The decline of Facebook and the chilling effect of social media

Russian officials were just indicted for interfering in the election.

So, @gman1225, I’m curious. Do you agree with Trump that this is a witch hunt, and all made up? Or do you diagree with POTUS?

CNN and MSNBC are reporting on the indictments. Are they attacking America and Trump, or reporting news?

CNN and MSNBC only have to be wrong once for it to lead to ‘whatabout CNN/MSNBC!’ in the GOP (or russian social media) operative playbook. And it’ll sell just fine to the weak-minded, which is why they keep doing it.

You’re conflating a lot of issues. Trump has called the idea he colluded with Russians a witch-hunt, not the idea that Russians meddled in the election. The idea that Russians wanted to pollute social media, or even help trump isn’t controversial — although the NSA has moderate confidence in that, the CIA was high. Again, my contention is that the best defense here starts at home.

Some background reading for you: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/13/trump-statements-russia-meddling-719281

You will see trump has largely agreed with intelligence assessments on Russian meddling, with bizarre equivocations here and there that I disagree with.

Scuzz— you are absolutely right that Republicans have long wanted harsher approaches on Russia. This is why obama’s mockery of Romney on the issue was so pathetic. But I struggle to see what exactly can be done. These indictments will never lead to prosecutions.

As for the idea that liberal media is generally intellectually honest, and MSNBC and CNN has only made one mistake or whatever, you are plainly wrong.

Your consistent tactic in discussing this issue is to minimize it or to deflect to false equivalences. It’s not just that I disagree with you, it’s that you’re unwilling to have a discussion. And when you get called out on this, you throw out easy accusations of liberal hysteria, paranoia, or intolerance. You are a classic example of how Trump’s supporters avoid discourse.

-Tom

No one here has a right to know who anyone works for. I think it’s sufficient that people know – and only because he allowed me to reveal it out of personal consideration that we’re friends – that he works for a right-wing media organization. In a way, I do wish he would reveal for whom he works and what exactly he does, because I don’t think it’s as “bad” as people are imagining.

-Tom

So much for the “He wont post in P&R” thing then. Not that I am surprised mind. This is only going to end one way, with someone leaving the site or getting banned. I just hope its the troll who is the cause of all this not a decent member of the community who becomes enraged

I’d cut him some slack on that, as it wasn’t there originally and got shifted over.

The content of his posts in this thread remove any such slack imho. Its the same old trolling lies.

Oh, no need to cut slack on anything else, sure :)

You are a liar.

Isn’t it possible that we have no realistic options to prevent this kind of social media manipulation, other than being smarter about the sources we trust? People here are good at being skeptical of sources. Is the idea that most people are incapable of that? If so, Russia is not reallly the tip of the iceberg. Many people believed Obama was not born in the US because of domestic misinformation. The scale of domestic misformation operations out there already is staggering.

(I am not sure what it means that I’m not willing to have a discussion. I am acknowledging significant Russian meddling, and correcting my previous flippant comment that it just amounts to viewing Facebook photos. However, I do feel a part of discussing the issue is discussing its importance and what to do about it).

Dude, I linked you an article proving my point. Trump believes Mueller’s collusion probe is a witch hunt. He’s literally on record several times on the meddling issue, which is not the same thing. Trump has been upset at the Mueller probe for catching campaign aides like Manafort for pretty much everything but collusion.

No, you are lying. You are a liar.

Yawn.

Glad to hear it. So is it a corollary that you understand how disgraceful it is to suppress investigation into the meddling, to minimize the impact of the meddling throughout right-wing media, and to engage in a smear campaign against the FBI and intelligence community? Because these are all cornerstone of the Republican party and Trump supporters. Presumably you have second thoughts about counting yourself among them?

-Tom

Doesn’t it get tiring pretending there’s some semblance of finesse in the things Trump says? It seems like it would be exhausting. I’ve watched Sean Spicer, Kelly Anne Conway, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders do it professionally, and it seems like such a soul sucking enterprise. I can’t imagine why anyone who has a lick of sense would try it.

Trump has been equally dismissive of allegations of collusion and meddling. He’s repeatedly conflated the issue. He is an idiot who has no idea what’s going on because he is incurious, dense, self-obsessed, insulated, simple-minded, and steadily fed on a content-free diet of Fox and Friends.

-Tom

What do you mean by the “impact” of the meddling – where are the objective indicators of the impact of Russian involvement on the 2016 election? Is it “minimizing” this to simply ask that question at all? I think it’s a reasonable question to ask. From my perspective, there’s tons of misinformation that went out in the 2016 election, including from domestic sources.

How has the investigation into meddling been suppressed? I see that the Trump DOJ just issued several indictments of several Russians related to the meddling. Is the idea that firing Comey suppressed the investigation, even though it’s being handled by Mueller? Is it minimizing the issue to merely ask these questions? I hope not, because they are important.

Some House Republicans in particular have spread lies about the intelligence agencies, and those are reprehensible. Esp. re: secret society at the FBI texts that were misinterpreted, etc. But not all criticisms of these agencies have been unreasonable.

It’s true that Trump’s comments are hard to understand, but it’s very important to not misrepresent them all the same. For example:

This is not true – he has been far more dismissive of the former. And understandably so, because the former implicates him directly.

Protip: when you have a question about something, you can type it into the box at the top right of your browser screen. This will execute a query that will bring you back information about your question. You can then read this information, and it will help make you less completely ignorant. Seriously, just do that with every single question you ask. There are answers out there with 30 seconds of searching.

@gman1225, you do have a sense of humour after all!

-Tom