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Vox: Democrats are falling for fake news about Russia

Vox: People who are Democrats are falling for Fake News

Me: People who fall for Fake News are dominating Republican news cycles
 

Mully

Member
Facebook has nearly 2 billion active users.



41,000 and 29,000 shares is a huge appetite?

You have to remember how small the Birther and Truther movements were at the beginning. The Mensch following could explode in the following months.
 

Toxi

Banned
President Donald Trump is about to resign as a result of the Russia scandal. Bernie Sanders and Sean Hannity are Russian agents. The Russians have paid off House Oversight Chair Jason Chaffetz to the tune of $10 million, using Trump as a go-between. Paul Ryan is a traitor for refusing to investigate Trump’s Russia ties. Libertarian heroine Ayn Rand was a secret Russian agent charged with discrediting the American conservative movement.

Er, I haven't seen a single one of those mentioned here on GAF or my FB. So I'm thinking it's not nearly as widespread as the right wing crazy conspiracies.
You would be correct in that assumption.
 

Toxi

Banned
EDIT:
Also I still find it absurd how things have changed concerning Russia. Left used to ridicule the right for their phobia towards Russia / Soviet Union, and rightfully so. It has turned completely upside down. Now the left fear Russia like nothing else and right tries to be ok with them (or at least Trump tries to, lol).
The last half decade disagrees. Romney was a piece of shit, but he was right about Russia.

In a post-Crimea, post-Syria, post-2016 hackings world, Russia is fucking worrisome.
 

nomis

Member
Every time I point out John Schindler is crazy, someone on GAF goes "but sometimes he's right".

He's also been evangelizing Comey for months as the relentless patriot who would ensure the downfall of Trump, while much of GAF still thought he was evil for the Email Thing before the election which was on the verge of leaking regardless and he just wanted to control the narrative. Like Colbert's studio audience, there were people here who honestly didn't know how to feel when Trump fired Comey. Schindler and Olbermann basically called it the moment of truth for the american experiment, which it is.

Now we have gaffers posting shops of James Comey as Obi-Wan. I'm more than willing to give Schindler the benefit of the doubt, even if he's prone to label people Russian stooges. He seems cool.
 
Dumb headline

Some democrats fall for some commentators that are either too enthusiastic or are actually chaos agents.

Wake me up when infowars exists on the left, a large network with professional studios and huge donations.
 
President Donald Trump is about to resign as a result of the Russia scandal. Bernie Sanders and Sean Hannity are Russian agents. The Russians have paid off House Oversight Chair Jason Chaffetz to the tune of $10 million, using Trump as a go-between. Paul Ryan is a traitor for refusing to investigate Trump’s Russia ties. Libertarian heroine Ayn Rand was a secret Russian agent charged with discrediting the American conservative movement.

As already echoed, I haven't seen any of this stuff on GAF, so GAF hold your head high. Btw I've been following Schindler for awhile as well, and I haven't seen him pushing any of the above.
 

Toparaman

Banned
To the credit of GAF mods and the GAF community at large, fake news threads get debunked and shut down pretty quick here, even when they fit into GAF's largely left-leaning views.
 
Scary how easily fooled people are. I've fallen victim to it many times. Gaf has a huge problem with this. I'm hardly an educated person, nor some "red pill woke matrix guy", I simply don't buy the hype.

The other threads on the investigation have exceeded toxic levels of hopium. Trump, Pence, et. al. have been found guilty, tried, and convicted by many on gaf based off of "people" and "sources" found in various news outlets. I'm not saying that there isn't something going on, but I refuse to jump to conclusions like everyone else has. It's all speculation at this point. I believe the IC won't be able to pin anything on Trump, just a gut feeling. Do I think shenanigans have taken place? Yes, I think so, but I'm not going to start making accusations yet.

Careful you might get labeled a Trump apologist for saying as such.
 

SummitAve

Banned
There's always going to be people falling for shit. It doesn't make sense to generalize an entire party or political spectrum because of it.
 
...we should work to maintain that by being careful with sources, reading more than just the headline, tracking down where stories are actually coming from before believing them. Look for other angles, understand how stories spread, find the original source, read the study. It takes work to keep your beliefs in line with reality.
It can be amusing following all the H/Ts and citations to see how circular internet journalism can get. I've literally seen a (non-political) story cited on another news site and then the original site have a follow up story that cited only the site that cited the original site. And in a long string of hat tips, you can see a veritable game of telephone play out as sites wrestle with thesauruses to avoid plagiarism claims. Don't even get me started when the topic is technical and nuanced, if it's not a site that specializes in that topic, it's more likely to be 180 degrees wrong than anywhere close to accurate.

So to echo Cyan, follow citations to as close to primary sources as possible, and once you get there, read it for comprehension.

On another note: Thank you to the OP for linking this story. A couple of days ago, someone I follow on Twitter got drawn in to a conversation with Louise Mensch and Claude Taylor and I had no idea what was going on or who these idiots were.
 

nomis

Member
The other threads on the investigation have exceeded toxic levels of hopium. Trump, Pence, et. al. have been found guilty, tried, and convicted by many on gaf based off of "people" and "sources" found in various news outlets. I'm not saying that there isn't something going on, but I refuse to jump to conclusions like everyone else has. It's all speculation at this point. I believe the IC won't be able to pin anything on Trump, just a gut feeling. Do I think shenanigans have taken place? Yes, I think so, but I'm not going to start making accusations yet.

I hold no ill will against you, but in time your gut will be proven wrong. If there's one thing Claude Taylor and John Schindler's sources have that is without doubt, it is that the IC has mountains of signals intelligence (tapped phones, sniffed packets) from the entire Trump team's communications with Russian officials. They *have* the dirt, but it takes time to built an air tight case. Teflon Don isn't slipping out of this one, it's just a matter of how much damage he's able to do on the way.

On the other hand, if the whole Trump orbit gets incarcerated for RICO, collusion is moot. I still hope the people eventually see the whole truth.
 

TaterTots

Banned
To be honest, there has yet to be actual evidence. Just anonymous sources making claims to news sources. We'd all like to hope something concrete does come out.
 
To be honest, there has yet to be actual evidence. Just anonymous sources making claims to news sources. We'd all like to hope something concrete does come out.

Edit: Seconding what skullmuffins said, they aren't actually anonymous sources.

And then there's more hard evidence right from the horse's mouth as Trump has given his own incriminating evidence with his own words on several occasions now. Including just admitting why he fired Comey and how he felt better about the investigation (into himself) after firing him. A reason that would be absolute obstruction of justice given that he fired the man running the place investigating him for criminal behavior.

But yeah, of course we'll all only believe he's finally been taken down by all of this shit only after it's finally happened, given all of the incomprehensible and heinous stuff that he's guilty of that he's gotten away with so far.
 

nomis

Member
ya guys I'm sure he just fired comey cus he knew comey and the fbi had no conclusive evidence that trump and his people are traitors

he just thought comey was smelly
 

TaterTots

Banned
you do realize the sources aren't anonymous to the people writing the stories, right

Of course, but they are anonymous to us and those people do not feel comfortable announcing it publicly. These people need to come out and be willing to take the stand for anything to happen. Otherwise, people will continue to view it as he said she said. In other words, we need factual proof.
 

andymcc

Banned
Of course, but they are anonymous to us and those people do not feel comfortable announcing it publicly. These people need to come out and be willing to take the stand for anything to happen. Otherwise, people will continue to view it as he said she said. In other words, we need factual proof.

I'm sure some will be named in due time but you're really thick if that's how you think sourcing works.
 

Dirca

Member
Careful you might get labeled a Trump apologist for saying as such.
I couldn't care less what people think about me. I didn't vote for Trump or Hillary.
I hold no ill will against you, but in time your gut will be proven wrong. If there's one thing Claude Taylor and John Schindler's sources have that is without doubt, it is that the IC has mountains of signals intelligence (tapped phones, sniffed packets) from the entire Trump team's communications with Russian officials. They *have* the dirt, but it takes time to built an air tight case. Teflon Don isn't slipping out of this one, it's just a matter of how much damage he's able to do on the way.

On the other hand, if the whole Trump orbit gets incarcerated for RICO, collusion is moot. I still hope the people eventually see the whole truth.
Trump (and his establishment) is most likely guilty as sin. However unlike the vast majority here, I don't believe he is a stupid man. Grossly unexperienced for the job of US president, but not a stupid man. Anything he may have done, I'm going to say that his name isn't actually attached to it to incriminate him. I will venture to say that he will go on trial, but impeachment or jail time won't come. Unless there is hardcore concrete evidence that he's orchestrated the whole thing, a lot of the scuttlebut is "he said/she said". Comey has a memo that he penned...ok, where's the proof that Trump attempted to sway him? Was there another person in the room to corroborate this? Is there audio/video? Maybe there is a true smoking gun out there, but you've got to convince the jury beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's guilty, and currently I don't think they can do it. Remember, there was concrete evidence in the case with Bill Clinton and he still got off (more ways than one).

If I'm wrong I'm wrong. However I think the circle jerks going on in the other threads about how he's going down is a bit ridiculous at this stage in the game.
 

iapetus

Scary Euro Man
I've definitely fallen for it. Gonna unfollow Taylor. Progressives have to be better than this.

Do they?

Because doing this shit is what has given the alt-right such a boost recently. This is why we have Brexit. This is why we have Trump. Should progressives be better than this? Or should they just be better at this? It's a horrible question, because it points to an end game where politics is all about how well you can deceive foolish and gullible people. But realistically, if only one side is doing it you're never going to win by taking the moral high ground. Either they have to be stopped, people have to be educated, or the other side needs to match their tactics to neutralise them.

Scary shit.
 
so in related news, my twitter feed today is full of people absolutely clowning on Mensch & Taylor for their reporting today that:
Sources further say that the Supreme Court notified Mr. Trump that the formal process of a case of impeachment against him was begun, before he departed the country on Air Force One. The notification was given, as part of the formal process of the matter, in order that Mr. Trump knew he was not able to use his powers of pardon against other suspects in Trump-Russia cases. Sources have confirmed that the Marshal of the Supreme Court spoke to Mr. Trump.
(hint: that's not how any of that works. it's total nonsense.)

Using the available information to make somewhat plausible predictions about future events and then claiming credit for anything that's vaguely accurate is exactly how psychics and other charlatans work. That these people are also posting "scoops" that make no sense should be a pretty clear sign that they have no idea what they're talking about.
 

Mechazawa

Member
I've definitely groaned at the occasional GAF poster just dumping whatever stupid shit popped up in their timeline from some rando twitter account in a Trump related thread. Even seen a couple acknowledge how shitty the twitter account was but post it anyway with a "crazy if true!" disclaimer.

Fortunately though, most of the links that are discussion pieces around here are usually from reputable news outlets.
 
Louise Mensch retweet = unfollow

Yup. I saw that person being cited here multiple times and it didnt seem that much different than right wingers who cite Info Wars.
Let the chips fall where they may. I feel like part of the reason for this is that famous liberal figureheads like Rachel Maddow have become zealots about everything related to Trump and Russia. While there probably is mud in the water, Ive always had my doubts about the Manchurian Candidate scenario Maddow presents on her show every other night.
 

Kettch

Member
Perhaps I'm not in the right (or wrong) circles, but whenever I've seen someone state fake shit on the liberal side they've been immediately corrected by others and told it's fake.

Sure, there are some people who Want to Believe no matter what, but I haven't seen anything like the kind of alternate reality echo chamber that exists for Republicans right now.
 
I followed Mensch months ago not knowing who she was. She'd intermix (so called) facts with her wacky theories but I thought it was harmless and she would clearly separate the two.

Over time her theories started getting more outlandish and she'd blur them more and more with her "facts" and it was really impossible to tell which was which. Her writing became erratic and she started sounding more and more crazy so I quickly dropped.

Taylor is kind of the same although he's writing stuff that makes me think he's either Comey or McCabe(assuming it's true). He doesn't seem as unhinged as Mensch though.

Schindler I still follow. He mostly writes stuff from an ex-IC perspective which I find interesting. I don't see him pushing any whack theories or so called insider info either. Only suspect thing is he writes for the Observer which Kushner family owns(Jared put it in a BS blind trust like Trump) but I don't see any of his work being anything pro-Kushner or Trump for that matter.
 

watershed

Banned
I don't see any of my liberal friends falling for this bs. I did sadly see a slightly conservative, politically uninformed friend fall for all the Hillary fake news during the election.
 

Vyer

Member
so in related news, my twitter feed today is full of people absolutely clowning on Mensch & Taylor for their reporting today that:

(hint: that's not how any of that works. it's total nonsense.)

Using the available information to make somewhat plausible predictions about future events and then claiming credit for anything that's vaguely accurate is exactly how psychics and other charlatans work. That these people are also posting "scoops" that make no sense should be a pretty clear sign that they have no idea what they're talking about.

Marshal of the Supreme Court giving impeachment notifications? wut
 
The bullshit spread by conspiracy theorists like Mensch is cherry-picked by people trying to discredit the actual, plausible Russia narrative as it exists, like the folks at the Intercept have done time and again.

People like her and Alex Jones prey on regular folks looking for answers to problems that seem intractable.
 
Yeah nah

there isn't a democrat subreddit filled with hundreds of thousands of people actively putting their hands over their ears refusing to believe news coming out about the orange fuckstick while grasping at conspiracy theories that have no value

Vox is reaching

SandersForPresident
 
T

thepotatoman

Unconfirmed Member
I kind of reject the thesis here that this is an equivalent phenomenon to the Republican conspiracy sphere. Firstly, this isn't getting whipped up out of thin air. Secondly, when liberals see it debunked they ACCEPT THE DEBUNKING. You STILL find tons of pizzagate believers on the right.

Sure, but that still doesn't mean this behavior should be excused.

Even the people that share this garbage saying "I know this isn't super reliable, but what if it's true?" are doing a massive disservice, because not everyone knows why it isn't reliable, and it still creeps into reaffirming your biases without being true at all, and properly reinforced biases will always affect your logic no matter how hard you fight it.
 
I've tried hard to keep fake news sources off my feeds but still see them from people making fun of it.
k54gGoA.jpg

https://twitter.com/SimonMaloy/status/866000466626449408/photo/1
At least threads like this on twitter help education a few people.
 

-Plasma Reus-

Service guarantees member status
President Donald Trump is about to resign as a result of the Russia scandal. Bernie Sanders and Sean Hannity are Russian agents. The Russians have paid off House Oversight Chair Jason Chaffetz to the tune of $10 million, using Trump as a go-between. Paul Ryan is a traitor for refusing to investigate Trump’s Russia ties
Aside from the Bernie Sanders thing. These are all claims that could turn out to be true in a few mo ths time. Crazy.
 

Oriel

Member
It should be noted that Taylor was correct regarding the closed door sessions in the Eastern District of Virgina federal court. Many took the approval by the court for US Marshalls to begin an operation linked to Russia inteference in US election as meaning they would start arresting suspects. That's not what was being suggested. We do know that there are sealed indictments linked to TrumpRussia issued by the same court as well. We know for a fact that there are multiple investigations into GOP operatives and their cosy relations with the Kremlin/Russian intelligence. The Taylor/Mensch piece was a garbled mess that doesn't do their credibility and favours. But it's worth clarifying what was being said....

11h
SeanSpicer's Mic @Spicerlies

4/ No where in the blog was it ever stated or implied that SCOTUS was starting the impeachment process.
It DOES say House Judiciary. SCOTUS does in fact Marshal.
See attached, specifically §672 (c)(2)..."serve and execute all process and orders issued by the Court"

as mentioned I reached into my network within the legal community, one who happens to work in SCOTUS Marshal office.
Here are the text

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DATqXKRXsAEFoFR.jpg


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It bears repeating at no time did their blog say SCOTUS was starting Impeachment proceedings, because they can't. Duh

I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm not taking sides. What I am asking you and others to consider is, it's plausible that SCOTUS may have been asked by a ranking Dem Judicary House or Dem leader to see what SCOTUS could to establish a body of evidence to assist the House with evidence for Articles of Impeachment? They are the minority party and would need a rock solid case to win GOP votes, no?

I don't take Mensch seriously but Taylor and Schindler do have extensive contacts within the judicial and intelligence communities.
 
Yep, I keep trying to tell people that Louise Mensch is full of shit, but it doesn't help when people like Bill Maher and Keith Olbermann et al give her a platform.

Still, this fake news bullshit on the left has nothing near the traction that bullshit like the Seth Rich conspiracy gets on the right. This is not a Both Sides Are The Same thing.
 
Yep, I keep trying to tell people that Louise Mensch is full of shit, but it doesn't help when people like Bill Maher and Keith Olbermann et al give her a platform.

Still, this fake news bullshit on the left has nothing near the traction that bullshit like the Seth Rich conspiracy gets on the right. This is not a Both Sides Are The Same thing.

I haven't seen any of these stories on my social media groups, while I've seen the Seth Rich thing from some of my friends on the far left who have been refusing to believe anything Russia related.

For what it's worth.
 

digdug2k

Member
I read this and part of just thinks, "good". Fake news has served the gop well for 30 some years now. If a fake story is what it takes to get your friend to the voting booth... I can live with that I think. If the Dems don't do it, a fake gop story will likely get them there to vote for Ronald McDonald or whoever they running this year instead.
 
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