Tag: 2016 election

Facebook’s Decisions Were ‘Setbacks for Civil Rights,’ Audit Finds

New York Times logoAn independent audit faulted the social network for allowing hate speech and disinformation to thrive — potentially posing a threat to the November elections.

SAN FRANCISCO — Auditors handpicked by Facebook to examine its policies said that the company had not done enough to protect people on the platform from discriminatory posts and ads and that its decisions to leave up President Trump’s inflammatory posts were “significant setbacks for civil rights.”

The 89-page audit put Facebook in an awkward position as the presidential campaign heats up. The report gave fuel to the company’s detractors, who said the site had allowed hate speech and misinformation to flourish. The audit also placed the social network in the spotlight for an issue it had worked hard to avoid since the 2016 election: That it may once again be negatively influencing American voters.

Now Facebook has to decide whether its approach to hateful speech and noxious content — which was to leave it alone in the name of free expression — remains tenable. And that decision puts pressure on Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, who has repeatedly said that his company was not an arbiter of truth and that it would not police politicians’ posts. Continue reading.

Facebook closes network of accounts and pages affiliated with Roger Stone for manipulation

Washington Post logoThe longtime Trump friend and former campaign adviser used fake accounts and other deceptive tactics to manipulate public debate, the company said

Facebook took down a network of more than 100 pages and accounts on Wednesday it said was affiliated with felon and former Republican operative Roger Stone for “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” taking the company’s campaign against disinformation closer to the heart of the nation’s political establishment.

The offending activity on Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram dated as far back as 2015 but was particularly active during the 2016 presidential election season, when Stone was advising Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and in 2017, as federal investigators were scrutinizing his activities.

Facebook officials said Stone, a longtime friend of Trump’s, used fake accounts and other deceptive measures to manipulate public debate. In at least a small number of occasions, Stone also drew attention to posts made by anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, which at the time was publishing damaging Democratic Party emails originally stolen by Russian hackers, the company said. Continue reading.

Journalist recounts the moment in the 2016 campaign where Trump took a ‘dark turn’

AlterNet logoIn a new book excerpt published by Vanity Fair, ABC reporter Jonathan Karl recounts a moment from December 2015 in which he began to believe Donald Trump’s presidential campaign started taking a “dark turn.”

It was a few days before Christmas, Karl recounted in “Front Row at the Trump Show,” and the candidate was about to appear before thousands at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A Trump aide had insisted in a profanity-laced demand that Karl’s upcoming TV interview with the candidate feature a prominent Christmas tree, the book explained.

But just a few minutes into the interview, things went south. Karl says he brought up polls showing that Trump was consistently losing to Hillary Clinton — and he erroneously had missed a couple of polls showing her losing, which Trump pointed out. In response, Trump erupted. Continue reading.

Justice Dept. watchdog finds political bias did not taint top officials running the FBI’s Russia probe but documents other errors Add to list

Washington Post logoThe Justice Department’s internal watchdog is expected to find in a forthcoming report that political bias did not taint top officials running the FBI investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign in 2016, while at the same time criticizing the bureau for systemic failures in its handling of surveillance applications, according to two U.S. officials.

The report due out Dec. 9 from Inspector General Michael Horowitz will allege that a low-level FBI lawyer inappropriately altered a document that was used as part of a controversial application for electronic surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser, the officials said. The inspector general referred that finding to U.S. Attorney John Durham, so that he may investigate it as a possible crime, they said.

But Horowitz will conclude that the application still had a proper legal and factual basis, according to the officials, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive report.

View the complete November 22 article by Ellen Nakashima, Matt Zapotosky and Devlin Barrett on The Washington Post website here.

Iowans flocked to Trump in 2016. He betrayed them

AlterNet logoThere has been no escape this week from the mainstream media’s wall-to-wall Trump impeachment drama. Yet while the media’s fixation on the Beltway crime wave makes for good television (and newsprint), there is scant attention being paid to the continuing slide of the economic circumstances of tens of millions of American families.

Democrats need to not only hold Trump accountable for his high crimes and misdemeanors but also for his abject failure to deliver for those voters that, as he correctly observed, were ignored for years by the nation’s professional political class.

Right now, the impeachment battle is playing out in the context of what is being reported as a “the longest economic expansion” in American history, the lowest unemployment rate in fifty years and a roaring stock market.

View the complete November 17 article by Bob Hennelly from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

Inaction by U.K. and Allies Over Russian Meddling in U.S. Elections Emboldened Russia: Report

Inaction by the United Kingdom and some of its allies after Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections may have emboldened Russia, according to a new report by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. The report says British members of the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) were told that the failure to respond to the meddling by the U.K. and some of its allies may have led to grave acts, including the poisonings of former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal in Salisbury in March 2018. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism is now suing the British government for access to the ISC committee report on potential Russian interference into its own upcoming election. Prime Minister Boris Johnson blocked the publication of the report until after elections next month despite a final clearance and vetting being given for its release.

View the November 16 article by Barbie Latz Nadeau on the Daily Beast website here.

Bannon testifies that Trump campaign saw Stone as link to WikiLeaks

The Hill logoStephen Bannon, President Trump‘s former White House adviser and campaign CEO, testified in court on Friday that the campaign saw Roger Stone as a potential intermediary with WikiLeaks.

“I think it was generally believed that the access point or potential access point to WikiLeaks was Roger Stone,” Bannon testified at Stone’s criminal trial.

“I was led to believe he had a relationship with WikiLeaks and Julian Assange,” he added, referring to the site’s founder.

View the complete November 8 article by Harper Neidig on The Washington Post website here.

Report: Russians Breached FBI Communications In 2016

In 2016, the Russian government not only interfered in the United States’ presidential election — a fact that has been well-documented in the Mueller report— it also spied on U.S. intelligence within the United States. And according to an investigative report by Zach Dorfman, Jenna McLaughlin, and Sean D. Naylor for Yahoo News, Russian operatives “targeted FBI communications” and successfully “hampered the bureau’s ability to track Russian spies on U.S. soil.”

One of the sources for Yahoo News’ report, a former senior official for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), asserted, “It was a very broad effort to try and penetrate our most sensitive operations.”

On December 29, 2016, the outgoing Obama administration gave almost three dozen Russian diplomats only 72 hours to leave the U.S. and seized two rural estates owned by the Russian government. At the time, Russian officials insisted that those estates were merely vacation spots. But according to Yahoo News’ report, the estates were used for spying — and that spying was so comprehensive that it underscores “U.S. counterintelligence vulnerabilities.”

View the complete September 16 article by Alex Henderson from AlterNet on the National Memo website here.

How disinformation could sway the 2020 election

In 2016, Russian operatives used Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to sow division among American voters and boost Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

What the Russians used to accomplish this is called “disinformation,” which is false or misleading content intended to deceive or promote discord. Now, with the first presidential primary vote only five months away, the public should be aware of the sources and types of online disinformation likely to surface during the 2020 election.

First, the Russians will be back. Don’t be reassured by the notorious Russian Internet Research Agency’s relatively negligible presence during last year’s midterm elections. The agency might have been keeping its powder dry in anticipation of the 2020 presidential race. And it helped that U.S. Cyber Command, an arm of the military, reportedly blocked the agency’s internet access for a few days right before the election in November 2018.

View the complete September 9 article by Paul M. Barrett, Deputy Director, Center for Business and Human Rights, Stern School of Business; Adjunct Profession of Law, New York University, on the Conversation website here.

Democratic Resilience

Center for American Progress logoA Comparative Review of Russian Interference in Democratic Elections and Lessons Learned for Securing Future Elections

Introduction and summary

The upcoming U.S. presidential election will be the first since Russia’s extensive and systematic attack on the 2016 cycle. Unfortunately, the interference campaign did not end on November 8, 2016. Multiple law enforcement filings, intelligence warnings, private sector alarms, and watchdog group reports prove that Russia’s attacks continued throughout the 2018 midterm elections—and continue to this day. Continue reading “Democratic Resilience”