This article from the Forward is an example of how the establishment media is hysterically exaggerating this Russian bot business, in order to further the Left’s agenda of damaging the Trump presidency and, in this instance, further denigrating foes of jihad terror.
The attempt was indeed to “sow discord in the U.S. political system,” and the Russians did this, if the Mueller indictment is correct, by playing both sides against each other. They supported not only Trump but Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein, and supported pro-jihad efforts as well as (supposedly) supporting foes of jihad terror. Mueller’s indictment says: “In or around late June 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators used the Facebook group ‘United Muslims of America’ to promote a rally called ‘Support Hillary. Save American Muslims’ held on July 9, 2016 in the District of Columbia. Defendants and their co-conspirators recruited a real U.S. person to hold a sign depicting Clinton and a quote attributed to her stating ‘I think Sharia Law will be a powerful new direction of freedom.’ Within three weeks, on or about July 26, 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators posted on the same Facebook page that Muslim voters were ‘between Hillary Clinton and a hard place.'”
The Forward does not, of course, mention that. Instead, Josh Nathan-Kazis tries here to make a mountain out of the molehill of 20 retweets of Geller, 19 of Gaffney, and 18 of me. Does the Forward think its readers are absolute idiots, who will believe that 57 retweets out of “hundreds of thousands” actually amounts to something? (Since I’m shadowbanned on Twitter, no one but those who follow me would have seen those retweets anyway.) And how many times did the Russians retweet pro-jihad entities?
“Neither Geller nor the Center for Security Policy responded to a request for comment. ” Did Josh Nathan-Kazis ask Spencer for comment? No. Why not?
This article is simply an attempt to defame counter-jihadis by association with this alleged Russian interference. I would take it much more seriously were it not for the fact that a close friend has a Twitter account which he uses simply to follow people that interest him; he has never tweeted even once about anything. He got notice from Twitter that his account had been flagged as a Russian bot. This Russian bot business has about as much credibility as the Salem witch trials, and is based on a similar hysteria.
“Pro-Trump Russian Twitter Bots Targeted By Robert Mueller Also Boosted Muslim Haters,” by Josh Nathan-Kazis, Forward, February 20, 2018:
The Russian troll farm indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for interfering in the 2016 election also used its Twitter bots to boost the message of a handful of prominent anti-Muslim extremists, including right-wing Jewish activist Pamela Geller.
The Russian-operated bots promoted tweets and articles by Geller, Robert Spencer and Frank Gaffney, all of whom are identified as anti-Muslim extremists by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The number of bot tweets dedicated to the extremists was apparently small, no more than a few dozen out of hundreds of thousands. But they point to a Russian effort to boost anti-Muslim sentiment as part of a broader campaign to sow divisions in American society.
In September 2016, Geller, a Long Island-based Jewish activist who came to prominence a decade ago as a flamboyant anti-Muslim ideologue, tweeted a link to a story on her personal blog headlined “Christian Teen Raped and Hung: Muslim Cops Say ‘Natural Causes.’”
More than 100 people retweeted Geller’s tweet. According to a database posted online by NBC News of Twitter handles operated by Russian Internet trolls, at least two of the accounts that retweeted the Geller tweet were Russian bots.
Twenty of the Russian troll bots in all retweeted or mentioned Geller, according to the NBC database. Eighteen retweeted or mentioned Spencer, who co-founded the group Stop Islamization of America with Geller. Nineteen retweeted or mentioned Gaffney, the anti-Muslim founder of the Center for Security Policy. The Russian bots used the hashtag “#islamkills” 477 times and the hashtag “#stopislam” another 232 times.
Last week, Mueller’s office indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies, including St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, known for its trolling on social media.
The court document said those accused “had a strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political system, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
The indictment said Russians adopted false online personas to push divisive messages; traveled to the United States to collect intelligence, visiting 10 states; and staged political rallies while posing as Americans.
There is no sign so far that Geller or any of the other anti-Islam activists collaborated with the Russian effort.
Neither Geller nor the Center for Security Policy responded to a request for comment. Geller is among the most polarizing figures in the American Jewish community, a far-right activist whose anti-Muslim rhetoric has drawn condemnation from some in the Jewish community, and an open ear from others. Leftist Jews protested in 2013 when a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Long Island invited her to speak. And a major mainstream Jewish donor-advised fund sent money to Geller’s nonprofit in 2012 and 2013….
lebel says
“The number of bot tweets dedicated to the extremists was apparently small, no more than a few dozen out of hundreds of thousands. But they point to a Russian effort to boost anti-Muslim sentiment as part of a broader campaign to sow divisions in American society”
I have not seen the evidence but this makes sense in that playing the “Islamic card” can literally win you elections these days.
Wellington says
“I have not seen the evidence but this makes sense in that playing the ‘Islamic card’ can literally win you elections these days.”
Aside from the fact that I know of no American election where “playing the Islamic card” made THE difference in an election outcome, nevertheless I wouldn’t mind if playing such a card did make The difference since Islam, like Nazism and Marxism, is an inveterate enemy of liberty, equality under the law, a true Golden Rule for all and women’s rights wherever and whenever it gets a chance to dominate. Exposing Islam for the freedom-crushing ideology which it is would be a good thing for American politicians en masse to engage in since Islam and the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are polar opposites of one another. For instance, since when has Islam ever been for freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion? And I mean here real freedom of speech, real freedom of the press and real freedom of religion.
mortimer says
Bravos to Wellington for his eloquent defense of the freedom of expression and his exposure of the principal enemies of it in the world today.
There is the old saying that ‘No man can serve two masters’. Muslims cannot serve discriminatory Sharia law and equalitarian Western law at the same time without one taking supremacy one over the other. We see what happens in Egypt and Pakistan which have human rights guaranteed in their constitutions but DISCRIMINATORY SHARIA is permitted to OVERRULE the guarantees of equality before the law whenever Jews, Christians, Hindus and agnostics are accused by Muslims.
Sharia law is a freedom-crushing and equality-crushing legal system always present HOVERING OVER the national constitutions and human rights codes of Muslim-majority countries.
Lebel says
I think Islam played a very significant role in Trump’s election. I think many of the people who voted for him did so because they thought he would be tough on refugees, terrorists and Islam in general.
Wellington says
You went, Lebel, from “literally winning you elections” to “a very significant role.” You also went to “refugees, terrorists and Islam in general” from, initially, Islam alone.
Such shifting slyness, you know, doesn’t carry much weight here at JW. At a silly place like CNN, very likely, but not here. Really, you will have to do better next time. After all, JW is way ahead of CNN and its ilk (e.g., MSNBC).
And, for the record, I for one want Islam to play an ever increasing role in American and all Western nations’ elections in the sense that the more that is known about what Islam really intends the more no non-Muslim of sense and knowledge should feel nothing but repulsion towards it and thereafter vote accordingly.
CRUSADER says
Indeed, it is Islam which is our “inveterate enemy of liberty, equality under the law, a true Golden Rule for all and women’s rights…”
It is the enemy OF and AGAINST all of those values.
“WHOLLY DIFFERENT” as authoress Noni Darwish would describe.
LeftisruiningCanada says
“I have not seen the evidence but this makes sense in that playing the “Islamic card” can literally win you elections these days.”
Would it be wrong if this could be shown to be true?
What is wrong with being against islam?
J D S says
Yeah ….heads on the ground and butts in the air 5 times a day might give one a little exercise …but nothing else…Repentance by Muslims and complete change of heart would help to keep them out of the lake of fire.
RichardL says
Even CNBC interviewed an expert who calmly explained that the Russian bot farm was a joke: broken English, no idea about the US political landscape.
I guess the lefties are angry that they – Michael Moore just being the most prominent fuckwit – were the only ones who cooperated with the Russian JV team.
jewdog says
The Forward is a Jewish leftist-Communist rag that should be ignored.
Phil Copson says
Mr “Nazi-Catharsis” would do well to get back to his own “troll farm” and take his Left-leaning friend Mr Mueller with him.
There is nothing “right-wing”, “extreme” or especially “anti-muslim” in detailing the implications for a free society of allowing the imposition of islam.
If relaying news of muslim activity carried out in accordance with islamic teachings, makes people resist islam, that is a reaction caused by the muslims concerned, not by the messengers.
Mr Kharzi should learn this.
Voytek Gagalka says
“Bots” or no “bots” cannot alter people’s choice. They are not “implants” to the brain making recipient incapacitated and subjugated to evil designs of their creators. The free will rules all. But of course leftists, who hysterically believe in “historical materialism” and explicitly deny the free will, think otherwise. “Bots” my a–e.
alex9234 says
Even so, Russia is no ally of this country. Those on the right who had a love fest going with the Russians (Alex Jones, Patrick Buchanan, the Shoebats, etc.) need to come to their senses. They are not our friends and not our ally.
Even if Trump was in bed with the Russian mafia, they never wanted him to win the presidency. They wanted Clinton. They only pretended to support Trump.
Moscow has been supporting Democrat candidates from FDR onwards.
Richard says
If modern Russia is “no ally” to the US then it is entirely unnecessary and entirely the fault of the US.
Around the time that the Soviet Union fell the US made two huge mistakes.
1) They promoted a rapid switchover to capitalism – with huge privatisations of state industries. This created the oligarchs and resulted in massive corruption.
2) Over the cold war years they cultivated anyone perceived as “anti-communist” however most of these so called “anti-communists” were really just “anti-Russian”, the debris of previous historical attacks on Russia perpetrated by Roman Catholic (and to a lesser extent, protestant) countries .
Thus when the Soviet Union broke up the US was seen by Russia as siding with all their historical enemies. ( The US did exactly the same with Yugoslavis-Serbia.). The US had no business to take sides in these disputes and should have dumped its former “anti-communist” allies the moment communism fell. Because they failed to do this the US has ended up siding with Jihadis in Bosnia and Kosovo and Fascists in Ukraine and Croatia.
alex9234 says
Found the Kremlin apologist. So you bash America quite a bit here, while ignoring Russia. And your America bashing has nothing to do with the article or my comment.
“1) They promoted a rapid switchover to capitalism – with huge privatisations of state industries. This created the oligarchs and resulted in massive corruption.”
-Um….okay?
“the moment communism fell.” – The so-called “collapse” of communism is just a slogan for knuckleheads. The Cold War never ended. Russia is just as intent on destroying America as it was in Soviet times. The KGB/FSB is far more powerful now than it was in Soviet times. You don’t get the point here. Russia went “capitalist” in 1991 so that it could gain access to technology and assets that it could not access back then.
Russia’s not an enemy? Their current foreign policy of manifest destiny says otherwise. The anti-American propaganda being spewed by their media outlets says otherwise. Their funding and support of the Taliban says otherwise. Their continued support for Iran, a proxy they can use to attack the U.S. or Israel, says otherwise. Their funding and support of anti-Trump rioters says otherwise, and their continued support for North Korea, a proxy they can use to attack the U.S., South Korea, or even Japan, says otherwise. We get to define who our enemies are, not our enemies.
“ended up siding with Jihadis in Bosnia”
Our handling of the Balkan crises could have been a lot better, particularly in terms of foreign policy, and Wesley Clark, overall we played a bad hand very well. And if anything our problems with Russia began to manifest in a dozen hotspots that popped up quickly around 1991. Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabach, and for a while the Baltics. All of which showed that some high ranking mofos emerging from the Soviet corpse were more than willing to stir the pot if they thought they would get an advantage.
Their favor with Milosevic and his boys was the most visible and perhaps most important manifestation of that, but it was not the first.
“Fascists in Ukraine”
You mean the “elected President of Ukraine” betraying the constitution and his citizens with matters like the “Anti-Protest” decrees that were so broadly applied that they destroyed freedom of speech?
Honestly, the constant autistic screeching I hear about Pwooor Tyrannical Yanukovych being overthrown by the nebulous West from Kremlin apologists underlines how clueless they really are. The Maidainites and even Yanu’s own Rada hardly “needed” Western support after Yanu had somehow managed to alienate not only his traditional “Orange” enemies, but also his traditional “Blue” powerbase!
And all one has to do is dig up fundraising results into Ukraine from around 2001-2010 to see how much money guys like Soros, etc. dumped in, and then compare it to 2011. And asking yourself why the “misdeeds” in 2011 were somehow a lot more effective against him than those before.
“The US had no business to take sides in these disputes”
Right…
Nevermind what a blatant slap in the face this is to the laws and peace that the US helped accelerate the creation of.
Nevermind how it was a Soviet diplomat who helped define “superpower” by saying that the prominence of a superpower meant that any actor in the world had to factor in the opinion of said superpower.
Crimea may have been one of the most important military ports of Russia, but before that, it was one of the most important military and slave trading centers of the Ottoman Empire, and a base for the hideous “Harvesting of the Steppe” that claimed millions of Slavic lives, including Russians, Poles and Ukrainians.
Does that mean we should give Crimea back to Erdogan? I guessing that’s a “no.”
alex9234 says
Also, I’ll leave these here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DoVTbup548
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGe3pypQWl0
http://www.trevorloudon.com/2017/07/russia-to-host-major-international-communist-youth-festival-on-putins-instructions/
http://euromaidanpress.com/2017/04/25/russia-other-former-soviet-republics-persecuting-christians-new-notre-dame-report-says-euromaidan-press/
LeftisruiningCanada says
Let me get this straight…..
57 ‘anti islamic’ retweets (not quoted) are an effort to make Americans dislike muslims, but thousands of dead and a jihad attack every other week isn’t.
Ok, got it.
CRUSADER says
If we take the figure 32, 454 deadly Islamist terrorist attacks since 9/11/2001….
( from data on CounterJihadReport: https://counterjihadreport.com
and from
The Religion of Peace: https://www.thereligionofpeace.com )
THEN:
32,454 divided by 16 years = 2,028 per year globally…
and so, 2,028 divided by 52 weeks = 39 a week…
and thus, grimly and tragically, 39 divided by 7 then makes it 5 ATTACKS per day !
Accordingly, in the past –recently calculated — week, there’ve been …
Jihad Report : Feb 10, 2018 -Feb 16, 2018
Attacks 43
Killed 186
Injured 176
Suicide Blasts 4
Countries 14
Then there are these figures:
———————————
The Ettinger Report – Islamic terrorism – extrinsic or intrinsic?
http://www.theettingerreport.com/MidEast/Islamic-terrorism-–-extrinsic-or-intrinsic-.aspx
Sep 18, 2017 – Since September 11, 2001, there have been 31,722 Islamic terrorist attacks, mostly hitting Muslims. In August, 2017, there were 180 Islamic terrorist … 11 million Muslims have been killed since 1948, of which 35,000 (0.3%) were killed during Arab-Israeli wars. Over 90% were killed by fellow Muslims.
======
Carlos Danger says
Another useful idiot.
Eric jones says
The main stream media (msm) goes out of its way to maintain the Islam is a religion of peace facade. Not once has the msm reported that the White Helmets in Syria shoot or gas people in Syria then film themselves rescuing them!
The current msm anti Russia hysteria exceeds anything I saw in the 1950’s McCarthy era. I am 69 yrs. old. The msm knows what it is doing but does not understand the consequences. Which is to stampede the USA government into a military confrontation with Russia. If this occurs it will start as conventional but degrade into nuclear in a matter of hours. The msm does not understand this. This is alarming.
Eric
Richard says
Listening to BBC news recently, they managed an entire 5 minute piece on FGM without mentioning Islam – but one snetence on fake news had to mention Russia.
LeftisruiningCanada says
I listened to the CBC the other day.
They managed to go 5 whole minutes without mocking President Trump.
But only once. After that it was back to normal.
MFritz says
The ONLY thing the Russians are doing at this point is laughing their asses off about corrupt US-media and politicians trying to blame them for everything.
Joe says
Russians have a number of bot companies. Anyone with $100 can hire them. The bots probably don’t represent the Russian government; they are just trying to make money be increasing their patron’s social media presence. I would suppose that these bot activities were purchased by some American.
The existence of these bot companies is not just well documented; they advertise all the time.
I think the confusion is being sewed by the media and Mueller to justify the Russian witch hunt. These conspiracy theorists have taken mccarthyism to a new level.
Sam says
Does anyone have confidence anymore in any government agency?
Why can’t Mueller say now Trump had nothing to do with this b’s Russian collusion?
Still liberals are winning along with their “peace loving” Muslim friends.
Amazing and strange change in American culture where truth is hated.
St. Manuel II Palaiologos says
There are no Russian bots. It’s just a ploy for the technocrats in the United States to justify a paranoiac imperialist plot, just like they always do. They need lies to get us into war, that’s what they’re creating.
Lebel says
@Wellington
“You went, Lebel, from “literally winning you elections” to “a very significant role.” You also went to “refugees, terrorists and Islam in general” from, initially, Islam alone.”
A very significant role can make the difference between losing and winning an election. There are several factors at play and they exist in a hierarchy. What is so strange about this? In other words, I think Islam made the difference between Trump winning and losing the elections. It tipped the balance in his favour.
Refugees and terrorism and intimately linked with Islam in the voters’ minds. It’s also like this on jihadwatch where posts on refugees and posts are about jihad and Islam. Again, what is so strange about this?