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Talk:Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections/Archive 22

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Biased

Takes for granted that Russia interfered in the 2016 election despite it being an ongoing debate. 104.8.9.106 (talk) 22:00, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

CIA had a top-level Kremlin mole who said Putin personally ordered and orchestrated it. he was later was exfiltrated to the US soibangla (talk) 22:11, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
This whole article is based on a lie. It’s unbelievable how this can get put on here without Wikipedia checking it for accuracy. It is so slanted that it’s beyond belief. It belongs in the garbage. Sorry for being so blunt, but that’s the truth. 63.155.33.144 (talk) 08:34, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
No, that is wp:soapboxing. Slatersteven (talk) 10:06, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/24/706385781/mueller-report-finds-no-evidence-of-russian-collusion151.46.25.152 (talk) 10:07, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Outdated Andre🚐 14:11, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-intelligence-report-alleging-russia-election-interference-shared-with-100-2023-10-20/ – Muboshgu (talk) 14:55, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
Yes, they do it everywhere, which can be mentioned somewhere on this page. My very best wishes (talk) 22:39, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
I agree. There should probably be a whole suite of articles written about Russian interference in France and England among other locales. Andre🚐 00:09, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
The success of active measures by Russian "services" in many countries, including USA, is mind-boggling. Consider everything that Donald Trump and his Republicans and judges did and are still doing right now, even in the context of Ukrainian war. Consider the "missing binder". My very best wishes (talk) 18:49, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Academic sources

Hi folks,

Any particular reason why none of the following sources have been included in this article?

There are a lot of other sources similar to these, from subject matter experts and/or academic publications.

Considering that this article is heavily based on news articles from the popular press, I think that POV issues are present until these sources, and ones similar to them, are incorporated into the narrative of the article. Recent discussions on this talk page also suggest that a wider array of sources must be used to improve the article. If someone who's currently active on this article wants to take the lead, I'm happy to assist. Philomathes2357 (talk) 03:50, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Here's another source. I could add 15 more. Perhaps I will tonight, but here's one for now:
RussiaGate, WikiLeaks, and the Political Economy of Posttruth News. Published in the International Journal of Communication
A relevant quote from the abstract: "Problems of verification surrounded official claims concerning the role of WikiLeaks and Russia vis-à-vis the release of e-mails stolen from the Democratic National Convention before the U.S. federal election of 2016. In addition to the competing conspiracy theories and false stories promoted by fringe elements, major news organizations tailored their reporting to satisfy divergent truth markets. These developments fit with the emergence of a posttruth environment marked by increasingly fragmented media, irreconcilable portrayals of political developments, and widespread distrust of dominant institutions. However, consistent with the findings of past political economy research, most news reporting incorporated a steady stream of propaganda promoted by powerful political interests."
@Valjean, I see you've been active on this page. Do you have any interest in helping me improve this article? I've already posted 4 sources here to the talk page, and I have 15-20 others that I've saved. Lots of work to do, would appreciate some help. Philomathes2357 (talk) 23:21, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
These are really low-quality sources by fringe academics. They absolutely don't belong in the article. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:44, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
What criteria have you used to assess the reliability of the sources as "low-quality"? Philomathes2357 (talk) 21:46, 21 May 2024 (UTC) Philomathes2357 (talk) 21:46, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
Written by discredited fringe academics that aren't generally taken seriously as scholars?[1][2] BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:02, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
More sources: will continue to edit this comment as I find the time to keep adding them. I'll include a sample passage with each source, which includes important academic insights that "somehow" have been excluded from this very peculiar article:
A sample passage: There are substantial indications that the discourse of ‘RussiaGate’ and allegations of Russian involvement in ‘Fake News’ production has in many ways been propelled by the machinations of US, European, and Russian intelligence agencies. It has also invited partisan coverage among ‘liberal media’ supporters of the Democratic Party (notably among mainstream media aside from Fox News, other Murdoch media, and the Sinclair chain), largely in alignment with the war industry of the military-industrial-surveillance establishment – set on a course of anti-Russian vilification since the ascent of Vladimir Putin to power in 1998 – for whom ‘RussiaGate’ is solely about Trump’s ‘collusion’ with the Russian government or Russian ‘oligarchs’ and their alleged interference with the 2016 presidential election in Trump’s favor.'
A sample passage from Chapter 5: "The underfunding of social protections in the Obama administration as part of his "trickle down" policies contributed to the rapid decline of state legitimacy - and ultimately to the Democrats' attempt to attribute the 2016 political disaster to an imagined Putin-Trump conspiracy..."
Another sample: The Russia "hacking" narrative is neither verified nor contextualized within the US quest for global hegemony. The only hard and obvious evidence is that the MSM, which are supposed to be "watchdogs" (not lapdogs) of the government, are obediently performing their role as ideological state apparatuses"
Sample passage from abstract: "RussiaGate is a discourse about alleged Russian "meddling" in US elections, and this book argues that it functions as disinformation or distraction. The book provides a framework for better understanding of ongoing developments of RussiaGate, linking these to macroconsiderations that rarely enter mainstream accounts. It demonstrates the considerable weaknesses of many of the charges that have been made against Russia by US investigators, and argues that this discourse fails to take account of broader non-transparent persuasion campaigns operating in the election-information environment that are strengthened by social media manipulation."
Abstract: "Anti-Russian propaganda creates a moral dichotomy between the West as the legitimate in-group and Russia as the illegitimate out-group. Propaganda against an external actor often seeps into domestic politics by linking the political opposition to the illegitimate out-group. The Red Scare of the 1920s, McCarthyism of the 1950s, and the Russiagate investigation of the Trump era are instances of when Russophobia has been used to purge the political opposition. The Trump-Kremlin collusion to steal the 2016 presidential election, the Russian bounties of US troops in Afghanistan and the Hunter Biden laptop scandal are case studies of anti-Russian propaganda being instrumental in domestic politics."
Sample passage: "What we have...are baseless assertions, sloppy reporting (even fake news), witch-hunting, and xenophobia. Taken as a whole, Russiagate is debilitating the real resistance in the US, escalating the US war machine, and shifting the political spectrum in the country even more to the right."
Sample passage: "Drawing on political and social psychology, this article seeks to enrich, and refresh, the familiar journalistic concepts of agenda-setting, framing and priming by combining them under the heading of the ‘news narrative’. Using this interdisciplinary approach to media effects theory, Russiagate is considered in terms of the Illusory Truth Effect and the Innuendo Effect."

Philomathes2357 (talk) 00:45, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Considering your previous topic ban, I'm surprised you would venture into this arena, but I'll let admins decide whether you are starting to violate it. If so, it will be restored

To move forward, you need to show how you would use these books. In what very precise (as in exact quotes) ways would they advance or counter the content we already have here? Show us some quotes from the citations. You do know that the "abstract" you quote above could be written by either side of the issues, right? It could be written by the American FBI or the Russian FSB and mean exactly opposite things. So how do these sources deal with the facts? The quotes you provide should help us understand that. Right now you're using very large and vague quotes that don't mention precise facts. You should do that. You should also prominently identify the exact author for each statement. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:51, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

All I'm doing is aggregating a list of academic sources. I've invited you and other editors to help me determine how, exactly, they should be used. I have thoughts on the matter, but I'd like to know what you think. These academic publications and books represent an untapped gold mine of scholarly reflection on Russian interference - let's start mining!
I do not understand the comment about the FBI and FSB. The abstracts/samples were not written by either group, I am specifically sharing sources from academic journals and academic publishers. The publisher's name should be included with each source, and the individual authors' names should be easy to find by clicking on the links I've provided.
I have taken the time to list 10 relevant academic sources, and counting, asked for help with dissecting and incorporating them into the article, in order to improve it. Your response is to threaten me with a topic ban. Are you sure I'm the unconstructive party here? It's heads, you win, tails, I lose, it seems. Anyway, I'm going to try to ignore that. Back to the sources...if you're interested in the article, which it appears that you are, how about you choose 1-3 of these sources and think about how you would incorporate them into the article? I'd like to see your approach to academic political literature. It would give me a better idea of how to proceed. Philomathes2357 (talk) 00:59, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
I did not threaten you with a topic ban. I reminded you of your history and previous topic ban, and thus your precarious situation when dealing with these topics. That's all. As long as you stay far away from your past POV, behaviors, and dependence on unreliable sources, you should have no problem.
You keep talking about these books as "academic" sources. Some are and some aren't, and they are all the opinions of their authors. They are not "better" than other sources. Many a university professor has used their academic status to push their own weird ideas. (I had a college professor encourage her Political Science class to occupy the administration building in defense of Angela Davis. Yes, I'm that old. She used her status to write far-left "academic" articles.) So "academic", at least in politics, is not something sacred or better. OTOH, it is in science and medicine.
As near as I can detect from a quick scan, these sources consistently use the term "Russiagate (disambiguation)", a term used nearly exclusively by right-wing conspiracy theorists and Trump/Putin/Russia apologists to portray all investigations into Russian interference to help Trump win the election as wrong, with Putin/Russia/Trump as the innocent victims of a left-wing witch hunt. You know these sources better than I do. Is my impression of them and their agenda correct? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:03, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
I have been explicitly told the opposite elsewhere, such as in The Grayzone article. And I see no indication of bias in these scholarly works, nor do I see any explicit statement that they were intended as "opinion" pieces, rather than scholarly analyses.
Here, in this conversation, I am told that, if a statement is made by an academic source like Palgrave Macmillan "in its own voice", then it must be presented as a statement of fact.
A massive discussion on how Wikipedia should treat "facts" and "opinions" tended strongly in the same direction. Andrevan, for example, was pretty clear: we do not question what reliable sources say, because that is original research - we regurgitate what reliable sources say. If RS say it, it becomes a fact as far as Wikipedia is concerned. That's what I've been told, in no uncertain terms.
And it says explicitly at WP:RS that "when available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources."
All of these sources are either published in scholarly journals, or published by academic publishers like Palgrave MacMillan, and there is no reason to question the reliability of any of those journals or publishers. I understand your surprise at what these scholarly publications say, but that is likely because of the discrepancy between scholarly coverage and pop press coverage on the issue.
If you can find other RS that specifically repudiate some of these scholarly works, then their statements should probably be attributed, rather than used to make statements in Wikivoice. Otherwise, they are among the best sources on the topic that are available, and should be used, and where applicable, given more weight than articles from pop outlets like "Buzzfeed", "The New York Times", Rachel Maddow, and so on. Philomathes2357 (talk) 05:01, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
I notice that because of your fast addition of quotes, there were several edit conflicts, so by the time what I wrote was published, my comment was a bit outdated. The abstract I was referring to was where you quote "Problems of verification surrounded official claims concerning the role of WikiLeaks and Russia vis-à-vis the release ...." That abstract could have been written by the FBI or FSB. It's that vague and intetsigende (Danish: "nothing saying"). We need content that is very specific and not vague. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:09, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
I've been reviewing the first source [3]. Some quotes:
  • This perspective marginalizes evidence that the hackers were not, in fact, linked to the Russian intelligence or .... or that US intelligence had ‘planted’ traces to make it appear as though the hackers were Russian or alternatively, that the emails were leaked – not hacked – by a discontented insider (sometimes identified, without proof, as Seth Rich, who was subsequently murdered)
  • Other recent and related examples of fake news include the Western assertions, largely supported by the formal Dutch inquiry, that MH17 was shot down by Russian BUK missiles over the Donbass in 2014.
  • Along with common and false western media assertions as to how Russia ‘seized’ Crimea in 2014 (the pro-Russian majority in Crimea voted to request Russia to annex the territory rather than suffer the privations of the anti-Russian regime that established itself by coup in Kiev earlier that year), the MH17 ‘atrocity’ narrative has been central to the escalation of hostile Western rhetoric against Russia
  • Contributing equally to the West’s long-unfolding anti-Russian campaign has been reporting of the ‘Skripal affair’ early in 2018. Mainstream western media overwhelmingly supported false British government claims of Russian responsibility even before there could possibly have been evidence to support such claims. It was false to claim that the A-234 (‘Novichok’) organo-phosphate compound could only have been produced in Russia. ....There is even room to doubt whether the Skripals were actually poisoned by the A-234 compound or whether this was applied to a sample after the Skripals were exposed to a less harmful agent.
This is an incredibly fringe opinion piece by an author with no obvious claim to notability. Geogene (talk) 05:47, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
I agree. It is pure Russian propaganda. Several of the authors above are known as Russian mouthpieces and russophiles. They are not truthful or factual, and therefore are not RS. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 05:59, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
Known by whom? Philomathes2357 (talk) 06:03, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
His claim to notability is that his work was published by an academic publisher, Palgrave Macmillan.
WP:RS is clear: "Reliable scholarship – Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses."
Therefore, the source is reliable, even if you find the ideas expressed within it to be discordant with other things you've read about the subject. The real question here is weight, not reliability. Philomathes2357 (talk) 06:10, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
To quote WP:DUE, Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects. Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all, except perhaps in a "see also" to an article about those specific views. For example, the article on the Earth does not directly mention modern support for the flat Earth concept, the view of a distinct (and minuscule) minority; to do so would give undue weight to it. Geogene (talk) 06:18, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
I've posted 10 academic sources so far, and have more to post. How many scholarly works are currently cited in this article? I don't see very many, at all. The only academic source I see, from the Columbia Journalism Review, was highly critical of the way "Russian interference" was framed in the media.
I see mostly popular media, like CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Politico, and so on. Those are good, but not as good as academic sources.
This article presents hundreds of pop sources, but, by my count, only one academic source, even though dozens upon dozens of academic sources exist. That imbalance that has to be addressed. We cannot say "the published scholarly views on the subject are fringe, because network news, cable news, and newspapers disagree with the scholars."
That logic does not hold up. Often, in pseudoscience and in other areas, the preponderance of popular commentary dissents from scholarly views. In those areas, we give more weight to what the scholars have to say, and we should here, as well.
We must incorporate the scholarly views, while still including the popular (non-scholarly) commentary as well.
Would like to hear your thoughts on the other sources, @Geogene, especially the 4 that are published in scholarly journals. Philomathes2357 (talk) 06:34, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
Looking through Google Scholar results, the majority of scholarly sources seem to reflect the same mainstream viewpoints as those from journalistic sources [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13]. This is not to say that you won't find some dissenting viewpoints if you search for them enough, just that those views represent a small minority. Geogene (talk) 06:44, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
My main concern is not what particular point of view is held by scholarly sources. My concern is: why aren't there any scholarly sources cited?
You've posted 10 that you claim reflect a certain point of view, and I've posted 10 that express a range of points of view. That's 20 scholarly sources, and they were all easy to find! There are probably double, triple, or quadruple that many scholarly sources available, especially when we include other languages.
All of them should be incorporated into the article. That's why I started this section, to post scholarly sources and work together to add them to the article. Would you like to help? Philomathes2357 (talk) 06:51, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Politics is not a science. You're treating these books as if they are scientific research, which is indeed "vetted by the scholarly community" and must pass "peer-review". These books are nothing like that. They are not "vetted by the scholarly community" as they are political POV, not scientific research. They are the author's own political views, and, as pushers of Russian disinformation, they are highly inaccurate. That's why their views are at odds with all mainstream RS. The real experts are the intelligence community, and we document their findings, as described in myriad RS and government and congressional investigations. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:51, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

They are vetted by the scholarly community, because they have been published in scholarly journals and/or published by academic publishing houses. Wikipedia's RS standards make no distinction between physical and social sciences when assessing the reliability of scholarly sources. I already quoted WP:RS above: "Reliable scholarship – Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses."
If you think that Wikipedia's RS standards are wrong, you can try to change them. But we will not just throw out a dozen+ scholarly sources because their conclusions differ from your opinions. If I tried to do that, I would definitely be topic banned. You know it, and I know it. I'm going to leave this here as a gentle, friendly reminder. This is also relevant, I'm afraid.
"The real experts are the intelligence community" - If you genuinely believe that, we have a bigger issue here. Intelligence agents are not more reliable than scholars. Nowhere in Wikipedia's policies does it say that. If it does, please show me.
There is no serious argument for rejecting these sources, other than, maybe, invoking WP:IAR. Like I said, the real discussion here is about how to use the sources, not whether or not they are reliable by WP's standards. I asked for help in doing so, in an attempt to show good faith and a desire to collaborate, but if no one is willing to help, that is fine too, I will do it myself. Philomathes2357 (talk) 17:50, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
Just because there is a discipline called "political science" (one of my majors in college) does not mean it is a "hard science" in the sense of lab research, double-blind studies, and measurable results compared against controls. It is not a formal science or natural science. The word "science" is used in different ways. Your sources are books published by the presses of academic institutions (they have to make money), and, unlike medical and other science books, political books are usually the opinions of the authors, without peer-review in the sense that scientific research undergoes peer-review. Just so you understand the difference.
I am not rejecting academic sources. We usually rate them highly because they are written by highly educated people who are holders of MD, DS, or PhD degrees. Politics is a different animal. Any PhD can write a book that is full of BS fringe opinions and get it published by an academic press. What kind of controls test whether their claims are accurate? None. Academic freedom means they get to publish their POV, even if it is contested by other academics.
I do not place total trust in the intelligence community or governments. They have their own political axes to grind. I place more trust in mainstream journalists whose productions undergo fact-checking before going to press (unlike fringe sources), who have a reputation to uphold, and who can lose their reputations and jobs if they get it wrong. They rarely work alone and cross-check information as much as possible. They also apologize when they do get it wrong. Fringe sources just double down on their lies.
You may not like it, but the mainstream press is a RS here. Period. A proven fact from Reuters, and backed up my myriad other mainstream media sources, all of them fact-checked before going to press, is worth far more than a debunked opinion from a fringe academic in his dubious book published by an academic press.
What I'm saying is that we are not dealing with some absolute, solid, stuff here. Politics is a soft science (see Hard and soft science) where we have to do the best we can. When we do have solid facts backed by supporting evidence, then sources that contradict them and push debunked ideas and theories get downplayed here. That's the position your sources find themselves in.
It's embarrassing to see you pushing sources that even mention Seth Rich as a possible leaker of inside DNC information. There is zero evidence to back such assertions, yet at least one of your sources pushes such conspiracy theories. Russian intelligence hacked the DNC and used WikiLeaks and DCLeaks as their cutouts.
It's also embarrassing to see your sources pushing "Russiagate" conspiracy theories that take the fact that Mueller was unable to prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the Trump campaign "conspired" and "coordinated" with the Russians, and then claim there was no "collusion" or "cooperation", which Mueller found in spades. The Trump campaign cooperated and helped the Russian efforts in many ways, all the time denying that Russia tried to help Trump, even though their hacking and social media operations were huge and effective. The Trump camp deliberately spread confusion by conflating the words "conspiracy" and "collusion", forcing Mueller to explicitly say he was not investigating "collusion", just "conspiracy", and to make clear they were not the same thing. Mueller did that, so the Trump camp is lying when they claim Mueller found no collusion. He found many forms, but they were not crimes he could prosecute. They were just unpatriotic.
I am certainly willing to consider using your sources, but not just because they are academic sources. Some of them are, after all, books written by fringe academics and Russian apologists who want to whitewash Putin and Trump. So let's see exactly how you'd like to use them. Each use of a source must be judged on a case-by-case basis. Right? We can agree on that.
BTW, my background is in the medical, hard science, arena, unlike the soft political science arena. They are two very different animals. I have two different graduate level medical educations. The hard sciences are my home turf, so when I said politics was not a "science", I was referring to a "hard science". I recognize "political science" is a soft science. It was one of my many different college majors. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:42, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
20 scholarly sources have been posted to this talk page so far, yet none of them are in the article. If you are not interested in improving the article, that is perfectly fine with me. I was just trying to be courteous by asking for collaboration. Carry on. Philomathes2357 (talk) 22:16, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
What do you want to use them to say? Slatersteven (talk) 09:33, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
I posted 10 so far, and someone else posted another 10. I haven't read all 20 in detail, so I don't know, exactly. That's why I shared them publicly. Philomathes2357 (talk) 15:57, 3 May 2024 (UTC) Philomathes2357 (talk) 15:57, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
NO, what do YOU want to use those sources to say? Nothing prevents you from adding sources, you do not need to ask.Slatersteven (talk) 16:01, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
Yes, time prevents me from adding the sources at the moment. Again, that's why I posted them on the talk page, so that others could add them if they have the time and interest. @Geogene added another 10 of their own, which is awesome. If nobody else has any interest, that's okay, I will get around to it eventually, but right now is an extremely busy time for me IRL. Philomathes2357 (talk) 17:35, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 5 August 2024

Add link to the first mention of Russiagate that leads to the page “List of -gate scandals and controversies” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_-gate_scandals_and_controversies?), for added clarity.


Current text: The "hacking and disinformation campaign" to damage Clinton and help Trump became the "core of the scandal known as Russiagate".

Suggested text:

The "hacking and disinformation campaign" to damage Clinton and help Trump became the "core of the scandal known as Russiagate". Dante1845 (talk) 01:56, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: That link destination violates the principal of least surprise. McYeee (talk) 22:53, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
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