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The Russian troll factory where Brexit was organised and Trump put in office

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Alas I dont subscribe to FT so i cant read it, what is in the article?

This study from an independent and authoritative research team from Oxford University...

https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/blog/russia-and-brexit/

Reply 21

Wōden

Original post by Rinsed

Brexit is happening because more people walking into the voting booths put their cross by "leave" than "remain".

These stories (insofar as they are even believable) have little bearing on that fact. We are required to believe the electorate, and in particular leave-voters, are ignorant sheeple who can be manipulated in vast numbers by a few Russians with a laptop.

When you consider how vastly the government, broadcast media and establishment in general was weighted in favour of the EU it's obvious how silly this is. Could this possibly be more influential than the government mailing taxpayer-funded remain-propoganda to every house in the land? Or Cameron and Osborne convincing their foreign mates like Obama or Lagarde to weigh in on the EU's side? Or the BBC's decision to invite vastly more pro-EU than anti-EU figures onto its programmes? No, it's palpably ridiculous. The continuity remain campaign demeans itself by endorsing this nonsense.

Indeed. Even if this 'troll factory' turns out ot be 100% true, it rather demonstrates just how overstated Russia's supposed reach and influence actually is.

I mean seriously? This is the best the great bear can come up with? A bunch of trolls sharing bad memes on Twitter and Facebook? Very unimpressive.

Reply 22

ChaoticButterfly

Original post by Rinsed

Brexit is happening because more people walking into the voting booths put their cross by "leave" than "remain".

I'd never thought about it like that before. You ever thought about becoming a psephologist?

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Anyone who is surprised that Russia, a major power, interfered in another countries' political process isn't very on the ball with how geo-politics works. Seeing Americans get so upset over this is pretty funny considering how they literally went around overthrowing governments throughout the 20th century. The USA has interfered much more heavily and successfully in Russian since the fall of the Berlin wall that dwarfes any stupid troll factory.

As with so much of politics you either have an effective strategy to deal with a problem or you don't. Useless centrists have no strategy other than to shout RUSSSIAAAAAAAAAA! at everything they fail at.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 23

Tempest II

To be fair, the US Electoral College system did a far more successful job at ensuring getting President Trump election than the Russians.

I don't think it should be a particularly big surprise that the Russians seek to interfere with the West in order to gain their own advantages. We need to ensure we have the ability to retaliate in kind.