Russian Bots Are Starting to Attack Republican Party
Source: MSN/Newsweek
Russian-linked bots and trolls have caused a surge in use of the hashtag #ResignPaulRyan on Twitter over the last 48 hours, just as the Republican speaker of the House was returning to his hometown of Wisconsin for a month-long respite from Washington, D.C.
The unusual boost in Russian bots targeting a Republican lawmaker was first observed by the German Marshall Funds Alliance For Securing Democracy, created after the 2016 presidential election to defend against, deter, and raise the costs on Russian and other state actors efforts to undermine democracy and democratic institutions.
A monitoring dashboard established by the Alliance noted the uptick Monday morning. It coincided with surges in the use of other hashtags by Russian bots, including #TrumpTV, #Magnitsky, #Fake and #ConfessYourUnpopularOpinion.
It hasnt been a common occurrence for the Alliances dashboard to pick up on Russian bot activity targeting members of the GOP since the site was first launched last week by former FBI special agent Clint Watts. But Ryan wasnt the only member of Trumps party to face countless bots demanding his removal. A campaign calling on the president to fire National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster received widespread support from bots and trolls over the last several days using the hashtag #FireMcMaster, eventually getting picked up by some right-wing fake news sites that seem to have the presidents full attention, including Breitbart.
Read more: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/russian-bots-are-starting-to-attack-republican-party/ar-AApCXI2?li=BBnbcA1
I guess Bannon's Russian allies are helping Trump establish his dominance over the Republican party.
roamer65
(36,747 posts)Soon it will be cast aside.
Alice11111
(5,730 posts)Midnight Writer
(21,823 posts)SergeStorms
(19,204 posts)#impeachTrump, or anything of that nature? I guess the Russians still think Trump will be a useful idiot for them, and not the liability Americans seem to think he is. We'll be able to tell when the honeymoon is really over if they start turning on Donnie Dim-Wit.
I think that's what Putin and Trumplestiltskin were discussing during their second tête-à-tête overseas. Trump knew Congress would come up with tough sanctions - sanctions that would be veto proof - and he wanted to know what course of action Putin preferred in such a situation. I'm sure Donnie Darko has his goose-stepping orders, and the Kabuki theater that's now going on is directly from that script.
The U.S. has to come up with some method to either filter these bots, or do away with them altogether. And they need to hurry.
PatSeg
(47,691 posts)He has no loyalty to any republican, he is out to disrupt our government any way he can. Republicans should have known that anything he did to Hillary or Democrats, he could and probably would do to them. This is 21st century warfare and Russia is very good at it.
ProfessorPlum
(11,279 posts)I dare them to disprove it. It's the only thing that explains what is happening.
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)Basically they tried the same technique as with the DNC hack, but the spam filter caught it. They weren't as persistent with the RNC either. They did hack some individual RNC email accounts and state party servers.
ProfessorPlum
(11,279 posts)please do tell
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)There were some other sources I read, though I can't recall off hand.
ProfessorPlum
(11,279 posts)Bradical79
(4,490 posts)Politifact gives a pretty good sumation here. You can google the articles yourself if you want to read them in detail.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)other Republican and right-wing groups and individuals would be critically important to Russian strategy. Compromat alone. I don't believe for a minute they don't have a ton of information and dirt on the right.
Response to Hortensis (Reply #15)
Bradical79 This message was self-deleted by its author.
ProfessorPlum
(11,279 posts)it lines up perfectly with my theory that Russia hacked the RNC and put the GOP in their pockets long ago. They didn't have to hack the RNC computers "recently", because they did it about 4-5 years ago and got all of their balls in a vise.
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)To be clear, I'm not against the idea fundamentally, I just don't see a lot of reason to think it went down that way. Or that anything they got feom the servers would even be that interesting. "Kompromat" would be more likely to come from individual accounts and sources other than the national party administrators. Like we saw with the DNC hack, the content itself was rather uninteresting.
BumRushDaShow
(129,806 posts)Yay! Was wondering what he was doing and glad to see how/what he is monitoring!
Dashboard is here - http://dashboard.securingdemocracy.org/
(only thing is, there are some of the ilk on the advisory board like Skeletor, although the board is bipartisan)
Hugin
(33,222 posts)Bookmarking... STAT!
KRISITNA
(97 posts)Putin, 45 and Bannon want to burn down our democracy. Funny, they are not attacking 45. 45 has been going hardcore after his own party. Something very wrong is going on. The earth is scorched! Get that fucker OUT before it's too late! Obama said "America will survive this", I hope he's right.
Doug the Dem
(1,297 posts)Подрыв!
olddad56
(5,732 posts)of the Tea Party congress people. Trump might just be the last piece in the puzzle.