Russian Meddling IS NOT An Attempt to Help Donald Trump
Facebook has recently taken down 32 accounts that they believe were fake and pushing propaganda designed to target the left AND the right. The goal seems to be to get everyone to fight each other. When the media frames it only as Donald Trump and Putin colluding then people on the right assume its more trump derangement syndrome and don't take it seriously. When we hear about Russian trolls meddling too many people only hear about it targeting the right. But they want us fighting, they want the left and right at each others throats. And its working... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ouo8GrUNg0Y&list=PLxQaod7tWvYL-svWumeiRiecB2yrXODIR&index=2&t=0sSupport the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Yesterday, Facebook announced it had taken down 32 Facebook and Instagram accounts for coordinated, inauthentic behavior.
Apparently, these accounts were targeting the left in an effort to spark confrontations with the right.
A lot of people are scared about Russian election meddling, and the midterms are coming up.
One of the things missing from the narrative, and one of the ways in which the media is complicit in this problem, is that everyone keeps focusing on Russia supporting Trump, when we have known for a long time that the Russian meddling, as well as other foreign government meddling, has targeted both the left and the right.
The goal isn't necessarily to get Donald Trump elected.
It's not necessarily to ensure Republicans win in the midterms.
It's to disrupt the U.S.
It's to disrupt our culture.
So let's take a look at exactly what happened with Facebook and Instagram,
and let's take a look at exactly how whoever is behind this meddling is targeting the left.
Before we get started, I've got something new to announce.
I have been officially given access to YouTube memberships.
On any video and my channel, you can see this Join button.
And by clicking it, for $4.99 per month, you get access to an exclusive livestream and potentially more perks as I roll them out.
This is new, I've just started it, so if you want to support me on YouTube, all you've got to do is click that little button just beneath the video.
The story from the New York Times.
Facebook identifies an active political influence campaign using fake accounts.
Facebook said on Tuesday that it identified a political influence campaign that was potentially built to disrupt the midterm elections, with the company detecting and removing 32 pages and fake accounts that it engaged in activity around divisive social issues.
The company did not definitively link the campaign to Russia, But Facebook officials said some of the tools and techniques used by the accounts were similar to those used by the Internet Research Agency, the Kremlin-linked group that was at the center of an indictment this year, alleging interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Facebook said it had discovered coordinated activity around issues like a sequel to last year's deadly Unite the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Activity was also detected around hashtag AbolishICE.
A left-wing campaign on social media that seeks to end the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.
Between April 2017 and June 2018, accounts ran 150 ads costing $11,000 on the two platforms.
The accounts ran 150 ads costing $11,000 on the two platforms.
They were paid for in American and Canadian dollars.
The pages created roughly 30 events over a similar period, the largest of which attracted
interest from 4,700 accounts.
We have known for a long time that whoever is meddling in our politics is targeting both the left and the right.
The leading theory from U.S.
intelligence is that it is Russia doing this, and if you were to ask my opinion, come on.
Of course Russia's probably screwing with our elections.
They're a massive power, and there are probably a lot of other countries that do this too.
However, if you're going to go on the word of the government, that's the official determination that Russians are doing this.
But what people are missing, what the mainstream media is missing, the narrative is continually about how Russia is interfering and helping Trump.
Their narrative is continually about Russian and Trump collusion and the Robert Mueller investigation looking for collusion.
And the problem with this is I don't think Russia was trying to get Trump elected so much as they were trying to stop Hillary from getting elected, or, more broadly, just generally disrupt American culture and politics, because any disruption is bad for business, can slow economic growth, and allow rivals in other countries to surpass us in terms of influence and power.
This story from Slate, May 11th, 2018.
Russian trolls were obsessed with Black Lives Matter.
This story is from three months ago.
It came out way before the latest announcement.
So we know that whoever is meddling, be it the Russian trolls or whatever, they're targeting the left.
One ad was targeted to exclude Hispanics and Asian Americans, but to include black Americans who enjoy the writing of Maya Angelou and are interested in the trial of imprisoned activist Mumia Abu-Jamal.
It included text about Micah Johnson, a black American sniper who shot five police officers during a rally against police violence in Dallas.
The ad claimed the mainstream media was working to paint Johnson as a member of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The mainstream media are telling us that the protest against police terror is a violent anti-government riot, the ad read, clearly trying to cultivate distrust in the media among racial justice activists and those directly interested in writing about race and systemic injustice.
This particular ad was shown in July 2016 and included a video with a map of local television stations across the country.
This photo, which they say was bought by the Internet Research Agency, or Russian Trolls, shows I find it very disturbing that the Black Panthers were called terrorists and sent to prison while KKK still exists and legal, and they show a photo where you can see a man with a child, and then you can see another man in a car with a mask holding a noose.
Now when you take the latest news into consideration, that these trolls were targeting the left and the right, well Trump's statements then kind of make sense, and I'll explain.
This story from Politico.
Trump now says Russia is meddling in the elections for Democrats.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed that he is very concerned that Russia will be pushing very hard for Democrats in the upcoming midterms, contradicting his earlier statement he does not believe Russia is still interfering in U.S.
politics and renewing his allegation of potentially rigged elections.
I'm very concerned that Russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming election.
Based on the fact that no president has been tougher on Russia than me, they will be pushing very hard for the Democrats.
They definitely don't want Trump, the president tweeted.
Naturally, the people who believe Trump was colluding with Putin in Russia are mocking this story.
They feel that Trump is simply trying to deflect.
But when we look at the official reporting, where we can see that Russia is actually targeting both the left and the right, at least according to U.S.
intelligence agencies, And when we take into consideration that the goal is actually to disrupt the US and not support someone, then what Trump is saying is no better or worse than people claiming that Russia was helping him in the first place.
I do believe that Russia is meddling, let me make that clear.
I'm not someone who necessarily trusts the intelligence agencies to just come out and I'm not gonna take their word for it.
But I think it would be silly if you didn't think they were attempting to disrupt us in at least some way.
And there is a lot of reporting from before this election cycle, back years ago, when people like Adrian Chen went and actually checked out the Russian troll house.
Tim Mack, who is a reporter for NPR's Washington desk, tweeted this quote.
He said, Quote, "...automated accounts of the far-left and far-right extremes produce as many as 25 to 30 times the number of messages per day on average as genuine political accounts across the mainstream.
The extremes are screaming while the majority whispers."
He continues, "...the Russian activity seeks to turn the normal differences of opinions among Americans into headlines about unabridgable political divisions.
American journalism has a responsibility to harden itself to these manipulations."
Above testimony is from Dr. John Kelly, founder and CEO of Grafika, a social media intelligence firm.
And he includes this exhibit in his tweets.
It says, Note the spike in the IRA's U.S.
committee hearing a graph showing an assessment of Internet Research Agency
efforts in Russia and the United States. Note the spike in the IRA's US
activities in mid-2017, long after the intelligence community warned about
Russian efforts. Now this exhibit claims to show reportsecret.com and although he
says this was used as evidence, take it with a grain of salt.
But it is interesting.
Because when we look at how Russian trolls were targeting Russia, at the height of the invasion of Crimea, we can see a spike.
We can see more Crimea propaganda, the Donbass conflict, regional politics, Belarus, Slutsky, and then there's election day.
And we can see the blue line has gone up, but It shows here, mid-2017, a much larger spike.
And Wired has this story.
Fake Facebook accounts are getting harder to trace.
It basically follows the same reporting from Facebook about the far-left and far-right fake accounts, but it shows this example.
Resisters shared an event, a sponsored post.
History has shown that fascism must be stopped before it becomes too late.
We can see that it's scheduled for Saturday, November 4th, 2017.
There's a swastika behind President Trump.
It's calling for people to go to Times Square.
And you have 520 people confirmed as going.
On August 4th, Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys are set to march in Portland.
And Antifa has announced they're going to counter it.
And this is exactly what these people want, whoever they are.
Maybe they're Russian, maybe they're not.
If you trust the government, then they are, or who knows.
But they want the conflict.
They want to sow division among everyone.
The narrative needs to change.
Russia is likely meddling in our elections and our politics.
But because the media keeps painting it, As Donald Trump colluding with Russia, many people who support Trump don't want to believe it because they think it's just more Trump derangement syndrome.
It's more lies from the media.
But when you frame it more honestly than that and say, look, whoever is meddling in our politics is targeting everyone and they want you to fight each other, that's an entirely different message.
So, to whoever's watching this and whatever you believe, the one thing we need to take into consideration is we shouldn't let this stuff drive us insane.
There are a lot of people in media, there are a lot of activists that are riding the wave and they're complicit, they're making money, they're building followings, and they're playing along.
And I assure you, I have made some videos that probably helped whatever this goal was unintentionally.
Everyone accuses everyone else of being a useful idiot.
But that is still A goal that whoever these people are, it's what they want.
When the left accuses the right of being useful idiots, they are sowing division from the left and the right.
What we need to say is there are valid points that liberals hold and conservatives hold, and we should do whatever we can to stop people from beating each other in the streets.
I don't know what the solution is, because whatever this is, it's working.
To make matters worse, it's not just about tracking down who's meddling, but it's the false accusations and witch hunts against our own people.
I know people who have been accused of being trolls, of being bots.
I'm sure many of you have been accused of being a troll or a shill time and time again from people on both sides.
Because we don't know who's doing this.
We can't see it.
And there is an inherent flaw in social media.
The security doesn't exist to prevent this kind of attack.
And then people are going to be chased out of bars and restaurants.
They're going to be accused of being fascists, white supremacists, or communists.
And the more this happens, The more it actually divides us.
It doesn't take much to start a massive fire.
All they had to do was drop a little spark, and everything ignited.
And as more people on the left and right fight each other in the streets, for whatever reason, for whoever you think is right, it's just going to make everything worse.
This has been going on for several years, and it's going beyond the point where people are being tricked.
It's actually being built into people's core identity.
People are going to stand up for what they believe in.
And they actually believe these things to be true.
And it's ingrained in them.
It's come to a point where even if I show someone this fake post, they might not remember having seen it and just believe it to be a fact.
There's actually therapists talking about Trump Anxiety Disorder from the constant negative headlines.
So the last thing I'll say, it's not just the manipulation and the meddling.
It's the media.
The media who is chasing the Trump bump, trying to get more ratings, trying to make more money.
They are adding to the fire.
Maybe Facebook can keep trying to shut these accounts down, but it's probably not going to work.
Or maybe it's true that they're wrong.
And Russia isn't really doing this.
The problem is, ultimately, we just don't know for sure.
So trust who you want to trust.
And there's not much else I can tell you.
So let me know what you think.
You tell me now.
Comment below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
I think Rush is meddling.
I think a lot of people are.
And I'm really concerned that things are going to just keep getting worse, so we'll see what happens.
But you can follow me on Twitter at TimCast.
Stay tuned.
New videos every day at 4 p.m.
And if you want more snarky, fun, opinion videos, you can go to YouTube.com slash TimCastNews for new videos every day at 6 p.m.
