The news, yesterday, of Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russian nationals who impersonated Americans on social media for the purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential election should serve as a reminder and a warning. ABC News reports that Rod Rosentein remarked “This indictment serves as a reminder that people are not always who they appear to be on the internet. The indictment alleges that the Russian conspirators want to promote discord in the United States and undermine public confidence and democracy. We must not allow them to succeed.” (Please note his use of the simple present tense: “want to.”)
The creation and proliferation of “U.S. personae,” as referred to in the indictment, is not simply a matter of history or current events. The indictment validates what we have long suspected based on the Steele memos.
usatoday.com
Michael Collins, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – It turns out Donald Trump wasn’t the only candidate the Russians allegedly tried to help during the 2016 presidential campaign.
A 37-page indictment resulting from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation shows that Russian nationals and businesses also worked to boost the campaigns of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Green party nominee Jill Stein in an effort to damage Democrat Hillary Clinton.
The Russians “engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump,” according to the indictment, which was issued Friday.
Read more >>>>
These “U.S. personae” also are and should be of concern for the future with midterm elections coming up this year and one 2020 presidential campaign already launched (Trump’s).
Otherwise intelligent people have questioned why I am concerned about foreign agents posing as Americans passionately imploring Hillary Clinton to run again in 2020. They don’t see the inherent flaw and hypocrisy in prosecuting Trump forces for Russian influence peddling and turning a blind eye to an eastern European entity doing the same thing on the Dem side – specifically, repeatedly calling on HRC to run again and using the hashtag #Hillary2020 on every post. They do not see the peril in recruiting potentially hundreds of thousands to a false campaign claiming that only one person can cure our ills. That alone should set off bells and whistles. When did we hear that before? From whom? Trump!
One particular foreign entity was recently appointed “administrator” at a Hillary Clinton Facebook page boasting 165K “likes.” Think of the damage possible. This is not simply a campaign that will end in disappointment for many. It is crafted to engender rage and division within the party when Hillary does not run.
I was gratified to see this article since it coincides with what I have been saying in my own series of troll chronicles. Often it is the tiny function words that non-native speakers get wrong.
The FBI special counsel’s Friday indictments against 13 Russian nationals and three companies including a notorious online troll farm did a few things: It revealed that the surge of grass-roots organizing for the 2016 presidential election was at least partly astroturf. It confirmed that the whirligig of ire directed at Hillary Clinton was not completely genuine. And it reasserted the importance of correct grammar.
The indictment includes charges against Mikhail Ivanovich Bystrov and Mikhail Leonidovich Burchik for creating aliases like “Matt Skiber” and “joshmilton024@gmail.com,” part of an alleged effort to organize anti-Clinton rallies and wire money to unwitting U.S. collaborators. The social media campaign was vast: One agent bragged about creating “all these pictures and posts, and the Americans believed that it was written by their people.”
It was altogether an impressive undertaking. But while Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein reminded us that “people are not always who they appear on the Internet,” maybe we should have known. It wouldn’t have taken the FBI: A fastidious English major could have seen the Russians’ inexplicable capitalizations, stiff sentences, and missing articles.
Read more >>>>
OK! I plead guilty. I was an English major as an undergrad and taught high school English back when we still devoted some hours of every week to grammar instruction. I followed that up with doctoral studies in applied linguistics. As a linguist, I am a descriptivist rather than a prescriptivist – that simply means I am not a member of the uniformed grammar police. Nevertheless, as I have mentioned in the troll chronicles, language usage provides a powerful clue in sniffing out false U.S. personae.
Here are a few annotated examples of Facebook posts by the pro-Hillary Hungarian troll I have been investigating. Bolded emphasis is mine.
Our Hillary, the doer she is, already has a vision of a better future and she warns us we all need to show up at the polls and vote blue¹. Mama is delighted and proud to see that Women’s March had drawn² millions of protesters, she says women are strong and resilient. Women of all colors and ages had enough², and together we are unstoppable. Mama’s hometown, Chicago as well as Los Angeles and even Texas saw a record number of protesters, and we expect to see a beautiful #BlueTsunami in the fall of 2018. We learned resilience from Hillary, from the way she stood her ground through the hard-fought campaign. Protesters say that the majority wore Hillary gears³ – thank you for the wonderful news, Lisa Leikus. #Hillary2020 #Onward #PowerToThePolls
¹ We see many instances of 1st person plural pronouns implying that the writer is a U.S. voter.
² Two inappropriate uses of the past perfect tense which normally indicates an action that began and was completed in the past. In the first instance, the present perfect would have been the choice of a native speaker who knows that the “drawing” is not complete and continues in the present. In the second instance the same is true. “Women have had enough.” The present perfect would have been the choice of a native speaker since this state continues in the present.
³ They were not wearing Hillary “gears” unless they were wearing analog Hillary Clinton watches. They were wearing Hillary gear – a mass noun (non-count) including all manner of clothing and accessories associated with any of Hillary Clinton’s political campaigns. Mass nouns operate as if singular.
THIS. This is Hillary gear.
NOT THESE. These are gears.
January 31
Our beautiful Hillary should hold a State of Union speech today, since the sane majority wants her. The psychopath is already plagiarizing her! Why would any of us watch him or click on the news that feature him? Like Auntie Maxine said, “I do not trust him, I will not listen to his lies, he does not deserve my attention.” Plus, the lowest rating views he get, the less support he will receive* from American press. It will also hurt his fragile ego. Let’s skip everything that features Trump! Hear the lies already? Clean coal does not exist, and no, the economy is not booming, the dollar’s value is steadily down since Trump occupied the White House, and the Trump bubble will burst. Plus, unlike Bill and Obama, he will increase debt and deficit. #Hillary2020 #StillStanding #StillWithHill
*Native speakers would have opted for the comparative rather than the superlative here, and there is the issue of subject-verb agreement – “he gets” not “he get.”
Our beautiful Hillary was sharp, smart, and straightforward at the Makers Conference. She warned us to #VoteBlue in the midterm elections to make a difference – we must remember how crucial it is, our future depends on it. Mama warns us that we see an all-out attack against democracy and a war on facts, truth, and reason, and the only way to defend ourself for a brighter future is to vote. We also need more women in politics – we already say a record number of women running for office, thanks to Hillary. Nobody did more for the safety and dignity of women than Hillary Rodham Clinton. #Hillary2020 #Onward
All those first person reference words!!!! And there is that incongruous singular form of a plural reflexive pronoun: ourselves not ourself.
From today: February 17
It is official now, at least 13 Russian persons were involved with Trump’s hate-filled campaign against our Hillary. The Russians used false American personas, false Facebook accounts and false email addresses. Campaign rallies that featured an actress, Hillary in prison uniform, were organized by Russians. Hillary warned us in advance, saying 17 intelligence agencies warned us against Russia’s suspicious moves. Mama also gave us an insight in her What Happened. Thank goodness for Robert Mueller who casts lights in the shadows*, it is frightening what we find there. Those who accused us of making up the Russian interference story must feel embarrassed by now. #Hillary2020 #HillaryWarnedUs #Onward
*I can’t even! The irony of this post! And, of course, there is another issue of a mass noun – light – being treated as a count noun.
Another grammatical indicator of a foreign troll is the linguistic variation exhibited by these entities indicating multiple writers on a single page or a feed from a managing source mixed with commentary by an individual. Some posts are letter perfect while others contain language usages atypical of native speakers. Other dead giveaways at this particular page:
1/ Ignorance of our bicameral legislature – “she” doesn’t know Senators from Congressional representatives. They are all “leaders.” Why bother with specifics?
2/ Timing. It took her six days to figure out that we had elections in November.
3/ Some picked up the “mama” references from the getgo. Americans do not call HRC “mama.”
4/ If you go back far enough, you will see that “she” apparently never heard of Hillary Clinton until 2015.
I am cognizant that there are bona fide American voters whose English is not perfect. My point here is that language usage is a clue. Having picked up these clues, I did confront this persona via a series of private exchanges. The nationality I guessed was verified. I encouraged a change of pronouns contending that the use of the first person was a lie that encouraged readers to infer that they were interacting with an American. That was when “she” shut me down by blocking me. I remain unsure that this is a she. It may be a they, and they may include a few “he”s. I can say this: when confronted, first she argues by trying to justify or rationalize the error in the post. After 4 exchanges or so, she employs the Kellyanne Conway strategy in reverse. When Kellyanne is backed into a corner, she switches to the “What about Hillary?” mode. This troll switches to the “You must be a Trump supporter” mode.
The objection is not that she is a foreign national. The objection is that she is impersonating an American while:
1. Encouraging protest against Democrats other than HRC,
2. Attacking U.S. law enforcement,
3. Running polls to collect data on American voters,
4. Encouraging Americans to react online to fake news, e.g. the market “crash.” If it is wrong for Trump & Co. to benefit from Russian intrusion, it should be equally repugnant for our side to encourage Hungarian intervention.
To be clear: The objection is not to a foreigner supporting Hillary. The objection is to a foreigner impersonating an American and “guiding” American voters.
It all goes to show you the power of the little words. The function words that seem so obvious to native speakers can be challenge for English language learners. For trolls, they can also be a hidden weapon to be deployed at a strategic moment in the future when, once again, we will wonder what hit us.
If you remember how you felt late on Election night 2016, be very wary of trolls like this. If we want to unseat Donald Trump, buying into a fake Hillary Clinton campaign is the surest path to defeat. That is the power of “we.”
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Still4Hill 