Russian hired 1,000 people to create anti-Clinton 'fake news' in key US states during election, Trum

[elmac]

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk

The Kremlin paid an army of more than 1,000 people to create fake anti-Hillary Clinton news stories targeting key swing states, the leading Democrat on the committee looking into alleged Russian interference in the US election has said.

Senator Mark Warner, the Democrat ranking member, and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Republican Senator Richard Burr, appeared together at a press conference to give an update on the investigation ahead of the first witnesses appearing today.

Mr Warner said: “We know about the hacking, and selective leaks, but what really concerns me as a former tech guy is at least some reports – and we’ve got to get to the bottom of this – that there were upwards of a thousand internet trolls working out of a facility in Russia, in effect taking over a series of computers which are then called botnets, that can then generate news down to specific areas.


“It’s been reported to me, and we’ve got to find this out, whether they were able to affect specific areas in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, where you would not have been receiving off of whoever your vendor might have been, Trump versus Clinton, during the waning days of the election, but instead, ‘Clinton is sick’, or ‘Clinton is taking money from whoever for some source’ … fake news.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/russian-trolls-hilary-clinton-fake-news-election-democrat-mark-warner-intelligence-committee-a7657641.html

---

Most of us knew about this in dec. Now its official

[hibbing]

1. Well gee

If only we had some kind of media that would have debunked these, or at least some of them. I am sure our corporate media were all "some people are saying", or "there have been reports of...", just like the current occupant of the White House has been doing for at least a decade.

Peace

[elmac]

4. tRump himself was using these fake news items in his speeches

and his brain dead minions ate it up

[Ohioblue22]

6. so did many dems

[Turbineguy]

2. Read my lips.

Mr. Putins lips that is. He and trump have lots in common.

[FakeNoose]

48. I know for a fact those stories

... were all over Yahoo and Facebook. I'm sure many other sites had them too.

No effort was made to stop them either because they were paid-for "advertising."
Extremely stupid people read them and forwarded them to all their friends like they were revelations.

[RDANGELO]

3. Could this lead to a plea for reelection. n/t

[elmac]

5. No

after bush was appointed pres we found out that Gore won FLA and was the real pres but nothing was done about it then so nothing will change this fraud election.

[Ohioblue22]

8. nov 8th was and is our only chance hopefully that will sink in to dems

who decided not to vote for the party nom

[Kingofalldems]

7. And they were all over DU.

[dalton99a]

11. +1

[wildeyed]

23. This place was crawling with them.

At the time, I couldn't decide if they were very, very young or spoke English as a second language. Now we know....


A thing that hasn't been discussed as much is how much anti-Clinton content was generated by computer algorithms. About the same time I noticed a big uptick in posters who didn't have a strong grasp on basic English grammar and colloquialisms, there was also a huge increase in posters using buzz words combined with simple logical fallacies to smear Clinton and derail legit discussion. There is always some of that, but suddenly, it metastasized.

It was so simple to do.... I programmed a random phrase generator that could do it in under 15 minutes. Something like 'Smear word (Corrupt OR Oligarch) + Hillary Clinton + false equivalency (is the same as OR is worse than) + name of a conservative we all hate (Newt Gingrich or Karl Rove or Margaret Thatcher)". Press 'Go' and it could spin out an endless variation on the same theme. And it sounded exactly like half of the crap I was reading here and at other 'progressive' sites!

If I could do sentences that easily, someone with actual technical skills could easily create an endless stream of nasty articles and blog posts. Add that to 1000 people spreading the mess around and auto-posting it to a bunch of dummy Twitter accounts, and voila! Instant troll infestations of epic proportions!

[mopinko]

37. they asked specifically for mirt volunteers who could work the overnight shift.

i feel for the admins here. they built this lovely home, and had a hoard of spies come in and shit all over the carpet.

maybe we should all set our time stamps to russian time zones.

[Lulu KC]

9. Is it just me--

or does it seem like the same story keeps appearing as if it is new over months and months? Didn't we already know this? Or am I having clairvoyant dreams?

[Skittles]

10. are you talking about this story?

it's coming up IN THE COMMITTEE

[KittyWampus]

13. I had same reaction. Furthermore, Warner says trolls were in Russia. Reports say Macedonia

and other countries. Not just Russia. Maybe it's sloppy reporting.

Maybe I'm just super frustrated.

But the excerpt in the OP is old news and not anything an Intelligence Committee with security clearances would need to find out.

Maybe part of the importance of this is to get information to those who aren't paying attention.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. During the hearing

it was mentioned that there were probably several Russian-directed groups controlling bots and info to fake news sites like Sputnik and RT. And we all know about RT here on DU.

[Lulu KC]

31. Got it

I just need to get into this groove that everything we all have known, that has continued to be ignored or denied as fake, is now going to sound like a huge investigative victory. Better late than never. But I heard a story on NPR yesterday about how people aren't able to keep all these Russia stories straight and they're starting to lose interest because, "It's like Benghazi." I think I may have screamed alone in my car, "IT'S NOTHING LIKE BENGHAZI!!!! WAKE UP!"

Thank you. I'll go find a way to escape for the remainder of the evening.

[elmac]

15. Its been rumored, mused about since December

but this is the first official proof via committee. We need to keep harping on this and other Russian intervention or else wash and repeat next election.

[mr_lebowski]

46. Unless there's more in the article, it sounds like not even 'proven' yet ...

More like 'this is what has been reported to me, now we need to get down to determining whether it's true' kinda deal. That's how I read the OP anyway.

[wildeyed]

24. It's just you.

[Lulu KC]

32. I was pretty sure

[ffr]

12. American voters need a course in critical thinking.

Instead of the addiction they have to Fox Noise and RW talking heads, who are paid to broadcast talking point propaganda for the GOP. Throw all that crap out. Stop watching and stop listening completely. They'll feel relieved after.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. The web brigades of St. Petersburg, Russia

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/

There now is a new site to address Kremlin active measures, particularly as those manifest themselves online. Note: there is no connection between this site (kremlintrolls.com) or me (@webradius) and the person or persons currently d/b/a @kremlintrolls on Twitter.

http://aktivnyye.com/t/20161125-one_simple_trick.html

Put another way, if you start with any given piece of disinformation and try to trace it back to the source, you're doing it the hard way. Spend a little time observing how disinformation is distributed in support of Kremlin policy objectives and you will start noticing the same people and patterns of behavior. Identify the distribution channels and you will know what the latest Kremlin campaign is not by analyzing the content or tracing it back to a particular website, but by noting who is distributing it, and where.

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.

[certainot]

17. most of their fake news built on 25 years of rw radio swiftboating

of clinton

it just magnified what was already there and is STILL there protecting trump and attacking his critics.

a very good question for the intel committees to ask would be if the witnesses had seen russian use of republican talk radio

whatever the answer was it would be an important question to get out there

[FailureToCommunicate]

18. Totally agree!

Good point.

[TexasBushwhacker]

19. During the campaign, whenever I saw a bizarre anti-Clinton

comment on Facebook, I would check the person's profile. At least half the time they weren't from the US and when they were from the US, they were new on FB and had no friends.

[elmac]

21. on twitter, every pro Clinton post would be followed by dozens of

snide pro tRump remarks, couldn't figure out how so many had so much time to lurk. Now we find out that 1000's of paid bloggers were busy, not just fake news but fake tweets harassing pro Clinton tweets.

[wildeyed]

25. They were a bunch that had privacy completely locked down too.

They would post some outrageous, already debunk smear from 80s or, I dunno, something from Tucker Carlson's website.... Just total bullshit. It got to the point were I could sense when I freaked them out enough that they there were getting ready to delete their entire sub-thread. I would start hitting 'enter' for every single sentence, just to get a few extra licks in before the thread poofed. They were not prepared to debate someone who actually knew the history. Good times, good times....

[Historic NY]

20. How many times did we see the intented activity light up in eastern countries.....

with polls and other political activity. I wouldn't be surprised to find were had many here, spreading distention and false stories. Makes you wonder how much the uber left played into their hands as they seem so susceptible to this sort of trolling especially in the Sanders vs Clinton primary arena.

[former9thward]

22. "Now its official"

Not really. He says "at least some reports". Which is about as vague as you can get. He does not say what reports or who made them. Then "we’ve got to get to the bottom of this". Well, duh, I guess so.

[LanternWaste]

40. I can certainly understand why you would minimize this.

I can certainly understand why you would minimize this, regardless of your duh's.

[L. Coyote]

26. Did they work directly for the Trump campaign?

That's the first question to ask.

[notdarkyet]

27. Did trump tweet he created a thousand jobs?

[elmac]

28. they probably got special unemployment insurance after the election

as in putin hit squads eliminating the evidence

[LovingA2andMI]

29. Thank You Senator Warner....

And He is a Former Tech Guy and Knows His Material In This Area As One of the Founding CEO's of former Nextel Communications.

[Initech]

30. I'm with McCain on this one - this was an act of war.

[YOHABLO]

34. Mr.bomb bomb Iran, would find any excuse for war. Russian infiltration has been

going on for decades, before and since the end of WWII. We don't act out militarilyon cyber attacks. Lives are more precious, in case you didn't know. We just have to get more technologically prepared for the next round. This ain't gonna stop. Trump is so guilty of treason, mark my word on this.

[yardwork]

44. Dick Cheney said that too.

[YOHABLO]

33. They must be targeting the most politically illiterate and ignorant ...oh wait.

that would be 1/2 of the voting population.

[KewlKat]

35. i remember the media asking why the Con's campaign

Was back in MI, PA and WI. It makes sense now. They spread thecfake news and the ba$tard went in to reinforce the lies. Sure seems like the camp was giving guidance.

[PRETZEL]

39. If I remember the threads from yesterday,

I think it may have been Clint Watt(?) who talked about voter rolls and such.

I may be inclined to believe him now. I am going to guess, in my opinion, that in PA especially since I live here, they would have had to target down ballot (McGinty vs. Toomey) as well. I haven't gone back to check, but I remember that even though this race was tight anyway, to have Trump win and not to have Toomey win, especially given the swing in Trump voters, might have raised more red flags than were initially raised.

[Bengus81]

36. KICK to the top..............n/t

[andym]

38. New blueprint for Right Wing billionaires: targeted fake news

Russia is the innovator, but almost certainly Koch brothers and their ilk will perfect the new technique of slandering with targeted fake news on the internet. Slanderous pamphleteering has a long history is America going back at least to when Jefferson was accused of being an pro French Revolution atheist. This is the high tech version.

[Initech]

45. I'm sure Russia learned it from us.

Remember Citizens United? That was pretty much the beginning of fake news. And then it turned into Fast & Furious, which turned into Sandy Hook Truthers, which turned into Clinton Cash, which turned into Pizzagate. It's what I believe is technically known as a shit storm. And it will get worse.

[Achilleaze]

41. and republicans gleefully Assumed the Position against America, and for Russia

that's what deplorable is all about

[nycbos]

42. I was here before the hack...

... so I have to ask?


What were their DU user names?

[yardwork]

43. I'm so disgusted with everybody who believed these obvious lies.

[SunSeeker]

47. Thank you, Senator Warner.

We are relying on you amd your committee now that Nunes froze the House committee.

[Blue_Tires]

49. Greenwald and Snowd- yeah, you know the rest...

I'd predicted their now-infamous leaks would have a short shelf life, but even I didn't think it would be this short...