly representative sample of those that voted to have a better than even chance of finding someone answering affirmative if it change the voted of 1 million people, and that's far more than actually needed to be influenced. Thus, I'm not entirely convinced be some ad-hoc surveying unless you put some real time and effort into it and are significantly underplaying that.

> No, we are pretty much entirely responsible for our election results. ... If it helps, I did not vote for the winning candidate.

I'm not making some case that this did change anything. I'm just trying to express that there's a lot of ways it could have, and it's not very simple to tease out the how or the affects that resulted. This isn't a Democrat/Republican or Trump/Anti-Trump thing to me, this is about the future of democracy, free-will, and how to navigate in a future where trustworthy information so much harder to come by (not that it was perfect before).

At this point, I look to CNN for the general politics headlines (which I'm under the impression is (was?) one of the less biased organizations, but I pull up Fox News' website occasionally to see the other take on the news (and what is and isn't being considered a story on each). I tried Breitbart the same way. Once. The extreme pandering and fear-mongering was hard to stomach. I'm disheartened by what I see as cheap shots at and purposefully disingenuous interpretations of Trump, and this comes as someone who is definitely not a fan of that man. I just think it's slowly eroding my trust to see the bias exposed occasionally (and in obvious and petty ways). Put simply, I recognize that pandering as well, and am left wondering if this is the best we've got right now?

To revisit your first question, no, I didn't change my vote, but maybe it did nudge my opinion of people, or of their personalities. At this point, I don't even remember everything I read during election season. I'm sure it affected my emotional base response as I took in more input though, so who's to say how much I was affected?

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-justification

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-report_study#Disadvantage...

Oh, it's hardly scientific and only useful for speculation. I'm well aware of the inherent biases, though I have tried to ask people from every persuasion.

I don't think many changed their vote based on the propaganda. I strongly suspect that the dishonest media increased the resolve of those already going to vote Ina certain direction.

It wasn't exclusive to one side, though we're discussing the external influence. I saw quotes taken out of context and wild, untrue, accusations made by the internal media as well.

Now, as for me?

I can tell you that I'm 100% certain I was not influenced by the media - at all.

Really...

I voted Green. I didn't want Stein to win, no. No, she's insane. I voted for her because the Green Party needed a certain number of votes to remain on the ballot, as opposed to write-in, and to get matching funding. I voted Green because I want to encourage third party candidates to run in my State. I've held this position for years. In fact, I'm nearly sixty and I've only voted for one major party presidential candidate, ever.

It was also mathematically impossible for my vote to change the outcome. If every single third party voter had voted, in my entire Statem had voted for one candidate or the other, it would have not changed the outcome one iota.

On the other hand, Green is automatically eligible, assuming enough signatures, to be on the next ballot and to get some matching funding - though that applies only to local candidates.

So, the narrative and rhetoric changed my vote exactly zero. It's unlikely to change any of my future votes.

Either way, I'm still not sure that it had any meaningful effect. I do wish there were a way to find this out scientifically, but I'm not sure how we can rid the system of bias.

I get to claim some imperviousness to it all. I've never had anyone who represented my ideals as a serious candidate or elected at the national level. I default to third party, even if just to give encouragement. If third party isn't in the ballot, I research to see who is the write-in candidate. Man, I have voted for some lunatics over the years. I mean that, too. I've voted for people who probably shouldn't even be the dog catcher. But, at least I'm voting for something,

Not impossible if the voter registration data from 21 states was used for targeting.

https://www.apnews.com/cb8a753a9b0948589cc372a3c037a567

I was only noting that perfect targeting was impossible. By perfect targeting I meant that it was only shown to those that would need to be flipped to change the result, so some 50k people in specific districts, and only those that would actually flip. That's of course impossible, but was just meant to establish a bound.

Targeting ads to play on deep seated racial issues using the fruits of an unprecedented data mining operation, combined with targeting to swing states can have a very high ROI considering the rust belt and some midwest states were going to be razor close regardless.

Most of that money was likely spent on TV ads and stuff. Nothing as targeted and intimate as FB ads.

> Is there even anything wrong with any country

It's illegal?

But you ask good questions.

You may well be right, but what law would it violate?

US Law (specifically the Federal Election Campaign Act) generally tries to prohibit foreign nationals from donating to political campaigns.

It seems like that act has some pretty broad restrictions: "The Act prohibits knowingly soliciting, accepting or receiving contributions or donations from foreign nationals. In this context, "knowingly" means that a person: ... Is aware of facts that would lead a reasonable person to inquire whether the source of the funds solicited, accepted or received is a foreign national."

So a candidate could be taking a legal risk if he took a large donation from a foreigner and his excuse was that he didn't realize who the donation was from and wasn't interested enough to find out who was making the donation.

But I don't really think the US has decent enough disclosure laws for political donations or enforcement of current laws to adequately prevent or prosecute foreigners donating to political campaigns.

https://www.fec.gov/updates/foreign-nationals/

well to get around that one well known campaign simply made sure the donations from "unknown" sources were sufficiently small and diversified in identifying data so they would not be reported/flagged.

the current political parties set up the donation game so they could work it to their advantage and eliminate possibility of a 3rd or more parties.

Is it actually illegal for the actual Russian government to buy advertising on Facebook/Google linking to influential material? Not being condescending but actually asking this. Facebook can easily terminate the ads but does the US gov’t have this as illegal?

When we test ads on a platform, we always run a small amount first, then scale up. The $100k could be just the test size.

No one tests 3k a day...

i reckon that state actors are (often) in their own universe when it comes to behavioral expectations.

Clinton and Trump are US Citizens.