# Washington Post: Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 25, 2016, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945 "2016-11-25T03:41:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/261 "2016-12-13T13:43:44Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Question: If it is indisputably proven that Russia tried to assist Trump, but that neither Trump nor the GOP had a hand in it - in other words, Russia was freelancing - then what exactly would be the legal consequences for Trump and the GOP? Shouldn’t be any, right? > > If James has a rivalry with Alex, but a friend of James hurls a Molotov Cocktail into Alex’s house - without any request from James and not at James’ behest - then James shouldn’t be on the hook for any legal charges, right? It appears that there is proof that the Russians did some tampering. If he was smart, Trump would come out & say “If that happened, it was dreadful. It was done absolutely without the knowledge or the approval of me or anyone in my campaign. My actions as President will prove that I have no intention of showing Russia any undue favoritism.” Yearh, “if he was smart”… ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/262 "2016-12-13T14:07:10Z")
Depends on what you call “tampering”. It’s only tampering or “interference” if it’s something that would also be tampering or interference if an American did it. Hacking the voting would be clear tampering. Revealing Democratic efforts to lie to the public by hacking their campaign and DNC emails would be called whistleblowing if an American had done it. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/263 "2016-12-13T14:27:04Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > The poster made two wrong claims. One was that 2016 was about ideology vs. reason and morals. The other was that there has been evidence of treason by Trump. > [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Trump was new. Everything he did was new to American politics. Clinton was old. Everything she did was stale. Over in the other thread about Clinton’s ±3 million more votes, some posters are vehemently arguing that the election was “Revenge of Flyover Country” or “Forgotten Americans Speak Out.” That would imply that the election was more about ideology than fresh, 70 year old faces. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/264 "2016-12-13T17:56:25Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > The poster made two wrong claims. One was that 2016 was about ideology vs. reason and morals. The other was that there has been evidence of treason by Trump. You said “Treason” and associated it with ideology. It has nothing to do with it. Unless you have a guilty conscience. I’m progressive and I can’t see associating treason with ideology. Trumps behavior has been anti-american in a few dozens of ways already. It’s not even in dispute. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/265 "2016-12-13T18:30:32Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > And she still got more votes than Trump. > > Yes, I know. Not in the right places to make her President. All those “urban” votes don’t count. Or count about 3/5’s… > > And Trump is hauling out a bunch of old, stale fools & tycoons for his cabinet. C’mon now. Everyone knows the rules of the game. You do know that the “urban” are free now. And that includes free to move to Montana or Wyoming. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/266 "2016-12-13T21:27:03Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > And she still got more votes than Trump. > > Yes, I know. Not in the right places to make her President. All those “urban” votes don’t count. Or count about 3/5’s… > > And Trump is hauling out a bunch of old, stale fools & tycoons for his cabinet. I’ve noticed that many Parliamentary governments chose not to elect their leader by a popular vote. The practice just doesn’t seem all that unusual. At times like these, I like to paraphrase the Men in Black. \*Agent J: No, what you remember is that you used to drive that old busted jawn. See, I drive the new hotness. [pointing at Hillary] Agent J: Old and busted. [pointing at Trump] Agent J: New hotness.\* ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/267 "2016-12-13T21:47:31Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > C’mon now. Everyone knows the rules of the game. You do know that the “urban” are free now. And that includes free to move to Montana or Wyoming. That’s a brilliant idea, actually. We just need Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and the like to build some strategically placed company towns on some cheap, empty land in some relatively unpopulated red states to swing some of those sweet, juicy land-based electoral votes our way. Jobs for majors like that are about the only thing that could motivate such a diaspora to the hinterland. I like your thinking! I’ll let you know what Bill thinks about your proposal. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/268 "2016-12-13T21:52:23Z")
There is a school of thought that suggests that the main purpose of the Electoral College, as it was seen in the eyes of the Founding Fuckups, was to be an elite arm of government empowered to overturn decisions of the addled rabble. Which is to say, us. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/269 "2016-12-13T22:37:29Z")
Just saw something that surprised me, thought I’d share. News show lookback on Trump’s most recent press conference where he first used the “I wish the Russians would give us those 30,000 missing Hillary e-mails”. I heard him drop this line at some other event, and it seemed like just a line, a thing to say and move along. Could be viewed as a sardonic one-liner, so no biggie. What this clip showed was that he doubled-down on it, defended it in the face of incredulous reporter’s follow-up questions, hammered it in. Kinda puts a different light on it for me, wondered how many of you had the same misunderstanding? He \*wasn’t \*kidding, he meant it. Maybe he gets them as part of a deal, and finally Hillary can be indicted for the murder of Vince Foster… Too crazy, Tom Clancy meets William Burroughs? Shit, these days, what isn’t? ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/270 "2016-12-13T22:39:12Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Trump’s approach was new, which is why you are so angry. Well, assplodingingly douchey new, perhaps, hence _my_ pissedness. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/271 "2016-12-14T02:39:13Z")
Let us not forget, while the cons on this Board are trying desperately to convince us Russian hacking wasn’t aimed at any one party, reports have been out for months about [how the Russians targeted Democratic House campaigns in particularly tight races.](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/politics/house-democrats-hacking-dccc.html) But, yeah, none dare call it treason. Or even immoral. As long as their guy wins, all is well. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/272 "2016-12-14T03:29:13Z")
Apparently they are launching a French language channel of Russia Today, just in time for French elections. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/273 "2016-12-14T03:56:08Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Let us not forget, while the cons on this Board are trying desperately to convince us Russian hacking wasn’t aimed at any one party, reports have been out for months about [how the Russians targeted Democratic House campaigns in particularly tight races.](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/politics/house-democrats-hacking-dccc.html) > > But, yeah, none dare call it treason. Or even immoral. As long as their guy wins, all is well. It’s because you don’t know what the word means. The Russians did it. Not US citizens. Blame the DNC for having shit security and their candidate who had a private server and those fools in the DNC who fell for phishing attempts I warn my preteens about weekly. You can also blame the people in the DNC who wrote embarrassing stuff. Free speech and consequences. Many careers have been ruined by leaked video and I hear all the time how free speech is freedom from consequences. Well the Russians consequences the,. Perhaps major government and political party institutions won’t leave admin as admin and password as password. Or when they check the phishing email and it leads to xxxxxxx.kgb they won’t fill in a new password. And our government does the same thing. We stuxneted the Iranians. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/274 "2016-12-14T03:57:09Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > There is a school of thought that suggests that the main purpose of the Electoral College, as it was seen in the eyes of the Founding Fuckups, was to be an elite arm of government empowered to overturn decisions of the addled rabble. Which is to say, us. I don’t know why you’d characterize a brilliant set of men that way. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/275 "2016-12-14T07:17:04Z")
[Bloomberg: Don’t Assume That Russia Hacked the U.S. Election](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-12-13/don-t-assume-that-russia-hacked-the-u-s-election) > [@](#): > > Assessing a cyber attack is more art than science. Intelligence analysis deals with information that is often intentionally deceptive. As Central Intelligence Agency veteran Richards Heuer, Jr. explains, “The significance of information is always a joint function of the nature of the information and the context in which it is interpreted.” I thought this was a worthwhile word of caution, but it’ll probably fall mostly on deaf ears around here. ‘It had to be the Russians. The CIA said so, and the CIA is never wrong about anything.’ ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/276 "2016-12-14T07:23:48Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Depends on what you call “tampering”. It’s only tampering or “interference” if it’s something that would also be tampering or interference if an American did it. Hacking the voting would be clear tampering. Revealing Democratic efforts to lie to the public by hacking their campaign and DNC emails would be called whistleblowing if an American had done it. Actually, hacking into a server of political opposition is similar in my mind to breaking into their office to get political material, and _should_ be treated as a moral failure and a crime. It should lead to heads rolling at the highest political level, even to the point of the resignation of a president. But that was the Republican party of Nixon. They’ve moved beyond personal responsibility, and now _celebrate_ break-ins, as long as they benefit. And if it was the Russians breaking in to steal political material to influence an election in the direction they wanted? Who gives a shit, say Republicans, as long as we won. Completely, utterly morally bankrupt. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/277 "2016-12-14T07:26:15Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Actually, hacking into a server of political opposition is similar in my mind to breaking into their office to get political material, and _should_ be treated as a moral failure and a crime. It should lead to heads rolling at the highest political level, even to the point of the resignation of a president. If Trump had done the hacking, you might have a really good analogy here. > [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Who gives a shit, say Republicans, as long as we won. I call that move “the Harry Reid”. It’s a good one we only learned recently. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/278 "2016-12-14T07:33:43Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > I don’t know why you’d characterize a brilliant set of men that way. I don’t believe in sanctifying people, I think it robs them of their humanity and “gets us off the hook”. By applying impossible goodness to some people, we allow ourselves to believe they are not like us. And that we, therefore, cannot be blamed if we are not like them. The myth of them as egalitarian democrats (small “d”) is just that. For the most part, they built a government with a different elite than England. Not a nobility by blood, but by cash on the barrelhead. Some did see the light of human equality in the distance, but this was the best deal they could get. The clumsy start to the magnificent experiment. It needs work, luckily, we are here to do it. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/279 "2016-12-14T07:59:30Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > …I thought this was a worthwhile word of caution, but it’ll probably fall mostly on deaf ears around here. ‘It had to be the Russians. The CIA said so, and the CIA is never wrong about anything.’ Another view might as easily be that Trump doesn’t want to believe it because he doesn’t want to believe that Putin is playing Geppetto to his Pinocchio. That Putin would set this all in motion and not tell him about it. He wants to believe that Putin regards him as an equal, rather than a useful idiot. As noted above, he used to believe they did it, now, he swears they didn’t, with the same utter lack of evidence as before. You’re a Trump enthusiast, you tell us, what does he _really_ believe about _anything_? Is he bullshitting today, or was it then? Its like a Heisenberg dueling scar, one day its there, next day, not. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/280 "2016-12-14T08:11:17Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > You’re a Trump enthusiast, you tell us, what does he _really_ believe about _anything_? Is he bullshitting today, or was it then? Its like a Heisenberg dueling scar, one day its there, next day, not. I can see how, from this board’s liberal perspective, everyone to the right of Obama probably looks like “a Trump enthusiast”. As for what he believes, beats me. “I’ve never met the guy.” When he ran in the primaries, I thought of him as the NYC liberal in the race. Then he won the nomination and I thought we had a race between two NYC liberals. Looking at his cabinet picks now, he’s not looking quite so liberal. If that trend holds through a SCOTUS nomination or three, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945.md?page=15)