Timothy Birdnow

According to an Oxford study, over half a billion dollars have been spent on social media efforts to manipulate public opinion worldwide since 2010. From the article:

"Including U.S. government programs aimed at countering extremists such as Islamic fundamentalists, about $500 million has been spent worldwide on research, development or implementation of social media "psychological operations” since 2010, the authors estimated.

"The manipulation of public opinion over social media platforms has emerged as a critical threat to public life,” the researchers wrote. They warned that, at a time when news consumption is increasingly occurring over the Internet, this trend threatens "to undermine trust in the media, public institutions and science.”
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People forget that the Obama Administration held a seminar at the White House to teach dissidents how to use Facebook and other social media to foment a revolution, and that in fact the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak - a staunch U.S ally if a thug - was a direct result of the training given to promote "fake news" via social media. It could be argued that the Obama Administration created the "fake news" phenomenon. See here.

And it wasa massive effort - which paid high dividends  From an article in SEO Web Marketing:

"The leader of the research project, Philip Howard commented on the findings. He stated, "Our evidence suggests that social media carried a cascade of messages about freedom and democracy across North Africa and the Middle East, and helped raise expectations for the success of political uprising. People who shared interest in democracy built extensive social networks and organized political action. Social media became a critical part of the toolkit for greater freedom.”

The study found there was a massive increase in tweets regarding political change in Egypt the week before President Mubarak’s resignation. Numerically the increase was from 2300 tweets a day to 233,000 each day on the topic. During this same period YouTube videos displaying political commentary and protest went viral. The top 23 of these videos collectively received a total of 5.5 million views. Equally, the amount of content produced by opposition groups drastically increased. This content included political blogs and posts on Facebook."

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Remember, one of the top leaders of the "Arab Spring" who helped topple Mubarak was a]at senior vice president at Google and Facebook, Google, and Twitter had their hands all over the Arab Spring.

So Russian meddling is a problematic thing in light of the massive meddling done by the U.S. government and unelected, unregulated social media outlets and internet mandarins.

And let us not forget, the Obama Administration meddled in numerous elections - in Israel, in France (he supported Macron over La Penn) in Bolivia, in Honduras, in Kenya. He opposed Brexit and tried to stop it. He - and the U.S. - has meddled repeatedly and yet the Russians are the Clear and Present Danger to the safety of the Republic.

Frankly, I'm more worried about our own government meddling in our elections.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:30 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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