
Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say - dsr12
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/2016/11/24/793903b6-8a40-4ca9-b712-716af66098fe_story.html
======
DenisM
As of this moment nearly every top level comment claims that sensationalized
news is just as bad as manufactured news.

Come on guys, there is a huge difference. Lumping together everything you
don't like about X is not a productive way to address individual problem. It
really only helps to give yourself an excuse to throw your hands up in
frustration.

~~~
tomp
This right here is the problem:

[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-25/washington-post-
nam...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-25/washington-post-names-drudge-
zero-hedge-anti-clinton-sophisticated-russian-propagand)

When the idea of "fake news" is used to discredit sites like ZeroHedge and
WikiLeaks as "Russian propaganda", you know it's not about fakeness/truth, but
only about control - in other words, propaganda.

(I'm not saying that ZeroHedge is a quality site, far from it - but they've
_always_ been anti-establishment, pro-conspiracy theory, and they haven't
changed their stance during this election campaign at all.)

~~~
tptacek
No, it's not. It's a problem you have. It's not the same problem as fakenews,
which is a form of webspam and has nothing to do with the case for Wikileaks
being an instrument of Russia.

~~~
tomp
Clearly, "fakenews" is a problem only _some_ people have - otherwise, it would
be considered a "problem" even before the election!

It's very similar to "election fraud" \- before the results, when Democrats
were confident they'd win, Trump warning about election fraud was branded a
lunatic, a threat to democracy, now we have the same situation on the other
side but suddenly it's "the right thing to do" (smart and trustworthy people,
e.g. Nate Silver, have dismissed the claims).

The bias is obvious for all neutral people. If a problem is only a problem
when you have it, it's not a real problem, merely propaganda.

~~~
tptacek
No. The story is about fakenews. It's not about whatever other problems you
might have. Talking about a specific problem doesn't mean we're disposing of
other problems. On the other hand, requiring us to talk about other problems
before we discuss a specific problem is a form of censorship (or trolling,
which often has censorship as its ultimate aim).

------
exabrial
Sadly, CNN, fox, CBS, Huffington Post, et all spread sensationalized fake news
for the last 8 years (while ignoring Obama's abuses with the NSA, TPP,
executive orders, ect) and this only has become an issue since Trump was
elected. The train left the station a long time ago, but was willfully
ignored. There simply is no integrity in reporting these days, though I would
grateful to be proven wrong.

~~~
tptacek
There is a huge difference between fakenews, like the "Denver Guardian" fake
newspaper site that ran stories about HRC being involved in the death of FBI
agents in order to rack up tens of thousands of dollars from impressions, and
sensationalized news.

Every time this topic comes up, we have to tediously explain the difference,
not because the difference is hard to understand, but because people seize on
the name "fake news" as an excuse to attack the media. There's nothing wrong
with media criticism, but you shouldn't write it in a way that obscures to
readers what these stories are actually about --- webspam farms running
entirely fabricated stories.

~~~
cmac2992
It becomes a finer line when you have the Washington Post reporting (more
accurately reporting an "expert" claim) that hillary Clinton may have been
poisoned on 9/11 by Putin.

~~~
pas
Umm, could you link to that maybe?

~~~
cmac2992
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-
lead/wp/2016/09/12...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-
lead/wp/2016/09/12/the-man-who-discovered-cte-thinks-hillary-clinton-may-have-
been-poisoned/)

Even though they aren't claiming these claims are true, its at the very least,
incredibly misleading. They spend most of the article talking about how Putin
has poisoned people in the past, and talking up the Drs credentials. There
should be a disclosure that the claims are unsubstantiated. Or it should never
have been posted.

That said the Washington post did some of the best reporting this election
season.

~~~
smt88
There was no "claim" to disclaim by saying it's unsubstantiated. The original
tweet was just that Clinton should be tested for poisons, not that she was
definitely (or even likely) poisoned.

It's true that headlines like these cause people to become certain about what
is an unsubstantiated idea. But it's also within the realm of possibility that
Putin did try to poison Clinton. It would be far from the most egregious thing
he's ever tried to do, and (as the story describes) he's done it before.

------
cinquemb
What's the end game here? What are we supposed to get riled up about now?
Didn't some experts at the very prestigious Princeton University release a
study already confirming the state of affairs we're left in the US (and
arguably the rest of the world)?

I'm in complete and utter disgust, thanks Washington Post for waking me up.
Which Soros' funded NGO's can I apply to for my daily rations of cookies and
riot gear?

"What difference, at this point, does it make?" \- Hillary Clinton

PS: Maybe Bezos should authorize linking this post in the black Friday emails
I've been getting lately, and for every person that clicks through, they can
get a further discount! Im sure more others are bound to become "woke" (thats
the phrase people are using this days, no?).

------
sprucely
There is only one thing I can think of that would be worse than the spread of
fake news, and that is legislation to address the spread of fake news.
Unfortunately, that's where this is leading; if not in the Trump
administration, then in the following.

~~~
smt88
It's already illegal in the US for a corporation to lie about its products.
It's not unreasonable to expect that some organizations (i.e. corporations
created explicitly for the purpose of campaigning) can be sued for lying about
their "product" \-- a candidate, for example.

But considering the Supreme Court's historically zealous defense of the First
Amendment (see: Citizens United), we're unlikely to see much change in that
regard.

------
Practicality
I am surprised that anyone is surprised by this, honestly. Russian culture
does not place even as much of a value on truthfulness as American culture
does, and even that is not that high.

It should be seen as a given that there is significant Russian propaganda
working all the time on every issue they care about. _Of course_ they would be
trying to influence the American election.

------
fjdjcjcnf
It is highly unethical to flagkill every comment that disagrees with you. I
suggest you stop doing it

~~~
tptacek
Thank you for reminding me to flag that post.

------
cryoshon
this whole "fake news" narrative arc needs to be fucking murdered, and here's
why:

stories which detail items of unpopular fact surrounded by biased opinions
which threaten the status quo are being lumped in with stories which fabricate
facts and are transparently clickbait.

the first type of story headline: "hillary took money from the saudis and will
sell us out"

the second type of story headline: "hillary murdered young children in 1990"

see the difference? one of the two has a fact regarding campaign finance
(presented in a very slanted yet still correct way) that is tied to a
speculation/opinion (easily identifiable bias) that will validate a broad
range of opinions and potentially begin to form opinions in the uninformed.
the other is a bogus fact that will draw attention and validate the most
extreme already-existing opinions.

the mainstream media is viciously desperate to make the issue of hillary
losing the election into a matter of "too many people fell victim to the fake
news stories which claimed hillary murdered children in 1990. those stupid
republican idiots are just so darn impressionable." this couldn't be farther
from the truth. masses of people falling for headline 2 generates rioting in
the streets, not voting for an "outsider".

people saw the first type of story, and believed it. facts often don't have to
be twisted in order for the reader to arrive at a certain conclusion, and
hillary was laden with a billion of these facts.

the whining regarding russian interference in our election is very much
overblown, as well as cynically ignorant/ intellectually dishonest. the USA
meddles in countless other elections, consistently, via propaganda and other
means. this doesn't make it right when anyone does the same to us, but a
discussion of foreign influence in our elections should be within the proper
context: geopolitical powers meddle in each other's affairs as much as they
think they can get away with.

furthermore, russians did not start propagandizing yesterday. many of the
urban russians are a technologically inclined and cosmopolitan people who are
prolific on the internet, and it is certain that these people are the ones
filling the ranks of putin's propaganda forces. they simply aren't stupid
enough to try making completely counterfactual claims fly-- it's a waste of
their time. the russian angle of propaganda has been (even since the times of
the early soviet union) a kernel of undeniable and ugly truth, which can be
opined upon within a range of speculation. you could say that in this
election, their angle was "hillary clinton is corrupt". this angle of
propaganda only works if people immediately recognize the kernel beneath the
headline, and identify with the sentiment.

for many people in this country, "russian propaganda" fit cleanly with their
own domestic "not-propaganda" media sources. so what if it was the russians
feeding information to wikileaks? for many people, the relevant facts of the
matter pre-emailgate were exactly the same as after. calling the real
development of narration around the kernal of hillary clinton being corrupt
"fake news" is a massive disservice to the public, as well as abject denial of
the situation. voters didn't like hillary because they thought she was
corrupt. there were many media which supported and fostered that dislike,
using facts. there were many other media which fostered that dislike using
fictions. don't throw the fact out with the fiction, regardless of the source
of each.

btw: i voted green party, not in a swing state. if that makes any difference
to you.

\---

this is the part of my comment where i make a lofty call for improved critical
thinking training for our citizenry. the way to kill the problem of propaganda
is not via suppression of inconvenient storys, as zuckerberg wants to do with
"fake news", but rather an increase in general ability to identify and
deconstruct malicious thoughtware. there are a few easy rules of thumb that
could help people a lot. maybe i'll write them into an ebook. the problem is
that a lot of people don't give a shit about critical thinking, and find any
kind of intellectualizing to be faggy.

~~~
tptacek
"Hillary Clinton is involved in the death of an FBI agent", or "The Dalai Lama
joined Putin in blaming Obama and Clinton for ISIS", or "The Pope endorsed
Donald Trump" aren't "unpopular facts surrounded by biased opinions". They're
_fake news_.

That is the difference between "fakenews" and "biased" or "sensationalized"
news. There is no number of paragraphs you can write that will make the
difference between those two concepts any less stark.

~~~
pabloski
Does "the russians bombed the 100th pediatric hospital in Aleppo" qualify as
fake news? You know, because it is practically impossibile that Aleppo is full
of pediatric hospitals. They need groceries, discos, supermarkets too!

~~~
tptacek
I have no idea, because a Google search for that headline turns up nothing.

------
zappo2938
So what? "Eighty-three percent of Americans identify themselves as
Christians." I don't see how this is different from all the people knocking on
my door telling me about the good news, er, um, the fake news, from 31 AD.

------
Kenji
Let's be honest here: The information war was fought on both sides. You had to
dig through the mud to find any reliable news. I consumed a healthy mix of
pro-clinton western media, RT, candidate videos straight from rallies and
leaks like wikileaks or the video where Hillary stumbled. That's how you get a
good overview.

~~~
tptacek
You cannot in fact improve the overview you get of current events by consuming
outright fabrications, which is what we're discussing in this story.

~~~
Kenji
I disagree. By seeing the propaganda from both sides, you get an insight into
who has which goals. The only things you miss out on are the things they all
want to hide and the only things you get wrong are the things they all lie on
in the same way. It's like cross-examination in a courtroom.

