Help Elok understand the ongoing Russia ... thingy

[Uncle Sparky]

So, the other Russian thingy...

A group of Olympic athletes from Russia are about to receive a team medal in the team figure skating event... Russia doesn't have a team there. How can a group of people not allowed to be a team win a team event? What about other team events? Will the athletes from Russia be a de jure team or simply de facto teams?

[rah]

I found that rather amusing myself. Not much of a punishment if they're still allowed to participate as a team. Quite the farce.

[Dinner]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43092085

Breaking news: Mueller charges 13 Russians with election tampering in connection with the 2016 US elections.

[pchang]

Does this mean Serb was indicted?

[Dinner]

The wire fraud part is the most interesting as that is a money trail Mueller can follow back to the Trump campaign and the Republican Party. By the time they are done I expect to see a whole lot of Republican front groups and right wing organizations (like the NRA) involved in money laundering dirty Russian money into the 2016 election.

[Elok]

This is at least something concrete, even if it seems pretty picayune (a little over a mil a month, thirteen people).

[pchang]

13 indicted individuals - hundreds actually working. Take a look at this: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...2016-election/

[Aeson]

Another thing that's very difficult to quantify is the viral nature of the effort. Anyone can pay $5 to reach 2000 targeted people on Facebook, or $X to reach Y eyeballs on TV ... and that alone if your targeting is right would have allowed a few million to swing the vote given how close it was.

But if it's a sensational story that gets shared around on social media that same $ can reach 10000x eyeballs. Suddenly that $5 is now worth $50,000 in eyeballs. Given that "sensational" is relatively hard to come by in real life, but easy to manufacture if you're willing to make up **** about a divisive subject with lots of idiots on both sides... it's reasonable to conclude that the few million the Russians were pumping into Facebook advertising could have been worth up to billions of standard "... and I approve this message" doldrums on network TV.

Alphabet, Facebook, Amazon are all in the top 5 largest public corporations in the world by market cap, and Alibaba and Tencent are top 10 as well, because online advertising works well enough that everyone has to do it, and the winners do it best. (Apple and Microsoft also there, reliant on advertising to a lesser extent.)

[Dinner]

Actually, what I saw was the trolls get paid about $900 a month plus bonuses if they reach goals for numbers of posts, responses, quotes or retweets or people forwarding, etc... Also a lot of it is done by fake accounts run by bots especially on twitter or facebook so it is ridiculously easy to set up and run on the cheap.

[Elok]

Again, if it's so ridiculously easy ... why wasn't this angle exploited more effectively by Hillary's campaign? Were all her well-paid PR guys complete morons who knew nothing about effective use of advertising dollars? You can't tell me it's an ethical objection; she was perfectly happy doing dodgy crap with DNC money, etc.

[-Jrabbit]

The kneejerk "blame Hillary" instinct is strong in this one.

Focus, dude.

[Jon Miller]

Also, ~100 people is 10% of Trumps campaign and 3% of Hillary's.

Person wise, that is not a meaningless commitment to either.

JM
(I think it is inarguable that Hillary ran a poor campaign. But also, this is shady stuff that campaigns shouldn't be doing. Our response shouldn't be 'why weren't you doing it also Hillary?'. That path means the end of us as a sovereign state.)

[Jon Miller]

A possible interesting personal note is that one of the ~5 reasons I voted for Bush over Gore in 2000 was because I thought of Gore as a continuation of the Clintons and I thought they were too close to China. I wasn't even thinking about collusion there. Bush showed me that being too close to certain businesses was also extremely bad.

If only politicians who get backed by China or Russia (or EU) can become president... then we are going for some very dark times in deed.

JM

[Elok]

The kneejerk "blame Hillary" instinct is strong in this one.

Focus, dude.

It's not "blame Hillary," it's "why was help from this ****show of a backwater country such a critically important factor?" It's "why is it stupid-easy to do something IFF you are Russian?" It's "why did nobody in this country of 300+ million apparently think of doing this same thing with our own money, with native knowledge of American culture, and thus far more effectively?" The simplest explanation is that whatever Russia did likely amounted to a boy peeing in the ocean.

[-Jrabbit]

You are confusing your own perception of a logical/rational explanation of the alleged effect with the factual reality of the cause.

Focus, dude.

[Dinner]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...2016-election/

A good read. It also answers some of Elok's questions.

Also I agree Hillary was a **** candidate who ran a **** campaign which is why I voted 3rd party instead of for her. Not that it matters given the state I live in.