Russian interference & Iranian Interference | Musk & Russia chummy convos

[nycfan]

Russian election interference efforts focus on the Harris-Walz campaign

Microsoft’s latest report reveals a strategic shift in Russian influence operations targeting the Harris-Walz campaign with fabricated videos. Learn about the evolving tactics of Russian actors and the broader geopolitical implications involving Iran and China.

blogs.microsoft.com

Russian election interference efforts focus on the Harris-Walz campaign​

 

[nycfan]

 

[nycfan]

 

[nycfan]

 

[nycfan]

 

[JCTarheel82]

I don't even know what to say anymore other than I am so fucking tired of this bullshit.

 

[Awinisawin]

I don't even know what to say anymore other than I am so fucking tired of this bullshit.

We have known of Russians reference for years. That’s a fact. Sadly I am extremely disappointed and despondent that over these years, and the last 4 in particular, the legal and regulatory systems of our country could not effectively get its act together to cut out Russian propaganda and hold people accountable. This failure after 4 or more years, more than anything, screams that our system is broken. Literally, more than anything else. It’s not that we have numbnuts in positions of power who are really unqualified, the surprising thing is more that the current system and its leaders couldn’t define a pathway to aggressively stop the erosion of the system. I actually want to know what will be done to eradicate this cancer within the next four years. Being the part in power waxes and wanes, but what type or permanence can be established to prevent this entire morass from continuing to happen. (Presuming the Dems can secure enough branches of government to enact meaning legislation).

 

[SnoopRob]

We have known of Russians reference for years. That’s a fact. Sadly I am extremely disappointed and despondent that over these years, and the last 4 in particular, the legal and regulatory systems of our country could not effectively get its act together to cut out Russian propaganda and hold people accountable. This failure after 4 or more years, more than anything, screams that our system is broken. Literally, more than anything else. It’s not that we have numbnuts in positions of power who are really unqualified, the surprising thing is more that the current system and its leaders couldn’t define a pathway to aggressively stop the erosion of the system. I actually want to know what will be done to eradicate this cancer within the next four years. Being the part in power waxes and wanes, but what type or permanence can be established to prevent this entire morass from continuing to happen. (Presuming the Dems can secure enough branches of government to enact meaning legislation).

I'm curious what specific actions you think the US government should have taken to "cut Russian propaganda and hold people accountable"?

 

[lawtig02]

We have known of Russians reference for years. That’s a fact. Sadly I am extremely disappointed and despondent that over these years, and the last 4 in particular, the legal and regulatory systems of our country could not effectively get its act together to cut out Russian propaganda and hold people accountable. This failure after 4 or more years, more than anything, screams that our system is broken. Literally, more than anything else. It’s not that we have numbnuts in positions of power who are really unqualified, the surprising thing is more that the current system and its leaders couldn’t define a pathway to aggressively stop the erosion of the system. I actually want to know what will be done to eradicate this cancer within the next four years. Being the part in power waxes and wanes, but what type or permanence can be established to prevent this entire morass from continuing to happen. (Presuming the Dems can secure enough branches of government to enact meaning legislation).

I don’t think it’s remotely possible to stop Russia from distributing disinformation in the United States in the internet age. The people generating the content are not here, and you just can’t prevent it from getting into the hands of anyone who’s looking for it, and many who are not.

 

[Awinisawin]

I'm curious what specific actions you think the US government should have taken to "cut Russian propaganda and hold people accountable"?

I don’t have solutions. But then again it’s not my job to come up with solutions. But I do know that after 4 or more years this shit is worse than it ever has been, seems like the we haven’t given enough resources to solving this problem. I’m not squaring a blame on any one particular person or group of people. I am saying that it’s a problem that has gotten worse and it hasn’t been solved. For the record, I am not a Republican and my assertion is one of systemic failure, not blame.

 

[SnoopRob]

I don’t have solutions. But then again it’s not my job to come up with solutions. But I do know that after 4 or more years this shit is worse than it ever has been, seems like the we haven’t given enough resources to solving this problem. I’m not squaring a blame on any one particular person or group of people. I am saying that it’s a problem that has gotten worse and it hasn’t been solved. For the record, I am not a Republican and my assertion is one of systemic failure, not blame.

The problem when it comes to propaganda is that it isn't illegal in many cases. Unless you want to live in a society that doesn't largely respect free speech, there's little that can be done against most propaganda because it's simply a part of the system. When laws are broken, our government is getting involved (see the recent indictment regarding RT & Tenet Media regarding violations of money laundering & FARA). But unless specific laws are broken, the First Amendment largely protects speech that would be classified as propaganda.

The issue here is that you seem ready to blame the government for not intervening in a problem that largely falls outside of their jurisdiction, even when they have intervened when they can. The problem we face largely doesn't have a legal remedy unless you're ready to significantly rewrite the laws of our country (including the Constitution) to address it. In this case, we're simply living through one of the downsides of our commitment to free speech.

As far as what Iran did, the government is addressing it to the best of their ability. They're doing everything practical to hold those who broke our laws accountable. But, again, there are significant limitations as to what the US Government can do to prevent these actions by other countries (and to limit the damage done by the actions of these countries) and we have to be realistic about what we can actually do in these kinds of situations.

 

[05C40]

I always over-simplify things to the point of oblivion. And I always get lost in some sort of "for the want of a nail" analysis that I think explains everything. And I know this sort of political rat-(f-word)ing has been going on forever. But, . . ., I sure wish Bill Clinton had kept his pants zipped-up while he was President. It sure seems that politics as a blood sport got way more vicious in the wake of the GOP successes at demonizing Bill Clinton for being a philandering ass-hat. James Carvelle can say until he is blue in the face, "Anyone who that thought that dog was going to stay on the porch, just didn't know Bill Clinton," but that explains nothing. And I know this kind of stuff was going to happen soon or later without any help from Bill Clinton. But I hate what America has become.

You want to know how far I think America has fallen? I look back on the Reagan years and think that was a time when Republicans still had a few shreads of self-respect.

 

[grimes70]

You want to know how far I think America has fallen? I look back on the Reagan years and think that was a time when Republicans still had a few shreads of self-respect.

Remembering how much I disliked Bob Dole for his hard right beliefs/governance, oh how I would love to see him in charge of the pubs Senate again.

 

[JCTarheel82]

I don’t think it’s remotely possible to stop Russia from distributing disinformation in the United States in the internet age. The people generating the content are not here, and you just can’t prevent it from getting into the hands of anyone who’s looking for it, and many who are not.

I mean, we could but it won't happen in America for reasons that Snoop eloquently outlined. I think the bigger issue here is that one of our major political parties not only condones Russian disinformation but encourages and amplifies it, wittingly and unwittingly.

 

[nycfan]

Russian Propaganda Unit Appears to Be Behind Spread of False Tim Walz Sexual Abuse Claims​

The Russian-aligned network Storm-1516 has a long history of posting fake whistleblower videos—including deepfakes—to push Kremlin talking points.

Russian Propaganda Unit Appears to Be Behind Spread of False Tim Walz Sexual Abuse Claims

The Russian-aligned network Storm-1516 has a long history of posting fake whistleblower videos—including deepfakes—to push Kremlin talking points.

www.wired.com

"... Experts believe that the campaign is tied to a network called Storm-1516, which has been linked to, among other things, a previous effort that falsely claimed vice president Kamala Harris perpetrated a hit-and-run in San Francisco in 2011. Storm-1516 has a long history of posting fake whistleblower videos, and often deepfake videos, to push Kremlin talking points to the West.

The propaganda unit’s work has successfully reached the highest levels of the Republican party, with vice presidential candidate JD Vance repeating at least one of their narratives. NBC reported this week that the group has pushed at least 50 false narratives in this manner since last fall, which comes amid a broader Russian government effort to disrupt next month’s election with the aim of helping former president Donald Trump return to the White House.

Numerous figures in MAGA world boosted the Tim Walz assault claims, including Jack Posobiec, the Pizzagate promoter who is now a member of Trump’s campaign team, and Candace Owens, the popular right-wing podcaster. The claims went viral on X last week, when an anonymous account called Black Insurrectionist posted screenshots of emails from a purported victim. Other X users quickly debunked the claims, citing formatting errors in the images that suggested the emails were fake, but days later another conspiracist posted a video on X claiming he had spoken to one of Walz's supposed victims on the phone—without providing any proof. The video racked up millions of hits.

Then, on Wednesday, a video claiming to show a former student of Walz describing abuse by the former football coach spread widely on X. According to a WIRED analysis using several deepfake detector tools, the video was created using AI. The video, shared by a prominent anonymous QAnon-promoting account, garnered over 4.3 million views before it was deleted.

The campaign to attack Walz predates the video; it traces back to John Dougan, a former Florida cop who now lives in Moscow and runs a network of pro-Kremlin websites. Dougan appeared on Zak Paine’s QAnon show RedPill78 on October 5 with an anonymous man named “Rick,” who said he was a foreign exchange student at Mankato West High School in 2004 when Walz was a teacher there. “Rick” then claimed Walz assaulted him. Dougan did not respond to a request for comment...."

 

[mynameisbond]

MAGA takes no responsibility for publishing any of these false claims. They get disseminated rapidly with little or no verification and fact-checking. As quickly as one gets debunked, three more go out. Musk is using X as a disinformation platform.

 

[superrific]

The problem when it comes to propaganda is that it isn't illegal in many cases. Unless you want to live in a society that doesn't largely respect free speech, there's little that can be done against most propaganda because it's simply a part of the system. When laws are broken, our government is getting involved (see the recent indictment regarding RT & Tenet Media regarding violations of money laundering & FARA). But unless specific laws are broken, the First Amendment largely protects speech that would be classified as propaganda.

The issue here is that you seem ready to blame the government for not intervening in a problem that largely falls outside of their jurisdiction, even when they have intervened when they can. The problem we face largely doesn't have a legal remedy unless you're ready to significantly rewrite the laws of our country (including the Constitution) to address it. In this case, we're simply living through one of the downsides of our commitment to free speech.

This isn't true. Plenty of countries have free speech, without indulging propaganda to the same degree we do. In many countries, Holocaust denial is a criminal offense, for instance. And free speech has not always been like this in America. Our current understanding of free speech was mostly a creation of the Supreme Court during the 1960s and early 1970s. Then the conservatives started to weaponize it. Sigh.

As a technical note, false speech is not actually protected under the First. Rather, it's the publication of false speech that is protected, and only because of the fear of chilling speech overall. Let's suppose someone invented an app called, "TrueOrNot": you can enter any text and it tells you with perfect accuracy whether the text is true or false. It's free for all to use. In this world, the protection of Sullivan v NYT would be unnecessary and false speech prohibited. In our world, this distinction doesn't have much practical effect except in certain circumstances.

Now, we would need new laws to combat propaganda if the Supreme Court were to say they are permissible. So in that sense, the government has no jurisdiction. But that's a choice and it's not inherent in the idea of free speech.

 

[SnoopRob]

This isn't true. Plenty of countries have free speech, without indulging propaganda to the same degree we do. In many countries, Holocaust denial is a criminal offense, for instance. And free speech has not always been like this in America. Our current understanding of free speech was mostly a creation of the Supreme Court during the 1960s and early 1970s. Then the conservatives started to weaponize it. Sigh.

As a technical note, false speech is not actually protected under the First. Rather, it's the publication of false speech that is protected, and only because of the fear of chilling speech overall. Let's suppose someone invented an app called, "TrueOrNot": you can enter any text and it tells you with perfect accuracy whether the text is true or false. It's free for all to use. In this world, the protection of Sullivan v NYT would be unnecessary and false speech prohibited. In our world, this distinction doesn't have much practical effect except in certain circumstances.

Now, we would need new laws to combat propaganda if the Supreme Court were to say they are permissible. So in that sense, the government has no jurisdiction. But that's a choice and it's not inherent in the idea of free speech.

Most countries in the world, even those that have rules against specific types of speech like Holocaust denial, are struggling with widespread propaganda. To effectively address propaganda you would need to substantially curb free speech rights even more than nearly any western nation does. I agree that the US has it a bit worse because our more liberal speech laws, but propaganda is by no means a US-only phenomenon and it is a problem even in countries that have stricter laws on some types of speech.

 

[mynameisbond]

Most countries in the world, even those that have rules against specific types of speech like Holocaust denial, are struggling with widespread propaganda. To effectively address propaganda you would need to substantially curb free speech rights even more than nearly any western nation does. I agree that the US has it a bit worse because our more liberal speech laws, but propaganda is by no means a US-only phenomenon and it is a problem even in countries that have stricter laws on some types of speech.

It's an interesting conundrum. The first step requires an attempt to craft federal legislation adequately addressing the problem. Next, it has be enacted by Congress. Good luck with getting a majority to push that through the Senate. Assuming that could be accomplished, the final step is for courts to deal with challenges to the new law until there is a sufficient body of precedent to firmly establish the constitutionality of the statutory provision.

 

[rodoheel]

I don’t think it’s remotely possible to stop Russia from distributing disinformation in the United States in the internet age. The people generating the content are not here, and you just can’t prevent it from getting into the hands of anyone who’s looking for it, and many who are not.

I think you're right, but we have to figure out a way to evolve the legal framework to deal with this threat. Generative AI is going to make it 10x worse. We have to come up with a way to reconcile the First Amendment with regulating the knowing dissemination of fabricated information, videos, photos, etc. If we don't figure out a way, we're all going to drown in it. We are probably one election cycle away from people creating whole AI-generated "speeches" by candidates, videos of candidates doing morally reprehensible things (drugs, sex, crime, etc), and altering actual videos to make them say things they didn't say. And that's just the politics angle - this is going to filter into every aspect of everyday life. And the more these generative AIs flood the internet with fake shit, the more it's going to become difficult to tell the real shit and fake shit apart.