Senate Intel Committee Releases Bipartisan Report on Russia’s Use of Social Media

By artappraiser on Tue, 10/08/2019 - 11:30pm |

The Senate Intelligence Committee just released its report on Russia’s use of social media during the 2016 election. You can read the whole thing for yourself, but here are the important takeaways and recommendations:https://t.co/GZvH0NmADf
— Mark Warner (@MarkWarner) October 8, 2019

URL:

https://www.warner.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&id=0C12C6D6-DE5E-4285-9AF5-F8C5D7757187

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Rick Wilson retweeted this Sept. 30 podcast on topic a few hours ago (admit I haven't listened to it):

My take on why the United States needs to go on the offense to counter disinformation: https://t.co/um5NMdC483
— Dr Alina Polyakova (@apolyakova) September 30, 2019

by artappraiser on Wed, 10/09/2019 - 12:46am

When the Kremlin wanted to target America and install its asset Trump, it aimed at our Achilles' heel: Racism. It worked like a charm. My own family has been profoundly wounded by this. https://t.co/L4j7vRn1dv
— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) October 8, 2019

by artappraiser on Wed, 10/09/2019 - 12:55am

Minority Leader Chuck sez upon tweeting Politico's coverage:

What will it take for @SenateMajLdr Mitch McConnell to finally let the Senate do the people’s business and protect the integrity of American democracy?https://t.co/OWlqNcIlWP
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) October 8, 2019

by artappraiser on Wed, 10/09/2019 - 12:59am

Great point from @paulwaldman1: The new *GOP*-led Senate Intel Committee report on Russian interference in 2016 blows up the conspiracy theory that Trump wants the Ukrainian president to make true, and that William Barr is circling the globe to validate:https://t.co/m8EEogNvJm
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) October 8, 2019

by artappraiser on Wed, 10/09/2019 - 12:59am

Bloomberg quoting from Russian operative in report:

“We uncorked a tiny bottle of champagne ... took one gulp each and looked into each other’s eyes .... We uttered almost in unison: ‘We made America great’”
-- Operative at Kremlin-directed IRA after Trump won the election, per Senate Intel reporthttps://t.co/tYmyxPIiJt
— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) October 8, 2019

and on other targets besides Clinton:

Senate Intel report is very detailed; a lot has been reported before:
*Russian fake accounts attacking Mitt Romney when Trump was considering him for Secretary of State
*Attacks on Ted Cruz/Marco Rubio during the Republican primary
*Extremely successful fake news stories
— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) October 8, 2019

by artappraiser on Wed, 10/09/2019 - 1:06am

Marco Rubio:

Senate Intel has released Part II of our report on #Putin’s interference in 16 elections. It’s bipartisan,detailed & offers specific recommendations.

Those interested in real solutions instead of cycle of daily drama will find it useful.

Read it here:https://t.co/97t0ypDixq
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) October 8, 2019

by artappraiser on Wed, 10/09/2019 - 1:08am

Cutting to the chase:

The committee called on candidates running for office and their campaigns to more carefully probe the information they share on social media to prevent the spread of election-related disinformation — an effort Democratic presidential candidates say has been under siege by Trump and his campaign’s postings on Ukraine and other issues.

“It’s time for Trump to stop using Twitter to play into our adversaries’ hands,” Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), who sits on Senate Intel, tweeted after the report debuted. “With every deranged tweet, he advances foreign interests by dividing Americans.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/08/intelligence-committee-russia-trump-report-040736

This is not a both sides do it problem The Russian hackers targeted Hillary and were aiding Trump.

by rmrd0000 on Wed, 10/09/2019 - 5:19pm

Huh?!! What are you trying to do, prove that this is a partisan witch hunt like Trump says? It's not about one side!!! It's about a foreign country interfering in our election via imitating partisanship in order to 1) stoke chaos and divisiveness in the system 2)get their favorite to win if possible. Your comment could just have easily come from a Russian troll!

by artappraiser on Wed, 10/09/2019 - 8:44pm

Trump schizophrenia

One of Donald Trump’s chief objections to the notion that Russia meddled in the 2016 election is that it puts an asterisk on his unlikely victory over Hillary Clinton. As such, the deeply insecure president has consistently cast doubt on the findings of his own intelligence community—including in a press conference with Vladimir Putinlast year—insisting the whole thing is an “excuse” cooked up by Democrats to explain away their surprise loss. “Someday,” he tweeted earlier this year, “the Fake News Media will turn honest & report that Donald J. Trump was actually a GREAT Candidate!”

But after three years, something of the truth must finally have broken through Trump’s abnormally thick skull. Because on Thursday morning, the president seemed to openly acknowledge that the Kremlin had given him a leg-up against Clinton last cycle. “Russia, Russia, Russia!” he tweeted. “That’s all you heard at the beginning of this Witch Hunt Hoax . . . And now Russia has disappeared because I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected.”

Lest observers believe his admission to be a sign of personal growth, Trump quickly backtracked. Perhaps realizing that he had just torpedoed one of his main talking points, he angrily denied having gotten any assistance when the question was posed to him in a press scrum outside the White House less than an hour later. “No,” he told reporters as he left Washington for Colorado. “Russia did not help me get elected . . . You know who got me elected? I got me elected. Russia didn’t help me at all.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/05/trump-admits-russia-helped-him-win-denies-it-20-minutes-later

Russian response to Trump victory

Russian agents who sought to influence the US presidential election toasted Donald Trump’s 2016 victory with champagne and declared they had “made American great,” according to a Senate Intelligence Committeereport.

The Kremlin-directed Internet Research Agency (IRA) flooded social media with “false reports, conspiracy theories, and trolls” to exploit divisions in a bid to improve the Republican candidate’s prospects, the report said.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/russia-trump-senate-intelligence-report-2016-election-internet-research-agency-a9148481.html

Trump is denying the truth. This is a one-sided problem.

Edit to add:

Trump tries to blame Ukraine for hacking the 2016 election.

Last week, the White House released a readout of a phone call showing the president pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into a “missing” computer server belonging to Democrats that Trump believes is in Ukraine and contains incriminating information about the origins of 2016 election meddling.

The problem is there is no “missing” physical server; there’s no actual reason to suspect Ukraine would have such a server in the first place; and there’s no evidence Ukraine interfered in the 2016 vote at all.

https://www.vox.com/world/2019/9/30/20892262/trump-barr-ukraine-australia-italy-uk-conspiracy

Trump believes Putin

Nearly three years since US intelligence agencies collectively stated that the Kremlin had hacked the Democratic National Committee, President Donald Trump still takes every opportunity to publicly downplay and dismiss the facts about Russia's interference in the 2016 election. No surprise there. But what Trump revealed in his July 25 conversation with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is far more remarkable: By all appearances, Trump still doesn't believe those facts himself.

https://www.wired.com/story/trump-ukraine-call-russia-2016-election-hacking/

One side is delusional

by rmrd0000 on Wed, 10/09/2019 - 10:17pm

As Senator Kamala Harris notes, Russia exploits terms like so-called identity politics.

Harris, who sits on Senate Homeland Security and Intelligence committees, said the U.S. is "very vulnerable to cyber threats" and that Russia's use of race as a way to dismantle American democracy proves to her that racial issues have become a national security threat.

"And all of a sudden, guess what? For those who want to marginalize the conversation about race and racial inequities and say 'oh well that's identity politics' or this and that -- guess what? It is now also a national security issue. And we need to deal with it."

https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-russia-racism-election-meet-press-1453676

by rmrd0000 on Wed, 10/09/2019 - 10:38pm

We have a 18th century political system, with extreme gerrymandering, unrestricted campaign money, formal and informal mechanisms that suppress the popular vote, and a cynical, delusional, and/or low information population prone to tribalism, replete with dislike or unfamiliarity with democratic institutions, and susceptible to easy exploitation of ingrained racism and bigotry.

Combine that with 21st century incendiary targeted globalized internet propaganda apparatuses backed by virtually unlimited funding, and the opportunities are ripe for collapse into authoritarian despotism.

by NCD on Thu, 10/10/2019 - 12:21am

Exactly, so if you want Dems to win, you will stop with imitating Russian propaganda imitating your "identity politics" Identify politics turns off important swing voters, it's just that simple. It's a democracy which means majority common good is supposed to win and minority agitators about advancing minority special interests are supposed to go to the courts for protection, not spoil the political parties. who need to emphasize big tent common good, with their self-interested tribal causes. Actually, swing voters are the only minority that matter in national races. Hot tip: if Russian trolls think it works to disrupt a country and ruin elections, maybe it's not smart to do the same thing if you want to win elections. You can't have it both ways. If you believe Russian trolls helped Trump win by imitating your rhetoric, and you don't like the results, then it's actually "your side" is the one who is worse than the other side!

And that's totally a different thing from not wanting foreign interence in elections! That IS a bi-partisan concern! And there's another one that's just that simple! Because next time they could want the other side to win. I don't get why you don't get why this is definitely not a partisan thing! The whole world is not aligned Democrat vs. Republican. They will have other motives! All along Dems have been trying to remove this from the alignment with Trump issue and have GOP look beyond supporting Trump to the fact of foreign intervention in American elections. And here's rmrd trying to drag it back to partisan politics again. I swear sometimes you seem just like a Russian troll. Either you are or you know not what you do, how counterproductive to your own causes your arguments are sometimes.

How can I make it simple for you to understand? Dems should be happy what happened here! What Dems wanted = GOP on committee to drop their immediate partisan concerns and think long term danger to the country. But nooo, rmrd wants to drag it back to the mire of immediate myopic and parochial tribal partisanship.

by artappraiser on Sat, 10/12/2019 - 4:47pm

Again, Russians were imitating your modus operandi. If you want to talk partisanship and are looking to win elections, it would make sense to stop doing the stuff they are imitating! If you believe they hurt your side, then anyone rational would conclude identity politics stuff like this is absolutely the wrong thing to do if you want to win, your side is one and the same with the Russians and you are at fault as much as the Russians in both being divisive and hurting the Dem party/

Repeating from my "cancel culture" thread, hoping it will sink in with you someday. Below are all Facebook ads placed by Russian trolls before the 2016 election to provoke tribal divisiveness. Facebook Russian Ads: 50 Fake Posts From the News Feed PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE @ Newsweek.com, May 11, 2018.

by artappraiser on Sat, 10/12/2019 - 4:56pm

Senate Intel Committee Releases Bipartisan Report on Russia’s Use of Social Media

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