this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2024
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[–] Pretzilla 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Seems pretty cherry picked. From the Wapo regarding Twitter:

But the study doesn’t go so far as to say that Russia had no influence on people who voted for President Donald Trump.

It doesn’t examine other social media, like the much-larger Facebook.

Nor does it address Russian hack-and-leak operations. Another major study in 2018 by University of Pennsylvania communications professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson suggested those probably played a significant role in the 2016 race’s outcome.

Lastly, it doesn’t suggest that foreign influence operations aren’t a threat at all.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

It doesn’t examine other social media, like the much-larger Facebook.

Facebook Partners With Hawkish Atlantic Council, a NATO Lobby Group, to “Protect Democracy”

All of the US corporate social media platforms are part of the US military-industrial-intellegence complex now. Look at their boards of directors and executives. Look at Reddit:

.
TikTok as well. We’ve known since Snowden that US “cloud”/hosting companies are deeply embedded. The US already forced them to move their service to the US onto one of those providers, and they have already put people with a history of aligning with “American interests” into executive positions, like CEO Shou Zi Chew and vice president Michael Beckerman.

They have their eye on the fediverse now, too: Atlantic Council » Collective Security in a Federated World

As I’ve said before, the threat has always been coming from inside the house:

.

Lastly, it doesn’t suggest that foreign influence operations aren’t a threat at all.

One can’t prove a negative, and I’m sure there isn’t literally nothing that has happened or will ever happen. But trying to propagandize the voters of the most propagandized country in the world probably isn’t the most efficient way to go about it. Bribing politicians surely would be more efficient, for example.