Remember the 'Russia Hoax' ?

Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin has admitted to interfering in US elections on the eve of a midterm vote in which Republicans will seek to take control of Congress and state-wide offices across the country.

“Gentlemen, we interfered, we are interfering and we will interfere, carefully, precisely, surgically and the way we do it, the way we can."

Prigozhin was responding to a request to comment on a recent Bloomberg report saying Russia was interfering in Tuesday’s US midterm elections.

The US social media analysis firm Graphika last week said that suspected Russian operatives have used far-right media platforms to criticise Democratic candidates in the lead-up to the midterm elections in a number of US states, including Georgia, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Prigozhin, together with a dozen other Russian nationals and three Russian companies was indicted in 2018 as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections.

Prigozhin was charged with inciting discord and dividing American public opinion ahead of the 2016 US presidential election, accusations Prigozhin, as well as the Kremlin, has previously vehemently denied.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/07/putin-ally-yevgeny-prigozhin-admits-interfering-in-us-elections

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trollslayer · 46-50, M

Russia (and other foreign operatives) trying to create havoc in the US election system is not up for dispute. We all witnessed it.

I entered the social media world about 6 months before the 2016 election. I immediately noticed folks sharing "news stories" and memes that were outright lies - and made no logical sense. The first one I remember was a photo supposedly of Mexico's southern border with a fortified wall saying that if they can build such a wall on their southern border, why can't we? Except the photo showed a wall across a desert landscape... any person who ever looked at a globe would know this was not a photo of Mexico's southern border. Yet all the "FUCK YEAH!" comments surprised me. And then there were the numerous "news" articles being shared form new sources with such names as "America First News" that had spelling or grammatical errors, or obvious factual errors, and thousands of people sharing and commenting "fuck yeah!" I remarked to my friend that this seemed odd, and a month later the term "fake news" became big.

Trump won fair and square in 2016. There were no fake ballots, fake electors, fraudulent votes, ballot tampering. But his voters WERE influenced by that foreign social media propaganda. How do I know? I have many family members who were so fooled.

Pikachu

@trollslayer

Yup. Social media is a legitimately serious tool in modern votes because not only can propaganda be spread quickly and easily, the same algorithms that make micro targeting possible for ads also make microtargeting possible for propaganda.