I’m posting this one last diary on Louise Mensch (unless we do indeed get President Hatch). Looking at my posting history here, everyone can see that I have championed Louise Mensch here at dailykos, despite some pretty stiff pushback. She is not liked here.
But now she’s calling out dailykos in her Twitter feed and I must defend this website. Words matter. Facts matter. Details matter.
The dkos diary in question is here:
Louise Mensch thinks Ferguson was a Russian conspiracy
Mensch is referring to this article by CNN:
Exclusive: Russian-bought Black Lives Matter ad on Facebook targeted Baltimore and Ferguson
Ferguson and Baltimore had gained widespread attention for the large and violent protests over police shootings of black men. The decision to target the ad in those two cities offers the first look at how accounts linked to the Russian government-affiliated troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency used geographically targeted advertising to sow political chaos in the United States, the sources said.
—snip—
The Black Lives Matter ad appeared on Facebook at some point in late 2015 or early 2016, the sources said. The sources said it appears the ad was meant to appear both as supporting Black Lives Matter but also could be seen as portraying the group as threatening to some residents of Baltimore and Ferguson.
New descriptions of the Russian-bought ads shared with CNN suggest that the apparent goal of the Russian buyers was to amplify political discord and fuel an atmosphere of incivility and chaos, though not necessarily to promote one candidate or cause over another. Facebook's review of Russian efforts on its platform focused on a timeframe from June 2015 to May 2017.
These ranged from posts promoting Black Lives Matter to posts promoting gun rights and the Second Amendment to posts warning about what they said was the threat undocumented immigrants posed to American democracy. Beyond the election, Russians have sought to raise questions about western democracies.
Mensch is saying this article supports this tweet of hers:
In the quote above I highlighted the text that most closely supports her point.
But IT DOES NOT SUPPORT HER POINT. Anyone reading “you, Russia, funded riots in Ferguson” would read that as Russia funding rioters, like those paid fakes at that Milo protest. Or maybe, stretching the point, if Russia were donating money and/or weapons/supplies to factions of BLM that they hoped would become violent and riot, her point would be supported.
“you, Russia, funded riots in Ferguson” does NOT mean the same goddamned thing as “you, Russia, funded propaganda to incite rioting in Ferguson”. Maybe blame it on Twitter’s character limit, but she could have done a Twitter thread instead of making such incendiary remarks that insinuate that BLM protesters were directly funded by Putin.
Don’t get me wrong—Putin is no boy scout. The Russian mafia was spending money on these ads, rioting was clearly their goal. It would be more surprising if they didn’t try some direct action along with the ads, like sending in paid Black Block types. And if THAT sort of thing comes out in the MSM, her tweet will have been vindicated and subir will have been proved wrong.
But the Russian ads alone do not vindicate her tweet. I would let it slide except that she keeps touting her journalistic credentials. This is not journalism. Words have meaning. This tweet served only to divide the community resisting Trump. And if she is proven correct in the end and there were some Russian Black Block infiltrators in BLM or some shady funding shenanigans, she has managed only to hurt her own credibility by prematurely claiming vindication from an article that does nothing of the sort.
Thursday, Sep 28, 2017 · 12:26:15 PM +00:00 · cordgrass
I got a comment saying I should do a diary about how the Russians are working hard to cause dissent and division on the left and leave Mensch out of it. But clearly from the rest of the comments in this diary, I am not the right person to do that, as most are accusing me of being a Putinbot. I saw ericlewis did one diary already—I’m hoping that others will post about the Russian attack on the left.