The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President

[ZiprHead]

How new technologies and techniques pioneered by dictators will shape the 2020 election

The story that unfurled in my Facebook feed over the next several weeks was, at times, disorienting. There were days when I would watch, live on TV, an impeachment hearing filled with damning testimony about the president’s conduct, only to look at my phone later and find a slickly edited video—served up by the Trump campaign—that used out-of-context clips to recast the same testimony as an exoneration. Wait, I caught myself wondering more than once, is that what happened today?

As I swiped at my phone, a stream of pro-Trump propaganda filled the screen: “That’s right, the whistleblower’s own lawyer said, ‘The coup has started …’ ” Swipe. “Democrats are doing Putin’s bidding …” Swipe. “The only message these radical socialists and extremists will understand is a crushing …” Swipe. “Only one man can stop this chaos …” Swipe, swipe, swipe.

What I was seeing was a strategy that has been deployed by illiberal political leaders around the world. Rather than shutting down dissenting voices, these leaders have learned to harness the democratizing power of social media for their own purposes—jamming the signals, sowing confusion. They no longer need to silence the dissident shouting in the streets; they can use a megaphone to drown him out. Scholars have a name for this: censorship through noise.

After the 2016 election, much was made of the threats posed to American democracy by foreign disinformation. Stories of Russian troll farms and Macedonian fake-news mills loomed in the national imagination. But while these shadowy outside forces preoccupied politicians and journalists, Trump and his domestic allies were beginning to adopt the same tactics of information warfare that have kept the world’s demagogues and strongmen in power.

 

[lpetrich]

The OP is something like what I'd posted on in Flood of Nonsense News

The Macedonian Boys I find rather interesting. Especially in their saying how skeptical Bernie Sanders fans are.

Inside the Macedonian Fake-News Complex | WIRED

In the final weeks of the US presidential election, Veles attained a weird infamy in the most powerful nation on earth; stories in The Guardian and on BuzzFeed revealed that the Macedonian town of 55,000 was the registered home of at least 100 pro-Trump websites, many of them filled with sensationalist, utterly fake news. (The imminent criminal indictment of Hillary Clinton was a popular theme; another was the pope’s approval of Trump.)

One of the fake newsies had this to say:

(For a week in July, he experimented with fake news extolling Bernie Sanders. “Bernie Sanders supporters are among the smartest people I’ve seen,” he says. “They don’t believe anything. The post must have proof for them to believe it.”)

While Donald Trump fans are much less skeptical, it seems.

How Teens In The Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With Fake News

For example, the most successful post BuzzFeed News found from a Macedonian site is based on a story from a fake news website. The headline on the story from ConservativeState.com was "Hillary Clinton In 2013: 'I Would Like To See People Like Donald Trump Run For Office; They’re Honest And Can’t Be Bought.'" The post is a week old and has racked up an astounding 480,000 shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook. (To put that into perspective, the New York Times' exclusive story that revealed Donald Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns generated a little more than 175,000 Facebook interactions in a month.)

The fake news machine: Inside a town gearing up for 2020 like these screaming headlines:

• Michelle Was Caught Cheating with Eric Holder - OBAMA IS FURIOUS!!!
• Bill Clinton loses it in interview - admits he's a murderer
• JUST IN: Sarah Palin Hospitalized After Being Hit By Car
• BREAKING: Donna Brazille dies in fiery car crash

 

[ZiprHead]

Michelle Was Caught Cheating with Eric Holder - OBAMA IS FURIOUS!!!
Bill Clinton loses it in interview - admits he's a murderer
JUST IN: Sarah Palin Hospitalized After Being Hit By Car
BREAKING: Donna Brazille dies in fiery car crash

This sounds like the tabloids in the supermarket check out aisle.

The article I posted shows that the trumpers are going far more deeply than just posting fake stories. I believe it's very important to read about how far these people are willing to go to get Mango Mussolini re-elected.