You probably heard about this:
Early Saturday morning, President Trump tweeted his gratitude to a social-media super-fan, Nicole Mincey, magnifying her praise of him to his 35 million followers.
Here’s the problem: There is no evidence the Twitter feed belongs to someone named Nicole Mincey. And the account, according to experts, bears a lot of signs of a Russia-backed disinformation campaign.
On Sunday, Twitter suspended the Mincey account, known as @ProTrump45, after several other users revealed that it was probably a fake, created to amplify pro-Trump content.
The Post article I linked to goes on to say:
Even as the president has railed against multiple investigations into Russia’s meddling in U.S. politics, he may have become Exhibit A of the foreign government’s influence by elevating a suspected Russia-connected social-media user — part (of) a sophisticated campaign to exacerbate disputes in U.S. politics and gain the attention of the most powerful tweeter in the world.
I have one problem here: is it really all that sophisticated?
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s fascinating and a bit scary that Russian propaganda and right-wing media have merged into one (check out this site that tracks Russian twitter bots and how often they link to Breitbart and Gateway Pundit). But what they’re doing is quite simple. You create an account called DeplorableCindy or whatever and make your avatar a stock photo of a Hooter’s model. Then you rewteet whatever nonsense Sean Hannity or Jim Hoft is babbling about that hour. Sometimes you do something a little fancier than that (as with the Nicole Mincey fabrication described above). But it’s not string theory.
I doubt it has that much influence. The fact that it fooled Dolt45 doesn’t prove anything.
Ruckus
True, we already know how much of a fucking moron he is.
Gin & Tonic
This would be a hypothetical “you”, of course, correct? I’m sure that the idea of creating a fake Twitter account that posts things you don’t actually agree with would never occur to flesh-and-blood “you”.
Doug!
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m thinking of making my twitter account a Russian trollbot parody account.
Gin & Tonic
@Doug!: I’m not surprised.
NotMax
“Fool me once, shame on Hillary.
Fool me twice, lock her up.”
encephalopath
Or is fake Nicole part of the Trump sales and propaganda operation? You know… Trump was retweeting one of his own fake supporter bots.
efgoldman
@Doug!: I have neither a tweetler account nor a farcebook account. Somehow don’t think I’m missing anything.
smintheus
It’s more sophisticated than that. The Russian troll factories long ago learned how to drive public reactions and promote ideas into semi-respectable (Fox) outlets. They’re not just parroting what Hannity is saying, Hannity is parroting what they’re saying.
The dolts who get their news from unexamined internet memes are definitely being influenced by Russian propaganda, just as the dolts who get their news from unexamined Fox memes are being influenced by Norquist’s propaganda.
ETA: This article from 2015 makes compelling reading: “The Agency”
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html
p.a.
@efgoldman: You’re missing all the high school alumns who want to be your friend. As a wise man noted, “I wasn’t your friend then. Why would I want to be now?”
hellslittlestangel
Nicole Mincey is quite real. Just ask John Barron — she used to beg him to go out with her.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think more “sophisticated” is the Sinclair model. People who get their news while multitasking in the morning with the TV on in the background, or waiting for local weather/sports get rightwing news presented by earnest JC Penny mannequins.
Local news was already an insidious influence as Broderism and Friedmanism filtered down through the anchors’ banter
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@p.a.: a friend from grad school recently told me that a former colleague of ours who hated me with a passion (and it was very mutual) was asking if he knew why I wasn’t on Facebook.
grandpa john
@p.a.: How about as a retired high school
teacher you get friends request from 27 years worth of former students. I will admit there are some I wanted to friend and even a few I went looking for to friend them, I know that makes me sound a little biased but any retired teacher will tell you,there were always a few who stood out as special
Omnes Omnibus
@p.a.: Iggy. It is easy.
Jay
@smintheus: yup, and like a speaker, it amplifies the message and broadly disseminates it.
grandpa john
@p.a.: How about as a retired high school
teacher you get friends request from 27 years worth of former students. I will admit there are some I wanted to friend and even a few I went looking for to friend them, I know that makes me sound a little biased but not in the classroom.
but any retired teacher will tell you,there were always a few who stood out as special
AliceBlue
If you hear any noise, it ain’t the boys, it’s ladies night!
efgoldman
@p.a.:
They actually found me for the 50th (2013). Surprised the hell out of me (I’d moved several times, including out of state) I ignored the dozens of emails then, don’t think I missed anything. I see one of my good friends occasionally at band things. Needless to say, I was not a social lion.
Cheryl Rofer
The sequence seems to be that Russian bots spread a meme among the credulous, then rightwing media pick it up (or the two are more or less simultaneous), and then the MSM picks it up. There is now a tool to watch what 600 Russian bots are doing. Last week they were pushing #fireMcMaster. I’ve acquired several Twitter followers in the past week that I suspect are Russian bots.
Librarian
There’s no apostrophe in “Hooters.”
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
My 50th reunion is in 2 months. Haven’t seen most of the people I knew for all of that 50 yrs. I expect to walk away from a few of them that are RWNJ. But I’m still going. Went to a party 3 yrs ago with some of them and had a good time, for the most part.
efgoldman
@Ruckus:
I grew up lower middle class (dad was a career Army WO) in an extremely wealthy town. Many of the kids i went to school with came from money, some old money, some who’s fathers hit it big after WW2. A very snobbish town. The kid who sat next to me in band was the second son of a very famous doctor with (since) a world-famous cancer center named for him. The Boston Symphony’s music director’s son was in several of my classes – like that.
Except for the music kids, I had nothing in common with these people except age. I knew them well enough to know that the ones who go to reunions are the types that want to brag about more than their grandchildren.
FlyingToaster
@efgoldman: Facebook, no, you’re not missing anything.
Fortunately, you can look at twitter, and read other people’s tweets, without ever getting an account (ref: Anne Laurie). I have a twitter account so that I can follow Swear_Trek, Swear_Who, and XKCD. Oh, and John Cole and Keith Olbermann. And retweet same to my close circle of dysfunctional entities.
@p.a.: THIS. I moved 1500 miles to get away from them.
efgoldman
@FlyingToaster:
mrs efg spends most of the afternoon in farcebook. BUT daughter has a private account (to which we have access) in which she posts granddaughter pix.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: My parents moved back to my mom’s hometown when I was about to start high school. I had a great experience – being on the edge of the brains and the jocks. There is an unofficial 35th reunion there next weekend. I am not sure if I care enough to go.
FlyingToaster
@efgoldman: My mom has an account for looking at her great-granddaughter’s pix. She got all of the RWNJ in her family to unfriend her by posting Obama photos every week for 8 years.
Because I DO NOT WANT my HS people to find me, I won’t get a Facebook account. I have Facebook tracker-blockers on all of the browsers. I really don’t want the [redacted] wife of my [redacted] brother-in-law to contact me, ever, and she fucking lives on Facebook.
For the 10 year reunion, my idiot brother gave my HS reunion people my (just-moved-from) address; I sent them back a suitable mail, via a friend in Manhattan who mailed it from the UN:
“Sorry, my occupation as chief concubine in the Sheik’s harem keeps me from attending your bash. Have so much fun!”
Laura
The fact that it fooled Dolt45 doesn’t prove anything.
Really? Doesn’t it suggest that the President is easily influenced, unwilling or unable to act in a rational fashion commensurate with the Office of the President of the United States, or unable to conduct himself like a common trump?
Maybe it’s me, but the fact that an Internet click bait random bit of fandom wasn’t nipped in the bud by his kids, his party, his handlers, his owners, his co-equal branch or government is concerning.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
This is just a weird tale all around. Josh Marshall has been poking around into it. I’m not big on Twitter. I have an account, but Facebook is more my thing, so I don’t really get all the ins and outs of this #clownsinmycovfefe story.
Omnes Omnibus
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Josh as done well.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
I lived in a middle class socal suburban bedroom town, incorporated 130 yrs ago. About a 1/3 of the city was build after WWII, the first house I grew up in was one of them. I had a lot in common with most of the kids I knew. Didn’t make a lot of difference that a good number of the people I knew are still assholes. Which you said better than me. Still, a number of them can’t make it, they aren’t with us anymore.
I’d like to catch up with a few of them, see how they are doing, I just hope the ones I would like to see are there. Plus a girl of Japanese decent that lived 2 doors down should be going and I found out 3 yrs ago that while we were born on the same day, her telling me that she was born in Tokyo was a lie. She fooled me and I want to give her shit about that. Turns out that she is a jokester. Also I want to see if one of my heroes shows up. A girl who grew up with polio and one of the people who showed me that perseverance and humanity are much better things to have in life than lots of money.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@smintheus: That article is both fascinating and frightening.
different-church-lady
Oh, I wouldn’t be that sure. Article in the FYNYT from a couple of months back described how the press is over-reliant on Twitter trendings when they decide what is coverage-worthy.
different-church-lady
@FlyingToaster:
Wow! Does she give clinics?
ET
I was reading Josh Marshall’s pieces on this and it sounds like more than a simple hoax. maybe not a huge full grown conspiracy but definitely not simple.