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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsToday's Russia hearings actually revealed something new and important
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/03/30/todays-russia-hearings-actually-revealed-something-new-and-important/?utm_term=.44ebe4a3c718Todays Russia hearings actually revealed something new and important
By Sarah Posner March 30 at 4:15 PM
snip//
In a moment that stunned the hearing room, Watts flatly stated that the president himself has become a cog in such Russian measures. When asked by Oklahoma Republican James Lankford, who appeared visibly dismayed, why, if Russians have long used these methods, they finally worked in this election cycle, Watts answer was extraordinary.
I think this answer is very simple and is one no one is really saying in this room, he said. Part of the reason, he went on, is the commander in chief has used Russian active measures at times against his opponents.
To buttress the claim that Trump (unwittingly or not) aided Russian disinformation efforts, Watts cited several instances. Among them: Trumps citation of an apparently false Sputnik story at an October 2016 campaign appearance; his ongoing denial before and after the campaign of U.S. intelligence of Russian interference in the election; his claims of voter fraud and election rigging, which Watts said was pushed by RT and Sputnik; and Trumps questioning of the citizenship of former President Barack Obama and even his primary rival Ted Cruz.
Watts added that one of the reasons such tactics are working is that Trump and/or his surrogates have repeated some of the claims, further spreading them through social media accounts that are owned both by real people and bots. Thus, the disinformation is kept alive and gradually becomes more real and plausible. Part of the reason active measures work is because they parrot the same lines, Watts said.
Republicans on the committee today seemed to be grappling with the enormity of what this could mean and, crucially, that this threat should not be seen through a partisan prism. Rubio questioned Watts about a series of such false news stories and hoaxes, including claims that a thousand Muslims had burned down the oldest church in Germany while shouting Allahu Akbar, that migrants had raped a German girl, and that the European Union planned to ban snowmen as racist. (If youve ever spent time on alt-right social media, theres a familiar ring to these stories: they are exactly the sort of thing that gets spread and recycled, and reverberate as supposed evidence of the nefariousness of say, Muslims, or the overreach of political correctness.)
Rubio seemed to suggest that he sees these tactics as intended to divide Americans from one another. Arent we in the midst of a blitzkrieg, for lack of a better term, of informational warfare conducted by Russian trolls, under the command of Vladimir Putin, Rubio asked, that is designed to divide Americans politically, socioeconomically, demographically, and the like? Watts confirmed that one of the aims of Russian active measures is to play on ethnic divisions.
Its not clear yet how much significance these revelations have, if any, to the ongoing probe into possible Russian-Trump campaign collusion. But the gravity of todays hearing combined with the New York Times revelations may prod Senate Republicans into stepping up, particularly to fill the vacuum caused by Nunes plummeting credibility.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)for decades.
malaise
(269,049 posts)and sadly so have the US government and American interests in several countries.
It's a fugging mess
Blue_Roses
(12,894 posts)How can you tell the difference? Sean Hannity lives for bullshit to spread.
NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)Facebook has a much bigger audience than Fox News, as does Twitter.
Wasn't the fake news story about the pope (whom Trump insulted) endorsing Trump shared millions of times across Facebook and Twitter, while the debunking from Snopes was shared like 20,000 times?
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)"Oh, Candidate Trump didn't mean anything by it when he told the hackers to hit Secretary Clinton." It's truly amazing how President Trump's defenders can read his mind so perfectly, knowing precisely when he's just jacking it and when he's deadly serious. Anything that sounds ominous is supposed to be a joke - until Trump follows through, that is. Then it's "You libtards should have known he means what he says!" But if you take Trump seriously from the get-go, it's "Can't you take a joke? He's just kidding around!"
Someone on Twitter nailed it when they described Trump voter rationale as "pretzel logic". These people work overtime making idiotic excuses for the indefensible and drawing unrelated parallels (Trump treason vs. Hilary e-mails). They're acrobats of bullshit.
Hugin
(33,162 posts)Yep, I've heard the Trumpanzees may resort to such a thing on occasion. So, it would seem.
Amaryllis
(9,524 posts)Last edited Thu Mar 30, 2017, 07:45 PM - Edit history (1)
room." He named the elephant in the room. (pardon the pun).
BadgerMom
(2,771 posts)Cunning punning!
iluvtennis
(19,862 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)"To buttress the claim that Trump (unwittingly or not) aided Russian disinformation efforts, Watts cited . . . . . ."
bigbrother05
(5,995 posts)Rinse, lather, repeat.
Contrast with McCain calling out the "Obama is a Muslim" nitwits in 2008.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,002 posts)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_brigades
Ukraine conflict: Inside Russia's Kremlin troll army, BBC http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31962644
Documents Show How Russia's Troll Army Hit America". BuzzFeed. 2014-07-08 http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/documents-show-how-russias-troll-army-hit-america
http://kremlintrolls.com/
http://aktivnyye.com/t/20161125-one_simple_trick.html
Note (added 2016-12-09): For an example of how this plays out in real time, see our article in the Daily Beast, and the addenda here. In short, we were already monitoring people like Marcel Sardo due to their involvement in distributing or promoting disinfo. So rather than finding a story about a non-existent attack on the NATO base at Incerlik and trying to trace it back to a source, we noted that Sardo was trying to make something of a story about an attack on the base at Incerlik that as far as we knew did not occur. It's small but important distinction.
invrabbit
(21 posts)Russian mafia?
babylonsister
(171,070 posts)LakeArenal
(28,820 posts)Every day is more like the Twilight Zone.
Kablooie
(18,634 posts)They are deliberately devised by Russian hackers and widely spread through right wing media by bots!
After it's been repeated enough times on many, many sites people are tricked into thinking it's real.
Amaryllis
(9,524 posts)davekriss
(4,618 posts)Very effective strategy. Lakoff also gives advice on what we should do, and should not do, in response. (At work so can't hunt down links right now, but Google - or DuckDuckGo - is our friend.)
yardwork
(61,649 posts)bettyellen
(47,209 posts)bigbrother05
(5,995 posts)Drop a big enough turd in the cesspool and someone will report it as a tsunami.
Hekate
(90,714 posts)zentrum
(9,865 posts)....a piece of Russian propaganda when Trump says climate change is a hoax perpetuated by China, of all places.
I think it's hard for us to imagine the depth of contempt that Putin feels for his puppet.
babylonsister
(171,070 posts)what's really going on-yet.
But there's lots of it to go around, and Putin is right up there with dt.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)It fits in well with their plans to drill in the attic with the technology that only Exxon can give them.
zentrum
(9,865 posts)bucolic_frolic
(43,176 posts)Blackmail the usurper, weaken democracy, plunder the commons,
collapse the currency, and America falls.
MarcA
(2,195 posts)And its probably more than just the Russian Mafia.
Nwgirl503
(406 posts)We need more of him. I also loved where he brought up how many Russians have ended up dead in the last few months.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)yardwork
(61,649 posts)None of this is a surprise to me. I'm glad that it's being discussed.
TrollBuster9090
(5,954 posts)H2O Man
(73,559 posts)I find the hearings both valuable and interesting.
herding cats
(19,565 posts)I had an extensive discussion on this topic over dinner with my spouse and another couple tonight. We had a (recorded) watch party of sorts.
This is a stand out moment of the hearing. Not the only one, but a big one.
MBS
(9,688 posts)Cha
(297,289 posts)I want that to forever come back and bite him hard.
And, this.. " Watts confirmed that one of the aims of Russian active measures is to play on ethnic divisions.
panfluteman
(2,065 posts)Whenever Trump opened his mouth, it was always to sow division and hatred, pitting this group against that group or another? It seemed to be so instinctive and automatic, almost like a knee jerk reaction with him. Well heck - if Watts is right, he was just following the same basic strategy as Putin's trolls and bots. And isn't that de facto collusion right there?