What drives the creator of fake news to continue?

[gleem]

I just came across this a financial service to which is subscribe. Germany is considering a legal regime (their terminology) that would fine social networks up to 500,000 euros a day for fake news left on their website after it was requested to delete it. It would force the social networks to create departments which would concentrate on takedown demands and would make the networks liable for compensation if a post proved slanderous.

 

[mheslep]

... Germany is considering a legal regime (their terminology) that would fine social networks up to 500,000 euros a day for fake news left on their website after it was requested to delete it. It would force the social networks to create departments which would concentrate on takedown demands and would make the networks liable for compensation if a post proved slanderous.

Germany can start then by fining itself for this bit of fake news:
Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, Art 5:

Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing and pictures, and to inform himself from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship...

 

[mheslep]

I find this statement very disturbing:

Sorry, what is the source of that quote about General Flynn and pizzagate? The common story was about a relative (son?), not the General himself.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Sorry, what is the source of that quote about General Flynn and pizzagate? The common story was about a relative (son?), not the General himself.

Good question. The line I copied and pasted in my post #27 above says:

Even retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who President-elect Donald Trump has tapped to advise him on national security, shared #PizzaGate stories.

Now, however, that line in the Yahoo story is no longer worded that exact way. Now it says:

Even retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who President-elect Donald Trump has tapped to advise him on national security, shared similar conspiratorial stories.

So, someone at Yahoo edited the original wording, but that only fixed part of the problem, not the full problem, because the obvious implication is that, either way it's worded, following that link should take you to examples of General Flynn (not the son) linking either to pizzagate or similar stories. But it doesn't. All it says that might be relevant is that the General frequently tags his son's tweets. We know some of his son's tweets were about pizzagate, but there is no evidence offered those were what the General shared.

So, the question remains: Did General Flynn himself ever link to pizzagate or similar stories? Here's where that question lead me:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/18/politics/kfile-flynn-tweets/

Which asserts General Flynn regularly links on twitter to the author of this story:

http://www.dangerandplay.com/2016/1...x-cult-with-connections-to-human-trafficking/

Which is full of unmitigated crap that was eventually subsumed into the pizzagate scenario.

Checking that, it looks like General Flynn did actually reference that author many times, and encouraged people to read him/follow him:

https://mobile.twitter.com/search?f=tweets&q=from:genflynn @cernovich&src=typd

So, the actual situation seems to be that General Flynn has enthusiastically tweeted about an author who, incidentally or not, threw much gasoline on, and fanned the flames of, what eventually became pizzagate.

 

[nsaspook]

"The Washington Post has now added an Editors’ Note to its story acknowledging that its key claim was false:"

It looks like the WaPo was running a fake new story about Russian hacking. What's more likely, Russia hacked the Vermont power grid or someone picked up a random computer virus on a laptop while surfing porn?
https://theintercept.com/2016/12/31...-false-story-about-hacking-u-s-electric-grid/

So the key scary claim of the Post story – that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid – was false. All the alarmist tough-guy statements issued by political officials who believed the Post’s claim were based on fiction.

Even worse, there is zero evidence that Russian hackers were responsible even for the implanting of this malware on this single laptop. The fact that malware is “Russian-made” does not mean that only Russians can use it; indeed, like a lot of malware, it can purchased (as Jeffrey Carr has https://medium.com/@jeffreycarr/the-dnc-breach-and-the-hijacking-of-common-sense-20e89dacfc2b#.cudc64atc, assuming that Russian-made malware must have been used by Russians is as irrational as finding a Russian-made Kalishnikov AKM rifle at a crime scene and assuming the killer must be Russian).

The Washington Post’s bad journalism strikes again.

 

[gleem]

It looks like the WaPo was running a fake new story about Russian hacking

If you read the original story the WP reported what was told to them by the "government officials". Clearly whether or not there was a hack is not within the purview of a newspaper. The "government officials" apparently jumped the gun in releasing the information. So not "fake news" at least as I would interpret the term, incorrect, yes. The real term should be " faked news" as the intension is to mislead.

 

[nsaspook]

If you read the original story the WP reported what was told to them by the "government officials". Clearly whether or not there was a hack is not within the purview of a newspaper. The "government officials" apparently jumped the gun in releasing the information. So not "fake news" at least as I would interpret the term, incorrect, yes. The real term should be " faked news" as the intension is to mislead.

All they had to do was to verify the story with the utility first before printing the original headlines and story. If they were faked it was because they either wanted to be or were just too damn lazy to check.

 

[zoobyshoe]

All they had to do was to verify the story with the utility first before printing the original headlines and story. If they were faked it was because they either wanted to be or were just too damn lazy to check.

Notice the alarmed quotes in the WP story were generated directly from the utilities' report and not in response to the WP story:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...c2a61b0436f_story.html?utm_term=.63dd103d9627

 

[nsaspook]

Notice the alarmed quotes in the WP story were generated directly from the utilities' report and not in response to the WP story:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...c2a61b0436f_story.html?utm_term=.63dd103d9627

That might be true as I don't have the exact timeline but the original source 'quoted' in the WaPo story was from "government officials" (the Vermont Power Utility is a company) with a completely misleading link headline of "russian-hackers-penetrated-us-electricity-grid-through-a-utility-in-vermont" I don't see any facts of that in the utilities' report.

 

[mheslep]

Clearly whether or not there was a hack is not within the purview of a newspaper.

Accuracy is the responsibility of every newspaper; their are no escape clauses. An unnamed government source which turns out to be bogus is no excuse, especially when the source is unnamed. However, for a propaganda outlet, 'somebody in government said' is simply doing the job, carrying out orders.

The "government officials" apparently jumped the gun in releasing the information.

Possible, but there's no evidence here that this is the case. Per the wikileaks scenarios, this could be another case of 'here, go print this to Russia in the news'.

 

[mheslep]

Recall White House communications adviser Ben Rhodes' opinion of today's reporters:

“All these newspapers used to have foreign bureaus,” he said. “Now they don’t. They call us to explain to them what’s happening in Moscow and Cairo. Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”

 

[mheslep]

Notice the alarmed quotes in the WP story were generated directly from the utilities' report and not in response to the WP story:

No, there is nothing in the WaPo story indicating where the Governor got his information to make those comments about Russian involvement:

Friday night, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) called on federal officials “to conduct a full and complete investigation of this incident and undertake remedies to ensure that this never happens again.”“Vermonters and all Americans should be both alarmed and outraged that one of the world’s leading thugs, Vladimir Putin, has been attempting to hack our electric grid, which we rely upon to support our quality-of-life, economy, health, and safety,” Shumlin said in a statement. “This episode should highlight the urgent need for our federal government to vigorously pursue and put an end to this sort of Russian meddling.”

That's it. For all I know, it might have been in response to some reporter's suggestion, for instance, "Gov: unnamed sources in the federal government stated that Russia hacked your utility. Can you comment?"

 

[gleem]

That's it. For all I know, it might have been in response to some reporter's suggestion, for instance, "Gov: unnamed sources in the federal government stated that Russia hacked your utility

I sense a bias here. Take the article and retraction for what it is. Someone jumped the gun (and I do not put much onus on the WP) because of the current hacking controversy and computer being a the Burlington Electric facility that has some malware. In any company one would assume that it was connected to the network. The governor and a senator were briefed. It would seem official to me at this point. It may be a failing of our press culture but first with the news is king.

It would seem that the persons finding the malware should have verified that it was a real problem before alerting senior administrators.

 

[mheslep]

Take the article and retraction for what it is

Baffling. Maybe take another look at the topic of this thread.

The governor and a senator were briefed.

Where do you get that information?

 

[zoobyshoe]

No, there is nothing in the WaPo story indicating where the Governor got his information to make those comments about Russian involvement:That's it. For all I know, it might have been in response to some reporter's suggestion, for instance, "Gov: unnamed sources in the federal government stated that Russia hacked your utility. Can you comment?"

Correct: we don't know where the governor got his info. However:

The firm said it took immediate action to isolate the laptop and alert federal authorities.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...c2a61b0436f_story.html?utm_term=.027f93074963
And:

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said he was briefed on the attempts to penetrate the electric grid by Vermont State Police on Friday evening.

So, it's equally possible his source was non-journalistic.

 

[OmCheeto]

In any event, I'm topping off my dollar store wanna-be Tesla Power Wall.
I'll have power for days!

Thanks for the heads up @nsaspook .
As you know, winter is coming.

 

[russ_watters]

So not "fake news" at least as I would interpret the term, incorrect, yes. The real term should be " faked news" as the intension is to mislead.

I agree. Snopes has a good article differentiating between purposeful fake news and just bad news from mainstream sources. They argue - and I agree - that bad news is a much bigger problem. And indeed I think the dropping quality of major news outlets has "primed the pump" for fake news. It has made it tougher to identify good news and tougher to trust major news sources, making people more likely to believe the fully fake news.

http://www.snopes.com/2016/11/17/we-have-a-bad-news-problem-not-a-fake-news-problem/

 

[nsaspook]

Fake or Faked? This article does a good examination of the WaPo power-grid story with the timing of the original story (7:55PM EST, sourced from "government officals"), the utility statement (9:37PM EST) , story changes (between 8PM and 10PM EST) and headline/story changes after the Burlington Electric statement (10:30PM EST).
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevle...ssian-hacking-of-the-power-grid/#28c0c17e291e

The original article was posted online on the Washington Post's website at 7:55PM EST. Using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, we can see that sometime between 9:24PM and 10:06PM the Post updated the article to indicate that multiple computer systems at the utility had been breached ("computers" plural), but that further data was still being collected: “Officials said that it is unclear when the code entered the Vermont utility’s computers, and that an investigation will attempt to determine the timing and nature of the intrusion.” Several paragraphs of additional material were added between 8PM and 10PM, claiming and contextualizing the breach as part of a broader campaign of Russian hacking against the US, including the DNC and Podesta email breaches.
...
Yet, as the Post’s story ricocheted through the politically charged environment, other media outlets and technology experts began questioning the Post’s claims and the utility company itself finally issued a formal statement at 9:37PM EST, just an hour and a half after the Post's publication, pushing back on the Post’s claims: “We detected the malware in a single Burlington Electric Department laptop not connected to our organization’s grid systems. We took immediate action to isolate the laptop and alerted federal officials of this finding.”
...
Particularly fascinating that the original Post story mentioned that there were only two major power utilities in Vermont and that Burlington Electric was one of them, meaning it would have been easy to call both companies for comment. However, while the article mentions contacting DHS for comment, there is no mention of any kind that the Post reached out to either of the two utilities for comment. Given that Burlington issued its formal statement denying the Post’s claims just an hour and a half later, this would suggest that had the Post reached out to the company it likely could have corrected its story prior to publication.
...
Putting this all together, what can we learn from this? The first is that, as with the Santa Claus and PropOrNot stories, the journalism world tends to rely far more on trust than fact checking.
...
The second is that the news media is overly dependent on government sources. Glenn Greenwald raises the fantastic point that journalists must be more cautious in treating the word of governments as absolute truth. Indeed, a certain fraction of the world’s false and misleading news actually comes from the mouths of government spokespeople. Yet, in the Post’s case, it appears that a government source tipped off the post about a sensational story of Russians hacking the US power grid and instead of reaching out to the utilities themselves or gathering further detail, the Post simply published the story as fed to them by the government officials.

 

[russ_watters]

And indeed I think the dropping quality of major news outlets has "primed the pump" for fake news. It has made it tougher to identify good news and tougher to trust major news sources, making people more likely to believe the fully fake news.

Since I got a couple of "likes", I'll expand: In addition to the bad quality of the news itself, many major news outlets prominently feature "fake news" in the form of advertisements dressed-up to look like news. For example, this is on CNN:

Notice the section titled "Paid Content" is formatted the same as "More from CNN". The source is also shown, but since many of the sources have unidentifiable names (or names purposely chosen to look like news sources), it isn't always easy to tell that you are clicking on advertising instead of 3rd party "news" content (which CNN also hosts but doesn't identify differently from its own content). Notice also the top section doesn't have a header. I scrolled past it to illustrate that if you scroll or skim you might not see the "Paid Content" header, which is also on that top section.

CNN does this because unlike a newspaper where advertisements are designed to get your attention, these advertisements are designed to be stealthy in order to trick you into clicking on them. That's because the business model is gets CNN paid for click-throughs. In other words, CNN is purposely trying to trick you into thinking fake news is real news; purposely hiding fake news amongst its real news.

Interestingly, a couple of months ago, CNN removed most of the "Paid Content" section from the front page on its main site. It still features prominently at the bottom of every article (which is where I got this) and the full "Paid Content" section still appears on the front page of its mobile site. The cynic in me thinks the minimization of the "Paid Content" section might have been timed with the "outcry" over fake news, as perhaps someone at CNN realized that CNN is doing *exactly* what it was complaining about was happening on facebook.

 

[nsaspook]

Notice the alarmed quotes in the WP story were generated directly from the utilities' report and not in response to the WP story:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...c2a61b0436f_story.html?utm_term=.63dd103d9627

Now that we have a good timeline (thanks forbes) we can see the huge factual disconnect with what the utility reported to the government, its statement in response to the original WaPo story and what the WaPo wrote in its original story using information from a government source. I'm more saddened than shocked about the amount of disinformation this story generated by wild unwarranted speculation before any real facts were known.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...6f69a399dd5_story.html?utm_term=.af96f8f5c03a

As federal officials investigate suspicious Internet activity found last week on a Vermont utility computer, they are finding evidence that the incident is not linked to any Russian government effort to target or hack the utility, according to experts and officials close to the investigation.

An employee at Burlington Electric Department was checking his Yahoo email account Friday and triggered an alert indicating that his computer had connected to a suspicious IP address associated by authorities with the Russian hacking operation that infiltrated the Democratic Party. Officials told the company that traffic with this particular address is found elsewhere in the country and is not unique to Burlington Electric, suggesting the company wasn’t being targeted by the Russians. Indeed, officials say it is possible that the traffic is benign, since this particular IP address is not always connected to malicious activity.
...
U.S. officials are continuing to investigate the laptop. In the course of their investigation, though, they have found on the device a package of software tools commonly used by online criminals to deliver malware. The package, known as Neutrino, does not appear to be connected with Grizzly Steppe, which U.S. officials have identified as the Russian hacking operation. The FBI, which declined to comment, is continuing to investigate how the malware got onto the laptop.

 

[mheslep]

Im more saddened...

If the source is considered as similar to the National Inquirer, problem solved.

 

[nsaspook]

False or Fake the damage is done if you believe in the accurate and truthful reporting of facts instead of fearmongering story's about Russia.

https://theintercept.com/2017/01/04...reat-while-public-is-deceived/#comment-330952

But while these debacles are embarrassing for the paper, they are also richly rewarding. That’s because journalists — including those at the Post — aggressively hype and promote the original, sensationalistic false stories, ensuring that they go viral, generating massive traffic for the Post (the paper’s executive editor, Marty Baron, recently boasted about how profitable the paper has become).
...
WHETHER THE POST’S false stories here can be distinguished from what is commonly called “Fake News” is, at this point, a semantic dispute, particularly since “Fake News” has no cogent definition. Defenders of Fake News as a distinct category typically emphasize intent in order to differentiate it from bad journalism. That’s really just a way of defining Fake News so as to make it definitionally impossible for mainstream media outlets like the Post ever to be guilty of it (much the way terrorism is defined to ensure that the U.S. government and its allies cannot, by definition, ever commit it).
...
That the story ends up being completely discredited matters little. The damage is done, and the benefits received. Fake News in the narrow sense of that term is certainly something worth worrying about. But whatever one wants to call this type of behavior from the Post, it is a much greater menace given how far the reach is of the institutions that engage in it.

 

[jim hardy]

The network(s) doth protest too much, methinks.

 

[russ_watters]

False or Fake the damage is done if you believe in the accurate and truthful reporting of facts instead of fearmongering story's about Russia.

"WHETHER THE POST’S false stories here can be distinguished from what is commonly called “Fake News” is, at this point, a semantic dispute, particularly since “Fake News” has no cogent definition. Defenders of Fake News as a distinct category typically emphasize intent in order to differentiate it from bad journalism. That’s really just a way of defining Fake News so as to make it definitionally impossible for mainstream media outlets like the Post ever to be guilty of it..."
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/04...reat-while-public-is-deceived/#comment-330952

Terrorism example aside, I agree, which is why I think the Snopes article saying "bad" news is a worse issue is relevant. Regardless of what you want to call it, the fact that news outlets willingly/gleefully profit from sensationalism (charitable characterization) is a long-standing and substantial problem, far outweighing the new "fake news" problem at the very least due to ts longevity.

 

[nsaspook]

http://www.snopes.com/report-vermont-power-grid-infiltrated-by-russian-hackers/

CLAIM: A computer infected by malware proved a Vermont power company has been targeted for disruption by Russian hackers.

MOSTLY FALSE

 

[zoobyshoe]

Commercial Bias
The first thing to remember when consuming news is that the news media is a business. It makes money from advertisers, whose payments are proportional to the number and quality of viewers it can reach. Public services (like the BBC) are not funded by advertisers, but they too need high viewing numbers to justify their existence. The bottom line is that the news media needs viewers. What attracts viewers? Interesting stories. Unfortunately, bad-news stories (e.g., conflict, crime, disaster) are far more interesting than good-news stories.

http://www.howtogetyourownway.com/biases/news_media_bias.html

People often forget that newspapers are businesses in competition with other newspapers for the public's attention. They aren't a public or government service. The astute reader knows it's "caveat emptor," just as it is when reading hype about a new car or shampoo. Personally I find, more often than not, the story does not support the hype of headline, just like most products don't live up to the wonders claimed in commercials. I'm over it and now always expect the actual story to be less dramatic than the headline.

Same site linked above talks about the "fairness bias" that arises when a news outlet tries to be so fair it ends up granting too much play to fringe viewpoints:

The BBC is so "fair", it often isn't fair, and its reporters and editors tussle with this idea constantly. For example, let's imagine that 99% of people think apartheid is inhuman and immoral and 1% think it isn't. A news programme covering this issue would present the idea as though it were a 50/50 debate (e.g., showing two street interviews with people against apartheid and two for).

In a similar vein, Greenwald's criticisms, if taken too much to heart, could lead to a point where the media becomes afraid to print anything that hasn't been unassailably vetted and proven impossible to refute.

As far as I'm concerned, the Washington Post took a gamble to get the scoop, and lost. They had to recall their product and so did all the outlets that copied them. A couple days after the Post broke the story the retractions/corrections were just as ubiquitous as the original story. Anyone who didn't quit reading the news altogether would have seen them. I think most now realize the Russians didn't hack the grid (that we know of).

 

[russ_watters]

As far as I'm concerned, the Washington Post took a gamble to get the scoop, and lost.

I'm not sure I follow; what was the gamble? Are you saying the gamble was that people wouldn't notice them spinning a wild tale far beyond what the evidence showed them? This isn't like Rathergate, where there was a clear-cut story and CBS simply gambled that the evidence they had was true without doing their due diligence to prove it (and that was bad enough to destroy careers). This story itself was generated by WaPo. At best one could argue extreme ignorance of the subject they were writing about (and through all levels of editing), but would you really consider that level of recklessness to be ok?

Rathergate was bad enough. Journalists have an explicit ethical obligation toward the truth. Gambling that a piece of evidence is true instead of verifying it properly is an explicit violation of that code. And this case is worse.

A couple days after the Post broke the story the retractions/corrections were just as ubiquitous as the original story.

That isn't really true. Among other things, the original story was hyped on the company Twitter account and the retraction was not announced on Twitter. In addition, they made several substantive edits without making any announcements at all. I guess you'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they intended to eventually and the firestorm of criticism they got for it played no role in causing them to issue the retractions. But then -- that could just make the "gamble" you referred to circular. Anyway, studies have shown that provocative false stories have legs.

In a similar vein, Greenwald's criticisms, if taken too much to heart, could lead to a point where the media becomes afraid to print anything that hasn't been unassailably vetted and proven impossible to refute.

I'm willing to gamble that the pendulum wouldn't swing quite that far back the other way. At least we should be willing to let it come back toward the center before being too worried about it going the other way. Especially since, as you pointed out, the inherent commercial bias always puts pressure in the current direction.

 

[nsaspook]

I assumed that mistakes by the Post are done entirely in good faith or ignorance and not by rolling the dice when the story has matters related to Russia. It must be “newsroom economics,” and no ill will or political incentive or ideology is ascribed by these gambles.

 

[jim hardy]

no ill will or political incentive or ideology is ascribed

you're more generous than I .

Since Woodward and Bernstein, to bag a president has become some sort of Golden Fleece.

 

[zoobyshoe]

This story itself was generated by WaPo.

I don't know where you're getting this idea. Not even Greenwald, the most meticulous critic here, is making this claim. His main complaint is that the Washington Post did not verify the story with the Vermont Utility, and took it at face value from its "government source."

 

[russ_watters]

I don't know where you're getting this idea. Not even Greenwald, the most meticulous critic here, is making this claim. His main complaint is that the Washington Post did not verify the story with the Vermont Utility, and took it at face value from its "government source."

Fair enough; I missed that they cited "government sources" - I thought they saw a line in the Vermont utility report (as you previously indicated) and ran with it.

However, unlike Rathergate, where the source document was provided for all to see, the statements of these alleged 3rd parties are inherrently unverifiable for us. WaPo isn't going to tell us who they were or quote them exactly (or provide a copy of whatever the actual communication was). Since betting against an information vacuum is still apparently acceptable and given WaPo's clear difficulty in recognizing/understanding/interperting facts, and the fact that they edited the story several times after publishing it (presumably without checking back with the original sources each time), I'm still going to "bet" that a significant portion of the report's key content was generated by WaPo.

 

[nsaspook]

you're more generous than I .

Since Woodward and Bernstein, to bag a president has become some sort of Golden Fleece.

How the mighty have fallen.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ne...e-symbol-womens-march-washington-cover-961023

"Washington Post Express Puts Male Symbol on Women's Inauguration March Cover"

"We made a mistake on our cover this morning and we’re very embarrassed. We erroneously used a male symbol instead of a female symbol."

 

[jim hardy]

"We made a mistake on our cover this morning and we’re very embarrassed. We erroneously used a male symbol instead of a female symbol."

My guess is some nitwit said "You can't put a Cross on our cover!"

 

[zoobyshoe]

Fair enough; I missed that they cited "government sources" - I thought they saw a line in the Vermont utility report (as you previously indicated) and ran with it.

However, unlike Rathergate, where the source document was provided for all to see, the statements of these alleged 3rd parties are inherrently unverifiable for us. WaPo isn't going to tell us who they were or quote them exactly (or provide a copy of whatever the actual communication was). Since betting against an information vacuum is still apparently acceptable and given WaPo's clear difficulty in recognizing/understanding/interperting facts, and the fact that they edited the story several times after publishing it (presumably without checking back with the original sources each time), I'm still going to "bet" that a significant portion of the report's key content was generated by WaPo.

Washington Post, Greenwald, and Forbes have published very detailed breakdowns of the chain of events. (It's looking like nsaspook and I are the only people who've read them.) It's clear from these "autopsies" (my term for them) that just about all parties involved contributed to the cascade of misinformation, especially, IMO, the FBI/DHS who were the original definers of what constituted "Russian" malware here. Nsaspook and Greenwald, however, want to limit liability to the Washington Post because, I think, of it's previous recent screw up with the PropOrNot story. IMO, everyone in the chain of info is responsible for their contribution. I am not inclined to blame the WP for not checking whether the Vermont Government had any real justification for their borderline hysteria because I see that as emanating from the FBI/DHS warnings about what should be considered a red flag. Computer guys at the Vermont Utility might have know there was no real cause for alarm, but they had a protocol to follow which they weren't at liberty to alter: the alarm having been tripped, they had to alert the proper authorities.

I think nsaspook and Greenwald are faulting the WP from a position of "curse of knowledge." That is: knowing what they know about computer security, they have become unable to understand the minds of people who don't know what they know. I'm thinking it did not occur to one editor there to question whether the FBI/DHS characterizations were overly broad or not. That's pretty much the kind of thing it would only occur to a cyber-security savvy person to ask.

 

[Bystander]

It's clear from these "autopsies" (my term for them) that just about all parties involved contributed to the cascade of misinformation, especially, IMO, the FBI/DHS who were the original definers of what constituted "Russian" malware here.