Russian influence on the EU Referendum?

[najaB]

This was rumoured back in December to have been a possibility, but at the time it seemed very far-fetched. However, given what appears to have been Russian influence on the US Presidential election, and ongoing Russian attempts to influence the French and German elections - is it something that we should be more concerned about?

Rachel Maddow looked at some of the dots that potentially could be joined up in a recent segment on her show:

[youtube]p2hhVsZUYw0[/youtube]

Note: Before I'm branded a 'Remoaner' (again) this isn't in any way an attempt to get the result overturned.

 

[Tetchytyke]

They almost certainly played a part, but when the tax-dodging owners of Britain's two biggest newspapers want Brexit that's all the influence you need.

Putin doesn't have a game plan, he just meddles to show that he can. Which is all the more dangerous.

 

[Steveman]

They almost certainly played a part, but when the tax-dodging owners of Britain's two biggest newspapers want Brexit that's all the influence you need.

Putin doesn't have a game plan, he just meddles to show that he can. Which is all the more dangerous.

They almost certainly did did they ?

 

[Tetchytyke]

They almost certainly did did they ?

Yup, same in America.

 

[Steveman]

Yup, same in America.

Oh I see you have inside information, you must share it.

 

[Busaholic]

Putin doesn't have a game plan.

Phew, that's a relief

 

[bramling]

This was rumoured back in December to have been a possibility, but at the time it seemed very far-fetched. However, given what appears to have been Russian influence on the US Presidential election, and ongoing Russian attempts to influence the French and German elections - is it something that we should be more concerned about?

Rachel Maddow looked at some of the dots that potentially could be joined up in a recent segment on her show:

[youtube]p2hhVsZUYw0[/youtube]

Note: Before I'm branded a 'Remoaner' (again) this isn't in any way an attempt to get the result overturned.

Every person who voted was a grown adult, responsible for their actions.

Part of living in a society heavily dominated by the media is people need to be capable of assessing arguments and opinions presented to them and forming their own opinion. Not just blindly jumping on someone's Twitter bandwagon.

 

[najaB]

Part of living in a society heavily dominated by the media is people need to be capable of assessing arguments and opinions presented to them and forming their own opinion. Not just blindly jumping on someone's Twitter bandwagon.

Which is all fine and good until a hostile third-party state actor starts meddling with the sole intention of getting in the way of the process of 'assessing arguments and opinions presented to them and forming their own opinion'.

As an example, they didn't just plant fake stories in Twitter feeds. They planted them one or two levels deeper - so the Twitter feed quoted a website that cited another two websites.

And they planted stories with media hosts too - Pizzagate wasn't just on websites, it was on the radio and even TV.

If you tell a lie often enough people will believe it.

 

[dgl]

And if you have the resources you can get stories published in some random newspaper that you have a hidden stake in and then later on use that as your proof, the soviets have history doing that and I doubt Russia is run any differently really.

Sent from my Lumia 625 using Tapatalk

 

[Tetchytyke]

Oh I see you have inside information, you must share it

I don't want Polonium in my tea

Part of living in a society heavily dominated by the media is people need to be capable of assessing arguments and opinions presented to them and forming their own opinion.

I think that is very simplistic.

Where the media reports actual facts- even selectively- people can judge for themselves. People can see what happened and they can judge for themselves who was to blame and what they think should be done about it. People won't all agree on that opinion but it is an opinion based in reality.

The whole fake news thing stops this happening. On the obvious level, how can you form an opinion about something that never happened? Trump's advisors invented a massacre to justify the travel ban, The Sun newspaper invented a passport-less trip across Europe to justify their attack on the EU, and the Mirror invented atrocities by British soldiers to justify their stance on the Iraq War.

But even beyond that, if you know that some media outlets invent things some of the time, it distorts everything. If you know some people are lying some of the time then you cannot ever come to an informed opinion, because the fake news puts huge doubts on everything, even the truth.

We've seen that with the debate on Brexit, particularly with the Leave camp making repeated outlandish and unverified claims and then claiming that any rebuttal is "fake news" and "Remoaning". What happens is that any "facts" that support your opinion becomes truth and any "facts" that go against your opinion becomes "fake news".

Trump has got this down to a fine art, anything that criticises him is "fake news" and anyone who criticises him is a liar.

But the Leave camp in the Brexit debate are really not very far behind. Anyone who criticises the decision is a "Remoaner", anyone who calls for compromise is a "traitor", any judge who decides on the law is an "enemy of the people". Michael Howard's comments yesterday about going to war with Spain based on a hypothetical example of what the Spanish might or might not do is just another example of it.

And if you have the resources you can get stories published in some random newspaper that you have a hidden stake in and then later on use that as your proof

Exhibit one: who owns the New York Observer?

 

[ExRes]

What happens is that any "facts" that support your opinion becomes truth and any "facts" that go against your opinion becomes "fake news".

This is probably the most sensible sentence on the entire forum, perhaps the EU Referendum thread wouldn't have 6400 posts on 427 pages if you had written this last June

 

[Tetchytyke]

I'm late to this party, I know, but I've just found out who Arron Banks- the Brexit funder- is married to.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...l-Democrat-MP-helped-second-Russian-girl.html

Hmm.