General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDoes anyone think the Russians are all over social media but not on Democratic Underground?
Response to StarfishSaver (Original post)
Post removed
Midnightwalk
(3,131 posts)Of course they are here.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)lapfog_1
(29,166 posts)DemocracyMouse
(2,275 posts)Claritie Pixie
(2,199 posts)sdfernando
(4,896 posts)They shut it down in 2016.
doc03
(35,148 posts)That doesn't happen for no reason
sdfernando
(4,896 posts)But I won't be surprised if it happens again on election night 2020.
Hekate
(90,189 posts)...to destroy our republic and for whom we are an ant in the road, who can say?
dewsgirl
(14,961 posts)it now. You can definitely tell Americans didn't create it. As if that day wasn't shitty enough.
bdamomma
(63,651 posts)that stupid video. I said WTF
doc03
(35,148 posts)fescuerescue
(4,448 posts)It's really hard to know how deeply they have infiltrated our society.
pbmus
(12,418 posts)cilla4progress
(24,585 posts)makes one think, don't it?
defacto7
(13,485 posts)Niet
Falcata
(156 posts)be on DU? This is an obscure website that 99.99% of national Dems have never heard of. Folks here give this joint a relevance it doesn't have.
Trenzalore
(2,331 posts)Probably not in force but they are here.
Post something about Tulsi and wait for low post long active accounts to suddenly appear.
Every. Thing. You. Said.
Flo Mingo
(492 posts)Not a bot or troll or Russian.
Turin_C3PO
(13,649 posts)Russian trolls here in 2016. In fact, they shut down this website for days.
greyl
(22,990 posts)Entities do pay for their ads to be clicked here, after all. Can I see your work on that 99.99% claim?
https://www.similarweb.com/website/democraticunderground.com
sheshe2
(83,324 posts)Falcata
12. Why would Russians
be on DU? This is an obscure website that 99.99% of national Dems have never heard of.
The day before the elections we were cyber attacked. You are new and were not here. We were shut down for weeks.
This joint? Seriously? Then why did you bother joining DU if you think we are irrelevant.
MagickMuffin
(15,887 posts)I was working the election when it happened. I had been checking in on DU periodically during slow downs. I wasn't able to access the site. Hubby actually got to see the video before it shut down completely.
sheshe2
(83,324 posts)Then we died.
pintobean
(18,101 posts)Bettie
(15,997 posts)to take down on election night in 2016.
Hekate
(90,189 posts)...someone tried to murder us. Members logged in and were met with Pepe the Frog, statements that Trump is the God-King, and worse. The whole site was offline for weeks.
All we know for sure is that the Admins, who own the site, sought legal counsel -- lawyer and FBI type legal counsel -- and apparently have been advised to not discuss whatever they were told. I respect that. They also worked like dogs to repair the vandalism. Who was it -- 4chan? Who could do this and why?
I was among those loath to say the Russians had anything to do with it, because I don't go for and after all we're not that important in the scheme of things, right? But so much was being revealed ...and something really odd happened on CSpan during a committee meeting of Congressional Representatives on the interference with our elections. People were discussing and giving testimony, and as soon as one of them said the word "Russia" the feed was abruptly switched away from the US Capitol and onto a Russia Today broadcast.
Make of it what you will, but I think someone was making an example of us, and of the participants in that meeting: "See what we can do?"
sheshe2
(83,324 posts)I am still crying for that night and all we lost, Hekate.
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,021 posts)Suuuure, DU "is an obscure website".
Coventina
(26,844 posts)To be fair, it was a really distraught post, made election night of 2002. Not my finest hour, I'll admit.
But yeah, proof the "big guys" at least lurk here.
Pachamama
(16,873 posts)Are you sure you think that DU is that obscure and irrelevant?
Clearly on Election night, someone wanted it shutdown for reasons that had nothing to do with obscurity or irrelevance. And surely you had better reasons too.
Decoy of Fenris
(1,954 posts)There's an older website that used to be run by an old-school DUer, now since departed this life. He had one of those global stat-tracker website tooltips, you know, the ones from the late 90s and early 2000s, which show where everyone on your website is visiting from. He's been dead for years, the website inactive except for the forums, where a few old-timers still shoot the shit. By and large, that website's largest volume of visits (numbering in the thousands as opposed to single-digits from elsewhere in the world) were from the Russian Federation, one of the southwestern Oblasts bordering the Ukraine. Thousands of visits daily to a largely-defunct dem website, used only as a messaging forum between a few Dem fans.
I won't say that there's Russian interference on D.U. for certain, lacking any evidence to prove the claim, but I sure as shit wouldn't write it off as "Can't happen, won't happen." Far smaller and less influential sites than this have been monitored or swayed by some group within Russian borders, and to say D.U. is beneath Russian notice is painfully naive.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Bradical79
(4,490 posts)Prior to 2016 there was a decent sized Russian presence. Lots of Russian propaganda posted from RT and some other fake news sites, fake Sanders supporters mixed into his forum, suspicious Jill Stein supporters trying to get people to vote 3rd party...
Around the end of primaries, most of the "Bernie or Bust" crowd ditched this site and went to a new more far left one. Some known Russian members who had been previously banned from here joined them and were far more explicit in what they were pushing, and other members former DU members were repeating the same pro-Russia, anti-Clinton themes and conspiracy theories.
Maru Kitteh
(28,303 posts)demtenjeep
(31,997 posts)and like minded people and that was taken away from us as well
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Silent3
(15,018 posts)Trying to make it look like it's the Russians!
Doodley
(8,976 posts)Rebl2
(13,301 posts)they are on DU. Like someone else said they shut down DU after 2016 election.
Takket
(21,421 posts)Leith
(7,802 posts)As are Americans who are too stupid to know that they are being led by the ring in their nose.
* I like calling them Igor because of how it sounds and I like Marty Feldman.
Hekate
(90,189 posts)...Bush/Cheney, quietly checkin' in on us subversives. But it's good to have an identifier for Igor, who is actually participating.
Right, Igor?
Hekate
(90,189 posts)NutmegYankee
(16,177 posts)I can name one who was finally tombstoned.
NCLefty
(3,678 posts)Cirque du So-What
(25,811 posts)First reply
Gothmog
(143,998 posts)There are still a ton of Russia posters on JPR
sop
(9,945 posts)Haggis for Breakfast
(6,831 posts)MyMission
(1,845 posts)Did you just identify yourself as a Russian troll?
Or were you trying to be funny?
Celerity
(42,642 posts)sop
(9,945 posts)MyMission
(1,845 posts)Coventina
(26,844 posts)They were pro-Putin quite openly.
Always pushing RT as a valid news source.
Glad those people have either been banned or gone radio silent.
And, I was actually on DU when it was hacked on election day 2016. It was horrible.
byronius
(7,369 posts)It's like watching the Blair Witch Project for the second time. Just doesn't work. Try as they might, we're on to the tactics.
And I suspect they might be starting to sweat. Because they've managed to hold off the consequences for their quite-warlike act for this long as we clean up our American Act -- but I think when the inevitable bill comes due, all the bad actors are going to get what's coming to them.
How do we pay back Russia for this crime? By helping the decent Russians put their mobster government in jail.
That's how it ends, and that's justice. Trump and Putin, counting the days until their death behind bars.
Gothmog
(143,998 posts)bdamomma
(63,651 posts)the same exact way, like they are saying it worked the first time why not do it again. Fuck let us not go down this hell hole again.
MontanaMama
(23,238 posts)including DU. Ill bet MIRT has their hands full of Russian trolls right about now. The increase in the Tulski threads speaks volumes.
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,021 posts)GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)We all know Russia was all over social media, and still are. Where they can drop a quick post and move on.
But Ive always been suspicious about there being that many on DU. Americans up to no good? I have no doubt.
Unlike Twitter we have pretty deep discussions and that would be difficult for some person in St. Petersburg. But I do not social media besides DU so may be wrong.
I saw what happened here leading up to 16. It was shocking how many people who had been members for years just went batshit crazy buying into every conspiracy theory against Hillary. In retrospect some may have been Russians, but I think a great majority were DU members drawn to a Nationalist. Which is not a right wing only club. And keep in mind, DU is what, 2 decades old? Some Members who joined in 2002 or 2005 may not be down with the changes in our party since then.
The events of election night lead me to believe the hacking was by Americans. The whole thing stinks of Right wing vandals with computer skills. Who had probably been here for years. And maybe even joined with good intentions but were turned off with our politics over time. People are complicated.
All that said, I avoid the Primary forum because I do believe there are a ton of disrupters posting there.
LeftInTX
(24,541 posts)I believed what happened was right wing trolls...the Conservative Cave and the Freepers follow us.
DU has fairly low traffic and don't believe it would be a target on election night. Whoever hacked us was convinced that Hillary was going to win and they wanted to "rain on our parade". The Russians wanted Trump to win, so I'm sure they were focusing on where they could influence voters. Hacking DU on election night would not sway the election.
Whoever hacked us had probably posted on DU before...there were all sorts of trolls when Obama was president too. They called him "right wing", "worse than Bush"....(This was in 2013) I was pretty disgusted.
canetoad
(17,088 posts)I stayed away for a couple of years 2010 - 2012, mainly because of the Obama hatred. Just figured that some people need to bitch as a matter of course.
I know now it was the beginning of something much more sinister but not unexpected. Some of the Obama haters peeled off. Remember 'The Old Elm Tree'? Independent Progressive? I'm sure some of these people are posting here under socks.
Every so often I check out the unholy trinity; Freepers, the Cave and the Last Refuge. Can't stomach reading much but they don't change. I doubt whether these ageing cave dwellers have the techincal skills to hack DU. If you google "Democratic", you'll find DU in the first half dozen results. Google "Democrat" and DU still is in the first few results. That makes the site a prime target during the 2016 election. Personally I think the hack was the work of a person in the Yianoppolous or O'Keefe mould, not necessarily either of these two.
Xolodno
(6,330 posts)Вы раскрываете нашу тайную операцию!
MyMission
(1,845 posts)Did you just identify yourself as a Russian troll?
DFW
(54,050 posts)Some of us, anyway.
He said:
Shut up!
You are revealing our secret operation!
It was not meant to be taken seriously, I'm rather sure. "Холодно" just means "cold," by the way.
MineralMan
(146,190 posts)to the USAF for sending me to a total-immersion Russian language school for a year. I don't have much reason to use it any longer, but it's still one of my languages.
If you're ever puzzled by Russian posted here, you can get it translated at Google Translate. Just copy and paste. Google does a pretty good job with Russian translations, actually.
What you meant to say, I'm sure is "I don't speak Russian," but you should speak only for yourself.
MyMission
(1,845 posts)Is what I meant and probably should have said when I said "we" don't speak Russian here. Of course many here probably can and do speak other languages. I can speak and write in several, but I (we) generally don't use them here when the conversation is in English. I didn't say no one here speaks Russian.
And my thoughts behind my comments were:
If there's a somewhat serious discussion about Russian trolls and a few folks post replies in Russian, that's a bit silly or insensitive, or possibly an in our face admission, or teasing, or throwing some confusion. I can understand and appreciate levity on this board. We all need some. But I wasn't amused. Even if I'd known about and used Google translate, I wouldn't have thought those 2 Russian comments were amusing.
Speaking for myself, I felt that posting a reply in Russian that requires one to look it up is just something I didn't appreciate or find funny on this thread. I'm not usually a curmudgeon, or paranoid, but in this case I was a bit of both and felt like calling those folks out on it, on behalf of everyone.
Speaking in general terms about DU, we don't converse in Russian on DU, even if we happen to speak the language. I hope I clarified what I meant to say.
So thanks for posting your reply in English, rather than Russian! And I do appreciate not having to translate posts (as I appreciate when folks post actual tweets along with the link, since I don't do twitter)
MineralMan
(146,190 posts)for a specific effect or reason. When that happens, I either ignore the post, I understand the language that was used, or I use Google Translate.
Most posts on DU are in English, of course, but that doesn't mean that other languages don't show up here from time to time. It's so easy these days to get a quick translation that it doesn't really present a problem.
I don't expect others on DU to cater to my preferences. If they choose to say something in another language, I can deal with that just fine, in one of the three ways I described above. DU is not my website, so I accept what others do here, and adapt to that.
MineralMan
(146,190 posts)lpbk2713
(42,696 posts)Democratic Underground is an online community for friendly, politically liberal people who understand the importance of working together to elect more Democrats and fewer Republicans to all levels of American government.
Hell yes DU will be a target of malevolent organized trolls.
California_Republic
(1,826 posts)andunderstand theres a little bit they can do to push us toward Trump.
But I believe they push posts that Lead us to believe less in our institutions like the military and the police. And work to divide us as a party
Eyeball_Kid
(7,410 posts)DU is the antithesis of dramatic, hyperbolic divisive rhetoric. If Russian accounts are on DU, I hope they're working hard. Somewhere. But surely, it's not here. DU is the chamber music playing on the sidewalk outside a hip-hop concert. There isn't anything here to get silly about.
Hekate
(90,189 posts)You missed what happened on election day.
See my post #36 in this thread, and get back to me.
NCLefty
(3,678 posts)more and to depress Democratic turnout as much as possible.
Why should any of us believe they stopped? Their boy won and then got his crony to blunt the Mueller report's impact. No one has been convicted of hacking, just lying to the FBI. The Russian hackers we indicted will never come here. Russia has every reason to keep doing this as long as Donald Trump is president.
They were trying to get Stein people and Bernie people to all hate Hillary even more, etc. This is just a sample. There was much more:
Even pages that seemed nominally hostile to him often worked in his favor: Woke Blacks critiqued Mrs. Clinton for alleged hostility to African-Americans; United Muslims of America showed her with a woman in a head scarf and a slogan Support Hillary, Save American Muslims that seemed aimed at generating a backlash.
. . .
The Russian companys formula was simple: tap into a simmering strain of opinion in the United States and pour on the fuel.
Consider the Texas protest. After the Russians put up the Stop Islamization Facebook post, several dozen like-minded Texans added their own incendiary comments. Allah Sucks, wrote one, adding a threat to kill any Muslim who tried to visit him. Another wrote of the Islamic center, Need to Blow this place up.
A dozen yelling white supremacists turned out for the protest, at least two of them with assault rifles and a third with a pistol. Others held Confederate flags and a White Lives Matter banner.
Houston police managed to keep them away from a much larger crowd of counterprotesters some of whom had responded to a second Russian Facebook call. In a blatant attempt to create a confrontation, another Internet Research Agency page, this one called United Muslims of America, had asked people to rally at exactly the same time and place to Save Islamic Knowledge.
"The Plot to Subvert an Election"
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/20/us/politics/russia-interference-election-trump-clinton.html
Iterate
(3,020 posts)At the top, it's Putin and his confidants of course. The ideas and talking points get split into levels of media, from more intellectual journals outward to twitter. They use native speakers, or pass it through native speakers. They rely on the dumb, the true believers, and the compromised to pass it on.
By the time it gets to DU, either by a person or a persona, it often lands in LBN, Editorials, or some other forum, where the idea gets picked up and repeated.
By the time it gets to GD, it's been scrubbed and you think you're dealing with some guy from Michigan, or a retired Brit, or a radical activist living in Guatemala. The idea remains, polished and personalized. Sometimes it's an awkward disruptor, sometimes not.
For example, the idea of "trump the courageous corruption crusader" first appeared on a Russian academic site on 9/26. Now numbnuts repeats daily.
It's the core ideas and assumptions that count, but I wish we could name names.
malaise
(267,798 posts)I know that for a fact
Behind the Aegis
(53,823 posts)Though, I doubt it is as at the level of Twitter or Facebook. If anything, a site like this provides some good "research". It would be easier to troll the likes of the other (main) sites, than one like this which is very partisan. However, they can still learn and then spread some chaos here. I would think they would learn that trying to "race bait" here would be difficult, but could pick up some "pointers"; no, they have learned the inroads here are homophobia and, especially, anti-Semitism. However, the majority of trolls here are going to be of the American variety.
DFW
(54,050 posts)If anyone thinks it's a coincidence that DU was hacked during the 2016 election, I have some coastal property in Wyoming to sell you. I'm not sure how much priority they give us these days. I'm sure Savushkina Street 55 and the few GRU Directorates that are involved have been given bigger fish to fry.
That having been said, Russians who are not 100% comfortable with English make telltale grammatical mistakes that Republicans do not. Here are a few tips to spot them.
Where Republicans tend to use an apostrophe to form a plural (where they got that, I'll never know, as no school in the English-speaking world ever taught them to do that), Russians have problems with articles (the, a, an), which do not exist in Russian. Russians inexperienced in English are unsure of how and when to use them, and tend to omit them altogether. Russian does have some prepositions, but it is also a declined language, so some prepositions in English are left out in Russian in lieu of a changed word ending. Where we would say "here is a basket full of food," a Russian would say the equivalent of "here is basket full food." If anyone remembers Rocky and Bullwinkle, the Russian spies, Boris and Natasha always used to say "get moose and squirrel!" which was making fun of the fact that in Russian, that is exactly what a native speaker would say, instead of the English "get the moose and the squirrel!" Also, where we would say "of Vladimir," or "Vladimir's" to indicate possession, a Russian would say "Vladimira." Where we would say we are sending a letter "to Vladimir," a Russian would say "Vladimiru." If motion is involved, a Russian might say "K Vladimiru," but the ending is the same.
As for our Russian visitors getting a laugh out of all this: Привет, товарищи, и идите к чёрту (greetings, comrades, and go to hell!).
RandiFan1290
(6,206 posts)with over 200k posts.
Easy to figure out when you read their old posts.
Mc Mike
(9,106 posts)Last edited Fri Oct 25, 2019, 07:48 AM - Edit history (1)
Big site, lot of individuals using it. So a few of them can mix in.
They can't wield undue influence here, like they do on facebook. Because the site's members are more politically sophisticated astute people.
They want to divide, daunt, disconcert. They try to figure out why one of our constituency groups should be mad at another of our core groups.
Rainbow Coalition principles counteract that. Rump is attacking 99% of us, work across core constituency lines. No enemies among tRumps targeted victims.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)I'm not gonna post his name.
We had long discussions about Russia and Syria prior to the 2016 election and he was always squarely on the side of Russia. One week after the 2016 election he left DU.
leftyladyfrommo
(18,815 posts)I always winders when some topic comes up out if the blue . Like all if a sudden there are several virulent attacks on Robert Mueller. Why ? Makes no sense.
cbdo2007
(9,213 posts)That's what they do is they try to act like they are one of us and slowly try to lean us in one direction or another, causing questioning of our beliefs and trying to convince us to go easy on criminals. Then half the people here fall for it cause we are compassionate and get convinced.
The admins can see what countries people are logging in from, most aren't using US based IP address proxies, so they should have a pretty good idea which people are from which areas of the world.
StarfishSaver
(18,486 posts)I haven't seen anyone saying that here in weeks. I have seen plenty of people continuing to attack Democrats for not impeaching quickly or, in their opinion, effectively enough - they are mostly the same people who insisted that Pelosi was too cowardly, naive or dim-witted to ever impeach in the first place. Do you think any of those people who consistently undermine our leadership and try to tear down our confidence are trolls?
cbdo2007
(9,213 posts)It may be weeks since I've seen them as well, but just an example of people working against what should be a no brainer here for Dems.
StarfishSaver
(18,486 posts)It certainly doesn't make me think someone is a Russian troll because they felt that way.
And it's obvious that people who believed that then are capable of changing their minds when circumstances change since we don't hear that argument much any more. Even though it's still not certain he'll be removed, the circumstances are such that most people here agree he should be impeached, regardless.
That's different, in my mind, than the continued attacks on Pelosi and the Democratic leadership from people who never seem to change their views, even when Pelosi did just what they demanded she do.
cbdo2007
(9,213 posts)just trying to steer us away, but still acting like they are one of us, but still protecting Trump. Those are the ones we need to watch out for. I see it a lot, not the obvious stuff, but 3 or 4 threads in a row subtly nudging us away from some of what should be concrete views.
KG
(28,749 posts)MineralMan
(146,190 posts)Most don't last long, though. There are a lot of people who think they recognize Russians who post here. Mostly, though, those people are incorrect and don't recognize the ones who have managed to stay here for long periods.
IcyPeas
(21,737 posts)Tell them is fake news, work of moose and squirrel.
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IndyOp
(15,501 posts)that seem to be just stirring the shit.
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,079 posts)It was quite clear that a lot of Russian disinformation was being repeated here, by some willingly and others unwillingly.
Maru Kitteh
(28,303 posts)If not Russian, then perhaps Russian-adjacent or at the very least Russia-friendly.