Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

Re:Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Faceboo... by ashelmire on Monday July 16, 2018 @07:46PM (#17546138)

Lots of techbros posting here missing the point. If you can't make sense of these groups and these ad buys, you're not familiar with Foundations of Geopolitics, which is assigned as a textbook in Russian military academies and was very well received there. The point of all of it is to encourage separation and discord along racial, ethnic, and political lines, and generally disrupt the American political process and international clout. Read a bit on that with some brief summaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

>In the United States: Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics".

They've had resounding success with this strategy thus far.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Faceboo... by jshevek on Monday July 16, 2018 @08:26PM (#17546325)

I don't see how calling people that disagree with you 'techbros' qualifies as either 'discussing in good faith' nor meeting the standards of hackernews.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Faceboo... by ashelmire on Tuesday July 17, 2018 @03:07PM (#17552209)

Sure, sorry if that offended you, I'll refrain from using that here in the future. It's a shorthand for the people commenting here not adding anything to the discussion and projecting one aspect that I associate with the oft-derided "tech libertarian" culture - that is, that nothing every really happens, coupled with an unwillingness to dig deeper to find a deeper understanding of the issue at hand.

If you think the ~15 other posts here saying "I don't get it, these aren't election meddling" are adding more to the conversation than my comment because you were offended at the word, then I think perhaps you should continue reading the rest of it. Psyops is real, Russia does it, the US does it, and sowing dissent and funding extremist political groups in our country is a known part of Russia's global political strategy.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Faceboo... by mcintyre1994 on Tuesday July 17, 2018 @01:40AM (#17547543)

Another scary line in that wiki is:

> The book emphasizes that Russia must spread Anti-Americanism everywhere: "the main 'scapegoat' will be precisely the U.S."

Whether Putin has no influence over Trump, total control or anywhere in between - his actions and rhetoric during the campaign guaranteed this outcome if he were elected.

[ Parent | on HN ]