Transcript: Russia used "information warfare to confuse demoralize divide distract and ultimately defeat" in 2016 election, Rachel Maddow 3/21/17

Those fake Bernie people on Facebook and Twitter during election were really Russian Bots working against Hillary

This 20 minute clip “Russian info-war tactics in US election continue” is jam packed with information, so today's transcript is gist, not verbatim, from Rachel Maddow Show 3/21/17. (More CofA TRANSCRIPTS documenting the coup are here new ones added regularly) 

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Show opens with background about a Twitter account that was programmed to respond instantly when someone typed the word “socialism” into a tweet, in 2015 from an account with the name Robot J. McCarthy.

01:55

Maddow; It was not a person, it was a robot, an automated account that was programmed to notice any twitter mentions of socialism or communism.  And then it would automatically spit out one of these pre-programmed Joe McCarthy nonsense tweets in response. Seeing that bot in action was the first time I understood how people could automate social media- program it. No human could respond to every single mention of socialism on all of twitter, but a computer program could, tirelessly.

You can see how that bot technology could be used in a less fun way like say during an election.  People could relatively easily program bots to not just make jokes, but to latch onto and respond to and get themselves involved in for example any twitter conversation that mentioned Hillary Clinton 

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Transcriber: I remember this!!!

Maddow: "You can see how that bot technology could be used in a less fun way like say during an election. 

I remember. As soon as I'd type "Hillary" in a FB post, these guys whose FB picture looked like clip art would chime in Right Away with comments on the post saying they were Bernie supporters and total Hillary haters, with Awful stories about Hillary and links to sites with no credibility. All the way up to November, these Bernie supporters would show up saying opposite of what Bernie said. I even started calling them "bots" bk they acted like bots and now it turns out they really were bots, Russian controlled responses to Twitter and Facebook that Definitely affected the election. I watched people that I Know are progressive start to believe the lies about Hillary, because the lies were ubiquitous.

Russian info-war tactics in US election continue

Rachel Maddow looks at the role of Russian bot networks and cyber war tactics during the 2016 U.S. election and notes that those things didn't just go away after the election.

MSNBC.COM

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Maddow Transcript Continued: 

Maddow: These bots recognized any pro Hillary Clinton message, hashtag, just the name Hillary or Clinton, then deluged that mention with fake news stories, ( Pic: Hillary: Now that you know I am above the law )

Porn, lots of pro Donald Trump commentary, and pretty soon nobody can have a conversation online about Hillary Clinton at all.  Enough bots and you can drown out normal conversation with misinformation and just the sheer amount of traffic.

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05:00

If you used Twitter during the election, you undoubtedly had that experience.  [me: Facebook too]

Malicious bot traffic was almost entirely pro Donald Trump.

We are now starting to put together how Russia used that weapon to eat or render useless political discourse during the American election.

In terms of the time line, whether or not Russia had help, whether they had “Confederates” inside this country-

Maddow then goes into deep background which I have posted here as it is for those who want to read deep background: 

By July Russia showed its hand, what they wanted to do with information was release it publicly in United States, weaponize it, release it back into U.S. designed to do maximum harm.

That's what they did WikiLeaks et al.

10:00

They were playing another card at the same time, one that a lot of people watching this show experienced in real time and you may not have realized what happened to you. 

A huge industrial sized Bot Attack.

They used automated social media bots and what appeared to be paid operatives in Russia and other countries specifically to target Bernie supporters.  They took the real split in the Democratic party and they blew it up.

(From Huff Post story, examples of several Facebook and Twitter site managers who could tell the comments were coming from people in places like Macedonia and Albania, “bogus users” and one bogus site is still up now: 

Maddow; Real Bernie supporters were trying to stop it, but it was futile, people just couldn't seem to hear it.  

[She then points out that the fake news sites Were Not There for Ad Revenue, and when this transcriber heard people say that during election, I knew the sites weren’t there for a Google check, because tons of traffic on a website will make you a hundred dollars maybe, it's not a job worth doing just for clicks. I knew at the time they were being paid by someone, I also instinctively “Blocked” these bots whenever they showed up in my Facebook posts, so they could no longer see my posts. ]

Enough from the transcriber, 

Back to Maddow Transcript.  (More background on Bernie groups who experienced this)

14:55

Now McClatchy reports the bot traffic is part of FBI intelligence investigation of the election and into whether Trump cooperated in mounting that attack.  

Transcriber: Whoa, can't wait until they get to the core of it, Limbaugh and Fox News, which I think started this misinformation attack back in the 1990s. But US media Are actually slowly but surely getting there, and this makes me feel like... I can exhale.
"Federal investigators are examining whether far-right news sites played any role last year in a Russian cyber operation that dramatically widened the reach of news stories — some fictional — that favored Donald Trump’s presidential bid, two people familiar with the inquiry say."

FBI’s Russian-influence probe includes a look at Breitbart, InfoWars news sites

Federal investigators are examining whether far-right news sites played any role last year in a Russian cyber operation that dramatically widened the reach of news…

MCCLATCHYDC.COM

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Maddow Transcript continued:
Maddow: So, Were They In On It?

15:05

So we now know that what appeared to be a mysterious tidal wave that turned social media into brainless anti-Clinton mush during the campaign, that was not only part of the Russian attack, it's being investigated by the FBI’s counter intelligence division.

Including the possibility there was cooperation or coordination from pro Trump forces inside the United States. more ahead from one of the reportersthat broke this story.

Maddow: The obscure and academic stuff is where this story is hiding in plain sight, a lot is out there in open sources.  A lot of this story is yet to break. 

As the FBI continues to flush out what Russia did to our election last year-

As those pieces fall into place, look at how Russians talk about themselves.  They threatened last February that they’d use information warfare against us. 

19:15

Maddow: If you're going to use information warfare to confuse demoralize divide distract and ultimately defeat a country, according to the Russian military doctrine on this subject, you have to do it all the time or it doesn't work.

The Bernie Sanders Lovers on Twitter account is not based in Vermont, it's based in Albania.

That Bernie Sanders Lovers page run out of Albania is still there.

There is a reason why this investigation into counter intelligence during the election has a sense of urgency. 
END of Transcript

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Maddow makes reference to The Gerasimov Doctrine on information warfare.

Published 2013 saying Russia will use non military tactics such as information in its wars.

Plus article in Military Thought published in 2014 on how information warfare is conducted during peacetime. 

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Found by the transcriber:

“This handbook provides an introductory guide to the Russian concept of information warfare, including elements of cyber warfare. The handbook’s target audience is NATO servicemen and officials who have not previously studied Russian principles of warfighting, but require an introduction to current and projected Russian operations in the information and cyber domains. The guide also functions as a source book for further detailed research as required.”

https://krypt3ia.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/fm_9.pdf

Handbook of Russian Information Warfare

Published by NATO Defense College in Rome November 2016

More here in Deep Background for this post

http://cityofangels25.blogspot.com/2017/03/deep-background.html

Watch this Maddow clip on MSNBC website here:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/russian-info-war-tactics-in-us-election-continue-903442499654

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