
Did Russia fake black activism on Facebook to sow division in the US? - kafkaesq
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/30/blacktivist-facebook-account-russia-us-election
======
Caveman_Coder
Some additional news stories on the subject...

\- CNN: [http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/27/media/facebook-black-
lives-m...](http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/27/media/facebook-black-lives-matter-
targeting/index.html)

\- Washington Post:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/russian-o...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/russian-
operatives-used-facebook-ads-to-exploit-divisions-over-black-political-
activism-and-
muslims/2017/09/25/4a011242-a21b-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.html?utm_term=.b9ac8e953d95)

\- CNBC: [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/25/russian-facebook-ads-
targete...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/25/russian-facebook-ads-targeted-
black-lives-matter-muslims-election.html)

\- The Hill: [http://thehill.com/news-by-
subject/technology/352780-russian...](http://thehill.com/news-by-
subject/technology/352780-russians-bought-black-lives-matter-facebook-ad-that-
targeted)

------
zaroth
The story of how a BLM Activist twitter account and Facebook account with
360,000 (fake) followers was trying to organize riots in Baltimore but was
actually run by Russia? And the BLM Leaders shut them down because they were
from out of town.

This guy Heber Brown should be feeling pretty good right now. He even has a
screen-cap of him reputing the Russian agent. [1]

My _one_ question here -- where was the NSA/CIA on this? If Russian is running
such an incredibly nuanced misinformation campaign to incite riots in America,
why the fuck didn't they identify it while it was happening, expose it, and
stop it?

What we have here is either (a) insignificant, or (b) a glaring failure on the
part of US intelligence. But my better guess is that the story completely
falls apart at some point. These always start out so exciting and then utterly
fizzle.

Did you notice the quick turn of phrase? It's no longer Russians influencing
the election, now it's Russian influencing _politics_. When Russian agents are
trying to rally protests in Baltimore, and they are doing it publically on
Twitter and Facebook, let's see all the data and expose it, right now. If it's
actually happening, it should be shockingly easy to detect.

[1] -
[https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154097683603610&se...](https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154097683603610&set=a.423996223609.197367.505488609&type=3&theater)

~~~
Flemlord
> where was the NSA/CIA on this?

Great question. Why isn't the NSA working to secure the systems of Americans
and our companies? Instead, it seems like they are devoting most of their
resources to inserting back doors into commonly used software and generally
subverting secure systems. Oh, and letting people like Snowden steal it all
and give it to Russia. Very frustrating to watch the incompetence,
indifference, or whatever is going on.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
This isn't really the NSA's domain -- they're a more technical agency than
that.

Where the Russians penetrated actual systems -- eg, the DNC hack -- the NSA
was there alerting people and discussing attacks on the systems during the
election. They intentionally _didn 't_ mention the possible collusion between
Trump and Russian during the election, not to be seen as trying to influence
it, but they were anything but silent about Russia attacking US computer
systems.

Combating mechanized state propaganda inside the US isn't really _anyone 's_
job, thought it could fall under the FBI counterintelligence mandate. The
openness with which the US conducts its society operates against it here --
the government doesn't directly manage propaganda and doesn't have a division
tasked with disabling foreign propaganda under the banner of protecting first
amendment freedoms. (After all, how you determine propaganda from funding
people who just happen to think that way in a free society?) There are
numerous reasons that experts in the field avoided collaborating with the
government post Snowden, compounding the ineffectiveness of the US here.

This is a real challenge posed to democracy -- how do we stabilize a national
identity and discourse with open memetic borders and having both a past that
contains some really nasty business and a society divided on pressing social
topics that can be used as wedge issues?

I don't think it's constructive to whine that the government didn't just solve
it for us -- they shouldn't, in a free society. The price of democracy is that
we, as citizens, need to maintain vigilance on constantly be discussing how to
collectively deal with these hard issues.

------
TheAdamAndChe
Recognizing manipulation is one thing, but doing something to help the issue
is another. Most of the ease of propaganda is due to social media. Even if we
enact some sort of digital isolationism, that would be trivial to bypass due
to proxies and government hacking.

The sites themselves(Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc) could change the
algorithms to emphasize local community formation instead of focusing on more
national news, but if that doesn't maximize revenue for them, then they likely
wouldn't do it. Plus propaganda could still be spread on a more local scale.
On top of that, the idea of these social media corporations manipulating whose
stories and meetings can and can't be spread is off-putting to me.

I believe this issue is here to stay. If anything is to be done, then maybe
the government should be transparent about the issue and try to emphasize
social harmony.

Or perhaps the whole Russia pivot is just an attempt to push people into
social harmony. I personally haven't seen any direct proof of Russia's
involvement. It's just the government that claims it's occurring.

------
losvedir
Huh, I have no problem believing Russia, say, bought ads of various sorts to
try to sway the election, and I'm a little surprised at the skepticism here
that it happened. That said, I don't totally understand what the problem is.
It's good to know they did, but I wish the outcome were more along the lines
of a cultural meme spreading that anyone could buy ads so be considerate about
what you believe online. Instead I fear we're going down the road of this
being some grave offence, and "how could the tech giants have allowed this?!",
and Congressional hearings and yet more laws about what you can do online.

------
Zigurd
This kind of influence doesn't have to be obviously coherent, rational, or
consistent. It happens in bulk, and it is to the benefit of influencers if it
appears to be human, fallible, inconsistent, and organic while still driving
toward a goal. Supporting black activism could be 98% off target w.r.t.
propaganda goals, and still be useful to a comprehensive program of political
influence. Similarly, you will find everything from 100% fictional goofball
pizza parlor child abuse wild-ass rumors to completely objective statistically
valid pieces in RT and in Russian influence campaigns.

------
croon
Going off things like this [1], I'm going to say yes. (See location tag)

[1]
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:/...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://twitter.com/AntifaBoston/status/912763777698889728)

~~~
serf
if that's the evidence that Russia instigated black activism in the U.S. ,
where's the evidence that the U.S. government didn't plant a falsely geo-
tagged photo and then bring attention to it in every news outlet that it can
influence in order to instigate U.S. hatred towards Russia?

I don't care either way, but I don't really think that either possibility is
far from probable -- and the barrier to entry for this kind of trickery is
just obscenely low as far as nation-state bickering goes.

~~~
giancarlostoro
My question is a little different: whose to say they weren't just on a VPN on
Twitter instead? It's not entirely impossible.

~~~
imron
You can manually set your twitter location to whatever you want for any tweet,
and the account mentioned above was a parody/troll account.

The idea that this is proof of Russian meddling in the election is laughable.

~~~
giancarlostoro
Interesting I had not considered that either. Thanks for the information.
After years of being a programmer I'm convinced that digital evidence is
really hard to take seriously considering the inability of most of it being
tamper proof.

~~~
imron
Just wait until technology like this [0] becomes more common place, which I
guess will be either the next US election, or the one after that. It's going
to be a crazy world.

0: [https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2016/11/adobe...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2016/11/adobe-voco-photoshop-for-audio-speech-editing/)

~~~
giancarlostoro
Fair enough, also 3D rendering of realistic looking 3D art could be worrisome
as well. If it can be abused someone somewhere will try to find a way to abuse
of it. I wish this were not the world we lived in.

------
SapphireSun
Nothing below is actually evidence, merely assertions that lead back to
military intelligence. If you are skeptical of the Russia story in the first
place, I see no reason you shouldn't be skeptical of this story. The nature of
the "link" is not substantiated. Imagine if instead Blacktivist is a real
activist page that is now roped into the Russia story by reactionaries in
military intelligence. The story is now black people's outrage is manufactured
by Russia in the midst of reaction to the #TakeAKnee protests. What do you
guys think?

"The Blacktivist Facebook account was among the 470 Russian-linked accounts
identified by the social media network and disclosed to Congress earlier this
month, the sources said. The matching Twitter account was among the roughly
200 accounts Twitter identified with links to those found by Facebook.

Facebook shared its findings about the accounts with Twitter, enabling Twitter
to identify 22 matching accounts and an additional 179 accounts that linked
back to those accounts, the sources said. This matching process went beyond
public-facing similarities and included private information that could link
the accounts.

All of the ads handed over by Facebook were linked to the Internet Research
Agency, a shadowy company that U.S. military intelligence has described as "a
state-funded organization that blogs and tweets on behalf of the Kremlin." A
senior Kremlin spokesman said last week that Russia did not buy ads on
Facebook to influence the election."

------
free_everybody
Did they? CNN says they did, because Facebook said they did. Had to click
through to find out that basic information. Thanks, Guardian.

------
robertwalsh0
Lots of Facebook election posts have been flagged and removed - I hope this
one isn’t.

------
thrill
The more resources that are dedicated to political churn (whether externally
generated or intrinsically arising) in a country then the fewer resources that
can be focused against those unfriendly to it.

~~~
tambienben
I agree. Is that a reference to a quote?

The more popular anti-establishment rhetoric becomes, the more that rhetoric
will be adopted by those who wish to use it toward their own ends. Be wary of
what you assume to be true.

I'm thinking of the dual parties purpetrating this specifically, but no blind
eye should be turned to /any/ outside influences.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
It's _extremely_ old strategy to fund internal divisions in a state you want
to undermine...

I actually have had trouble finding a first citation of it happening, because
every reference I've ever found to it (dating back a few thousand BCE) treats
it as an old and established problem to social order.

The newness is in the mechanization of that attack via social networks to
amplify your damage-per-cost and impact several groups at once from across the
globe, but that's merely the industrialization of an old and established
strategy.

This is what warfare between nations looks like. It's what it's _always_
looked like.

~~~
tambienben
I would argue that it is (also) warfare waged against the citizenry by
established domestic political parties/players.

------
jimjimjim
wow, lot's of skeptical post all turning up around the same time all using
similar talking points. did a link to this get posted on some red site?

------
gozur88
Every country on the planet tries to influence US elections to some degree or
another. Why focus on Russia and not, say, Israel or China?

Clinton didn't lose because of Russia. She lost because she was a bad
candidate who ran a bad campaign.

~~~
amazingman
> Every country on the planet tries to influence elections to some degree or
> another. Why focus on Russia and not, say, Israel or China?

This is intellectually lazy. There’s a difference between normal, ethical,
_legal_ influence and malicious psychological warfare.

~~~
asnfaiosnfsa
Please elaborate. I bet you'll find the line is very difficult to enunciate
and still believe in First Amendment type free speech.

------
beaner
Am I crazy to think that the article should contain some evidence for this
claim? It doesn't.

~~~
imron
> the article should contain some evidence for this claim

Nah, they included a question mark in the title, so that makes it alright /s

------
aosfoasb
Every skeptic in this thread is getting downvoted to shove them to the bottom.
Propaganda at work.

------
jimjimjim
just flag the whole thread. garbage fire.

------
jijji
this further puts to bed the russia hacking the election narrative. you dont
have to look far [1] to find the top 100 reasons why hillary lost the
election.

[1]
[http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com](http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com)

~~~
Nomentatus
The top one of that top 100 that has to do with Hillary (two Ls for your
future reference) is that she might be a globalist (supports open borders.)
Yawn. Not even news. True, the Democratic leadership had to resign, they were
cheatin' for Hilary and lying about being unbiased. But they weren't up for
election.

~~~
jijji
its not news that:

1) she took millions of dollars in personal bribe money to give oppressive
regime (Morocco) weapons during her tenure at department of state? (#9 on the
list),

2) took million dollars in personal bribe money to give oppressive regime
(Qatar) weapons during her tenure at department of state (#15 on the list),

3) paid people to start riots at Trump rallys (#5 on the list),

4) Obama had his cabinet picked by the chairman of Citigroup (#100 on the
list),

5) mainstream media collusion with Hillary campaign (#37, #50, #58, #71, #81,
#86, #90, #95, #97 on the list),

etc etc

------
nl
I'm astonished anyone is surprised by this. It's pretty clear to anyone
studying this that Russian linked accounts promoted anyone except Clinton, and
they did it in deliberately provocative ways.

The thing that makes me really upset though is that people on HN doubt this.
Get a Twitter API key and spend a couple of hours looking at it yourself. Look
at the DailyBeast story before the election about the Turkish airbase, trace
the accounts there and see how some of them magically switch to pro-Trump or
pro-Stein. It's completely obvious, and just what you'd expect from a troll
factory.

This wasn't some deep secret FSB operation. They (the Internet Research Group
or whatever the St Petersburg group is named) advertised for people to do it
as a college job.

------
rdtsc
I stopped buying the Russia narrative. It's been going on for too long and the
proof and substance vis-a-vis the hours and effort and noise and predictions
generated from it doesn't add up. It started with "17 intelligence agencies"
and then "Trump is getting impeached on Thursday for sure when Comey has his
hearing", to some ridiculous "golden showers dossier". Yeah it was a good PR
campaign, no doubt, it ran for a while, but then it's time to retire it.

So in this case. First it was FB telling everyone how someone in Russia bought
ads on Facebook for election. Reddit's /r/politics happily started a thread
how this is finally the evidence that proves all these allegations. So ok,
let's wait to see what's there. Expected some alt-right, KKK, white
supremacist ads, but ended being pro-Hillary and Black activism instead. But
of course, that didn't phase the political analysts so now this is also an
evil cunning plan to overthrow democracy here and so on and there are Russians
hiding in the bushes pulling strings. Heck, it could have been ads about
eating more potatoes and political analysts at these news organization would
have found a way to turn that into a conspiracy story just as well.

How much was spent on these adds, how many hundreds of millions? Oh just
$100k. Given the importance of US elections, I would expect every country
which has money to spare to try to influence the results in some way to
benefit itself. Did the Chinese buy ads, the French? I'd say they'd be silly
not to.

Without hypotheticals, here is Qatar giving a $1M birthday "gift" to Bill
Clinton:

[https://wikileaks.org/podesta-
emails/emailid/8396](https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8396)

Now that's some interesting foreign influence worth talking about

~~~
meritt
Your post history indicates that you're not only Russian [1][2], but that
you've also been dismissive of the "Russia narrative" since details first
surfaced [3][4], and you have a very vibrant history of being vehemently anti-
Clinton [5].

You're free to believe whatever you want, but please drop charade. You have a
very obvious agenda and you're doing a disservice to the rest of HN with your
bullshit implication that you "stopped buying the Russia narrative".

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13797023](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13797023)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12793971](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12793971)

[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12973995](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12973995)

[4]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12200173](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12200173)

[5]
[https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+...](https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+rdtsc+clinton)

~~~
marknutter
Anyone else think it's particularly gross when people voyeuristically root
through people's comments history to try to discredit them?

~~~
zaroth
Yes, definitely. I flagged the comment for that reason.

You can disagree with the original comment. You can downvote the initial
comment. You can _flag_ the initial comment. Hell, you could even engage and
reply to the initial comment.

But I don't want to see the personal attack.

