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Comment by empath75 | Hacker News Reader

Reddit is swarming with Russian bots and they still have a whole network of white supremecy and various hate subs, operating both out in the open and ‘quarantined’.

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All these companies have been pushing this "Russia did it!" narrative with very little evidence or reason backing their claim. My theory why the whole Russian conspiracy is a thing is because its easier to dehumanize Russia as "the bad guys" rather than face the facts of how many people are opposed to you in your own country.

Edit: I'm not in denyal that Russia had nothing to do with the election but I think Russia's involvement is grossly over represented. Its so much easier to say "Russia did it" while ignoring why subreddits like /r/thedonald or the right propaganda caught on so much.

Huh? Pushing? The social media companies continually denied it until pressed. It was the US Intelligence Community that "pushed" it.

And the French Intelligence Community. And the Canadian Intelligence Community. And the Netherlands Intelligence Community. And the British Intelligence Community. And the German Intelligence Community...

If you really believe there is no evidence, you just aren't looking, or you are very selectively deciding what qualifies as evidence. The reality is that Russia is run by a guy who assassinates political opponents and whose glory days were those of the USSR.

This is a long-running conflict with Russia. There really are issues in the US that need to be fixed (as the Soviets gladly pointed out about Jim Crow in the 1950s/1960s), but Russia is also geopolitically smart enough to attack those vulnerabilities. If you just sit down and consider why and what advantages Russia would have in spreading propaganda, it is hard to believe they aren't doing it.

Except ... it's a thing: http://dashboard.securingdemocracy.org

Dozens more resources that track, analyze and report on Russian trolling / propaganda. It's so easy to find, you must be trolling.

Is it really easier to believe that Russian bots are behind the lion's share of this content rather than other westerners?

They didn't attribute any kind of percentage to the bots. Just that the bots exist and the subs exist which are both bad.

Is there a difference between writing the content yourself and upvoting fringe content with 1,000 fake accounts while suppressing the inverse with the same?

The fringe is emboldened and encouraged and given an artificial air of legitimacy. The challenge or alternative viewpoint is suppressed.

It is still psychological warfare and the key point isn't really the individual composing the post.

Though in all fairness - based on the articles about the IRA and the experiences I've had I do think that that they have individuals posting and writing their own content.

(for those that haven't read about the Internet Research Agency yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency)

Oh, yes the Russian boogeyman again.

Suddenly everything in the (Internet) world can be explained with «Russia». Second coming of McCarthyism.

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