Jump to content
Join the Unexplained Mysteries community today! It's free and setting up an account only takes a moment.
- Sign In or Create Account -

Bots May Have Boosted Trump's Votes 3.23%


ExpandMyMind

Recommended Posts

Quote

Twitter bots may have altered the outcome of two of the world’s most consequential elections in recent years, according to an economic study.

Automated tweeting played a small but potentially decisive role in the 2016 Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s presidential victory, the National Bureau of Economic Research working paper showed this month. Their rough calculations suggest bots added 1.76 percentage point to the pro-“leave” vote share as Britain weighed whether to remain in the European Union, and may explain 3.23 percentage points of the actual vote for Trump in the U.S. presidential race.

If this estimation can be shown to be accurate and replicated elsewhere, then it would be massive.

3.25% was enough to win him the election. Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin all would have went the way without Russian bots. Maybe others too.

I wonder how future studies on the effect of the Facebook campaign will also show the vote to have been affected. The two operations combined will likely have had a much more significant effect tha 3.25%.

Edited by ExpandMyMind
  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I presume this is a jest? I love the ridiculous precision of  "3.23%". That kind of suspicious specificity always adds at least 17.27% credibility to a story, at least when it's one attacking America's beloved Leader. 

Edited by Vlad the Mighty
  • Like 4
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

30 minutes ago, seanjo said:

I voted for Brexit because I don't want to be part of an EU superstate, not because of social media.

 

The thought occurs that there must have been a similar campaign coming from the losing side, which means people chose between the messages.

I have no doubt you did and many others like you. But some will have been in two minds and swayed by the messaging - if these were all legally produced then no problem. The issue is if illegally obtained data was used to manipulate the voters.

I can see why many would see the vote as be representative of their view not to be part of the EU - I respect that. But I am puzzled when some of the same people cannot countenance the same basic argument from nationalists in Scotland and N Ireland to exit from the UK 'Superstate'.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

It's like some insane merry-go-round....of this I am 99.349 % sure...

now we are back again to the sore losers trying to question the legitimacy of the Presidency and Brexit vote results...
which ''''coincidently''' are the two huge election results that have, at least for now, derailed the Globalist Agenda - 

And how come only one side is accused of the Bot thing - if it's true in any way, can't the other side use software applications
or are we supposed to believe they just float around on their pious cloud delivering leaflets.... or in the case of Brexit...
did they think the pro Remain booklet, paid for by the taxpayer (costing around 9 million £ )  and delivered by the postman
would do the trick.... as if the internet didn't exist.... 

 

Edited by bee
  • Like 2
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

48 minutes ago, seanjo said:

The thought occurs that there must have been a similar campaign coming from the losing side, which means people chose between the messages.

 

exactly - 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I think the main thrust of these kinds of reports (like the OP one) is to psychologically boost the losing sides...
to prevent demoralization and give the message that they didn't really lose... they was robbed -

that they are part of the WINNING side really... so keep up the support and DON'T SWITCH sides -
or vote differently next time---

it's like a kind of early campaigning for the next big political confrontation -

 

 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, RAyMO said:

I have no doubt you did and many others like you. But some will have been in two minds and swayed by the messaging - if these were all legally produced then no problem. The issue is if illegally obtained data was used to manipulate the voters.

But what was this alleged "messaging"? Was it untruthful? in the case of the fabled Democratic Party emails, it was all true. I mean, even the Hillary campaign themselves said that the worst the Russkies did, if they did anything at all, was "publicize unfavorable information" about dear Hillary. Information, not lies. As many have said, they, if it was Them, were doing the American voters a service by letting this information be known. 

  • Like 3
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, RAyMO said:

The issue is if illegally obtained data was used to manipulate the voters.

 

just to take up this point....

It looks like Twitter, Facebook and Google are now owned and controlled by the same Billionaires who own and
control the MSM - so by default THEY have access to all the data -

and they are overwhelmingly anti Trump + anti Brexit -

 

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Vlad the Mighty said:

I presume this is a jest? I love the ridiculous precision of  "3.23%". That kind of suspicious specificity always adds at least 17.27% credibility to a story, at least when it's one attacking America's beloved Leader. 

If studies can be done to assess the effect of normal advertising like radio, TV and news ads, then why do you find it so strange that this can apply to Facebook and Twitter?

There's a reason that advertising is a multi billion dollar game: it works. Every political campaign knows this, which is why they pour money into it.

Is it so hard for people to believe that an ad campaign that reached over a hundred million US voters might actually have had an effect? 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, RAyMO said:

I have no doubt you did and many others like you. But some will have been in two minds and swayed by the messaging - if these were all legally produced then no problem. The issue is if illegally obtained data was used to manipulate the voters.

I can see why many would see the vote as be representative of their view not to be part of the EU - I respect that. But I am puzzled when some of the same people cannot countenance the same basic argument from nationalists in Scotland and N Ireland to exit from the UK 'Superstate'.

I think the most important thing to take away from this would be that Russia was actively seeking for Brexit to happen. They wanted it because it weakens Europe. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, ExpandMyMind said:

Is it so hard for people to believe that an ad campaign that reached over a hundred million US voters might actually have had an effect? 

But what was this advertising campaign and exactly how did it persuade people who had been planning to vote for the Beloved Hillary to vote for her despicable racist misogynist rival instead? Is it very likely that, if Trump was so obviously and transparently vile, it could have had that powerful an effect? 

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, ExpandMyMind said:

I think the most important thing to take away from this would be that Russia was actively seeking for Brexit to happen. They wanted it because it weakens Europe. 

 

I'm sure that is what YOU want readers to take away from it..

but

Europe (EU) is weakening itself trying to force and coerce members into a borderless Super State ruled by faceless bureaucrats and corporations...

 

  • Like 5
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, ExpandMyMind said:

I think the most important thing to take away from this would be that Russia was actively seeking for Brexit to happen. They wanted it because it weakens Europe. 

This is something that EU enthusiasts often say, but it supposes that the EU was a strong and stable united force standing firm against tyranny, but then that it only takes the departure of Britain (which, EU enthusiasts are also always keen to point out, is an unimportant little xenophobic country that Europe would be better off without), to fracture it hopelessly and irrevocably and leave it unable to resist Putin's blitzkrieg, which is of course what he really wants to do because that's what they always do. 

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, bee said:

Europe (EU) is weakening itself trying to force and coerce members into a borderless Super State

Perhaps that is what the world needs to help counter the the USA, Russia and China. There is less chance of one world solution - if you have more than 1 superpower playing the game, however badly it is playing it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, RAyMO said:

Perhaps that is what the world needs to help counter the the USA, Russia and China. There is less chance of one world solution - if you have more than 1 superpower playing the game, however badly it is playing it.

Well, perhaps the EU might be beginning to show some unity if it really does follow up the indignant squeaks of its leaders and stand up to America's bullying over the sanctions against Iran that they're trying to coerce them into , but it seems very doubtful to me that they'd show any backbone.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, Vlad the Mighty said:

Well, perhaps the EU might be beginning to show some unity if it really does follow up the indignant squeaks of its leaders and stand up to America's bullying over the sanctions against Iran that they're trying to coerce them into , but it seems very doubtful to me that they'd show any backbone.

I know what you are saying - but one can hope.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  I've never believed in the concept of free will.  If you are religious then you are the product of a creator that knew your every choice as well as every choice of everyone else in the world before he/she/it created you.  If you are an atheist then the belief is that you are a advanced organic computer who is programed by biology, society and the environment.

 Choice is an illusion.  It is merely you acting upon your conditioning.

 That being said, advertising works, it's the reason why companies spend a quarter trillion on it in the US every year.  Brainwashing is real and a thing.  Hypnosis is real and a thing. Peer pressure is real and a thing.

So when someone says they are too smart to be affected by Facebook, or their girlfriend, or TV, I generally just roll my eyes.

 

  • Like 1
  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, Gromdor said:

So when someone says they are too smart to be affected by Facebook, or their girlfriend, or TV, I generally just roll my eyes.

But all the consensus, from nearly all the media and TV, and from all the liberal consensus on facebook, was that America would now be ruled by the Empress Hillary, as was her god-given right. Are you (and the ones behind this absurd survey) saying that Moscow's malign influence is so strong that it's able to control people's thought patterns and that fairly mild ads and videos and tweets and things about all sorts of things, very few of them  overtly anti-The Blessed One and pro-The Orange Monster, was enough to overcome all that?

  • Like 3
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So has anyone actually read the "study" itself? A non-peer reviewed "working paper", and a massive assumption of correlation.

Seems like it's publicly available, so please, dig in.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w24631.pdf 

Specific issues (courtesy of a friend in this specific field): bot identification is questionable in this study, and their estimation of effects is meaningless. No causal link from tweets to votes.

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

considering that president is elected by electors, not public vote, that makes this claim even more meaningless

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

How many bots were Clinton fans? Let's face it. Both Clinton and Trump were so polarizing that it's very doubtful that huge numbers of undecided voters were swayed by bots, memes, trolls, etc. I'm not naive enough to think that just one side used dirty tricks, either.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, ExpandMyMind said:

If this estimation can be shown to be accurate and replicated elsewhere, then it would be massive.

3.25% was enough to win him the election. Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin all would have went the way without Russian bots. Maybe others too.

I wonder how future studies on the effect of the Facebook campaign will also show the vote to have been affected. The two operations combined will likely have had a much more significant effect tha 3.25%.

That's idiotic. Twitter and facebook does not influence peoples politics.  People already believe something and then place themselves in an echo chamber that reflects their beliefs.  If you have a rabid liberal friend and you're conservative you will likely remove that person from your feed and vice versa.

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, OverSword said:

That's idiotic. Twitter and facebook does not influence peoples politics.  People already believe something and then place themselves in an echo chamber that reflects their beliefs.  If you have a rabid liberal friend and you're conservative you will likely remove that person from your feed and vice versa.

I think you might want to read a book titled "The Groundswell", you can probably get it for a couple of bucks on Amazon.  It was published far before the election, and it is about the manipulation of Social Media for business purposes.  It is required reading in many majors of Information Technology.  I still have tons of fake news show up in my Facebook feed, from people that truly believe the lies that they are told.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Paranormal Panther said:

How many bots were Clinton fans? Let's face it. Both Clinton and Trump were so polarizing that it's very doubtful that huge numbers of undecided voters were swayed by bots, memes, trolls, etc. I'm not naive enough to think that just one side used dirty tricks, either.

Yes, exactly. Considering how much supporters of the Dear Leader-to-Be (Hillary) hated the Orange Leader-to-Be and anyone who expressed any thought that he was anything less than a slightly tubbier, orange Satan , I find it very very hard to believe that anyone could have been undecided about which one to go for right from the start, let alone that their decision could have been so delicately balanced that an ad on Facebook (and have we ever actually been shown any of these supposed 'ads', so we can see what they actually were?) might have swayed them into making the fatal decision. 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.