Vox: Democrats are falling for fake news about Russia

[LonePirate]

President Donald Trump is about to resign as a result of the Russia scandal. Bernie Sanders and Sean Hannity are Russian agents. The Russians have paid off House Oversight Chair Jason Chaffetz to the tune of $10 million, using Trump as a go-between. Paul Ryan is a traitor for refusing to investigate Trump’s Russia ties. Libertarian heroine Ayn Rand was a secret Russian agent charged with discrediting the American conservative movement.

These are all claims you can find made on a new and growing sector of the internet that functions as a fake news bubble for liberals, something I’ve dubbed the Russiasphere. The mirror image of Breitbart and InfoWars on the right, it focuses nearly exclusively on real and imagined connections between Trump and Russia. The tone is breathless: full of unnamed intelligence sources, certainty that Trump will soon be imprisoned, and fever dream factual assertions that no reputable media outlet has managed to confirm.

Twitter is the Russiasphere’s native habitat. Louise Mensch, a former right-wing British parliamentarian and romance novelist, spreads the newest, punchiest, and often most unfounded Russia gossip to her 283,000 followers on Twitter. Mensch is backed up by a handful of allies, including former NSA spook John Schindler (226,000 followers) and DC-area photographer Claude Taylor (159,000 followers).

There’s also a handful of websites, like Palmer Report, that seem devoted nearly exclusively to spreading bizarre assertions like the theory that Ryan and Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell funneled Russian money to Trump — a story that spread widely among the site’s 70,000 Facebook fans.

More at the link:

https://www.vox.com/world/2017/5/19/15561842/trump-russia-louise-mensch

[geek tragedy]

1. all of those sources regularly appear in my dad's Facebook posts.

Could be worse, at least it's not Breitbart etc

[pnwmom]

2. DT is SO unstable, at any given moment he COULD be threatening to resign. nt

[Dr Hobbitstein]

3. Vox is going under the bus now... nt

[luvMIdog]

4. I think outright intentional LYING news which FOX does should be illegal

[demmiblue]

5. Lol! I missed the Bernie one...

I guess I have all the right people on ignore!


[img][/img]

[sharp_stick]

6. I'm amazed how gullible people can be

It's sometimes funny but more often scary how easily people believe patent bullshit when it fits what they want to believe.

People really need to sharpen up the signal/noise ratio on their bullshit detectors.

[lunasun]

7. I see these sites posted here and elsewhere . This is the fake news that will be brought out to

the general non political public to show that liberals are just as crazy , if not more, than briebart, info wars etc. IMO they may have some truths but 2 weeks ago I saw one posted here that said sessions would be in jail by midnight that day . This is one of many outrageous statements I have seen.
Some statements may have truth but so may some of fox, infowar so

[seaglass]

8. I just finished reading this. Great article and perfectly aligns with my thinking about the need

for facts. I have some patience on this, I'd rather get it right than first.

[LeftInTX]

19. I think the biggest issue are the Cons who drag their feet

I believe they are dragging their feet because it is to their advantage politically.
I don't believe Congress are dragging their feet because of their ties to Russia.
I do believe McConnell became a fan of Wikileaks and enjoyed the Russian hacking. (For what it's worth. Maybe there is some enabling there)
Ryan wasn't a Trump supporter until he won the election.

Some members of Congress, such as Devin Nunes, can be complicit with Trump although they don't have nefarious ties to Russia themselves.

The Russia issue is with Trump's campaign and inner circle.

[yallerdawg]

9. If it's what we want to hear, we have an element on 'the left' which is susceptible.

It's harmless - if 'disappointment' is harmless.

You know there's an element on 'the right' who believe Hillary should be in jail and Obama is a Kenyan Muslim.

It's not like 'no charges' or a 'birth certificate' are going to make them vote Democratic - it just affirms who they are.

Same with us!

[LeftInTX]

18. As long as our elected officials don't fall for these CT,

Otherwise it is harmless - if 'disappointment' is harmless

[JHan]

10. Feeding democrats and liberals wishful thinking for clicks and follows, we should be wary.

I cringe whenever I see FB shares from some of these sites.

[hlthe2b]

11. Compared to to the uncontrolled decades long history of brain cell-destoying stories on the RW

that are forever propagated until even MSM refer to them years later as holding a semblance of truth... I see very little on the Left thus far to overly concern me. Most progressives are educated sufficiently to question, even if they do disseminate favorable, but unsubstantiated rumors for the catharsis such stories provide.

[mountain grammy]

28. True!

[FSogol]

12. Wanna see it in action? Check here:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029013857

[underpants]

13. Mensch-No. Palmer-No. politicsusa has some serious spin

[FSogol]

15. It was one of the examples (Ayn Rand as a super secret soviet disrupter rather than

a wackadoodle sociopath trying to justify selfishness in poorly plotted books) from the OP.

[wildeyed]

14. As weird as reality is right now, not surprising that people are becoming a bit unhinged.

If I read a novel that was as about our current political reality, I would label it dystopian satire. A cognitively impaired narcissistic reality show host is the most powerful man in the world right now. His rise was aided and abetted by one of our main geo-political rivals. He has installed his son-in-law who used to be in real estate and a screenwriter with delusions of military grandeur into top security positions. His press secretary hides in the shrubbery to avoid talking to the press. Vonnegut doesn't even touch what is now reality..... Our side has always had conspiracy minded members. It's just that more centered minds are vulnerable right now due to the shock of current events.

The Vox article is all high and mighty about how bad it is, but ignores the real fact that they beat us like a DRUM with *their* propaganda attacks. They are STILL beating us. IMO, we are at war right now, but most people do not recognize that fact. Articles like this, while being technically correct, fail to recognize that fact or to offer solutions for what we SHOULD be doing to fight misinformation on the right. I WANT to fix the media, but in the meantime, we need to DO something.

[R B Garr]

16. Meh, this is a bit of fake news in itself. There's been enough real Russian news since

the election to see that it is real. Just look at WikiLeaks and how they strategized their data dumps and who they targeted. It's real, and there's lots more. People are just speculating about what the IC has, but it is there, and then there are the political games. The FBI and other Intelligence agencies have the data, but they can't expose it, so people are speculating.

The twitter machine helps put this into overdrive for some, but the scandals are real and Russia did target the Democrats. What was more fake was pretending the election results were only about a worn out narrative of a few thousand voters scattered in a few states. That was more fake than this real news about Russia. You can tell by the way this Russia scandal has fully saturated every movement in Washington. It's real, some may be exploiting it, but the data is there and it's real.

[kcr]

17. Agreed. This article is just concern trolling bothsiderism

with a heaping dose of false equivalency. Yeah, shakey sources on Trump's connection with Russia JUST like the Obama Birthers!

[Cha]

31. Right, RB.. I just ask the OP what VOX

thought about this in LBN..

Trump-Russia probe now includes possible cover-up, Congress is told

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10141779430

And, why isn't ryan a ******* traitor? From the OP..

"Paul Ryan is a traitor for refusing to investigate Trump’s Russia ties."

Thanks for calling this out

[SwissTony]

20. Funny. Seems like the FBI are interested in this. Those liberals!! n/t

[TomCADem]

21. Yup. Stop relying on FB as a news source...

...nt

[Bear Creek]

22. Ayn Rand

That one I have been saying. Not just the conservatives. She was horrible and everyone that I have met that thinks she was great is also. There might be someone out there who is not just have not met them yet.

[SpankMe]

23. This Vox article is a good piece.

Kind of long, but worth reading. We can't become willing fake news victims like conservatives are. We must remain skeptical and on our guard.

Let's keep this article in mind and get our news from main-line sources, like NYT, WaPo, McClatchy and such.

[SecularMotion]

24. K & R

[demmiblue]

25. .

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

26. Everyone is susceptible to confirmation bias.

Read these sources if you wish, but don't be in too much of a hurry to jump on the bandwagon; the stuff that's really (verifiably) happening is amazing enough. We don't want to fall into the same kind of trap as the believers in child molesters in pizza parlors.

[LisaM]

27. But I don't know anyone who's falling for any of this.

I don't get forwarded any of this, with the exception of the Palmer Report, which I largely ignore, though at least it links to real stories at times. I never take the Palmer Report at its face. I HAVE been forwarded stories about liberals being paid $1500 to protest and a few other choice morsels from the far right fake news.

[LovingA2andMI]

29. About Time!!!

Somebody told the truth about this crew!!!

[Cha]

30. Trump-Russia probe now includes possible cover-up, Congress is told

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10141779430

How does Vox feel about that in LBN?

"Paul Ryan is a traitor for refusing to investigate Trump’s Russia ties."

Looks about right to me..

[demmiblue]

32. .