emptywheel

I think everyone should watch this (remember, Chen reported on IRA 2.5 years ago!). But the social media stuff is one part of the conspiracy. We don't know yet whether it links to the rest of the conspiracies.https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/965960691697049601 …

Chen is digging in on how he bungled the follow-up (to his amazing 2015 reporting). He initially obsessed over the "$100k on Facebook number" as well (as did @ggreenwald and others). Computational propaganda alters FB & Twitter's algorithms, needn't persuade directly. (1/2)

I don't think focusing on the $ is a bungle. We know the universe of ad spending, including FB ad spending, for the election. Comparing how much each side spends is one respected way of measuring influence and reach.

But that's how you measure full born campaigns against each other which are each using ads to *persuade*. IRA was using ads to *seed* an expensive and long term paid troll/organic growth strategy. Totally different line items of a budget in any political organization.

Nah. If you were measuring that, you'd need to look at their real budget, which includes a lot of other targets, including RU.

What is not true?