The problem isn’t just Putin getting his hooks into a candidate, or voting machines getting hacked. Russia is waging a comprehensive disinformation campaign in our country right now.
A lot of shit going on on Reddit, on 4chan, on Twitter, on Facebook is due to their influence. Articles and rumors and posts and, shit, even smear campaigns (like the one trying to paint the Vegas shooter as a radical liberal, much of it originating on 4chan) come from their efforts. And I mean directly from Russia. Every now and then one of them will slip and forget to turn off geotagging or forget to use a proxy. But, yeah, this is well known to anyone even remotely familiar with the basics of cyber security (I’m certainly no expert, but follow/read people who are). They target young, white, straight males with misogynistic, homophobic messages. If you call people SJWs seriously, congratulations. You’re a Russian patsy.
A lot of right wing media is also infiltrated by them. Either directly (Breitbart, the slow spread of right wing radio stations that primarily source from things like RT) or indirectly (advertising pressure, donations).
The term “fake news” may have been coined by Trump, but it’s a very real and concerted espionage effort that follows classic KGB tactics. It’s a systematic campaign designed to undermine and chip away at our ability to determine the truth, which, in turn, cripples our ability to engage in our domestic politics.
Expect it to get worse as the midterms approach, and again when Trump is up for re-election (fingers crossed that he’s impeached by then).
A lot of shit going on on Reddit, on 4chan, on Twitter, on Facebook is due to their influence. Articles and rumors and posts and, shit, even smear campaigns (like the one trying to paint the Vegas shooter as a radical liberal, much of it originating on 4chan) come from their efforts. And I mean directly from Russia. Every now and then one of them will slip and forget to turn off geotagging or forget to use a proxy. But, yeah, this is well known to anyone even remotely familiar with the basics of cyber security (I’m certainly no expert, but follow/read people who are). They target young, white, straight males with misogynistic, homophobic messages. If you call people SJWs seriously, congratulations. You’re a Russian patsy.
A lot of right wing media is also infiltrated by them. Either directly (Breitbart, the slow spread of right wing radio stations that primarily source from things like RT) or indirectly (advertising pressure, donations).
The term “fake news” may have been coined by Trump, but it’s a very real and concerted espionage effort that follows classic KGB tactics. It’s a systematic campaign designed to undermine and chip away at our ability to determine the truth, which, in turn, cripples our ability to engage in our domestic politics.
Expect it to get worse as the midterms approach, and again when Trump is up for re-election (fingers crossed that he’s impeached by then).
