Sunday, February 25, 2018

I Have To Wonder…

If those who are demonizing the Parkland students who are speaking out for gun control are Russian trolls.
PRO-GUN RUSSIAN BOTS FLOOD TWITTER AFTER PARKLAND SHOOTING
Wired
By N Griffith
February 15, 2018

EACH NEW BREAKING news situation is an opportunity for trolls to grab attention, provoke emotions, and spread propaganda. The Russian government knows this. Fake-news manufacturing teenagers in Macedonia know this. Twitter bot creators know this. And thanks to data-gathering operations from groups like the Alliance for Securing Democracy and RoBhat Labs, the world knows this.

In the wake of Wednesday’s Parkland, Florida, school shooting, which resulted in 17 deaths, troll and bot-tracking sites reported an immediate uptick in related tweets from political propaganda bots and Russia-linked Twitter accounts. Hamilton 68, a website created by Alliance for Securing Democracy, tracks Twitter activity from accounts it has identified as linked to Russian influence campaigns. As of morning, shooting-related terms dominated the site’s trending hashtags and topics, including Parkland, guncontrolnow, Florida, guncontrol, and Nikolas Cruz, the name of the alleged shooter. Popular trending topics among the bot network include shooter, NRA, shooting, Nikolas, Florida, and teacher.
[…]
The use of pro-gun control hashtags like #guncontrolnow, along with the spread of anti-gun control links like the Politifact article, appear at first to show the Russian strategy of promoting discord on both sides of a debate. Russian-linked Twitter accounts have attempted to spread confusion and angst on topics ranging from police violence against black people, to NFL player protests, to Al Franken’s sexual misconduct accusations. (On other topics, like special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russia's attempts to influence the 2016 election, the bots have worked in concert to further the Kremlin's agenda.)
What can be done to stop this interference from Russia?

Well shutting down the Russian Tweeter and Facebook accounts helps but I think that they will popup at another new account as fast as you shut them down. But at least that might keep them from getting a large following.

I also think that we should cut the internet fiber optic links to Russia… it is drastic but it probably will get results.

We need them to play fair in the international sand box otherwise we need to have a forced timeout until they stop their interference and destabilization of world politics.

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