Quote Originally Posted by JBMcB View Post
According to that article, most of the ads didn't reference the election, voting, or any of the candidates. That would make them legal. If any did promote or directly attack a candidate, then there's a case that there was direct interference in this case, and should be prosecuted as such. Also, Facebook will probably get into hot water for allowing these ads to run.

Otherwise Russia was doing what other countries do all the time. You might not like how they were doing it, but it's entirely legal, and it's done all the time.
Where did I say that any of it was illegal? Yes, there was nothing illegal about Russians buying ads on Facebook to target American voters. I never said there was. And yes, the Russians have a long and storied history of doing this, going all the way back to the pre-internet days of the Cold War when they would pay to put ads in American newspapers or distribute flyers with messages that were designed to enflame racial and social strife in the United States.

None of this is new: it's the same old Russian tricks that they've been pulling against us for the last 60 years. The only difference is now that some Americans want to deny that any of it is happening at all. Putin is our friend, the Russians are innocent, and any suggest that they might ever pull any dirty tricks to destabilize our society or influence our elections is just "fake news."

The other potential, alleged difference is that this time, the Russians may have found Americans in positions of power who were willing to help them do it. I said "alleged", so don't climb up my ass. We'll just wait and see what the Mueller investigation as well as the several Congressional investigations conclude on the matter.