The problem may seem insurmountable. But the truth is that many of the same technologies that have made it easier for foreign governments to covertly interfere in American elections can be used to create more transparency and accountability in American elections.
By Ian Vandewalker and Lawrence Norden, Opinion Contributors, The Hill
September 26, 2017

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Reblogged this on Dreamer9177's Blog.
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Excellent insights from Medusa above. I will only add the following similar to that of a smart commenter under the NYT’s article twisting itself in knots over this nonsense just to tell Hillary (warhawk) losers what they want to hear, given the paltry amount of FB ads in question: “If these Russians’ $100,000 worth of FB ads actually swung the election for Trump in a campaign where the candidates spent 1000 times that (i.e. in the billions), mostly on their own worthless ads, then these Russians would be such incredible political geniuses, that both Republican and Democrat Parties will be trying to hire them.”
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So, the Democrats begin a new McCarthy era in which Russia is blamed for everything from climate change to Hillary’s lost election, and now Facebook is jumping on the bandwagon. This pathetic article just pushes the lie further with its underlying assumptions of Russian interference – and it’s all based on the kind of “evidence” that would sink a high school research paper.
Following the links provided in this article to the Facebook page discussing the claim that the Russians bought ads, we note the consistent use of weasel words – words meant to imply guilt, but in fact, only reveal lack of definite evidence:
Alex Stamos, Facebook Chief Security Officer, states:
“Our analysis suggests these accounts and Pages were affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia.”
– Note the key phrase: “likely operated out of Russia.” “Likely” is a weasel word.
He states further:
“In this latest review, we also looked for ads that might have originated in Russia — even those with very weak signals of a connection and not associated with any known organized effort. This was a broad search, including, for instance, ads bought from accounts with US IP addresses but with the language set to Russian — even though they didn’t necessarily violate any policy or law.”
—Again, the key phrase: “the language set to Russian.” Evidence based on computerized language set to Russian, which can be done on anyone’s computer, is no evidence at all.
Colin Stretch, Facebook General Counsel, states:
“Two weeks ago, we announced we had found more than 3,000 ads addressing social and political issues that ran in the US between 2015 and 2017 and that appear to have come from accounts associated with a Russian entity known as the Internet Research Agency.”
—Again, note the well-worn word: “appear.” So the ads only “appear” to have come from a Rusian entity.
Unfortunately, Facebook and the Deep State apparachiks who are pulling its strings insist on pursuing the “Russians interfered in our elections” strategy despite any credible evidence, and even though it doesn’t seem to be returning the desired results. It only makes both war parties seem desperate, and makes thinking Americans ask, “What are they trying to cover up.”
Frankly, I’m less concerned about foreign powers interfering in our elections – in part because those elections are already rigged and manipulated by corporate money – and more concerned with how foreign powers interfere with our foreign policy AFTER the elections. The regime change wars we are currently fighting in several countries are not the sole products of the US government, but have been heavily pushed by the Israelis and the Saudis. That’s the kind of interference we should be exposing.
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