If well documented manipulation of social media by foreign governments had a "minuscule" effect on the election, what are the "far more probable explanations" you speak of?

Revelations of systemic DNC bias and their actions to intentionally harm a democratic candidate destroyed public faith in the DNC establishment.

Hillary didn't take any non-screened questions from the press for a period of several months during the heat of the campaign.

HRC campaign was overconfident in swing states and chose not to campaign there.

All of what you write can be true without contradicting or minimizing the effectiveness of well documented foreign influence. These issues are not at all mutually exclusive. I was responding to the claim that foreign influence was "minuscule" in comparison to local issues. You cannot quantify the effect of foreign influence until all the facts are known.

That people voted for the candidate they wanted to win based on their own analysis, thoughts and free will.

If advertising can win elections, then Hillary would have won since she far outspent Trump on media. Let's not forget she had a much larger army of astro turfers (Correct The Record) pushing her message on the internet and it was all for moot. It turns out people aren't as easy to sway as advertisers would have you believe.

This document doesn’t really speak to the impact that the operations had in US elections outcomes, just what intelligence tools were used. Plus calling someone a troll or Vladimir just because they ask a legitimate question and don’t subscribe to an accepted group-think is about as childish as it gets. Please stop bringing down the conversation.

No, it is troll-like behaviour. It is not a legitimate question if the intent of the comment is to deny the claims of the effectiveness of Russian interference, which is nonsense.

It is impossible to know the full extent that Russian interference had on the election, but dismissing its impact because there is no proof of its 'effectiveness' is laughable. We know political ads work. It is why every single modern political campaign runs them. A google search gives you a rough idea of the reach this political campaign had. Put those simple principles together and you get why all western intelligence communities are in agreement that russia interfered and affected the US presidential election. Given how susceptible people are to advertising it shouldn't come as a surprise.

When someone posits a statement that is just insanely ignorant (and demonstrably wrong) like "I would even be satisfied with any ad from any country having the ability to significantly sway any election." then the intent to derail the conversation is clear. Any knowledge of political history (and advertising) would tell you that such a statement is clearly ridiculous. Being obstinate and a pedant doesn't make automatically make you a critical thinker. In this case, it blinds you from seeing the obvious.

Some sources for you even though you are probably too busy commenting something contrarian to google this shit yourself.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/without-the-russians...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/technology/facebook-googl...

I agree completely. My original comment was in regard to the commenter's opinion on the "minuscule" effect of well documented foreign influence. There can be significant and effective foreign influence in addition to other more local reasons the election had the result we are living with. They are not mutually exclusive