Advertisement

Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News
Friday, October 11, 2024

Josh Marshall: Before social media foreign subversion became a staple of partisan politics in the U.S., the first journalist to write about the topic for a big mainstream audience was Adrian Chen. He published a piece in The New York Times Magazine in June 2015. [T]his issue of social media and the ability of foreign actors and domestic actors to play about with the vulnerabilities and divisions in American society is real and a big deal quite apart from anything to do with Donald Trump. It won't be going away.

More

Comments

Admin's note: Participants in this discussion must follow the site's moderation policy. Profanity will be filtered. Abusive conduct is not allowed.

In an instance of uncanny timing, Chen published his piece only a couple weeks before Donald Trump announced his presidential campaign and began his semi-hostile takeover of the Republican Party. Trump and that Russian troll farm would be permanently linked. The original piece didn't intersect with partisan politics. At one point, the trolls were spreading panic about an entirely fictitious chemical spill in Louisiana. In the fall of 2014, they were hyping the eventually-contained U.S. Ebola outbreak. The accounts seemed simply intent on sowing panic or distrust in official institutions, perhaps a proof of concept for something more ambitious in the future. Only a few months later, Chen noticed that the list of troll farm accounts he'd followed for the original piece had suddenly rebranded as Trump superfans.

The rest, as they say, is history. Things turned out much better for Donald Trump than Yevgeny Prigozhin. But I was reminded of this in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene and in advance of Hurricane Milton. There is abundant evidence that Trump, his campaign and his followers are going to town inventing and amplifying a range of conspiracy theories about the hurricane aftermath. But it seems almost certain that they're sharing the arena with latter-day versions of the IRA, whether they're housed in Russia or China or Iran or various other countries. This was the original aim of these efforts, quite possibly the deeper aim than assisting Donald Trump, which was more a means to an end: creating confusion and panic, sowing division within the United States and weakening trust in civic institutions. But weak social trust and division isn't something foreigners can do themselves on Twitter any more than they can create a social and political flesh eating bacteria like Donald Trump. These are social weaknesses at the heart of American society. They may be more or less unique to the contemporary U.S., or something more general in global early 21st century life. But they are strategic weaknesses for the U.S. on a global stage and are recognized as such by unfriendly foreign powers.

RCade was right on top of this before the 2016 elections as seemingly more and more evidence of foreign interference in our electoral process became public knowledge day after day from late Spring to beyond Election Day itself. And it's still going on, likely right here on this blog as well, continually sowing division with lies and disinformation that quickly takes root in the fertile minds of gullible citizens either unable or unwilling to try and discern the fiction from the endless fountain of lies and distortions prevalent throughout social media and disreputable mainstream partisan media outlets.

#1 | Posted by tonyroma at 2024-10-11 11:44 AM | Reply | Newsworthy 3

Duh. Now that the whole world is connected online, our enemies can just use our own freedom and democracy against us to bring us down from within. Russia couldnt afford to threaten our military. Driving half the nation insane with propaganda was much cheaper and also more effective.

The only surprising part is that republicans now welcome it.

#2 | Posted by SpeakSoftly at 2024-10-11 06:10 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 1

Any time spent on social media would confirm. And this will continue to be a problem as long as people can post anonymously.
Having your real name on there would certainly cut the misinformation and general s--tposting by a huge margin, but Zuck isn't giving up the clicks, regardless of the consequences.

#3 | Posted by morris at 2024-10-11 09:01 PM | Reply

Rcade gave us a means to protect ourselves from trolls. It's called Killfile. Use it!

Also, don't feed them. They gorge themselves on attention, knowing that you've at least read their post.

#4 | Posted by Twinpac at 2024-10-12 02:44 PM | Reply

Once a Russian troll is spotted here they quickly dissappear when their posts go ignored only to grow one or more heads often posting back to back to amplify their posts making it appear their posts are coming from different people but it actually is coming from the same paid troll from the troll farm.

#5 | Posted by AlternateFacts at 2024-10-12 03:53 PM | Reply

ALTERNATEFACTS

Just keep hitting that killfile option. It's free and effortless.

#6 | Posted by Twinpac at 2024-10-13 08:16 AM | Reply

Comments are closed for this entry.

Home | Breaking News | Comments | User Blogs | Stats | Back Page | RSS Feed | RSS Spec | DMCA Compliance | Privacy | Copyright 2024 World Readable

Drudge Retort