SNS: Russia Flipped the US Election

In This Issue
Week of 02/19/2018
Vol. 23 Issue 6

Russia Flipped the US Election

• The Data Is Clear
• The Numbers
• On Assessing Behavior Change
• Getting the Question Right
• A Full Accounting of Russian Influence
• “What Happened”
• About Berit Anderson

Quotes of the Week

Takeout Window

• The New Post-Russia Zuckerberg Look
• New Graphene Markets

Upgrades

• Elon Lifts More Than Starman and His Tesla Roadster

Ethermail

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Publisher’s Note: SNS members may know Berit Anderson, founding CEO of Scout.ai, through her appearance at FiRe 2018, where she was interviewed by the BBC’s Ed Butler (published in these pages as an SNS transcript) on Russian interference in democratic elections, from Lithuania and Ukraine to the US. (See “SNS: Computational Propaganda,” Jan. 4, 2018.)

This week’s issue, the result of an intensive research dive by Berit and others on the SNS team, was driven by the increasingly obvious question: Did Russia actually flip the US election, rather than just meddle in it? None of the research done to date seemed well-enough informed regarding techniques, numbers, and results to be even close to accurate.

Watching the social-media executives – who represent only part of this story – stumble over themselves as the real numbers describing Russian interference continue to escalate only underlines a trend that ultimately leads to a shocking conclusion.

Every member interested in freedom of speech and preservation of democracy will want to read this week’s issue, regardless of party, persuasion, or country. All of us are affected. – mra.