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H.G. from The New York Times comment section:

“I saw this. In Detroit, a lot of folks who would normally support Hillary, were passing around inflammatory memes of BLM, the incarceration rate under Bill, and a lot of anti-Hillary invictives. It spread like wildfire on fb. Conversations sprouted about the Dems taking the black, inner city vote for granted and branched into Native American/Black eradication, Bill’s “black love child”, even anti-vax - the memes got louder and more outrageous and arguments broke out. Folks talked about writing in for Bernie or Jill Stein. I was stunned because Detroit has always been a place where the Dem message was clear; the was a black slate, union slate…issues were discussed…the church ladies voted and plenty of folks followed suit. This was totally upended.

And in the end - 70,000 less Detroiters showed up for Hill than for Obama - in a state Trump won by 10,704 votes.”

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USA Today:

“Russia’s Internet Research Agency “launched an extended attack on the United States by using computational propaganda.” More than 30 million people shared content from the Internet Research Agency on Facebook and Instagram from 2015 to 2017.

The Internet Research Agency operated a “troll farm” based in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hometown that employed hundreds of English speakers with “a strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political system, including … supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaging Hillary Clinton,” according to the indictment.

The Oxford report says the Russian trolls’ efforts focused on a few main objectives: pushing African-American voters to boycott the election and giving them misinformation about how to vote; getting Latino voters to distrust the U.S. government; “encouraging extreme right-wing voters to be more confrontational”; and spreading false stories and conspiracy theories.

Efforts targeting African-Americans, Latinos, liberals and members of the LGBTQ community used different approaches with each group, but the overall aim was to get voters “to boycott the election, abstain from voting for Clinton, or to spread cynicism about participating in the election in general.”

“Differential messaging to each of these target groups was designed to push and pull them in different ways. What is clear is that all of the messaging clearly sought to benefit the Republican Party – and specifically, Donald Trump,” the Oxford report says.

The Russian campaign used a range of platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Vine, Gab, Meetup, Reddit, Medium, Pokemon Go and Google+, according to the reports.

New Knowledge says the “scale of their operation was unprecedented,” reaching “126 million people on Facebook, at least 20 million users on Instagram, 1.4 million users on Twitter, and uploaded over 1,000 videos to YouTube.”

The report says there was a “clear bias” toward Trump in the operations. The agency posted no pro-Clinton content on Instagram or Facebook, except for one post encouraging Muslims to attend a rally supporting her.”

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The New York Times #1:

“The report says the “most prolific” efforts on Facebook and Instagram focused on African-Americans as the Russians developed unwitting “human assets” to help them share their content.

Of 81 Facebook pages created by the Internet Research Agency in the Senate’s data, 30 targeted African-American audiences, amassing 1.2 million followers, the report finds. By comparison, 25 pages targeted the political right and drew 1.4 million followers. Just seven pages focused on the political left, drawing 689,045 followers.

While the right-wing pages promoted Mr. Trump’s candidacy, the left-wing pages scorned Mrs. Clinton while promoting Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. The voter suppression effort was focused particularly on Sanders supporters and African-Americans, urging them to shun Mrs. Clinton in the general election and either vote for Ms. Stein or stay home.

Whether such efforts had a significant effect is difficult to judge. Black voter turnout declined in 2016 for the first time in 20 years in a presidential election, but it is impossible to determine whether that was the result of the Russian campaign.

The New Knowledge report argues that the Internet Research Agency’s presence on Instagram has been underestimated and may have been as effective or more effective than its Facebook effort. The report says there were 187 million engagements on Instagram — users “liking” or sharing the content created in Russia — compared with 76.5 million engagements on Facebook.

The New Knowledge report finds that while “other distinct ethnic and religious groups were the focus of one or two Facebook pages or Instagram accounts, the black community was targeted extensively with dozens.

”Facebook ads were targeted at users who had shown interest in black history, the Black Panther Party and Malcolm X. The most popular of the Russian Instagram accounts was @blackstagram, with 303,663 followers.

After the election, the report says, the Internet Research Agency put up some 70 posts on Facebook and Instagram that mocked the claims that Russia had interfered in the election.

“You’ve lost and don’t know what to do?” said one such post. “Just blame it on Russian hackers.”

——–

The New York Times #2:

“To a degree not fully appreciated, the Russian operation relentlessly targeted African-Americans.

On YouTube, the Russians played on police shootings of unarmed black men with channels with names like “Don’t Shoot” and “BlackToLive.”

While most media attention has focused on Facebook pages appealing to the political right, the Russian effort aimed at black Americans was actually larger, reaching almost as many people. Of 81 Facebook pages created by the Internet Research Agency, 30 targeted African-American audiences, amassing 1.2 million followers, the report finds. By comparison, 25 pages targeted the political right and drew 1.4 million followers.

One clear Russian goal, pursued on multiple fronts, was to suppress Democratic turnout in 2016.

One strand focused, once again, on African-American voters. “These campaigns pushed a message that the best way to advance the cause of the African-American community was to boycott the election,” the Oxford report says. One bogus post declared: “HILLARY RECEIVED $20,000 DONATION FROM KKK TOWARDS HER CAMPAIGN.”

The Russian accounts urged people who had backed Bernie Sanders against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination to stay home or to vote for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, in the general election. The New Knowledge report also describes what it calls “malicious misdirection” and “tweets designed to create confusion about voting rules.”

All of the emphasis on Facebook has obscured the huge role of Instagram, as well as the Russian activity on many smaller platforms.

Most of the early media coverage of the Russian campaign focused on Facebook. The New Knowledge report argues that the Internet Research Agency’s presence on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, has been underestimated and may have been as effective or even more effective than its Facebook effort. The report says there were 187 million engagements on Instagram — users “liking” or sharing the content created in Russia — compared with 76.5 million engagements on Facebook.

Both reports note that there was hardly a social platform, however obscure, that the Internet Research Agency did not invade: Reddit, Google+, Vine, Gab, Meetup, Pinterest, Tumblr and more. The Russian trolls even created a podcast on SoundCloud.”

——–

Ever wonder why so many videos were circulating online showing Hillary’s past comments being against gay marriage?

Answer: Russian bots trying to suppress her vote with the LGBT community.

Hillary helped increase funding for HIV/AIDS research and medicine as First Lady. She was the first First Lady to march on a gay pride parade. As a two-time New York Senator, Hillary fought for stronger LGBT hate crime laws and gay adoption rights. As Secretary of State, Hillary passed the first-ever United Nations resolution on gay rights (declaring: “gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights”), began the Global Equity Fund, and made it so trans Americans could change the gender on their passports.

But let’s vilify the woman for evolving on gay marriage (just like Obama, Biden, and Bernie did).

If you are gay and voted against Hillary due to her being against gay marriage at one point in time (just like her male counterparts), you were fooled by Russian bots.

Furthermore, Hillary received nearly 4 million more votes than Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary.

The DNC didn’t rig the voting machines.

But that didn’t stop Russian bots from spreading the myth that the DNC stole the primary for Hillary, and that voting for Jill Stein wouldn’t be a “wasted” vote.

Russian bots manipulated Bernie supporters into thinking his nomination was stolen, therefore making it easy to convince them to either not vote or vote for Jill Stein.

Let us also remember that at the Children’s Defense Fund, Hillary investigated African American juveniles being placed in South Carolina adult prisons. Hillary also went door-to-door to expose school segregation in the south. Yet because of Bill Clinton’s 3-strikes policy (that was voted for by Bernie Sanders and supported by the black caucus at the time), Russian bots were able to manipulate African American voters against Hillary.

In 2020, please don’t be fooled by Russian bots and please vote for the Democratic nominee – no matter who he or she is. Clearly, every vote counts.

i keep telling myself i can’t handle longer projects but in the last four days i wrote 23,377 words just totally by the seat of my pants

Another tidbit of Mando lore;

Mandalorians quickly figured out that Jedi mostly view blaster fire as “fun lightsaber practice”.

During the Mando-Jedi wars, they dealt with this in characteristically practical fashion; they used slugthrowers (aka ordinary firearms) instead, because if a Jedi tries to deflect a regular bullet, what happens is “A bunch of bullet shrapnel to the Jedi’s face.”

Star Trek Apoliticality Hall of Fame

1967 - “A Taste of Armageddon”: Captain Kirk introduces the technocratic elites of rival worlds to the full horrors of warfare. Totally apolitical.

1968 - “A Private Little War”: Superpowers fight a destructive proxy war on a jungle planet; aired during the Tet Offensive. No politics here.

1969 - “Let This Be Your Last Battlefield”: White-and-black guys oppress black-and-white guys until their planet is destroyed in a race war. Aired 9 months after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Politics-free.

1986 - “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”: In this apolitical adventure, the crew of the Enterprise travels back in time to the 20th century to rescue humpbacked whales from extinction at the hands of industrial over-fishing.

1987 - 1994 - “Star Trek: The Next Generation”: Set in a post-scarcity communist utopia in which profit motive is looked upon as barbarous. Debuted during the Reagan Administration. Just a mindless adventure series.

1991 - “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country”: Two superpowers negotiate an end to their decades-long Cold War over the objections of reactionary factions in both countries. Aired 4 months after the attempted coup against Gorbachev and two weeks before the dissolution of the USSR. No politics here.

1992 - “The Outcast”: The Enterprise visits a planet with only one biological sex, where a character who nevertheless identifies as a woman is forced to undergo conversion therapy. Released at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Mercifully free of politics.

1993 - 1999 - “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”: This politics-devoid series, which coincidentally aired during the Balkan Wars, follows a group of Federation observers who are assigned to guide the recovery of a war-torn planet.

1995 - “Past Tense, Parts 1 and 2″: Sisko, Bashir, and Dax take an apolitical trip back in time to an austerity- and inequality-ravaged early-twenty-first-century America on the cusp of revolutionary class violence, where despairing poor people are locked in ghettos whilst they “look for work”.

1996 - “Bar Association”: The employees of Quark’s Bar strike against exploitation by their employer; Rom literally quotes Karl Marx to his brother (in a wholly apolitical fashion).

2000 - “Critical Care”: The Doctor is abducted and forced to work in a horrifying, dystopian hospital where quality care and competent medics are reserved for the rich and well-to-do whilst the poor are left to bleed in an over-crowded, septic, dingy little room. Any resemblance to the American healthcare system is purely coincidental.

2001 - “Repentence”: Voyager finds itself needing to escort a bunch of alien deathrow prisoners to their execution, but finds that there is an entirely apolitical racial bias in who gets sentences in this fashion, and also that many of the murderers are not beyond reform.

2001: “Broken Bow”: Airing three weeks after 9/11, this apolitical episode finds Starfleet in conflict with a cabal of terrorists known as the Taliban Suliban.

2004: “The Forge”, “Awakening”, and “Kir’Shara”: A corrupt Vulcan government cracks down on pacifist dissidents and tries to instigate a war against with Andoria through bogus accusations that they are developing weapons of mass destruction. Aired in that lovely, politics-free aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq.

…Anyways, I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point: Star trek was always completely apolitical until Alex Kurtzman ruined it. If only they could return to the mindless, action-packed romp that Gene Roddenberry had always intended.

so the rule in my previous workplace of longest employment duration was (and probably still is)

no personal internet use while on the clock.

employee handbook said so. every so often bosses said so. that was The Rule. no personal internet use while on the clock.

except it wasn’t. it couldn’t have been the real rule.

because most people were faffing around on the internet in between bits of work. some were even doing it on the work computers, not on their personal tablets or phones.

the real rule couldn’t even have been don’t get caught using the internet for personal stuff on the clock. because zero people got in trouble over the Harry Potter Myers-Briggs quiz and related links that took up two hours of my section’s time one day. the section manager was playing as happily as anyone.

and there was not going to be any way to get anyone to explain the real rule. because the employee handbook said no personal internet use while on the clock, and that was The Rule.

anyway one of the reasons I left that job was I was sick of being autistic in that allistic hellscape.

and speaking of Detritus’ character development:

throughout the books Detritus is shown as more and more smart, I mean compare the one in Guards! Guards! with the one from Thud! the difference is staggering.

now, this can be attributed to two things:

1) Cuddy’s helmet, which isn’t mentioned after Jingo, i think, but this can just be taken to mean that it just became normal, like the Librarian being an ape, no one notices it any more, but given the fact that the narrative mentions how bothered Detritus is by heat, and makes no mention of the helmet, i don’t think that’s it*, or

2) shockingly, when you take a member of a vilified, exploited social group (’you were chained to a wall like a guard dog when i first met you’, said Vimes, and ‘I had the stables cleaned out for your trolls’, said Bonnie or Bobbie or whatever her name was) and put them in an encouraging, supportive, hell, i’d even say loving environment, and than proceed to treat them respect, openly, actively condemn discrimination against them, and trust them with authority, they actually raise to the task at hand and start showing what they’re actually capable of.

After all, Detritus, Mended Drum splatter, doesn’t really need to think much, and even if he did, what’s the point? Who cares what/if a troll thinks?

but Sergeant Detritus of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch? Head of the anti-drug unit? Leader of the troll youth programme? Most senior troll officer in the Watch? Well, there are so many people counting on him, people who value his opinion, he just needs to be smart, doesn’t he?

Also, when you take that into consideration, like, is it any wonder that he is so invested in that youth programme? That he is such a mother hen? After all, look what an opportunity did for him, and he’s hardly the sharpest knife in the drawer.**

*but like, it would have been nice if they remembered Cuddy existed at least once in a while, I mean Cheery is amazing, but you can have more than one of a species with a significant role in a book, also, i do think that Cuddy left a mark on Detritus that is absolutely never mentioned again, and that’s not right.

**another parallel Thud! makes between Vimes and him.

Nine trying to send a distress signal to any potential other survivor of the Time War. That’s not a good idea.

Inspired (a couple of months ago) by this picture made by this user on DA.

Vader: *sigh* This whole plan was never going to work. ‘Torture his friends and he’ll come running’, of course not, Obi-Wan trained him for years, he knows to let go of his attachments like a *good little Jedi*, he’ll stick to the Code and understand fighting for the greater cause–”

Aide: “Lord Vader, ship approaching! X-wing class!”

Vader: “MY BOY.”

When The End comes for real, it’s just as Crowley supposed, with Heaven and Hell united against humanity.  There are a lot of people who don’t believe what’s happening, but about half earth’s inhabitants do.  And they show up for the fight.  

The army humans have guns, there are doctors wielding baseball bats and taxi drivers with tire irons.  Masses of youths are forming up with nothing but broken bottles and spite to defend themselves with.  

Lucifer scoffs at them, his beauty already luring some people from their posts.  

Not too many of them, though.  Aziraphale has to believe that…

There may be millions of angels and demons among the ranks, united for a common goal, but there are billions of humans.

Crowley and Aziraphale are in the thick of it, of course.  Of course.  Aziraphale has come into the possession of his flaming sword again, through a series of events that Crowley really doesn’t want to think too hard about.  

They stare down the Morning Star across the open expanse of the soon to be battlefield, humanity behind them, as much of it sheltered beneath their wings as they can manage.  

And then the Heavenly forces begin to sing.  

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