US representatives and senators who spoke up against Israeli settlements tended to lose against opponents with AIPAC funding. It's been going on for decades.
What we now see is an evolution into social media.
Al Jazeera had prepared a story on the tentacles AIPAC had into US politics, but at the time Mohammed bin Salman was making serious noises about invading Qatar,one of the reasons being Al Jazeera's reportage.
The story was dropped and MbS was persuaded to back off.
Saudi Arabia put up a blockade (with an Arab coalition support) of Qatar for a number of reasons[1], one of which being Al Jazeera’s incendiary (in their opinion) coverage of sensitive topics within the Arab world during the Arab Spring. Saudi Arabia wanted the channel shut down.
They never intended to invade and the biggest factor was Qatar’s relationship with Iran (Saudi Arabia’s arch rival).
The link with AIPAC? Why would the Saudis, who have no formal diplomatic relations with Israel care?
Sounds like a complete made up conspiracy theory.
"Given their expertise in subterfuge, it is perhaps surprising that Hanan and his colleagues allowed themselves to be exposed by undercover reporters."
Surprising, unless the guys are actually just good at lying to potential customers, to fleece them of as much $$ as possible. I'm not saying they don't use sock puppet social media accounts, etc. but really, how would any of their customers know if it was at all effective? They wouldn't. After the fact, if they won, they wouldn't know if this helped, and if they lost, it's not like they could sue in court, or even just complain loudly to trash this group's reputation.
It seems quite ripe for inflated claims and ineffective results. Of course, they might also be trying, or who knows maybe even succeeding, but it would be a lot simpler just to put up a show for your customer and collect the money.
The Venn diagram overlap between grifters, and mercenary hacker groups is very close to a single circle.
Any group with slight competence will find their client an easier and more profitable target than their intended quarry.
Do some bare-minimum intelligence work while simultaneously inflating the results with fabricated evidence.
I don't see how the realities of such an industry wouldn't be a race to the bottom
One of the tropes of spy novels is you can never trust a spy, and I think it'd be fair to say you can never trust a hacker or disinformation merchant either. Nevertheless, intelligence agencies and organized crime continues to exist, because the people employing said sources make their own risk assessments and incorporate that into the cost benefit analysis. And it appears that there is still at least some perceived benefit in trying to manipulate the outcomes of democracy on a grander scale than was previously achievable due to vulnerabilities of modern communication platforms.
A more interesting question is why haven't governments - or even the platforms themselves - worked hard to shut down these known vulnerabilities? Doesn't it undermine the trust of the users to know that there are professional organizations actively creating thousands of fake accounts that deliberately spread (at best) partisan propaganda and (at worst) outright disinformation? Doesn't it work against the lofty ideals of social media being a community space where real people can engage with one another? The fact the companies are so unresponsive to removing abusers shows their incentives are not aligned with those of their users.
The sad thing is we’re probably trivially close to the tech needed for direct democracy, but the powers that be use tech to confuse and supplant democratic institutions and propose their authoritarian rule.
this kinda proves how pointless social media are for public discussion. You either follow profiles you trust (friends, public figures) or you can flat-out disregard the rest as utter rubbish.
First it was Russia meddling with elections (Trump, Brexit), now it's a team led by an ex Israeli special forces guy — which reminds me a bit of the NSO Group story.
You know what is terrifying? That upon learning about Russia having a major hand in Western election, nothing concrete was done. In Britain we learned the whole Brexit movement was paid for, and manipulated by Russian money (and it was arguably a crucial milestone mentioned in the infamous Foundations of Geopolitics book), yet there was a little noise on printed media that went nowhere. No one investigated, no top politician jailed, just business as usual.
I'm not even sure that what they're selling us in our free Western countries is democracy at all.
What's even more scary to me is that there are several groups out there openly advertising the fact that they have exploits that can compromise all major cell phone brands, undetectably.
These groups, some commercial and some governmental inside the US, Israel, Italy, and elsewhere, can hack the phones and mobile devices of Presidents/Prime Ministers, member of Congress/Parliament, Supreme Court justices, and the military. This presents the risk of blackmail/extortion being used to control critical decisions and actions made by these people every day. They are not shy about advertising these capabilities and the rules they put in place to limit damage mostly concern damage to the hacking groups, not to countries or people.
Perhaps those who were instrumental in how elections were influenced were afraid that by changing the system, they'd lock themselves out of the existing election-meddling process?
I'm not saying that votes are fixed (though I wouldn't be surprised), but lots of money goes into essentially buying seats of power.
You missed the update where it was proven that the "Russian meddling" story was fake.
The meddling in our elections was the social media companies suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story right before the election, which the media also claimed was "Russian ops" while Hunter since admitted it was his laptop (full of emails detailing the corruption in his family).
The amount of propaganda and lies that is fed to the American public through these corporate media outlets is absolutely astounding.
What exactly should have been done? I don't see why a "top politician jailed" is something that should happen unless they committed a crime. Trump benefited from Russian meddling and refused to admit that it happened, which is a gross failure, but its not criminal. That should be a behavior that loses votes from voters, but that's a very different problem.
The only official actions that should have been taken in response were sanctions or other international relations consequences for Russia. Trump's biggest failing on this issue was to not realize he could do this without compromising the legitimacy of his election.
> You know what is terrifying? That upon learning about Russia having a major hand in Western election, nothing concrete was done.
I don't think that's entirely fair. There's been no political route open to prosecuting anyone for the above, but there's been plenty of concrete actions. Western opposition to Russia has increased substantially in recent years.
Would we have been as vigorous in our support for Ukraine and eager to supply weapons and all the other things if Russia hadn't been pulling off all these shenanigans? It probably had an effect and Russia is certainly facing consequences.
Western intelligence has also been a lot more proactive in combatting Russian misinformation.
“WASHINGTON (TND) — The latest Twitter files release shows the company knew there was no evidence of Russians spreading disinformation on the platform as Democrats pushed those accusations in the media.”
Nation state government model is obsolete... each person needs to be self governed ... no passport needed... each person must be free to live and work anywhere globally... people must be free to choose who/what they align with... full anonymous... notion of zero trust from information theory to guide all transactions... currency also obsolete... until this full global cutover comes noone is fully actualized ... non human life is the model people need to aspire to ... why let iron age societal dynamics rule is all
Yeah sure, tell that to all the obsolete nation states living on the border of Russia.
Who is gonna protect you if the next village town or city decides your individual property is somehow theirs and they have the means and will to enforce it?
As much as you can prep to defend yourself against attacks bh other individuals, nobody around you is bannaed from forming a band/group/nation. And if they are banned, who is going to enforce it?
In the end it all comes down to the ability to direct violence, the society with the bigger stick wins in the end, and nations and systems of governance that can produce smaller sticks are just eventually snuffed from existence, no matter how bright egalitarian and fair they are to their participants … just look at Armenia, Georgia, Cechnia and Ukraine.
BXLE_1-1-BitIs1|3 years ago
What we now see is an evolution into social media.
Al Jazeera had prepared a story on the tentacles AIPAC had into US politics, but at the time Mohammed bin Salman was making serious noises about invading Qatar,one of the reasons being Al Jazeera's reportage.
The story was dropped and MbS was persuaded to back off.
solalf|3 years ago
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_diplomatic_crisis
SkyMarshal|3 years ago
rossdavidh|3 years ago
Surprising, unless the guys are actually just good at lying to potential customers, to fleece them of as much $$ as possible. I'm not saying they don't use sock puppet social media accounts, etc. but really, how would any of their customers know if it was at all effective? They wouldn't. After the fact, if they won, they wouldn't know if this helped, and if they lost, it's not like they could sue in court, or even just complain loudly to trash this group's reputation.
It seems quite ripe for inflated claims and ineffective results. Of course, they might also be trying, or who knows maybe even succeeding, but it would be a lot simpler just to put up a show for your customer and collect the money.
SimianSci|3 years ago
I don't see how the realities of such an industry wouldn't be a race to the bottom
alisonatwork|3 years ago
A more interesting question is why haven't governments - or even the platforms themselves - worked hard to shut down these known vulnerabilities? Doesn't it undermine the trust of the users to know that there are professional organizations actively creating thousands of fake accounts that deliberately spread (at best) partisan propaganda and (at worst) outright disinformation? Doesn't it work against the lofty ideals of social media being a community space where real people can engage with one another? The fact the companies are so unresponsive to removing abusers shows their incentives are not aligned with those of their users.
r721|3 years ago
ianai|3 years ago
The sad thing is we’re probably trivially close to the tech needed for direct democracy, but the powers that be use tech to confuse and supplant democratic institutions and propose their authoritarian rule.
dariosalvi78|3 years ago
totetsu|3 years ago
readthenotes1|3 years ago
:)
sph|3 years ago
You know what is terrifying? That upon learning about Russia having a major hand in Western election, nothing concrete was done. In Britain we learned the whole Brexit movement was paid for, and manipulated by Russian money (and it was arguably a crucial milestone mentioned in the infamous Foundations of Geopolitics book), yet there was a little noise on printed media that went nowhere. No one investigated, no top politician jailed, just business as usual.
I'm not even sure that what they're selling us in our free Western countries is democracy at all.
mjfl|3 years ago
bink|3 years ago
These groups, some commercial and some governmental inside the US, Israel, Italy, and elsewhere, can hack the phones and mobile devices of Presidents/Prime Ministers, member of Congress/Parliament, Supreme Court justices, and the military. This presents the risk of blackmail/extortion being used to control critical decisions and actions made by these people every day. They are not shy about advertising these capabilities and the rules they put in place to limit damage mostly concern damage to the hacking groups, not to countries or people.
patrickdavey|3 years ago
arealaccount|3 years ago
r00fus|3 years ago
I'm not saying that votes are fixed (though I wouldn't be surprised), but lots of money goes into essentially buying seats of power.
user3939382|3 years ago
The meddling in our elections was the social media companies suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story right before the election, which the media also claimed was "Russian ops" while Hunter since admitted it was his laptop (full of emails detailing the corruption in his family).
The amount of propaganda and lies that is fed to the American public through these corporate media outlets is absolutely astounding.
creato|3 years ago
The only official actions that should have been taken in response were sanctions or other international relations consequences for Russia. Trump's biggest failing on this issue was to not realize he could do this without compromising the legitimacy of his election.
tomohawk|3 years ago
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1619029772977455105.html
chimprich|3 years ago
I don't think that's entirely fair. There's been no political route open to prosecuting anyone for the above, but there's been plenty of concrete actions. Western opposition to Russia has increased substantially in recent years.
Would we have been as vigorous in our support for Ukraine and eager to supply weapons and all the other things if Russia hadn't been pulling off all these shenanigans? It probably had an effect and Russia is certainly facing consequences.
Western intelligence has also been a lot more proactive in combatting Russian misinformation.
stefantalpalaru|3 years ago
[deleted]
mostlysentient|3 years ago
[deleted]
igravious|3 years ago
“WASHINGTON (TND) — The latest Twitter files release shows the company knew there was no evidence of Russians spreading disinformation on the platform as Democrats pushed those accusations in the media.”
https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/russian-disinformatio...
hulitu|3 years ago
Only one ?
AtomicOrbital|3 years ago
seer|3 years ago
Who is gonna protect you if the next village town or city decides your individual property is somehow theirs and they have the means and will to enforce it?
As much as you can prep to defend yourself against attacks bh other individuals, nobody around you is bannaed from forming a band/group/nation. And if they are banned, who is going to enforce it?
In the end it all comes down to the ability to direct violence, the society with the bigger stick wins in the end, and nations and systems of governance that can produce smaller sticks are just eventually snuffed from existence, no matter how bright egalitarian and fair they are to their participants … just look at Armenia, Georgia, Cechnia and Ukraine.