Breaking: Russian-funded Facebook ads backed Stein, Sanders and Trump
Source: Politico
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein was the beneficiary of at least one Russian-bought ad on Facebook that federal government officials suspect were intended to influence the 2016 election.
Other advertisements paid for by shadowy Russian buyers criticized Hillary Clinton and promoted Donald Trump. Some backed Bernie Sanders and his platform even after his presidential campaign had ended, according to a person with knowledge of the ads.
The ads show a complicated effort that didnt necessarily hew to promoting Trump and bashing Clinton. Instead, they show a desire to create divisions while sometimes praising Trump, Sanders and Stein. A number of the ads seemed to question Clintons authenticity and tout some of the liberal criticisms of her candidacy.
There is no indication Stein, Sanders or Trump was aware of the advertisements, which were described to POLITICO by people with knowledge of them.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/26/facebook-russia-trump-sanders-stein-243172
GusBob
(7,286 posts)Were they posted? Let's see them!
kstewart33
(6,551 posts)But it's going to be awhile. Congress is getting them from Zuckerberg. Probably will be leaked from there.
Response to kstewart33 (Reply #3)
Post removed
Cracklin Charlie
(12,904 posts)He has no loyalty. His objective is chaos.
Response to Cracklin Charlie (Reply #20)
Name removed Message auto-removed
trueblue2007
(17,138 posts)to give more votes to trump. their point was to take many votes away from Hillary
ananda
(28,783 posts)That was to help 45 and hurt Cllinton.
Eliot Rosewater
(31,097 posts)RIGHT
Kimchijeon
(1,606 posts)However I am afraid there are plenty of gullible people who will fall for this and continue to let it divide us.
💔
kstewart33
(6,551 posts)I posted a news story.
Note that the news story stated: "There is no indication Stein, Sanders or Trump was aware of the advertisements, which were described to POLITICO by people with knowledge of them."
The Russians pursued a "divide and conquer meme," seeking to pull support away from Clinton by attempting to boost support for Sanders and Stein.
If you are referring to me with the "divide and conquer meme," respectfully, that is ridiculous. Personally, I'm interested in Jill Stein's potential participation in all of this given her photographed presence at a dinner, seated at a round dinner table, three seats away from Putin.
Yes, the Russians pushed pro Sanders ads but that has nothing to do with Sanders personally or with his own campaign strategy.
snooper2
(30,151 posts)you aren't a pro at this yet but after a while it may happen
Pugster
(229 posts)Please clarify.
It seems to me if the ads were bought and paid for they should have been posted on Facebook and someone should have copies.
I want to see them for the grammar errors alone
snooper2
(30,151 posts)m-lekktor
(3,675 posts)I would love to see them as well! I haven't seen an ad on facebook since I joined. I don't pick candidates based on a fucking AD anyway.
Fullduplexxx
(7,818 posts)sarcasmo
(23,968 posts)democratisphere
(17,235 posts)Control-Z
(15,681 posts)Orrex
(63,085 posts)They're fine with rubles.
TeamPooka
(24,156 posts)bucolic_frolic
(42,676 posts)So there could be no momentum for HRC
rockfordfile
(8,682 posts)4now
(1,596 posts)24601
(3,940 posts)KY_EnviroGuy
(14,483 posts)Being a big dummy in the social media arena, I wonder if these ads could create enough FB & Twitter turmoil and traffic to bias network coverage.
Never have understood the rabid, relentless coverage of Clinton's invented "sins", both in US and European media.
L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)Trump used Twitter bots effectively to control the narrative and the news. How many of those were in Russia, Ukraine, etc., is a good question.
KY_EnviroGuy
(14,483 posts)What you posted makes it clear those bots do heavily influence overall content - and consequently reader attitudes - on social media. But what I'm asking is how much do heavy trends like that on Facebook and Twitter influence the news coverage of major outlets like ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN?
For example, in the content you posted, if "Trump Rushed off Stage at Reno Rally" was posted 1,000 times or perhaps 5,000 times, would a network like CBS notice that - and allow it to influence news content selection?
Or, do they instead rely entirely on their own independent investigative reporters and editors to select content?
Note that I don't participate in social media, so I have quite an open mind on the issue.
Ilsa
(61,675 posts)frequency would cause a major media outlet to pursue a story, but I remember hearing this story on tv, perhaps as a "as reported by twitter" type of headline.
I don't think the ads have to be direct ads, just minutiae to plant seeds of doubt, maybe even subconsciously, about some narrow aspect of HRC's campaign.
I doubt anyone would own up to allowing an ad to persuade their vote. But studies show that hammering a subject with negative ads has an impact: people will eventually accept some part of it as true due to cognitive fatigue. The brain just can't sort through all of it.
KY_EnviroGuy
(14,483 posts)....that perhaps some of the main-stream media (CNN or NBC, etc.) news desk people got lazy - rather than doing clean, original reporting sourced from their own field people and just picked up on items trending on Facebook or Twitter.
That might explain some of the "clone-like" appearance of many of those headlines by them that you posted in another message.
I've heard that many of the news organizations have had very serious budget problems and have butchered their staffs. What easier way could there be to cut spending and generate cheap coverage than to fire a bunch of your people and just pick leads up from social media? In a competitive market such as this is, it could then become standard industry practice. That possibility is frightening!
Along the same line of thinking, I hope this does not have a negative impact on the quality of our masthead news aggregaters such as AP, UPI and Reuters.
Thanks!
Ilsa
(61,675 posts)CNN,
NY Times
NPR
NBC News
USA Today
Politico
LA Times, etc
Ilsa
(61,675 posts)L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)a real human is using a computer to run a long list of fraudulent Twitter users.
Stand and Fight
(7,480 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)Botany
(70,291 posts)n/t
Ilsa
(61,675 posts)I believe several individuals committed a form of treason in providing information to Russian operatives to hack, steal, redirect, falsify information to turn the election. I also think they didn't stop there. As long as they had access to voter roles in swing states, they either dropped registrations or possibly even flipped votes.
I think anything was possible in this operation. The objective was just to make sure it didn't look too obvious.
Botany
(70,291 posts)How did McConnell know that if he blocked Merrick Garland that he would
have somebody else to vote for the SCOTUS and Ryan is on record telling
his fellow republicans that "we are all family and we keep our secrets"
(rough quote) about Trump and Russia.
Another part of the treason and coup was the non stop and unneeded hearings
into "crooked Hillary" that worked in conjuction w/Trump's campaign, wiki leaks,
fake stories on facebook, and our dirty media that spent all their time on HRC's
emails instead of stories like Donnie Trump went to reform school for rich kids.
Ilsa
(61,675 posts)from Rohrbacher (I think?), and Paul Ryan knew about that.
That is when Rohrbacher talked about Trump and Russian $$$$ Ryan then said
"we keep our secrets." Plus Ryan's political action committee used the data that
Russia got from hacking democratic and board of elections computer.
McConnell also got $$$ from a Ukraine group linked to Putin too.
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/08/03/tangled-web-connects-russian-oligarch-money-gop-campaigns
Donald Trump and the political action committees for Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Lindsey Graham, John Kasich and John McCain accepted $7.35 million in contributions from a Ukrainian-born oligarch who is the business partner of two of Russian president Vladimir Putin's favorite oligarchs and a Russian government bank.
During the 2015-2016 election season, Ukrainian-born billionaire Leonard "Len" Blavatnik contributed $6.35 million to leading Republican candidates and incumbent senators. Mitch McConnell was the top recipient of Blavatnik's donations, collecting $2.5 million for his GOP Senate Leadership Fund under the names of two of Blavatnik's holding companies, Access Industries and AI Altep Holdings, according to Federal Election Commission documents and OpenSecrets.org.
******
Definition of treason
1 :the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family
2 :the betrayal of a trust :treachery Merriam-Webster
24601
(3,940 posts)"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court."
There was a day when an individual could be convicted of Treason against a state - John Brown was executed for after being convicted of Treason against Virginia. Today, courts wouldn't allow such a charge as states have residents not citizens. Another element of Treason is the individual has a requirement for loyalty created by citizenship, permanent residency or taking an oath, e.g. when a non-citizen enlists in the U.S. Armed Forces.
Treason charges are extremely rare. For providing aid & comfort to enemies, you would need to actually have to have defined enemies based on a legal state of war. It's not been tested in the courts whether an AUMF sufficiently defines enemies for the purpose of sustaining a Treason charge.
YOHABLO
(7,358 posts)certainot
(9,090 posts)which is why trump studied talk radio in 2014.
investigators should ask sam nunberg about that
what better way to use a bunch or russians with no clue of american politics than to connect them with the talk radio gods
mdbl
(4,972 posts)It allowed the russian influence in because money knows no loyalty.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)Not Ruth
(3,613 posts)Rut roh
Ilsa
(61,675 posts)No way SBS had anything to do with this.
get the red out
(13,459 posts)Duh!
Madam45for2923
(7,178 posts)hughee99
(16,113 posts)Sanders and Stein?
progressoid
(49,825 posts)Does Sanders have business interests with the Russians?
hughee99
(16,113 posts)Though, shouldn't someone look into it?
progressoid
(49,825 posts)Two completely different things.
hughee99
(16,113 posts)progressoid
(49,825 posts)Russian interference? Yes.
Collusion with the Russians by the Sanders campaign? No.
kstewart33
(6,551 posts)I didn't vote for Bernie, but no way he would be involved in any thing like this.
Stein? Don't forget the photograph of Stein sitting a few seats away from Putin and Mike Flynn in an event in Russia. I'd wager that Mueller will at least question her.
hughee99
(16,113 posts)Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)their main objective is not the election of a single candidate... their main objective for both parties is create chaos within the parties and between the parties...... I think they still dilly tallying
crosinski
(403 posts)Fullduplexxx
(7,818 posts)BainsBane
(53,003 posts)I've seen a lot of it repeated often, even since the election.
lindysalsagal
(20,440 posts)They HAD to be: Russians don't know the finer points of american persuasion tactics.
45 had to know who and where and what.