In such a close vote you only need to nudge a small percentage of the vote one way or another to get a different result.

What they are actually trying to do is polarise the discussion. Often they stoke both sides of an argument but do so using disinformation. They want there to be no common ground, they want our politics and public debate to be completely adversarial so that we fail to cooperate when faced with common threats (ie Russia).

If you don't think you can influence people with, what is essentially advertising, how do you explain all the billions of pounds companies spend on marketing each year?

You can't seek to overturn the outcome of an election because people who 'voted the wrong way' read things.

It was retweeted 1648 before it hit the sun. That probably gave it a reach of 100x that amount at least. And that was one of 400 (identified) accounts doing this type of stuff. So combined your looking at a potential reach of 50-60 million for those 400 accounts.

Whether you believe that one tweet or post can sway an opinion is irrelevant. When an organised campaign, with that type of reach, sets out to dominate the conversation its inevitable that some people will be swayed by it.

I also think a lot of this fails to get to the truth about why people voted how they did. Not all Brexit voters are idiots swayed by lies.

There are genuine problems associated with EU membership, and there was also a groundswell of hatred for the establishment. For a lot of people with fuck all to lose this was an opportunity to say enough is enough. Immigration, budgets, EU red tape, fishing quotas, taxes, whatever. People had real tangible reasons for wanting to leave. The Remain side failed to get over the message about the positives that (far) outweigh these issues.

Cameron further fucked it by saying the EU is broken, don't worry, I'll fix it, and despite everyone telling him the EU framework made it impossible to get what we was promising, he strode off anyway. And came back with nothing. And said hey guys this is as good as it gets. Vote Remain!

WorKid wrote:

I also think a lot of this fails to get to the truth about why people voted how they did. Not all Brexit voters are idiots swayed by lies.

There are genuine problems associated with EU membership, and there was also a groundswell of hatred for the establishment. For a lot of people with fuck all to lose this was an opportunity to say enough is enough. Immigration, budgets, EU red tape, fishing quotas, taxes, whatever. People had real tangible reasons for wanting to leave. The Remain side failed to get over the message about the positives that (far) outweigh these issues.

Cameron further fucked it by saying the EU is broken, don't worry, I'll fix it, and despite everyone telling him the EU framework made it impossible to get what we was promising, he strode off anyway. And came back with nothing. And said hey guys this is as good as it gets. Vote Remain!

There's no denying that, but the result may well have been different if it hadn't been for interference from Russia. Surely that is significant?

“This is nothing to do with Russian twitter accounts. I think the British people are intelligent enough to see through all that. This is about a Westminster elite seeking to overturn the will of the people.”

That will be the response from Farage et al. Trying to get a load of people to admit they were duped, even if they were, and then change their mind, is going to be pretty hard.

WorKid wrote:

I also think a lot of this fails to get to the truth about why people voted how they did. Not all Brexit voters are idiots swayed by lies.

That isn't really what we're saying though. It's not always lies. It's miss truths, using facts but omitting context. By reinforcing those strands with mainstream media (sputnik/RT) it lends those ideas/opinions legitimacy. They then take root in the conversation as established facts. It's a sophisticated strategy, it's far from just preying on idiots.

These Russians must have been incredibly influential. To flip the result you'd need about 600,000 people to vote Remain instead of Leave.

Against a backdrop of over 30 years of membership, decades of Mail and Sun headlines, years of UKIP, two well funded campaigns, several TV debates and a bus slogan, those Russians must be very pleased with themselves.

Don't get me wrong, I do understand there are a lot of deeply rooted social issues in the UK which drove the Leave vote. Is it really, really necessary to step out of the EU to address them? Can't they be solved without turning your back onto the rest of Europe and not jumping into the abbys?

Also, if Russia did tamper with your elections by trying to target the undecided voter over social media, are you ok with it just because the outcome suits you?

I'm not OK with it, the UK government should do something about it, IF the Russian government are really behind it.

But I don't believe it was particularly influential either. Plus others tried to interfere on all sides, so where do you stop?

So lies to camera are fine, lies on FB aren't?

hunk wrote:

Don't get me wrong, I do understand there are a lot of deeply rooted social issues in the UK which drove the Leave vote. Is it really, really necessary to step out of the EU to address them? Can't they be solved without turning your back on the rest of Europe and jumping into the abbys?

Also, if Russia did tamper with your elections by trying to target the undecided voter over social media, are you ok with it just because the outcome suits you?

No of course not. Leaving the EU makes them harder to solve. The point is whether saying OMG Russia is going to overturn the result or get loads of people to change their minds. It won’t.

This was a campaign where British Government ministers went on tv and lied to convince people to vote Leave. I don’t see some Putin Twitter accounts convincing people of the need for a rerun when that stuff gets a pass.

GooberTheHat wrote:

Who's lies?

Obama. Trump.

(although trump, Cambridge analytica, wiki leaks, Assange, farage, brexit and putin are all tied up in a complicated knot)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/15/world/europe/russia-brexit-twitter-facebook.html

That civ5 mod sounds awesum btw.