So, if we are wondering what the Russians might have been doing besides hacking emails of John Podesta, who deserved hacking for using simple passwords, we need only look to the story in Fox Business about the "elves of Lithuania ". This is a cute story because (1) it shows how the Russians can dominate the narratives of others for their own benefit and (2) what a small group of private individuals can do to expose them. Normally, I would advise people who have never gone up against Russian hackers to avoid it because they play rough and they don't forget. These guys seem to have survived that for now because they are dealing with the Russian government and not some criminal element.
These are people who happened to notice the number of stories on Facebook that paralleled Russian propaganda. They thought it was odd that so many of their Facebook friends would find the Russian view so attractive and they started to look into it. That grew into an effort to identify and eliminate some of those posts "especially the most extreme". This takes some responsibility on the part of Facebook, and some for the private citizens who identify the material.
If a tiny little country like Lithuania can do it, why can't we?
No comments:
Post a Comment