Connecticut Will Pay a Security Analyst 150K To Monitor Election Memes (popsci.com) 140
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Popular Science: Ahead of the upcoming midterm elections, Connecticut is hiring a "security analyst" tasked with monitoring and addressing online misinformation. The New York Times first reported this new position, saying the job description will include spending time on "fringe sites like 4chan, far-right social networks like Gettr and Rumble and mainstream social media sites." The goal is to identify election-related rumors and attempt to mitigate the damage they might cause by flagging them to platforms that have misinformation policies and promoting educational content that can counter those false narratives.
Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont's midterm budget (PDF), approved in early May, set aside more than $6 million to make improvements to the state's election system. That includes $4 million to upgrade the infrastructure used for voter registration and election management and $2 million for a "public information campaign" that will provide information on how to vote. The full-time security analyst role is recommended to receive $150,000. "Over the last few election cycles, malicious foreign actors have demonstrated the motivation and capability to significantly disrupt election activities, thus undermining public confidence in the fairness and accuracy of election results," the budget stated, as an explanation for the funding.
While the role is a first for Connecticut, the NYT noted that it's part of a growing nationwide trend. Colorado, for example, has a Rapid Response Election Security Cyber Unit tasked with monitoring online misinformation, as well as identifying "cyber-attacks, foreign interference, and disinformation campaigns." Originally created in anticipation of the 2020 presidential election, which proved to be fruitful ground for misinformation, the NYT says the unit is being "redeployed" this year. Other states, including Arizona, California, Idaho, and Oregon, are similarly funding election information initiatives in an attempt to counter misinformation, provide educational information, or do both.
Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont's midterm budget (PDF), approved in early May, set aside more than $6 million to make improvements to the state's election system. That includes $4 million to upgrade the infrastructure used for voter registration and election management and $2 million for a "public information campaign" that will provide information on how to vote. The full-time security analyst role is recommended to receive $150,000. "Over the last few election cycles, malicious foreign actors have demonstrated the motivation and capability to significantly disrupt election activities, thus undermining public confidence in the fairness and accuracy of election results," the budget stated, as an explanation for the funding.
While the role is a first for Connecticut, the NYT noted that it's part of a growing nationwide trend. Colorado, for example, has a Rapid Response Election Security Cyber Unit tasked with monitoring online misinformation, as well as identifying "cyber-attacks, foreign interference, and disinformation campaigns." Originally created in anticipation of the 2020 presidential election, which proved to be fruitful ground for misinformation, the NYT says the unit is being "redeployed" this year. Other states, including Arizona, California, Idaho, and Oregon, are similarly funding election information initiatives in an attempt to counter misinformation, provide educational information, or do both.
Only Right wing sites (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: Only Right wing sites (Score:5, Informative)
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Every crazy on the right can be matched and exceeded by the crazy on the mainstream left.
Re: Only Right wing sites (Score:2)
Re: Only Right wing sites (Score:4, Informative)
The mainstream left conceded when they lost the election and never much raised the idea of overturning it.
You're a damn liar. There were all sorts of allegations about the 2016 election, from the left, about voter fraud.
In 2020 Hillary was STILL claiming it had been tampered with.
https://news.yahoo.com/hillary-clinton-maintains-2016-election-160716779.html
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You're a damn liar. There were all sorts of allegations about the 2016 election, from the left, about voter fraud.
There were? I'm a libertarian, not a leftist, but I certainly never saw any claims about voter fraud in 2016. The left had a lot of complaints about that election, but not fraud.
In 2020 Hillary was STILL claiming it had been tampered with.
Follow the link from the Yahoo! News article you posted to the Atlantic article that was their source. Yahoo! News summarized it very badly. Clinton's complaints in 2020 about the 2016 election were not about fraud, they were about Russian election interference (which Mueller proved quite thoroughly, and the -- Republican! -- Senate
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You need to read more carefully. From the article:
“There was a widespread understanding that this election [in 2016] was not on the level,” Clinton said
Re: Only Right wing sites (Score:2)
Apart from persistent allegations of fraud during the 2016 allegations, unfounded claims of Russian collusion, and four years spent in repeated attempts to remove the elected candidate through impeachments - none of which went anywhere.
Or are the entire left-leaning media and the Democratic Party not mainstream?
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"Even when they win the popular vote too."
You understand that the popular vote is meaningless beyond just winning all the electors in your state by a larger margin, right?
We have 50 separate elections for president. Each state then gets electors (roughly equal to population of the entire state) and the president is elected those electors.
It's not about distance (though we can remove the electors entirely and still just send an email saying CA picks X and X gets all our electors). It's about forcing the pr
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Stacey Abrams would disagree with you here.
Re: Only Right wing sites (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't kid yourself. Both extremes have been eating plenty of crazy paste within the last 10 years. If there's any clear epidemic to be raised lately, it's that all of major politics has been advertised to be outright insane lately, so it's either the politicians or the cable news heads that need to go to the looney bin for social reprogramming -- personally, I don't care which, I think we could make it work either way.
Re: Only Right wing sites (Score:2)
Re: Only Right wing sites (Score:4, Insightful)
The candidates may be "centrist" themselves but they're conspicuously too scared shitless of hard-left twitter to tell them to go fuck themselves.
Hence, mostly peaceful riots, "defund the police" and the CHAZ got free passes for a few months and now they pretend they never happened.
The parties have gone whacky, but in an entrenched two-party system I must vote for the extremists who scare me least. The "legitimate rape" and life beginning at the moment of arousal stuff I don't care for, but the out-and-proud marxists and professional race-baiters and gun grabbers and the Let's Weld People Into Their Houses brigade scare the living shit out of me.
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Don't forget about those who support the irreversible genital mutilation of children.
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Opposing "the irreversible genital mutilation of children" is a perfectly rational position, provided of course that you're not just using it as a justification to deny rights to adult members of the LGBTQ+ community.
That's pretty much the position of most normals I interact with. You wanna be "Bobbi-with-an-i", knock yourself out, after you're 18. School-age children, not so much. Not necessarily because they're anti-LGBT, but more because they remember being kids and know that kids are innately attention-seeking creatures. When kids see a group getting special and preferential treatment, they'll go along with it. Hell, there was a tv show about it. [wikipedia.org]
FWIW, I think a lot of folks understand that real life isn't Twitter or Slashdot. It doesn't stop them from getting worn down from the barrage of "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality; at this point, most if not all journalism is yellow journalism.
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No, he's just using it as a smoke screen to hide his antisemitism.
Re: Only Right wing sites (Score:2)
Re: Only Right wing sites (Score:2)
If you believe in free and fair elections, you should have no problem with the concept of a universal requirement that a voter identify themselves with government issued identification as a condition of casting a ballot, or with the requirement that governments keep voter rolls current and remove individuals who are no longer living in a particular district from the voter roll for that district.
In fact something like 60% of the voting public supports these measures (to the extent that an opinion poll about
Re: Only Right wing sites (Score:2)
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Re: Only Right wing sites (Score:5, Insightful)
The right likes to mention voter ID because people without IDs tend to be poorer minorities that vote Democrat.
If you could guarantee free and easy access to IDs for everyone on the voter role then you wouldn't see anyone against it.
That being said, individual voter fraud is almost non-existent. It's just used by the right to scare you (which I assume you dislike so you don't vote for them). If a measure prevents 1 person from fraudulently voting but prevents or discourages 1000 people from legitimately voting, that's a disasterous measure.
Re: Only Right wing sites (Score:2)
Numerous polls show a majority of Americans supporting voter ID requirements, and for good reason.
1. It makes sense. If you need ID to buy a beer, is an election less important? Trust in elections matters, and that's a bipartisan feeling. The only reason there's less support on the Democratic side is because of the myth that brown people are being uniquely targeted.
2. The vast majority of Americans already have suitable ID. This includes the brown people.
3. For those that don't drive, ID is incredibly cheap
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Since the evidence clearly goes against the claim, one might ask why a particular party might be so enthusiastic about making elections less secure?
Is there any evidence voter ID makes elections more secure? Have there been any studies? Given the extremely low rate of voter fraud (we're talking a handful of cases), the low reward for doing so (each case only adds 1 vote), the high risk involved (felony conviction) there's already an incentive not to do it.
Now we can look at past cases where people were caught and assume maybe 100 cases of voter fraud in an election. Do you think more than 100 people would be unable to get an ID on election day? What
Re: Only Right wing sites (Score:2)
Even accepting party partisan views on this, would it be wrong to require voter ID and ensure it can be provided at little to no cost? Turnout isn't everything - integrity matters. Carter knew this.
The partisan nonsense needs to go away. Voter ID as a concept isn't discriminatory against minorities legitimately entitled to vote. Surveys of those lacking ID rarely get into the reasons for this - are people actually blocked or are they instead unmotivated to push against an open door? Who are the people lacki
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Re: Only Right wing sites (Score:2)
Not entirely crazy. The government could certainly spend money on worse things than a little reward for voting. Even automatic entry to a lottery could be interesting to try.
I like the dye approach because it could also be part of raising social value of voting.
Re: Only Right wing sites (Score:2)
No reasonable person expects voter ID to drastically reduce fraud. The evidence suggests fraud is pretty rare. Sure it happens, but impersonation isn't likely overturning ejections at the state and federal levels.
The main benefit is to rebuild confidence. More voting stations should also be part of this, the goal being that all Americans can cast a vote within a reasonable amount of time - journey and queuing considered. Ensuring adequate time, perhaps spreading polling over multiple days also. If you prese
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Sorry, I don't buy it. I need a flipping ID to board a plane. I need an ID to enter a government building -- and not my crappy CA drivers license which is no longer secure enough, but a REAL ID (tm).
Everyone US Citizen has access to an ID. Free if necessary. Why not take the issue off the table by VALIDATING voters as they vote? The right cant yack about voter fraud any more. Same with Mail in ballots only. Make it only for cause (health, out of country, etc). Change election days to be election wee
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"Is there any evidence voter ID makes elections more secure? Have there been any studies? Given the extremely low rate of voter fraud (we're talking a handful of cases), the low reward for doing so (each case only adds 1 vote), the high risk involved (felony conviction) there's already an incentive not to do it."
Two answers to this:
(1) You can't find stuff you aren't really looking for actively. The rare cases of voter fraud were due to some obviously poor judgement (forged voter registrations from the sam
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Remember that the only cases of fraud this would prevent would be people walking into a polling station, lying about their identity and saying they are another resident (that hasn't voted), and voting as that person. That also assumes they're unable to produce a fake ID. Once they've done all that, they've then illegally cast a single vote.
It might make some people feel better when they go to their polling place and see minorities, but they could just as easily say the person had a stolen ID or they weren
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The right likes to mention voter ID because people without IDs tend to be poorer minorities that vote Democrat.
"The Left" requires IDs to actually get government benefits. And for pretty much everything else too.
Everyone who wants an ID (and who is actually entitled to one) can easily get it. Everyone actually knows that, but has to pretend that they don't know it.
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That'd be the government requiring the ID (in some cases) for benefits, but often that's just a social security card (or number) which doesn't qualify for most of the voter ID laws. Like I said, make it easy and free and you'll see no opposition, but it's really a solution in search of a problem
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No, it just takes time and money
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Why is this a problem? My dead mother received ballots for THREE elections, even after we complained to the state and tried our best to get her removed from the rolls. We could easily have voted for her, but we didn't since we're not lying, evil jerks.
When I make the suggestion that this system is ripe for manipulation, I'm told i'm (fill in t
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Don't kid yourself. Both extremes have been eating plenty of crazy paste within the last 10 years. If there's any clear epidemic to be raised lately, it's that all of major politics has been advertised to be outright insane lately, so it's either the politicians or the cable news heads that need to go to the looney bin for social reprogramming -- personally, I don't care which, I think we could make it work either way.
The only problem with that reasoning is that in the west, the far left doesn't really exist any more. The people the far right try to paint as "loony left" are more often than not, centre right.
When I think of the far left, I think of things like Baader-Meinhof (Red Army Faction), the Black Panthers (aside from the mire of race politics, they were ardent communists), May 19th and Weather Underground. Organisations like this don't exist any more, even FARC in Colombia is almost nothing now. Self described
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Or, perhaps crazy is crazy regardless of politics.
In this particular space-time juncture, the right is dabbling in crazy a lot more than the left. That will not always be the case. But crazy should always be ignored and rejected, no matter what form it takes.
No, they actually aren't. You do realize that the same number of Democrats think the 2016 election was "stolen" as Republicans who think the 2020 election was "stolen", right?
You do realize that the Russian Collusion Hoax was started and perpetuated by the Clinton campaign, right?
I don't even know how people don't understand this. Right-wing idiocy seems to be confined to Facebook and whatever, whereas left-wing idiocy is everywhere. The amount of literal fake news showing up on what should be legitimate
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No, they actually aren't. You do realize that the same number of Democrats think the 2016 election was "stolen" as Republicans who think the 2020 election was "stolen", right?
No, that's a lie. Around 80% of Republicans say the election was not legitimate compared to around 42% of democrats in 2016. Those aren't even close.
You do realize that the Russian Collusion Hoax was started and perpetuated by the Clinton campaign, right?
Another lie. It's been proven Russia interfered with the election (bipartisan Senate committee released a report) and multiple members of the Trump campaign worked with Russia to make it happen.
Not only that but the crazy conspiracies are being repeated by mainstream Republicans including those at the head of the party compared to a few fringe people on twit
Re: Only Right wing sites (Score:2)
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Well it was clearly effective. You had Russian actors pushing that there was anything of substance in the DNC emails when it turned out to be just run-of-the-mill correspondence, so they had to push some ridiculous conspiracies like the Democrats were eating children in the basement of a pizza parlor or something like that. They also had troll farms creating groups spreading memes and such getting people to go along with crazy ideas and spread misinformation. The final part was to get people to believe th
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"You had Russian actors pushing that there was anything of substance in the DNC emails when it turned out to be just run-of-the-mill correspondence"
Run of the mill like passing debate questions to Clinton. Things like using racist and homophobic language against their own supporters. Things like colluding with reporters for upcoming news articles. Things like actively trying to undermine Sanders, not figure out who democrats want.
Just "run of the mill".
That's a nastily run mill, buddy.
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Not great stuff, but nothing surprising from a presidential campaign. I'm sure you'd see the same in lots of other campaigns
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But we haven't. It clearly falls in to the right's impression that the press is in the pocket of the left. THAT is far more dangerous.
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" was hacking and releasing the proof that Hillary literally rigged the Party Nomination."
Not just her party -- but they worked on making sure Trump was the Republican nominee, too. Memos to always talk as if Trump was the presumptive nominee because he was the only opponent Hillary could beat according the the polls.
Funny as hell. Republicans nominated a man in 2016 that a dead lizard could beat -- but, not wanting to be out done, the Democrats nominated a woman even worse.
I remember election night 2016.
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I know this hurts:
https://rollcall.com/2021/02/2... [rollcall.com]
"When we asked about 2016, 51 percent of voters overall said Trump won fairly, while 33 percent blamed Russian interference. Very similar to the 2020 results. Republicans believed 2016 was a fair election, 82 percent to 10 percent. Independents were closer to Republicans, calling it fair by a 52 percent to 24 percent margin. But 62 percent of Democrats opted for the Russia explanation for Hillary Clinton’s loss, while 21 percent said Trump won fairly.
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Here's the 2016 election with 42 of Democrats: https://thefederalist.com/2016... [thefederalist.com]
Here's the 2020 election with 81% of Republicans: https://today.yougov.com/topic... [yougov.com]
Same polling group even.
I think there's a big difference you're confusing is that a lot of Democrats believe there was "Russian interference". They are correct as this is confirmed by all the intelligence agencies as well as the bipartisan Senate report. That's quite different from the Republican worried about "Voter fraud" which there are only
What evidence do you have (Score:4, Informative)
I know this doesn't go over well but I think the right wing is fundamentally more prone to what we would consider antisocial and dangerous behavior just by the very nature of their obsession with solving problems by looking to individuals. It tends to make them more obedient to authority. It's why pretty much every attempt to create a left-wing Utopia has ended in a right wing dictatorship. It's just plain hard to prevent the combination of fear and confusion from bringing out the crazies who then go and look for that strong man to save them.
Why feed the trolls? (Score:2)
Or do you just like the smell of brain farts in the morning?
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Or, perhaps crazy is crazy regardless of politics. In this particular space-time juncture, the right is Reported by the Media to be dabbling in crazy a lot more than the left. That will not always be the case. But crazy should always be ignored and rejected, no matter what form it takes.
FTFY
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They called out all of two right-wing sites, and they're both well-known places where extremists gather and communicate -- at the moment, there isn't any good example of a large-scale far-left forum (at the moment, it's much more fragmented than the far-right); 4-chan isn't right-wing (it does have a lot of right-wing activity, but it's definitely got lots of left-wing/far-left communities and content),
Congrats to the troll (Score:2)
More than half of the long discussion under the troll's vacuous Subject.
Why aren't they hanging out (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, come back, I got one: CNN.com! Bunch a commie pinkos over there.
They'd Be Overwhelmed (Score:1)
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I know, I know, don't feed the trolls. I think they get paid by the post or the word though, they always reply back.
Re: They'd Be Overwhelmed (Score:1)
When everything is either Credible Information That Happens To Align With My Worldview or Russian botz! that begins to look a lot like the contents of books being categorized as either blasphemous or superfluous.
See what I mean? (Score:2)
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"Hands up, don't shoot" or "Jacob Blake was unarmed."
Damn, there's a trip down the memory hole.
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Because the left can't meme.
Phony Stark sure seems to think the left can meme (Score:2)
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Only because the right is now beyond parody. Whatever meme you create, the reality is problem even more out there.
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old white men are better at internet memes than the 20 year old liberal college kids
Probably because the old white men get the cultural references and understand the humor.
20 year old liberal college kids
You actually have to remember those cultural references. Not easily done through a pot-induced haze.
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* Because some people actually believe the president sets gas prices. That's what's truly funny.
Truly funny! Go talk to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) for (back in November) tweeting "Thanks @JoeBiden" with a hilariously-deceptive graph showing a $0.02 drop in gas prices. https://twitter.com/dccc/statu... [twitter.com]
Notice how the y-axis starts at $3.375 while the maximum is only $3.415! Makes for a nice-looking "drop" in prices. Of course, six months later, they look even more foolish.
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Now switch that question to a federal government that publicly stated "We will support investment in Oil/gas until we are capable of using renewables, with a plan to migrate over time", would you then be more or less likely?
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on all the far left websites! Like.... and also.... I mean....
Oh, that's right, the far left doesn't even exist! How convenient.
Well, that settles it: I definitely trust my fundamental rights like voting and free speech to fair, even handed folks like yourself :)
TV show (Score:2)
They could call it. Law And Order- Troll patrol.
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I am curious what you did to that troll. It must have been pretty traumatic considering how much free rental space you have in his head.
But not traumatic enough.
I'll do it (Score:1)
I don't do the social media stuff, but I'll pretend to identify memes that I totally won't plant and repeat ahead of time.
On a completely unrelated note, I have it on good authority that Ned Lamont and the Lizard People are conspiring with the reverse vampires to eliminate the secret ballot! I mean the meal of dinner!
My dream job. (Score:2)
Since when is the net about Truth? (Score:2)
Imagine if people complained that there was too much "misinformation" on USENET back in the day... they'd be laughed right into /dev/null. (Then flamed like Jessie Jackson at the airport being asked to pick up the white courtesy phone.)
It would be the same as criticizing an art gallery for showing "unrealistic" paintings.
What is the internet of today about? Control. And money. Lots of it.
That's why the usual suspects (politicians, media, the corpos) are upset: They're losing their monopoly on lies.
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Since the eternal september. This bullshit isn't really limited to funky US politics either, EU considers right wing clickbait a "cybersecurity threat" as well [europa.eu].
Anything to not address the bigger issue (Score:3, Interesting)
Which is that we know our national elections are shit compared to most of the West.
Folks who think the current election "conspiracy theories" are pure garbage tend to forget the fact that in 2004, there was credible evidence that Diebold helped Dubya beat Kerry in Ohio.
If you wanted to actually fix faith in our federal elections, it would be simple:
* 100% paper ballots, issued that day, on the spot, to eligible voters.
* 1 day to vote unless you are military, law enforcement, working a shift as a first responder or in a hospital.
* Free state IDs modeled on the military CAC/federal civilian PiV card for all citizens.
* Let voters with their free state IDs show up at any precinct and vote once their ID is read by a card reader.
* Institute a media gag order punishable by a felony charge for journalists who seek to interview voters or solicit early data from poll workers; make it a felony for election workers to speak to the media about election statistics prior to the official count being finished and announced.
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* 1 day to vote unless you are military, law enforcement, working a shift as a first responder or in a hospital.
Yeah, fuck anyone who can't get time off! Those people are too poor to vote.
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Its a movie it must be right, movies are always right. Hows that Godzilla?
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Politifact reviews the movie from a trailer for it.
Anyone actually see the movie? I did.
The organization True The Vote bought location tracking data used by corporations to I think target advertising that tracks cell phone locations. They did extensive computer analysis of the movement of cell phones as reported by the phone's GPS receivers while setting up geofencing around ballot drop boxes, as well as some nonprofit organizations suspected of being involved in the collection and distribution of fraudulent ballots. Fraudulent ballots were those that were collected unmarked, but filled in by others than the people whose names were on the outside of the ballots. These were ballots mailed to people who had moved out of apartments, died, etc. Some interviewees stated that they received 7 ballots in the mail for their use and the use of 6 other people that had moved out of the apartment in the past.
Paid persons would come and collect these extra ballots and take them to a central point that was a non-profit (501c3 organization I think they said) where blank ballots would be marked. Then the "mules" would take the ballots to drop boxes. It is illegal in every state to be paid to deliver ballots.
One criticism of the approach said that cell phone GPS data is not that accurate to be able to do that. I road rally with the Sports Car Club of America who in the last few years has been blessed with some high-tech folks that have been able to replace our traditional manned checkpoint where people with stopwatches recorded the time of the passage of a vehicle for scoring purposes with date from our GPS's in our cell phones. The route given in the instructions laid out by the rallymaster, with prescribed start times and speeds to be used, allow the mathematical determination of where the rally vehicle should be at any point on the course. So the checkpoint records whether the car is early, on-time, or late, and by how much. The new automated checkpoints use GPS to do the same thing. I navigate, which is keeping the car on time. I use a sophisticated (and damned expensive - almost $2K now) dedicated computer that measures the car's mileage along the course and has a built-in clock to determine the progress of the vehicle, where it should be, and gives the driver a readout as to whether to maintain speed, go faster, or go slower. Our competition, determined not to allow us to catch them, ran the last 4 checkpoints of the last rally I ran, with scores measured to the 1/10th of a second, with 4 "zeros" indicating that the car was at these checkpoints exactly on time. That doesn't happen by chance, and yes, the GPS measurements of cell phones is that accurate.
True The Vote analyzed millions of cell phones to discover if any were visiting 10 or more drop boxes, They found 2000 such folks that visited at least 10 drop boxes as well as one of the suspected non-profits where ballots had been brought for distribution. Some of these people visited far more than just 10 drop boxes. 28. 50. Who would have a legitimate reason to visit such drop boxes, and do so often in the wee hours of the morning - 1 AM, 2, 3, 4, etc.?
True the vote also bought security camera footage for some of these drop boxes. They have 4 million minutes. They then used the cell phone location data to access the camera footage at the right time and place and saw the same people at different location putting multiple ballots into drop boxes repeatedly, night after night, for weeks. Weeks before the elections.
This was done for key battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, and I think Wisconsin. The extent of these activities were massive.
If you see the film, you will know that the election was unmistakeably stolen. Yeah, I know, but just see the damned movie. It's all very high tech and I believe irrefutable. Politifact nonsense is Politimyth. The high-tech approach taken by True The Vote appears to be rock-solid. See the movie.
Thanks for this info.
Tough job if you actually try to do it (Score:2)
I don't know if it's worth $150K if you have to swim in and critically review that intellectual sewer everyday. You'd probably lose a lot of faith in humanity while wondering, "Who ARE these people exactly?"
If they actually do that job, they may not last for too long.
So first example (Score:2)
Pres Biden: "a 9mm bullet will rip your lung out", and "when the 2nd amendment was written you couldn't privately own a cannon"
So is someone going to flag him for deliberate misinformation narratives?
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>"So is someone going to flag him for deliberate misinformation narratives?"
Of course not.
The purpose of such as position is to monitor and try to debunk anything that is not in the political interest of the ruling party, using "extremism" as the justification. All the "misinformation" on/from their "side" doesn't matter and will be ignored.
This is why the government should not be trying to define or act on "misinformation" or "hate speech", it is indirect (or "soft") form of censorship which flies in t
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Freedom enables harm. You can't be free and also safe. Being free means having the ability to make mistakes or believe or say something different. In a free society, If the government wants to say something, or have a position on something, and publish it, that is fine. But to actively work to silence naysayers either through legislation or pressuring individuals or companies crosses the line. That is the balance.
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You did read at least the summary to the article you are commenting on, didn't you?
This article is about a state government stomping all over the freedom of speech, it has nothing to do with private organizations.
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"there is genuine harm to letting false ideas run rampant."
There is MORE harm in empowering someone to be the arbiter of truth.
The ESSENCE of democracy is the free dissemination of ideas, stupid or not.
The problem with the anti-vax stuff ISN'T that there's anti-vax nonsense going around. It's that
a) we have a gullible public who were allowed to graduate from high school yet are so fundamentally dumb about basic concepts that they believe some stupid crap spouted on youtube
b) we have allowed such deep and i
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"relying on consumers not to fall for bullshit is something we know won't work"
Neither will any attempt to cover everything in the world in bubble wrap and guardrails.
"relying on consumers not to fall for bullshit" is literally how capitalism works, by the way.
Ostensibly, the role of public education is to armor people with knowledge against the most obvious, pernicious bullshit. Beyond that, it's their problem.
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Science journals (well, old-fashioned ones) used to present peer-reviewed science information backed up by data so that comparably knowledgeable readers could affirm (or reasonably refute) the conclusions drawn.
So...no, given current standards where advocacy seems to be more important than anything, first, I don't think magazines like Scientific American really merit the moniker 'science journal' so they might as well publish shit anyone makes up.
Or...Practising Midwife: https://twitter.com/EstadoNovo... [twitter.com]
(LO
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The Ministry of Truth didn't work out too well for Potato Joe.
We'll see how well censorship works at the state level...
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"when the 2nd amendment was written you couldn't privately own a cannon"
Did he use this whopper again recently? The funny thing about it is, it is actually easier to buy a cannon in the US right now than a rifle. There is a guy who has one in his yard around here, just sitting in front of his house pointing at the house across the street. It is perfectly legal, in a state that has an assault weapons law...
Nice (Score:2)
...the out-and-proud marxists and professional race-baiters and gun grabbers and the Let's Weld People Into Their Houses brigade...
You do realize that the same number of Democrats think the 2016 election was "stolen" as Republicans who think the 2020 election was "stolen", right?
2000 Mules distributing thousands of ballets to drop boxes in key contested cities might claim otherwise.
And on and on it goes. America is in big trouble.
Too little (Score:2)
Oh good! (Score:2)
"Election rumors" such as "the Biden laptop is Russian disinformation!", right?
What's that ... no?
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Yeah it was man. First of all, it wasn't even about the President, it was about his son. Second, there weren't any bombshell discoveries on it. Third, while there were some legit emails on it, but it was pretty clearly a fake setup so probably emails hacked from somewhere else.
The whole story about how they got it is just so implausible I don't see how anyone would believe it.
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I guess you missed the "10% for the big guy" as that would be bribery of a government official? Your head is in the sand if you think it was nothing.
The whole story about how they got it is just so implausible I don't see how anyone would believe it.
Yeah, I can't imagine why so many news organizations, like that horrible conservative rag The New York Post would believe such already proven true things...
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Who's "the big guy" and what government is he working for?
The New York Post is a conservative rag, but I imagine you were talking about the story in the New York Time where they confirmed some of the emails were valid, however did not confirm the laptop belonged to Joe Biden's family nor any of the outlandish story on how it was acquired
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According to contemporaries on the email, it was Vice President Joe Biden. He would be the US VP at the time the email was sent, therefore, it was bribery of a high official of the US government.
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Joe Biden was not US VP in 2017, that was Mike Pence.
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It wasn't just "finding it randomly in a repair shop" it was one across the country, and conveniently the owner didn't take any ID, have any cameras, and was partially blind so couldn't see the person who dropped it off. Then this guy cracks in and finds some "incriminating emails" so sends it to....Rudy Giuliani?
So... (Score:2)
So instead of a single Ministry of Truth, we will now have 50 ministries of truth.