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posted by mrpg on Monday October 30 2017, @12:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the Вы-говори́те-по-ру́сски? dept.

After RT published excerpts from Twitter's "limited offer" to spend millions on US election marketing, the company abruptly banned all advertising from the news network. This makes full disclosure and transparency imperative, so here goes.

On Thursday, the micro-blogging platform announced a policy decision to ban ads from RT and Sputnik, citing alleged meddling in the 2016 US election.

It followed Twitter's report implying that RT was trying to influence US public opinion, crucially without providing context that virtually all news media organizations spend money on advertising their news coverage.
...
RT was thereby forced to reveal some details of the 2016 negotiations during which Twitter representatives made an exclusive multi-million dollar advertising proposal to spend big during the US presidential election, which was turned down.

Having since been banned, and in order to set the record straight, we are publishing Twitter's presentation and details of the offer in full.

Lenin said it: "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday October 30 2017, @06:54PM (5 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Monday October 30 2017, @06:54PM (#589599)

    The US meddles in every foreign election we can manage. Why would the Russians not be trying to do the same thing? Especially consider that Hillary Clinton had successfully removed a Russian ally in Ukraine, and was trying to do the same thing in Syria: How would the US be reacting had the Russians, say, ousted Shinzo Abe of Japan in a military coup?

    Also, one idea that is core to the "Russian propaganda is why Trump won" line of thinking is that it presumes that the American people are a bunch of morons. Which I admit, lends the claim a certain amount of credibility, but in this case I think misses the mark: There's substantial evidence that the Clinton campaign were even more moronic than average Americans, and all the consultants who worked on that campaign have been pulling out all the stops to try to make us not notice that fact. This isn't surprising, because their salaries depend on Clinton and a few other rich people believing that they lost because of some clever schemes by a vast right-wing conspiracy (now international in scope!), rather than their being idiotic strategists who couldn't even be bothered to seriously campaign in Michigan and Wisconsin.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Monday October 30 2017, @08:06PM (4 children)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday October 30 2017, @08:06PM (#589630) Journal

    So we should just roll over and let Russia interfere in our election based on an unproven allegation that the US maybe meddled in a Russian election at some point?

    • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday October 30 2017, @08:24PM (2 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Monday October 30 2017, @08:24PM (#589644)

      No, I'm just saying that all the hue-and-cry about it is largely unwarranted, and drummed up for a very specific reason that has nothing to do with national security.

      What we should do about it is what we should do regardless of the Russians:
      1. Properly secure our voting systems. Using physical media such as pieces of paper that are actually checked before the results are announced.
      2. Teach US citizens all about propaganda techniques and how to avoid succumbing to them. The main reason there isn't a push in this direction is that the US government doesn't want citizens to have an easy time of detecting and avoiding propaganda coming from the US government.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday October 30 2017, @08:27PM (1 child)

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday October 30 2017, @08:27PM (#589648) Journal

        3. Lock the US traitors up. A good start! [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 31 2017, @09:58AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 31 2017, @09:58AM (#589941)

          Do you actually realize how high the bar is for a US treason conviction?

          Do you realize that your behaviour (screaming "TREASON!" at people you don't like) is exactly the reason for said high bar?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 31 2017, @02:13PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 31 2017, @02:13PM (#590014)

      No. BUT the real issue is as long as the DNC keeps blaming others for their mistakes they're less likely to improve.

      They even blamed the racists and the electoral college BUT the fact is a BLACK guy won TWICE.

      The DNC actually wanted Trump as their opponent and elevated him. They probably figured Clinton had a better chance vs Trump.

      They even claim the Russians hacked the election but there's no evidence that the votes or vote counts were changed by the Russians.

      The voters may have been illegally influenced by the Russians but the many of those voters were the ones Clinton and the DNC didn't really care much about anyway.