Unsealed FBI doc exposes terrifying depth of Russian disinfo scheme

The affidavit does not mention the full list of influencers, but is still a terrifying indicator of how deep the Russian plot to interfere in U.S. politics really goes.

Well, why not? Name and shame all of them. Normal political ads are required to tell you who paid for them (even if they only do it in the fine print). There's no reason not to hold these schmucks to the same standard just because it's TikTok vids or whatever instead of magazine or TV ads.

Guaranteed they are all over the Fediverse and probably hosting their own instances.

Remember: If your politicians say there is no Russian interference in your elections, they are the ones who have been funded.

Where are my republican “there is no Russian influence in the election” now?

About damn time. Could have used this 8+ years ago. Might have stopped Drump's term in office.

Every single conservative comment I have seen about this has claimed it is made up by the DOJ. That is the extent of it.

a terrifying indicator of how deep the Russian plot to interfere in U.S. politics really goes

It is despicable but remember that they only paid right wing trolls to do what they were already doing. This is how modern corruption works. Conservative and reactionary talk radio all across the US works like this. The only reason the GOP is so successful in rural areas is they are doing the exact same shit Russia is doing. Fund extremists to continue their bullshit. You don't need a "Quid Pro Quo", you just need to pick the right weirdos to boost.

And if you think this is terrifying, think of not just what leftists think of this inside the US, think of what people all around the world think of the US election interference. For decades and decades the US has interfered and overthrown democracies. They did in Euromaidan too.

So yeah, fuck Russia, just realize many countries rightfully think the same about the USA.

Is anyone really surprised by this? Russia hasn't changed much in this particular way since before WWII ;).

Cool, so just how many wars is Russia trying to fight at the moment?

I'd like to see that list.

Alongside the list of influencers US is paying to spread its propaganda.

terrifying scale

barely a percentage point compared to the fossil fuel industry's war on Green Energy

I suppose you could reasonably argue that Rex Tillerson and Vladimir Putin were already joined at the hip. But the US advertising and influencing industry is vast - $515B annually and growing. The Russians aren't even in the top ten of foreign influence peddlers. FFS, the Saudis bought golf.

4/5 are outside the US, does that mean most are in the EU?

And centrists will imagine that all of it is localized entirely on lemmy, in the form of anyone to their left.

To me, this is the most interesting bit of the article

They targeted gamers and chatroom users, who they described as the “backbone of the right-wing trends in the US segment of the Internet,” [ ... ]

We can kind of keep tabs on X or Facebook, but what goes down in Discord gamer chats is largely out of sight. I wish someone could drag more of this content out into the light of day where we could all see it.

Laughs in AIPAC

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Somebody should take a long look at 🦚CNBC as well

Why now, FBI?

I don’t know how we are supposed to just think “oh what a co-inky-dink”. Maybe I’m missing some timeline stuff here but I keep seeing DOJ action based on unsealed FBI stuff. Great, but when was it sealed? They probably have sealed documents that say the sky is blue too.

Edit: ok then. It’s just asking why we see action now when we’ve all know it for a long time. Carry on.