You all may not want to read this whole WIRED article (see the link at the end of this post). I would like to post it on my blog, but it is copyrighted. It illustrates how pervasive and dangerous the Russian interference and hate groups have become. Today’s TV Press Shows also reminded me how naïve (or incompetent) many political mouth pieces are as they spread misinformation. A Republican politician appeared on Face the Nation and claimed Russian infiltration in our political system did not result in one fake vote. I thought “he can’t be that stupid, but then he is taking his lead from the President.”
The Presidential election was determined by less the 1% of the votes in several key states, thereby throwing that state’s entire electoral college vote to Trump. After reading the following work by Jonathan Albright, it is virtually impossible to believe that fake news aimed to discredit Clinton did not cause enough votes that might have otherwise been cast for Clinton to go to Trump.
Russia doesn’t have to hack a single voting machine to have the same effect, by changing opinions with lies masquerading as news. They just need Trump and his devoted followers to do the dirty work by mindlessly forwarding garbage.
I wish I had saved all the political garbage that people have sent to me in email or as “jokes.” The problem with the so called jokes is the forwarder is really making a statement, no matter how subtle.
Propaganda has always existed. It is just that the Internet has magnified its reach by several orders of magnitude. The problem is further exacerbated by a mainstream media which is more interested in that scoop that doing proper journalistic research. We used to depend on leadership of the country to help sort out the facts. Now we have a child in the White House who is incapable of that mature responsibility. He has a devoted following who hang on his every confabulation.
The Russian problem has only been made worse by Trump and it’s not going away. It is just getting more sophisticated because Americans are easy pickings because its “leadership” refuses to take the full extent of the problem seriously.
Shadow Politics: Meet the Digital Sleuth Exposing Fake News
Buried in media scholar Jonathan Albright's research was proof of a massive political misinformation campaign. Now he's taking on the the world's biggest platforms before it's too late.
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