Did nobody else watch Rachel last night??? Well, I did. Usually her show-stopping segments are posted to dKos. But not last night, at least not that I could find.
She started with an update on Northern California fires. At roughly the 3-4 minute mark, she went to the next story (entitled on her blog US Tech Giants Oddly Unhelpful on Russia). Here's a link to the story: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/us-tech-giants-oddly-unhelpful-on-russia-1067167299819
I sat there stupefied (not that unusual a condition for me) as Rachel showed two videos featuring speeches by men with heavy accents… African American men branding Hillary as "a racist," "evil," etc., etc., and saying "I'm voting for Trump." This was credited by Rachel as having been reported by The Daily Beast yesterday (and before with less information on September 10). The subject videos had been posted as advertisements (and shared) on Facebook. The sources of the videos appeared to be American.
Skipping down a bit, the sources of the videos turned out to be Nigerian in origin, with significant connections with Russian intelligence (i.e, Russian government) sources. Rachel went on to document how it now appears that Facebook was implicated with posting these videos and thousands of others as ads even after determining that the true origin was Russia. This would be illegal. I suggest anyone interested in how the election was hi-jacked in a major way by Russia through Facebook ads watch the above stories. (I don't know if my poor old decrepit computer will be a reliable link; but anyone can copy the link and search for it as an original search.) As this story has continued to unfold, various journalism study groups, including one by Columbia University, are starting to make it clear how extensive Facebook's promotion of Russian sourced ads was in the run-up to election day. The Columbia study took 6 sources, all identified as Russian in origin, and determined that their ads were shared 340 MILLION times prior to the election. Six sources. Facebook has admitted ELIMINATING 470 ad Russian ad sources. 470 divided by 6 is 78. 78 times 340 million is 26+ billion. 26 billion shared ads, using Facebook software to determine ad TARGETS.
On 60 Minutes Sunday night, Lesley Stahl interviewed a Trump campaign staffer, Brad Parscale, who was hired to help Trump's digital operations (and who ultimately would become Trump's "Digital Director"). https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-embeds-russia-and-the-trump-campaigns-secret-weapon/ Parscale joined the Trump campaign, initially concerned that Hillary's advantage in money and reputation would tip the election toward her, and he told Stahl how Facebook employees offered to and did EMBED themselves in the Trump campaign to show Trump staffers HOW THEY COULD USE Facebook's tools and technologies to maximum benefit. (I was not aware how minutely -- how microscopically -- FB can TARGET FB users with ads.)
Parscale said FB offered the same option to Hillary's campaign, but were turned down. (!!!!)
Parscale revealed the level of intricacy the Trump campaign was able to make in targeting voters. Simple example: A rural city has 15 FB user accounts. Ads on each one of these users' accounts can be individually manipulated to appeal to that particular user's interests, biases, habits, etc., etc. So… take the above 6 sample (but actual) Russian ads with "domestic seeming" origins, ad the computational power of 340 million shares…
I quickly did the math using the above parameters.
It is an oft-repeated story that roughly half of today's voters (or maybe it's just U.S. citizens) get their news from Facebook. (I know -- that in itself frightens the hell out of me.) It is now very clear to me that Facebook's influence in the campaign will ultimately be shown as the major factor in swinging the election to Trump.
Big jump? Long stretch? Not to me. Watch the above videos all the way through and come to your own conclusions.
Hillary's book What Happened? may have touched on this, but if she did, it was either unreferred to in the promo appearances she made hyping the book (and the Comey factor, the Podesta e-mail leaks, etc.), or her writing and publication of the book was premature. This thing dwarfs Comey as being effective in changing voters' minds or just plain vilifying Hillary.
Google, YouTube (owned by Google), Twitter and especially Facebook -- with 1.8 BILLION users -- have their feet stuck in the sand regarding investigations of their roles in allowing Russian bots and other resources to use THEIR PLATFORMS to ILLEGALLY INFLUENCE THE ELECTION. Journalists will ultimately get to or near the bottom of this story. I expect Rachel to follow up on yesterday's report, probably today, or soon, because this is going to rock the U.S. Our elections can no longer depend on accuracy or integrity, if this is not revealed and handled effectively.