
Europe Built a System to Fight Russian Meddling. It’s Struggling - dankohn1
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/06/world/europe/europe-russian-disinformation-propaganda-elections.html
======
UglyToad
I really don't get this whole Russian interference moral panic. Like sure,
maybe there are some people paid by foreign governments to target people on
social media, but at the point people are susceptible to that they're already
so addled by other factors it's basically irrelevant surely? I feel like I
must be missing something obvious?

For instance here in the UK there's a huge amount of pearl clutching about
Russian disinformation leading to the vote to leave the EU (Brexit). But I
really don't believe some older folks saw a few adverts on Facebook and that
was it. Radicalisation, such as it is, set in decades before through a news
media that was overwhelmingly anti EU, incredibly biased to the point of being
propaganda and often with no basis in fact.

The idea some Russian millenials in a St Petersburg basement lead to Brexit,
or Trump, or whatever else they're being blamed for now seems utterly
fanciful. Radicalisation for these people set in long before any of this and
it was bought in the shop as a newspaper or delivered as part of your cable
package.

~~~
jessedhillon
If you understand that the goal is only to move a small number of people from
unlikely voter to likely voter (or vice versa) over the course of several
months, given targeting tools that are capable of a high-degree of precision,
it doesn't seem implausible at all. An entire industry exists to take people
from complete ignorance to paying advocate, and I don't see anyone arguing
that the concept of advertising is an "utterly fanciful", "basically
irrelevant" proposition. Voting costs nothing but your time, all you need to
do is convince someone that their ideas matter.

~~~
mistermann
Has it actually happened though, that's the part that seems a bit fanciful.
How have they measured it?

~~~
lkrubner
If Russia launched a missile at a Western nation, but it turned out the
missile was a dud, so when it hits it does almost no damage, would anyone have
the slightest doubt that this was an act of war? It doesn’t matter if the
missile does damage, the mere effort of launching is an act of war. Likewise,
it does not matter if a Russian intelligence operation is successful.

~~~
mistermann
Ok, so is a single internet troll post by someone from another country
sufficient to be considered an act of war? And if so, does this apply to all
countries, or only Russia?

~~~
lkrubner
Why are you asking this question? If Russian intelligence engaged in an action
against the USA then it is an act of war. Everyone knows this. So why are we
still talking about it? I feel like, for some strange reason, on this
particular topic, some people are looking for any possible excuse to argue
against common sense.

~~~
mistermann
> Why are you asking this question?

Because I am interested in your opinion on it.

An even better question is: _why didn 't you answer it_?

> If Russian intelligence engaged in an action against the USA then it is an
> act of war.

For the sake of argument, let's take that as true (I'm curious if it actually
is, I've never read the formal text on what constitutes an act of war, if you
have please share it). Considering that, once again: does this apply to all
countries, or only Russia?

> Everyone knows this. So why are we still talking about it?

Well, now that you put it this way, I think I would like to formally request a
link to where I can read about how a Twitter post (which is an an action) by
an individual who is employed by Russian intelligence is considered an "act of
war". My intuition tells me this is an exaggeration. Or maybe it's just
"common sense"?

~~~
VK538FY
I believe that the grandparent poster could be qualified as rather 'hawkish'.
I hope truly that cooler heads are at the helm of international politics.

~~~
mistermann
I find it fascinating how people's abstract (in their mind) philosophical
opinions can change as you move a topic through different dimensions.

Widespread realization of this phenomenon would make political change possible
imho.

~~~
VK538FY
Sure, but the guy to whom we are responding suggests implicitely that some
hypothetical political meddling is an act of war that requires a war-like
response -- twice with an identical comment, in fact. I don't think that I am
poorly interpreting what he says. Both the US and Russia have meddled in other
countries' politics but I will bet real money that the meddling of the US has
ended in greater disaster that that of post-Soviet Russia. So move through the
dimensions as you will -- this guy wants to let the missiles fly. Troll or
completely barking mad, black or white.

~~~
mistermann
His words say just that indeed, but I doubt he realizes it.

Propaganda works. Even the relatively intelligent are highly susceptible to
it, as can be seen _every single day_ on HN. And this particular propaganda is
sowing the seeds for conflict not just between countries, but also within
countries.

With effort, discipline, and cooperation, I strongly believe something could
be done about it. Certain people happen to be in unique positions to
facilitate the start of this change, which could in turn alter the course of
the humanity. But how one gets them to realize this is something I don't know
how to do.

~~~
VK538FY
The people of whom you speak would need to be gifted communicators. I'm sure
that there are some smart, well informed and well intentioned people on Hacker
News that could argue for realistic, multipolar solutions.

That said, it's an anglophone site for IT professionals. I feel that most
political discussions are steered in the direction of 'good thinking'
progressivism and neo-conservative interventionism. It's the majority
demographic where many of those people live.

~~~
mistermann
> The people of whom you speak would need to be gifted communicators.

Going about it one way yes, but not all ways.

For example, if you could alter the HN guidelines to include new rules like:

\- do not state speculation as fact

\- be careful to not confuse beliefs based on facts with beliefs based on
heuristics

\- just as you realize it is foolish to say "people of ethnicity X do (or will
do) Y", also realize it is similarly foolish (in most cases) to say things
about various groups of people. Realize that you cannot read minds and cannot
predict the future, so do not do it in comments.

\- be mindful that there's a difference between fact and opinion, and it's
often very difficult to tell the difference (errors hidden in axioms, etc)

\- do not lie; _try_ to not write untruths

\- etc (I can't recall all the ideas I've had over time)

If you made some reasonable changes like this, and _actually enforced_ them,
do you think it would not ( _could_ not?) make a change? Perhaps the very idea
seems absurd, but if you stop and think about it for a while, _is it really_?
You can go into any non-technical thread, and it is full of utterly
_delusional_ statements, and it keeps getting worse. I simply cannot believe
people as intelligent as those who frequent HN are not capable of
significantly decreasing this behavior.

I also don't see a plausible way that this problem gets fixed otherwise.
Perhaps some amazingly persuasive enlightened guru could spring onto the world
scene and wake people up, but I have a feeling he wouldn't get a very warm
reception, from a wide variety of powerful people.

~~~
mistermann
> You can go into any non-technical thread, and it is full of utterly
> delusional statements

An even better example (although, the "delusional" charge is a bit heavy in
this case):

I was wrong about spreadsheets -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20417967](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20417967)

Even here, in a largely objective domain, one can clearly see a variety of
strong "statements of fact" (or so the author believes), but if one was to dig
down into each, I suspect you would likely find that the erroneous thinking
ultimately resides at the axioms (heuristics) level.

I would love to know if you even somewhat see what I'm getting at, or if this
sounds like some form of batshit insanity. Most anyone I run into seems to
have a strong aversion to this type of thinking, _kind of_ similar to how
people seem to have a natural aversion to certain conversations (discussions
in "polite company" that go into too much detail about sex, for example).

------
yorwba
> “To be very clear, there is no similar operation going on anywhere in the
> world,” said Johannes Bahrke, a spokesman for the European Commission.

The general idea of spotting and analyzing ongoing disinformation campaigns
seems similar to the Taiwanese system that was recently discussed on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20083829](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20083829)

That also includes a strategy of responding to detected campaigns before they
go viral by issuing counter-statements. The EU might want to do something
similar.

~~~
mc32
The weakness of the TW system is that it relies on the actual official version
to counter misinformation as well as deemed “misinformation”. So it relies
heavily on the official version or official organ to set the record straight.
Which you know, can be problematic for obvious reasons.

~~~
bobthepanda
How else would you present a counter argument to false information? Without
appeal to authority nothing makes a source inherently more or less
trustworthy.

------
akshayB
One of the biggest issues with any system is to stop spread of false
information. All social networking platforms are designed to give importance
to viral content so they can get opportunity to monetizing these things. Most
likely by the time they figured out that there is something wrong with the
content its already been exposed to the people.

------
fmajid
The first thing the EU should do is ban political contributions from non-
Europeans, the way the US does for non-US-persons. Unfortunately this is not
within the remit of the EU, however, and can only be undertaken by member
states.

~~~
tim333
The UK banned non UK political contributions but it seems quite likely that
much of the brexit funding came from such sources. Not proven yet. I guess it
may be a grey area - if Arron Banks UK insurance business is going bust, then
is bailed out by a Russian investor and then he gives money to the leave
campaign is that Russian money in the election or not?

------
VK538FY
In the country in which I live, what I fear the most is Brussels meddling in
the democractic process. Although an immigrant, I have become very attached to
the institutions and culture of my host country. Every move closer to the EU,
of which we are not a member, menaces those institutions. Yet Brussels has no
problem financing NGOs, articles, 'economic research' etc. that want just
that. Some are known, yet for others, the source is quite opaque.

~~~
VK538FY
Responding to myself since I first wanted to note the irony of the submitted
article. Now I'll talk about this.

First, the US has many times interferred in Russian elections. I will not
mention the interference in those of Russia's neighbours, Russia's allies, or
others. So understand me when I find it absolutely impossible to be shocked by
the allegations of Russian interference in the US since at least 2016.
Brussels is an ally of the US, submitted to the NATO and therefore the US by
treaty, and has done similar.

Second, no concrete evidence has been produced that this Russian interference
in the US elections went beyond some tens of thousands of dollars of adverts
in social media. The fingerprints of Russian troll farms are speculation. To
believe some of the commentors here, if someone writes in an online forum that
the EU is bad or we need to improve relations with Russia, then it's a Russian
troll farm. Well I'm not from a Russian troll farm and I'll say (a) that the
economic and political model of the EU has brought suffering and servitude to
many of its members and (b) that it is imperative that western countries
improve their relations with Russia rather than blindly following the
irrational and bellicose positions of the US and NATO.

------
malvosenior
It's incredible that The New York Times continues to chase the Russian troll
story about election interference but not once mention that Google executives
were recently caught saying that they will not allow another Trump "situation"
and they plan to actively manipulate search and news results to make that
happen.

Google has _so much more_ leverage than any "troll" yet doesn't even get a
passing mention because The New York Times and Google agree on which political
party they'd like to see win the 2020 election.

~~~
Consultant32452
Google is in an unfortunate catch 22. If they choose to act, that impacts the
election. If they choose not to act, that also impacts the election.

The most obvious thing I've seen is they appear to be killing off independent
news in favor of the old guard. We'll see what happens as this continues to
unfold.

~~~
malvosenior
The ethical choice would be to not make any partisan or skewed editorial
decisions. As it stands, they're using their immense leverage to advocate for
left wing politics. A story that dearly needs to be told but isn't by the same
mainstream media sources you correctly identify as Google's chosen sources.

~~~
Consultant32452
Left wing independent sources are getting cut too. David Pakman and others
have opened up about how the changes are really hurting then.

------
buboard
I dont know, the idea that people even cared for EU elections sounds
ludicrous. I mean they completely ignored the result in the selection of the
new EU leading person and nobody cares.

~~~
Barrin92
several things: the head of the European comission isn't elected in a popular
election, but chosen by representatives of the respective countries, and then
affirmed by parliament. So that has little relevance to the actual elections
of the parliament itself.

Furthermore cooperation between European countries on election security isn't
just relevant when it comes to EU elections, but also when national elections
are at stake.

~~~
buboard
> the head of the European comission isn't elected in a popular election, but
> chosen by representatives of the respective countries, and then affirmed by
> parliament.

Exactly. All the more reason why people don't care. Having a parliament for
decoration is not something to boast about.

~~~
Barrin92
the parliament is not for decoration simply because it does not elect the head
of the commission by direct vote. The EU is a supranational collection of
countries, not a nation state.

~~~
buboard
Right, there are many other reasons too. I actually agree, and i would wish EU
would stop trying more and more to become a state, and return to being an
economic union that encourages each member to use its competitive advantages
to prosper.

