Blackhawk wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 11:54 am
I am truly curious about how the loss of the Russian bots leading into the second half of 2022 are going to affect the midterms. Not hopeful - I'm past hopeful - but curious.
I hope voters punish the Trumputin wing candidates. A GOP landslide is less disastrous if it's mostly establishment types. However, I fear that by November Russia will have pacified Ukraine to the extent that the Trumputins can declare victory.
I'm thinking less about the blowback for the Putin-patting, and more about the effect of eight months without right wing social media being manufactured and hyper-promoted by Russia. Without the constant fear-mongering, hate-mongering, and reinforcement being shoved in their faces, how will the echo-chamber Republican voters change? That is to say, those who don't have their own extremist views, but have simply accepted the words of social media bots because that's all they've been hearing. Now that those voices have been silenced...
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 3:12 pm
by Defiant
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 3:48 pm
by Defiant
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 4:08 pm
by malchior
Several Senators did this because we're a nation with deeply unserious leaders. Children have more discipline than this lot.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 4:22 pm
by Kurth
Holman wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 10:03 am
This is remarkable.
For *years* Bongino/Shapiro and various Fox personalities have dominated the top 10 FB list, with very little variation. Now, suddenly...
This is probably obvious to most, but I'm not a heavy social media user, and, frankly, I'm relatively ignorant about it. Can someone walk me through how the sanctions against Russia undermined right wing dominance on FB?
Holman wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 10:03 am
This is remarkable.
For *years* Bongino/Shapiro and various Fox personalities have dominated the top 10 FB list, with very little variation. Now, suddenly...
This is probably obvious to most, but I'm not a heavy social media user, and, frankly, I'm relatively ignorant about it. Can someone walk me through how the sanctions against Russia undermined right wing dominance on FB?
Two possibilities come to mind:
1. Many of the views/likes/comments/shares/etc of said content (which makes that content more visible) come from bots and fake accounts run by people in Russia. If social media blocks Russia and makes it more difficult to access them, it makes it more difficult for them to do those views and likes, etc.
or.
2. Those who run those bots and accounts are too busy making misinformation about the war to prevent dissent in Russia to be able to focus on the rest of the world.
Holman wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 10:03 am
This is remarkable.
For *years* Bongino/Shapiro and various Fox personalities have dominated the top 10 FB list, with very little variation. Now, suddenly...
I am truly curious about how the loss of the Russian bots leading into the second half of 2022 are going to affect the midterms. Not hopeful - I'm past hopeful - but curious.
FWIW, there has been some pushback against the comparison in my quoted tweet above. Some are claiming that (maybe) Bongino et al haven't been talking about Ukraine, so they've lost a few days to the top story.
I have to wonder, though, why people accustomed to sharing right-wing sources for months or years would suddenly be sharing left-leaning sources.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 5:03 pm
by LawBeefaroni
malchior wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 4:08 pm
Several Senators did this because we're a nation with deeply unserious leaders. Children have more discipline than this lot.
FWIW, there has been some pushback against the comparison in my quoted tweet above. Some are claiming that (maybe) Bongino et al haven't been talking about Ukraine, so they've lost a few days to the top story.
I have to wonder, though, why people accustomed to sharing right-wing sources for months or years would suddenly be sharing left-leaning sources.
Doesn't mean they're sharing left-leaning sources - couldn't they're just sharing less overall (or sharing less political stuff and more cat memes instead)?
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 5:06 pm
by malchior
The main takeaway is that a lot of the "traffic" and noise we heard amplified was not a real measurement of actual right-wing intensity. Some real signal was being amplified into noise and some manufactured to cause division and influence our politics. The Russians have been accused of manipulating social media for years. The Mueller report discussed this topic credibly and several Russian troll and bot farm adjacent individuals including Russians were indicted for that activity by Mueller's team.
Many of us in the cyber trenches "knew this" for years but we lack smoking gun evidence. This is pretty close. What we knew was from inference, humint, and private intelligence. Our nation state intelligence apparatus knows this too. I say that with the highest confidence.
So what has changed recently? Several things. We started seeing changes in activity running up to the invasion. For example, we saw incidents from ransomware gangs decrease slightly. It wasn't obvious until the invasion began and now we are seeing significantly less ransomware activity from major FSB/GRU linked cyber units. I can see a natural question arise. Why am I suddenly talking about ransomware? Because they are from the same source and are tied to the same activity. They are essentially one campaign from a strategic point of view. The Russian military and intelligence service have been running or directly many mini-campaigns with different missions. Some are to attack companies, some are influence campaigns, some are fundraising (using ransomware or data theft principally), and others are military in nature. The picture that is starting to come into focus in recent weeks is that some major elements of this activity were diverted. And some are estimating it was to other missions around the impending invasion.
Another factor is they farmed out some of this work to cybercriminal/gangs outside of Russia. Many are in Eastern Europe, some are in the middle east, and some in Asia. The Russians essentially are sponsors of much of that activity. Whether funding it directly or giving the gangs the tools and support to conduct activities. Many of those same organizations also run social media manipulation. Those folks were cut off from their source of funding. We expect they'll pick back up soon with a vengeance to make up revenue.
Lastly, a big factor is Russia cut off Internet services to isolate the Russian public from the reality of the war. This was like turning off a switch on many of these influence campaigns. Theoretically they could have let the attacks continue and just blocked everyone else but that'd be very obvious.
As an aside, I'll reiterate what I've said in the past. There is near zero chance that FB didn't know about this. They have raw access to the sources of traffic. Worse FB made an announcement a few weeks ago about opportunistic activity to steal clicks for advertising revenue. It sure looks in retrospect that they were talking up the advertising side to cover up that they knew about the other activity and trying to redirect people's focus. In the end if I was running things I'd drag their asses into hearings next week to explain how they didn't know about this activity. They need to be investigated and we need to do whatever it takes to stop these attacks on our society. It's time.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 5:08 pm
by malchior
Holman wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 4:50 pmFWIW, there has been some pushback against the comparison in my quoted tweet above. Some are claiming that (maybe) Bongino et al haven't been talking about Ukraine, so they've lost a few days to the top story.
I have to wonder, though, why people accustomed to sharing right-wing sources for months or years would suddenly be sharing left-leaning sources.
Mostly because it is bullshit. This pretty much exposed what is really going on.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 5:17 pm
by Blackhawk
Kurth wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 4:22 pm
This is probably obvious to most, but I'm not a heavy social media user, and, frankly, I'm relatively ignorant about it. Can someone walk me through how the sanctions against Russia undermined right wing dominance on FB?
In other words, they were gaming the algorithm. It's the equivalent of having bots give your site thousands of searches and hits in order to bump it up in the search engines. The more a post is liked, commented, or shared, the more it is emphasized by the site. When you open Facebook and only have two minutes, the algorithm is what chooses what those first few posts you see will be, ensuring that the most popular get the most attention.
At the same time, the Russians were creating a lot of the content. They make a fake account, join a popular right-wing social media group (a group who sees each others' posts), create some rumor, or insult, or conspiracy, or meme and post it. They plan them carefully - I'd be willing to be it's psychologists, sociologists, even advertisers crafting these things to instantly appeal and manipulate. They then have a few hundred other of their own fake accounts like it, comment on it, and cross-post it in other groups (these are the bots.) Before long, the hoopleheads (thanks, Al) are seeing that it's apparently popular in all of their groups, and the instinct to be part of the 'in' crowd takes over. Thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions) of real accounts start posting it on their timelines, commenting, and liking it. That skyrockets it in the algorithm, meaning that it's pushed higher and higher in the feed and seen more and more often.
The next thing you know, politicians are being pressured to act based on what is, essentially, a planted Russian rumor.
Holman wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 10:03 am
I have to wonder, though, why people accustomed to sharing right-wing sources for months or years would suddenly be sharing left-leaning sources.
To follow up on my post and what others have said, the people aren't seeing the right-wing sources as much, so they're either bumping something else, or don't have anything to bump. If you shoot the rabbit, you don't need to speed up the tortoise.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 5:55 pm
by Lagom Lite
So pretty much all of Germany's military has been sent to Poland's Belarusian border, getting ready to invade Russia should push come to shove. The German General is quouted as saying, "Welp, third time's the charm".
EDIT for clarity: It's a joke, people. Relax.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 6:06 pm
by Unagi
And do you believe that report ?
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 6:14 pm
by Lagom Lite
Unagi wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 6:06 pm
And do you believe that report ?
No, it's just a joke, obviously. I thought adding smileys to the post would be a little on the nose.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 6:16 pm
by Blackhawk
Given the events of the last two years, I don't think anyone's ready to assume that the absurd isn't true anymore.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 6:37 pm
by Daehawk
Humans too stupid for the internet. Story at 11:00.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 7:25 pm
by Holman
In the 1950s/60s, it was said that the purpose of NATO was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down."
Obviously a revision is in order.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 7:31 pm
by Isgrimnur
I doubt that was enshrined in the charter.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 9:47 pm
by Kraken
The European powers spent half of the 19th century trying to keep Germany from unifying and half of the 20th century dealing with the consequences of German unity. Now in the early 21st century we're cheering for a $100B boost to German military spending. I'm sure that will be fine.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 10:07 pm
by Jaymann
We taught them a lesson in 1918, and they've hardly bothered us since then.
Unagi wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 6:06 pm
And do you believe that report ?
No, it's just a joke, obviously. I thought adding smileys to the post would be a little on the nose.
OK, yeah - it sounded like straight-up humor to my ear, but I honestly wasn't sure what is being told to people, or what people are believing. So, I had to ask.
[1] It appears that Russia now fears that it is near collapse, not too different from the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union in 1991. Such a collapse would lead to a huge drop in Russia’s living standards, even from today’s relatively low level.
[2] The thing that seems to have been behind the 1991 collapse is the same thing that seems to be behind Russia’s current fear of collapse: continued low oil prices.
[3] While oil prices depend on “supply and demand,” as a practical matter, demand is very dependent on interest rates and debt levels. The higher the debt level and the lower the interest rate, the higher the price of oil can rise.
[4] The fundamental problem behind recent low oil prices is the fact that the current mix of consumers cannot afford goods and services produced using the high oil prices that producers, such as Russia, need to operate, pay high enough wages, and do adequate reinvestment.
[5] No one knows precisely how much oil, coal and natural gas can be extracted because the quantity that can be extracted depends on the extent of the price rise that can be tolerated without plunging the economy into recession.
[6] Europe, in particular, cannot afford high oil prices. If interest rates are increased soon, this will make the problem even worse. China seems to have definite advantages as an economic partner.
[7] Russia realized that the rest of the world is utterly dependent upon its fossil fuel exports. Because of this dependency, as well as the physics-based connection between the burning of fossil fuels and the making of finished goods and services, Russia holds huge power over the world economy.
[8] Russia’s attack on Ukraine seems to have been made for many reasons.
[9] If higher energy prices cannot be achieved, there is a significant chance that the change in the world order will be in the direction of pushing the world economy toward collapse.
There are a whole lot more words in between.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 11:51 pm
by Daehawk
Is there some secret base that prints these scripts out with blank spaces so countries can fill them in? Im thinking of a place like Evil Genius bases. Because that sounds like something North Korea or Iraq before the war would print out.
Is this guy still out there somewhere with a printer?
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 11:57 pm
by malchior
FWIW this is pure theater. He announced it at SOTU and I rolled my eyes. This is between 1 and 2 day's usage in the US. It will have zero effect on prices but the strategic reserve is now 5% lower. It's pretty wasteful tbh.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 12:20 am
by Unagi
Wait, are you saying the entire strategic reserve is about 30 days worth ?
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 1:47 am
by Defiant
Unagi wrote: ↑Sun Mar 06, 2022 12:20 am
Wait, are you saying the entire strategic reserve is about 30 days worth ?
Would we ever spend that 30 days worth of strategic reserve in a single month, though? It's not like oil production and access to oil would suddenly drop down to 0 overnight and we would have to rely solely on it, surely?
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 2:17 am
by Max Peck
Allegedly an interview/press conference with 3 Russian POWs.
Unagi wrote: ↑Sun Mar 06, 2022 12:20 am
Wait, are you saying the entire strategic reserve is about 30 days worth ?
Would we ever spend that 30 days worth of strategic reserve in a single month, though? It's not like oil production and access to oil would suddenly drop down to 0 overnight and we would have to rely solely on it, surely?
I don’t know.
I just didn’t know how to square up in my head these two positions:
- That’s a joke if he thinks releasing only that much is going to help.
- That will drain us of 5% of our total reserve, we shouldn’t waste it like that.
I’m honestly clueless here. I don’t know the hypothetical plan with our reserves. It sounds like this is not a good use for them, but I guess I don’t know what specifically would be.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 2:46 am
by Unagi
Max Peck wrote: ↑Sun Mar 06, 2022 2:17 am
Allegedly an interview/press conference with 3 Russian POWs.
Yeah, if that’s real - that’s some pretty remarkable testimony.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 9:27 am
by raydude
A look at Russia's military logistics with respect to the Ukrainian invasion.
One thing that jumps out at me is the secrecy of the operation worked against it. Too many people who needed to be prepared were excluded and it brought chaos. Also, early on some of the top guys said they believed the theory of the war strategy was built on a flawed premise. This potentially validates some of that and much more.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 10:44 am
by Carpet_pissr
Sorry guys, I’m not going to try to ‘quote’ replies anymore - it’s just too painful on mobile.
Re: Kraken’s post above, the author asserts:
“Russia realized that the rest of the world is utterly dependent upon its fossil fuel exports.“
While ROW may be affected by changes in Russian fossil fuel exports (due to Europe being dependent, and Europe being such a big part of the interconnected global economy) , I would probably replace “rest of the world” with “Europe”, no? Or change the word ‘dependent’.
Maybe too pedantic, but there’s a pretty big difference between ‘dependency’ and ‘affected by’.
We are plowing to create a scenario to blame everything on Ukraine. Naryshkin (Director of Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia) and his SVR is digging the ground to prove that Ukraine was secretly building nuclear weapons. F*&K.
They are hammering at what we’ve already analyzed and closed the book on: We can’t just make up any evidence or proof and existence of specialists and Uranium. Ukraine has a ton of depleted isotope 238 – this is nothing. The production cycle is such that you can’t do it in secret
A dirty bomb can’t be created in secret. Ukraine’s old nuclear power plants can only produce the material as a by-product in minimal amounts. The Americans have such monitoring at these plants with MAGATE that even talking about this is stupid.
Apparently #TeamPutin didn't get the memo and they're already pushing that narrative.
BREAKING: Russian intelligence claim that Ukraine was close to developing a nuclear weapon.
"Creation of a nuclear explosive device, which could later be used in the design of nuclear warheads, was carried out using both uranium and plutonium."
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 12:39 pm
by naednek
Carpet_pissr wrote:Sorry guys, I’m not going to try to ‘quote’ replies anymore - it’s just too painful on mobile.
Re: Kraken’s post above, the author asserts:
“Russia realized that the rest of the world is utterly dependent upon its fossil fuel exports.“
While ROW may be affected by changes in Russian fossil fuel exports (due to Europe being dependent, and Europe being such a big part of the interconnected global economy) , I would probably replace “rest of the world” with “Europe”, no? Or change the word ‘dependent’.
Maybe too pedantic, but there’s a pretty big difference between ‘dependency’ and ‘affected by’.
Carpet_pissr wrote:Sorry guys, I’m not going to try to ‘quote’ replies anymore - it’s just too painful on mobile.
Re: Kraken’s post above, the author asserts:
“Russia realized that the rest of the world is utterly dependent upon its fossil fuel exports.“
While ROW may be affected by changes in Russian fossil fuel exports (due to Europe being dependent, and Europe being such a big part of the interconnected global economy) , I would probably replace “rest of the world” with “Europe”, no? Or change the word ‘dependent’.
Maybe too pedantic, but there’s a pretty big difference between ‘dependency’ and ‘affected by’.
Do you use Tapatalk?
It's literally one button
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Personally, I've always found their stupid Tapatalk Signature thing to reflect their data-collecting soul a little too obviously. I wish they existed in another form, but they are just one of the dozens of internet apps I've just decided to live without.
