We are going to be deluged with disinformation. I plan to work through particular examples to show how to evaluate it. The evaluation won’t always be unambiguous, as in this first example.
There’s a Twitter thread making the rounds. It looks like it’s from just an ordinary guy who wants to help defeat Trump.
I won’t post the whole thread. The gist of it is that he knows “the magas” and can tell “liberal Twitter” what needs to be done to get their vote. It’s not different from what we’ve heard from a lot of Republicans – don’t be too liberal, and try to sound welcoming to defectors from Trump.
First: Who is behind this account? The Twitter profile isn’t useful at this point. The thread has been widely circulated, which has probably inflated the follower numbers. The account was created in November 2018, which is pretty recent.
The self-description may or may not be true. We have no way of knowing. And thus we have no way of knowing whether the rest of the thread is accurate or useful. Even if the description is true and the rest is that person’s perception, how do we know it’s generalizeable?
Second: The argument in the thread is not original, just framed in a folksy way from someone who sees “the magas” close up. It privileges white reactionary men and excludes everyone else.
Third: Although the argument that Democrats should aim their electoral strategy at white working-class men is widespread, I have seen no data to back it up. Is it better to go for those marginal voters in swing states or to get out a diverse vote as widely as possible? I’d seriously like to see some data on this.
Fourth: Points the second and the third are potentially divisive. They are a basis for arguing – over nothing, since the argument so far has been data-free – and, further, they tell everyone who isn’t a white working-class man that they don’t count. That’s a way to demoralize them and suppress their vote.
That divisiveness and demoralization is the purpose of disinformation. The argument appeals to preconceptions and devalues those not holding those preconceptions.
Is it disinformation? 7/10 it is. To be honest, the first tweet, an anonymous person posing in a particular way, ready to tell us how to handle something, was enough for me to reject the whole thing.
different-church-lady
Twitter must die before it kills our democracy.
Major Major Major Major
Rolled my eyes before I was even done with the first tweet. At best it’s disingenuous concern trolling…
ETA Honestly it’s so generic you could probably train a neural net to spit these out. Which will happen soonish I’m sure.
Sister Golden Bear
OT: The Hoarse Whisper, who’s an expert on narcissists, has a great take on Trump’s loco lawn sprinkler letter to Pelosi this morning.
https://mobile.twitter.com/HoarseWisperer/status/1207031162344005635
The Dangerman
It is Goebbelsdigook (sp?).
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Sister Golden Bear: As I noted in the last thread, Trump really doesn’t want the first paragraph in his bio to note that he was impeached.
different-church-lady
@Sister Golden Bear: It’s hard to believe any Republican Senator can look at that thing and not go, “Oh, fuck it all, let’s just convict his ass and start sweeping up the pieces.”
MuckJagger
The guys I know back in my hometown would vote for Trump over Jesus Christ himself — they’ll readily admit Trump lies a lot but they know he hates the same people they do.
yellowdog
@different-church-lady: Facebook first!
MJS
Self-aggrandizing in the way Rick Wilson is (“I know how to beat Trump, and Democrats don’t”)? Definitely. Disinformation? I’m not so sure. A cursory review indicates there are links to other actual, verifiable, anti-Trump voices. So either he is going overboard in trying to appear real (and undermining whatever point he’s trying to make in the process), or he’s legit, but his central thesis is wrong.
Anyway, that’s my take.
chopper
@The Dangerman:
a gish gallop of bafflegab in a bag.
or, a…gishgafflebag.
Kay
Baud.
karen marie
@different-church-lady: Let’s kill Facebook first, please.
AliceBlue
@Sister Golden Bear:
This is the letter that the Associated Press referred to as “fiery.”
(Pounds head on desk).
Enhanced Voting Techniques
We have plenty of Liberals in Economically (as in white trailer trash dumb ass and proud racist) country (and I can say that because many of those racists are my relatives) as regulars to this blog and they don’t talk like this guy. In fact most of them say don’t waste your breath on these idiots. At best this is a former Republican who finally got it that Republicans suck ass and looking for a conservative friendly party for his vote since he still can’t bear to vote Blue.
Another Scott
@different-church-lady: Twitter is horrible for attempting to have reasoned discussion. It’s good for posting links for longer-form things to read, but that’s about it, IMHO.
The fact that this was on Twitter kinda automatically means that it’s overwhelmingly likely to be agitprop.
(No disrespect to Cheryl and other sensible people who do a great job in trying to tamp down a bunch of nonsense there.)
Cheers,
Scott.
catclub
@Kay:
Mike Bloomberg. Fiscal conservative, socially liberal.
who knew?
artem1s
No way this guy is a progressive in MAGA clothing. Mansplainers appease themselves and all those like them. The writer is trying to keep the already dis-informed in the fold.
different-church-lady
@AliceBlue: Well, dumpster fires usually are “fiery”, yes….
mapaghimagsik
I, for one, care about as much as what Mr. Wranglerpants has to say possibly as much as he care for what I have to say.
Frankly, the trolls are better here, and more concerned.
Kay
@catclub:
Are they economically conservative yet socially liberal, white working class? They’re not. They’re the opposite.
I just don’t find this persuasive. I know they like to THINK of themselves as economically conservative, but they in no way are. They’re also fairly proud of being socially conservative, in my experience, so that doesn’t work either.
Wag
All of this as well and good, interesting elements of the day is George Conway’s bid in The NY Times. .I would be interested in people’s thoughts and responses to it. One thing I would love to see is the interaction between Kelley and and George tonight. That would be hugely entertaining.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/opinion/lincoln-project.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
artem1s
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
the first line in his bio is going to be much worse than that. Impeachment is foregone. No way Pelosi lets it go to a vote without knowing the outcome. Whether she sends it to the the Senate and they vote to remove, that’s another story.
cmorenc
The Russian disinformation campaign even seems to have infiltrated today’s Raleigh impeachment rally by making the projected weather at 5:30 local time appear discouragingly rainy and cloudy instead of invitingly sunny. Must…resist…getting influenced to believe I’m actually getting wet from the rain instead of the factual truth that I’m warm and dry. But hey, it does seem like the bots are conducting a really convincing weather disinformation campaign from looking outside right now.
Betty Cracker
I know people in real life who make those same arguments. They’re wrong, IMO, but they aren’t bots.
Also, does the tweeter deserve skepticism because he posts anonymously? True, we can’t verify his self-description, but I don’t think that necessarily means we can’t judge whether the thread is accurate or useful. I take your point in that maybe this person is making everything up and offering bad advice for ends of his own, but isn’t that true in general? Even among people who post under their own names, such as WaPo columnist Hugh Hewitt?
The “disinformation” I find most alarming is when people spread outright lies rather than airing dumb and/or controversial opinions, e.g., “Hillary sold weapons to ISIS!” [actual highly shared fake news item on Facebook in 2016] vs. “Hillary is more likely to start a war than Trump” [something stupid Susan Sarandon said].
Maybe I’m not taking the threat seriously enough, but common sense should be able to overcome a lot of the latter, whereas, the fake news “articles” can be taken as fact by low-info voters.
catclub
@Kay: They will conserve every dollar the federal government sends their way, and ask for more.
janesays
@MJS:
I agree with this take 100%. I think the guy is largely misguided in his beliefs about what we need to do, but I don’t doubt his sincerity. The first tweet in the thread had me rolling my eyes, but when I read through the whole thing, he struck me as being very authentic, even though I think he’s wrong about what he believes our best electoral strategy should be.
I’m really cautious about jumping to the conclusion that every anonymous person on Twitter who purports to be a Democrat but offers bad advice is some Russian troll working on behalf of Putin to meddle in our elections. There are absolutely such people out there, but if you start calling out every single thing you see on the internet which seems even slightly suspect as Russian infiltration (based on little more than a gut feeling), it feeds into the counterargument that online progressives are behaving like paranoid weirdos when it comes to seeing Russian interference everywhere.
Major Major Major Major
@janesays: Cheryl didn’t say anything about the tweeter being a Russian troll; merely a disingenuous and intentionally unhelpful person.
Ryan
It’s definitely someone from the Morning Joe set.
Cheryl Rofer
@Betty Cracker: I’m aiming my analysis at the BJ community, which is definitely not low-information voters. So I’ll be looking at disinformation that isn’t obviously the full-up lies the Republicans have been spouting lately.
It’s not just bots and not just Russian. Many disinformation operations use real people to seed an argument like this. When it goes viral, as this one has, they’ve hit the jackpot and sowed a little more dissension, a little more discouragement.
The most effective propaganda always contains a bit of truth.
I’m pleased to see so many commenters picking this apart.
debbie
@Major Major Major Major:
J.D. Vance must have been bored.
Kay
@catclub:
I’ll say. Have you seen that farm bailout? Good Lord. All the screeching we heard from the Tea Party about bailouts and Trump can’t hand out money fast enough. Not a WORD outta them. It’s HUGE. They may actually bankrupt the entity that holds those funds. They’re going to have set up some phony Trump LLC or something and enter made-up numbers. It’s just all as hinky as hell.
Please explain to me in what sense these people are “economic conservatives”. Is that another way of saying “I refuse to pay for anything”?
debbie
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
The only answer is to print up hundreds of copies of the first paragraph, and in the dead of night, paste them to every available wall in NYC!
Jay
Speaking of disinfo:
janesays
@Major Major Major Major: I know, I should have clarified my second paragraph to indicate I was speaking generally, not about her position specifically. I have no idea who she thinks the source of this misinformation is, be it just some random clown with no direct ties to anybody or somebody working as part of a larger more nefarious concerted effort.
But I definitely do see some people jump to the “Russian bot” accusation at literally anything that seems even slightly suspect, when it’s often just a case of somebody with benign intentions who just happens to be very wrong. I don’t think Donnie Deutsch is some covert agent working on behalf of Putin to try to screw things up for Democrats, I think he’s a guy who genuinely believes (correctly) that Trump is a real threat to the Republic, and also genuinely believes (incorrectly) that someone as progressive as Elizabeth Warren has no prayer of winning the election.
Jay
@Wag:
it’s been discussed in a lower thread, to take it as anything more than Never Trumper Wingnut Grifting is to be a Gullibillie.
ltelf
@AliceBlue:
Well, sure, like a dumpster fire.
janesays
@Ryan: See, this I could definitely see as being true. It sounds like something Mike Barnicle would tweet.
Cheryl Rofer
@janesays: I agree that jumping to “Russian bot” is unhelpful. That’s why I intend to analyze a bunch of different types of disinformation.
John Revolta
I saw the first line as “We are going to be deglued with disinformation”. Which fits, because I often feel like I’m coming unglued nowdays.
ThresherK
It was here, LGM, or somewhere likewise I saw a graph of political quadrants: Conservative to liberal on separate axes: fiscally on the X-axis, socially on the Y-axis.
Basically, the “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” folks don’t (statistically) exist. Whatever next year’s NASCAR Dad is, this ain’t it. But this guy will be interviewed by FTFNYT eight times before Labor Day.
Kent
I call bullshit. This is a total fake post ginned up by someone’s notion of a David Brooks red state guy.
I’ve worked in a lot of red state blue collar professions around a lot of white guys who drive pickup trucks. I’ve never met a single one who would describe themselves as “fiscally conservative and socially liberal” or for that matter, not a single one who would pay the slightest fucking attention to “liberal twitter”
I spent some of my younger years working on big commercial fishing boats in Alaska around some very seriously hard drinking pickup driving blue collar white guys. Some were asshole conservatives. Some were liberal leaning who wanted healthcare for their kids, and environmental protection, and investments in infrastructure, and higher minimum wages, and higher taxes for the rich and corporations to pay for it all. And not one of them would have ever said any sort of bullshit thing about fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Only NYT columnists talk like that.
janesays
@Cheryl Rofer: Fair enough. I’m just not convinced this is necessarily intentional disinformation so much as a poorly informed opinion by some guy who has a very myopic worldview informed solely by his own experience as a straight white guy in rural flyover country. I have a cousin exactly like this guy. He’s a middle-aged straight white man who lives near Stillwater, OK and has fairly progressive beliefs (he has voted for every single Democratic presidential nominee since 1992), but he generally keeps them to himself as he is afraid to be open about them in his community for fear of social ostracization.
I think this is more likely a dumb tweet than it is an evil tweet.
Cheryl Rofer
@janesays: You’ll notice I gave it 7/10 probability that it’s disinformation. It could be some guy. Disinformation takes what that guy says and expands it, perhaps gets it to go viral. Disinformation will sound like what that guy says to make it credible. Which is why I say it can’t easily be categorized as one or the other, although the 7/10 means I lean toward it being deliberate disinformation.
Jay
A). Nobody, not even Famous People, open a twitter account, post a tweet and have it go viral.
B). For an Account/Tweet like this to go viral, requires a coordinated campaign. Retweets by people who know this account/tweet is going to be tweeted, to amp the visibility, purchased retweets to amp it some more, Blue Checkmarks to raise profile, bot networks to spread it around the feeds and move it into the twitter streams of more influencers and blue checkmarks.
C). The average number of followers per Twitter account is 707. That includes accounts like President Obama’s who has several million, and my account, which has 1. When you remove accounts over 100,000 followers, the average falls to 404. Nobody “follows” an anodyne C.J. Vance Hillbilly whisperer after just a couple of tweets, unless there is an organized campaign to do so.
D). There are a large number of analytical methods for “outing” trolls, bots, inauthentic voices, campaigns, but they all require time, more tweets and lots of node and network analysis.
Given what we know do far, this is disinfo, no more, no less.
BTW, yes, there are realistic looking fake Weather accounts, fake Corporate accounts and hacked dormant Blue Check accounts swarming onto Twitter over the past week, along with a host of IRA accounts and bot networks that have been dormant since November, 2016.
Jay
@ThresherK:
it’s called The Political Compass and they have a website. Sadly, it doesn’t impact inherent bias.
schrodingers_cat
The Wrangler pants and the socially liberal but fiscally conservative did not pass the smell test with me. I stopped reading it right then. It was being retweeted by many Never T Republicans.
currants
@catclub:
How someone can blow the millions he has on ads and get away with “fiscal conservative” is yet another of the mysteries of our age. Or media methods, maybe.
Fair Economist
It’s important to remember that a key tool of disinformation, and usually the preferred form these days, is selective reporting – in this case, the Cletus Safari type stuff, which this guy is claiming he lives. Of course such people exist – there’s over 300 million people here. The disinformation comes from reporting about these people while ignoring minorities, the open-minded, women, and youth, without any explicit falsehoods necessary.
Pittsburgh Mike
Wow, I’m almost certain that the twitter stream is real / not a troll. And his advice isn’t wrong, either. What I’m truly surprised by is how almost no-one here even believes this stream could *be real*.
While I don’t understand the fear that the MAGA people have about this country turning into northern Mexico, I have a lot of friends whose family holds exactly these views (not my family, fortunately).
These MAGA people will not switch to voting for Democrats, unless we solve problems they really are worried about. Actually, I’m not sure there’s anything we can do to get the true MAGA people to vote blue. But there are a lot of suburban voters who are up for grabs, and they have real problems as well.
Those problems are things like making the ACA affordable to normal people, not just people who can afford to write a $20,000 check just for premiums alone for a family of 4. For older voters, these problems include trying to figure out how they’ll survive if the Republicans succeed in cutting Social Security and Medicare. These problems include ever rising bills from monopolies like the cable company. These problems include figuring out how to get a second job if your part-time job requires you be on call 40 hours/week.
These problems do *not* include reparations for slavery, or reinstituting school busing. These suburban voters also probably have enough common sense to realize that if the IT infrastructure work for getting 12M people moved onto the ACA exchanges blew things up for months, moving 250M people onto Medicare for All will likely be a disaster.
So, you need someone who’ll focus on suburban and maybe exurban issues. I’ll suggest Klobuchar, since I think Buttigieg is a white Obama who doesn’t get the problems of the working class, black or white; I worry that Biden is too old (I saw him at the Education Forum last week, and he isn’t any more coherent when he has 20 minutes to answer a question than when he has 45 seconds); and everyone else is polling at < 1%.
Jay
@schrodingers_cat:
yup, Wrangler make “jeans” not “pants” so that’s a tick in the non-North American troll column. Everywhere there are significant American Cultural influences, they are jeans, not pants.
Ocotillo
Meh, fiscal conservative/social liberal means I don’t like paying taxes…..
schrodingers_cat
BTW in my guest post thread yesterday, we have a good example of a Sangh troll.
Bupalos
I’m in Ohio, and interact with a lot of serious Magas as well as some people I pretty much know voted for Trump but wouldn’t classify as straight MAGA. Basically everyone in the second camp seems very unlikely to me vote for him again. Everyone in the former class will absolutely vote for him no matter what anyone does or says because it’s WAY beyond politics. Out of a dozen folks I really “know”, it’s split probably 4-8, and I can’t think of one where I think it really matters much who the D candidate ultimately is.
Among white people, this is an election about Trump where it really doesn’t matter who the opposing candidate is. I definitely think energizing the base and pulling out new voters is by far the better strategic move. I think Warren is probably the best candidate for that, in addition to being simply the best candidate. But I actually just think from the point of view of beating Trump, there’s almost no difference in any of the potential candidates.
Jay
@Pittsburgh Mike
Do your friends and family wear Wrangler jeans, which are an upper affordable midclass jean,
Or do they wear Wrangler “pants” which Wrangler hasn’t made since a Disco ‘70’s Epic Marketing Fail?
encephalopath
There is no such things as a socially liberal, fiscally conservative person. This construct is a total fiction. Fiscal conservatism precludes any sort of liberalism. It’s essentially saying, “I don’t want to pay taxes and I especially don’t want any of my money to go to ‘those people.'”
This is someone self-identifying as a conservative asshole, who doesn’t want people to call him an asshole.
Pigdog
He’s got over 10000 tweets, if he’s a troll, you’ve got to admit he’s dedicated to the bit
Jay
@schrodingers_cat:
yup, our first Russian Trained, Sangh BJP Whattaboutist Troll ever. You are attracting such a classy readership//.
and so, so dumb for a troll.
You should get some kind of award for that.
Cheryl Rofer
@schrodingers_cat: The Indian and Pakistani trolls are extremely active. I see them attacking colleagues on Twitter who tweet about the Indian situation. Interesting that BJ attracted one.
Bupalos
@Jay: Great call here. I’ve never heard “Wrangler pants” (or Levi pants) in my entire life. I don’t think anyone of that profile would possibly say that.
Interesting too how open ended this non-endorsement statement is. The account has left itself a lot of flexibility going forward.
It does seem pretty consistent with what Adam has posted about how they operate, it’s grab followers and visibility through just voicing a popular viewpoint. I do think the viewpoint (I’m liberal, but come on guys, let’s not be too too liberal and like validate trans-weirdness) is lowdown fairly common.
Cheryl Rofer
Good catch, all, on “Wrangler pants.” That suggests a non-American.
There are a bunch of things in the diction that I find unconvincing (the “CONT” at the end of every tweet by someone who obviously knows how to thread…), but I thought I’d stick to the bigger picture.
schrodingers_cat
@Cheryl Rofer: He was here in an earlier post of mine as well.
Bupalos
Also if I had to bet right now, just lay down actual money on the outcome of the 2020 election, I’d be betting on a presidential landslide for Dems that includes the entire “midwest” minus Indiana but plus Ohio, blue Florida, NC, Ariz, Alaska and is shockingly close in Texas, maybe 50-47. Given Trump’s historically terrible numbers, every marginal state should fall.
km
I don’t know if that Twitter thread is disinfo or not, but I think it has value as a reminder not to eliminate people from one’s coalition merely because of appearances.
Jay
Data mining the amp networks, followers, retweeters, which takes time, results in the Big Reveal, sometimes networks, sometimes nodes.
BruceFromOhio
@different-church-lady:
Gaia save me, this x 16 jillion
dimmsdale
Cheryl, I appreciate that you’re doing this–it’s important to develop healthy skepticism about random tweets and “helpful” suggestions of the David Brooksian variety, and think through what the tweeter’s end goal is. The tweet you mention is one that I saw earlier today; I re-tweeted it because it struck me as real and worth recirculating to illustrate the damage closed-loop right-wing puke systems are doing to the public. What was the tweeter’s purpose in posting the tweet–to get me to do what, exactly? I’m not sure. Didn’t find anything in it that caused me to re-think, well, anything. (the people he writes about are goners, not worth tailoring a campaign to bring THEM into the tent, because it’s not gonna happen.)
But I look forward to anything we all can do to dissect this sort of interjection and question it a little more rigorously than I did, rather than automatically assume good faith. Thanks Cheryl!
Jay
@km,
Which “appearances”,
– Wrangler jeans or Disco Pants?
– political oxymoronism?
– NeverTrumpist talking points plagerized from Sully or Brooks?
– C.J.Vance fake Hillbillycred?
– faux Duck Dynasty speechifying?
When we “judge people” it’s on the basis of their words and actions. When they reveal themselves to be slime,
then we don’t judge them on their looks, we make fun of their looks.
BTW for those interested, the profile pick of Trump riding Jabba the Hut is a 4Chan/theDonald flip of the anti-Trump meme showing Trump as Jabba the Hut. It’s supposed to be both a “drain the swamp” meme, and a “piss off the libtards” meme, so, another one checked off on the troll list.
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
I haven’t had a chance to read your post, but I was curious. He’s got some, er, interesting pretzel logic-making ways about him. And Google shows his interests aren’t just confined to India.
Jay
@dimmsdale
Retweets boost the profile/tweet and spread the tweet to larger audiences.
Retweets with comment can change or modify the context of the origional tweet, but still amplify the profile/tweet.
tweeting out a comment with a screenshot of the origional tweet, doesn’t amplify the profile or tweet.
When I run across negative content I want to comment on and publish, I use a screen shot.
BruceFromOhio
@Cheryl Rofer:
This is key. A healthy skepticism takes time and effort. Citizens are better off when each takes a moment to stop and think. I could easily have been the twatter guy mansplaining his shit at one time, in this day and age I know you just don’t.
Also, the twatter must die. It’s a known shitshow. Would you read a dirty piece of paper blowing by on the street and treat it as fucking gospel? Of course not. Twitter is the dirty piece of paper. Unless it’s your loved one/SO/birth mother, treat it accordingly.
BruceFromOhio
@Kay: Freeloader.
Jay
@BruceFromOhio:
there are good accounts on Twitter, and there are bad Twitter accounts.
What Twitter has going for it are voices that you otherwise, are never going to hear. Angry Black Lady has a Twittervoice, even though she was driven away from here, not just as a frontpager, but even as a commenter. Emily G was almost killed at Charlottsville by Nazis and Cops, driven out of North America by Nazi death squads, they still have a twitter voice. There are tens of thousands of others, from the Small Houses, Thoughts of Dog, to the MMWM.
so, if you want to “use” twitter, find the voices you want to hear, be aware what twitter is and how even the best of people can get suckered, stay out of the comments.
BruceFromOhio
@Jay: why would any thinking person rely on twatter for weather when NOAA and weather.gov are FREE
Laura Koerber
I have not seen anyone of note make the argument that we could get more
than a tiny percentage of maggot votes. apparently about five percent of the voters went from Obama to trump and thus could swing back.
I thibk we should go for every voter, I reject the assumption that going for maggot voters means making a pitch that is racist or sexist or Christian dominionist. I think our candidates should run on real populist positions meaning positions that are genuinely of public benefit and take that message everywhere for everyone . that will get some swing votes and lay the ground work for more later.
Elizabelle
@Sister Golden Bear: That Hoarse Whisperer thread is incredible.
Someone tweets back that she’s worried Trump is heading for Jim Jones territory.
Hoarse Whisperer:
Genius.
Jay
@BruceFromOhio:
Local weather can be different in some places. Here for example, we use a distant forecast rather than the local forecast because a light rain in town is often pouring rain up here, or snow, or a blizzard, as we are 3200 feet higher than town in the hills, ( mountains to you). So, we use the next town over, that is at the same altitude, is just ahead of us in the normal weather stream, and sits in the same range of hills.
It’s much more accurate.
Twitter has the advantage of also “pushing” information for users, rather than just being a pull system,
and a lot of the Fake Weather twitters are realistic fakes of local news and weather channels, that mirror the real sites and real twitter accounts, right up until they want to screw people around with a “bad report”.
Procopius
You really think that works? I’m so socially inept I came to realize I don’t have the foggiest notion how other people think or react, but I feel like most people I have known would say, “Well, he’s not talking to me.” and move on. That’s why I don’t believe the claim that all these disinformation twits are Russian. Am I wrong — again? I just don’t believe the Russians are that incompetent. Now maybe the 77th Brigade, or Bellingcat, or the Omnicom Group would sell this to their bosses as a worthwhile endeavor. Thay’re in countries that have so much money sloshing around they do things like investing in the $400 package squeezer which is connected to the internet.
Procopius
@artem1s:
Exactly. Although from where I’m sitting it looks possible many of those Blue Dog/New Democrat/intel and law enforcement freshmen will defect. Well, trust in the professional, and I can’t affect it anyway.
cleek
Wow. If that sets off your “disinformation” alarm bells, you really, truly need to step away from the internet for a while.
That’s an earnest not-news-junkie telling you what he sees when he talks to other people. No, he doesn’t know all the online-lefty-activist ways to say everything. But really, people like him far outnumber people like us.
J R in WV
@ThresherK:
Well, my dad was a Republican AND a member of the NAACP, but he died in 2004… so maybe they no longer exist. Plus, my dad was a pretty rare bird even back then!
Procopius
@Cheryl Rofer: I look forward to that.
cokane
It privileges white reactionary men?
I mean, we can disagree about the merits of trying to convert Trump voters. But, if your goal is to persuade Trump voters, yes, in the midst of such a conversation, that is what you’re going to do. I don’t understand why people rely on these cliches in every single context. That thread certainly wasn’t arguing that all *policies* once an election is won need to be subservient to the interests of that group.
Jay
@Procopius
Yup. Nobody ever claimed that the fake news/social media manipulation was All Russians. The Russians starting in 2008 ( that we know of) ran social media/fake news campaigns organized around increasing political and other divisions in the US and the West, ( but the US was the major target). By 2016 they used a troll farm, multiple fake nyms with backstories, for profit retweeters, targetted influencers and bot networks to amp the discord, coordinated with Wikileaks, GOP campsigns and the Doltus Campaign. Where it actually went from a bump in the road to a full on speed bump, was when their disinfo hit the feeds of “centerist”, “conservative”, “libertarian” and “leftier than thou” media.
Also playing in the disinfo swamps by 2016 were domestic and foreign “fake news” sites in it for the money, ( up to $340,000 USD a month), domestic and “conservative” troll/bot/influencer networks that were taking baby steps, ditto for the Sawdi’s and Israelis.
The Russian networks massively outpaced everybody else in numbers, depth and influence, and they were smart enough to use not only Spudnik, RT and other Russian “fake news” sites, but everybody elses, domestic and foreign.
Keep in mind, we still don’t know exactly what the Mercers, Bannon and Cambridge Analetica were spending tens of millions of dollars on.
So nobody claims that all the trolls and bots are “Russian”, but poking fun at obvious bots and trolls, and ID’ing them by variations on Igor, Vlad, St.Petersberg has become an Internet Tradition.
Since 2016, almost everybody has a domestic copy of the Russian Internet Research Agency. Many are national projects, ( Russia, Israel, Sawdi Arabia, Iran, China, UAEetc), some spend their time 99% on domestic issues at home, but pop up in “The West” due to events, ( Venezuela, Bolivia, India, Pakistan, etc). Some of these networks are Government, some private, some dissident, some 3rd Party funded.
Since 2016 however, in the US, domestic troll/bot networks have grown to amount to roughly half the troll traffic. Some of these networks are professional, paid and highly organized. Some are pure amateur, some are organic, and they all interconnect and overlap when they wind up selling the same meme or reacting to events. So you can have the weird dissonance of Nazi Networks, KKKonservatives and ReThug networks amping Biden attacks on Warren or Bernie attacks on Harris as a Cop.
Not all trolls are as dumb as the Bolivian pro coup one, pretending to be a middle class daughter who’s family business was destroyed by the economic policies, but was too much of a moron, or too lazy, to change her twitter profile/photo to match. Her profile says she is a Blond, blue eyed, ReThug student in Ohio, proudly 5 generations American, anti immugrant, gun lover, Trumpist and of good Nordic stock. Now, that could be all be fake too, except the two combined result in a positive troll ID.
When somebody unknown, goes viral on social media, one should always be suspect. Social Media Influencers, people who’s living is “earned” on social media and have thousands of followers, have at best, 1:1000 posts go viral, and these are people who have neteorks and hire bots to amp what they say.
So, Wrangler Jeans or Wrangler Disco Pants?
Bill Arnold
Read a bunch of DumpsterFire45’s tweets. There’s some talent behind that account. The profile (in the thread) is probably misleading. The other tells people have mentioned, not sure. (Also, I know people who say stuff like this, so the persona type at least is real IMO.)
Not entirely sure about motives (truthsense wobbly today) but it does not seem obviously intended to harm the Democratic Party’s chances in 2020.
A network analysis (especially of tweet thread retweets) would be the next step. (Probably should be the first step but I’m not tooled up re twitter apis ATM. [note to self, fix pronto!])
https://www.walmart.com/c/kp/wrangler-pants
The profile (in the thread) would be true if they lived in a red area, drove a pickup truck and e.g. used a computer all day. And Walmart might be the only retailer nearby to buy work clothes. (I have not confirmed that Walmart stores sell wrangler pants; Walmart’s website doesn’t like my VPN’s location of the day.)
First image instance found by tineye is late 2017. Merchandise available.
That’s Putin riding a fat Trump centaur-like fat thing, with Putin holding a string, perhaps to a heart plug ala Dune. (If so, smiling as Dune fan.)
Jonatronic5000
Whaa…? It doesnt say anything about “privilaging white Male perspective while abandoning everyone else”. You went way out of your way to throw the race card there, on a random tweet that wasnt about race. If u wanna know how to evaluate arguments, just do so on their merits. I probably agree with you politically on most everything but still dont care for your argument.