Last week saw a dramatic new phase of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into "Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election" and "possible collusion by members of the Trump team." Two senior members of the Trump campaign team including former campaign chair Paul Manafort surrendered themselves to federal authorities.
Some would say that this is it, that Trump is definitely finished. US media reported that the indictments against Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his assistant Rick Gates undoubtedly proved that Russia meddled in the 2016 US presidential election, thus installing Trump as president. But if you tried listening to the supposed evidence, you could hear the special prosecutor claiming that these individuals "did work for Ukraine and were paid by the Ukrainian government."
READ MORE: Lavrov on Manafort Charges: Ukrainian Trace Should Be Investigated
Okay, they worked for Ukraine and, as lobbyists, were paid to lobby for them, but what does that have to do with Russia? I mean, do Americans know that Ukraine isn't Russia? Is it that hard to take a look at a world map? But the media were quick to respond: "It's a historic indictment that deals with tax evasion over a long period of time."
Tax evasion? True, everybody knows that in the US, the only thing you have to do is die and pay your taxes. But still, what does that have to do with Russian meddling in their elections? Did those financial transactions at least take place during the presidential campaign? As a matter of fact, the last year of any financial transaction was 2014. And as far as we know, Trump wasn't even thinking of running for president in 2014.
So, let's get this straight, in an investigation about Russian meddling in the elections, they've brought up indictments that have nothing to do with either Russia or the elections. But here's where it gets juicy.
Think about that for a moment. George Papadopoulos lied to the FBI — Well, we have to trust a self-confessed liar, right?
So, Papadopoulos swore that he communicated with the Russians and tried to connect them to Trump's campaign, but two things have been overlooked by many. First, Papadopoulos was an adviser/volunteer with little to no influence on the campaign. And second, the fact that he "negotiated" with some random professor who allegedly had some contacts with some Russian officials who had some dirt on Hillary Clinton, doesn't prove any kind of conspiracy. Heck, I could've volunteered for Trump's campaign and decided to try to communicate with some… aliens and then confessed to the FBI that Trump colluded with aliens.
Besides, if Papadopoulos "confessed" to any serious prosecutor, he'd look into that dirt on Hillary Clinton, because there's lots and lots of evidence of her wrongdoing. And still, both the FBI and the media are silent on that. Why? Well, it doesn't fit the narrative. All that matters is to convince you that there is a Russian threat. And here's how Facebook is helping with that goal.
READ MORE: 'Wrong' George Papadopoulos Mistakenly Attacked by Twitter Users
Facebook told congressional investigators Russian operatives published about 80,000 posts over a 2 year period to try to influence US politics and 126 million Americans may have seen them. That may sound like a lot, but on my little Facebook page called „Boris Malagurski", the number of people who saw my posts in 2016 alone is 143,889,580 million. So, if the Russians brought Trump to power using Facebook, I could've easily installed Lindsay Lohan in the White House. But aside from Facebook, there's also Twitter.
Twitter representative Sean Edgett noted that "We determined that the number of accounts we could link to Russia and that were tweeting election-related content was comparatively small. About one hundredth of a percent of the total Twitter accounts at the time we studied." One hundredth of a percent? In 2012, the percentage of Barack Obama's 18.8 million followers that were fake was 30%. But yeah, real live Russians use Twitter too, such a shocker, there are quite a lot of them actually, some even tweet about the US election. What a crime!
RT was offered a high cost comprehensive special package by Twitter specifically tailor-made for the US general presidential election. That package would've contained many special customized features to enable, according to Twitter themselves, a wider reach to US audiences specifically for the US presidential election. Even though Sputnik never advertised on Twitter and RT rejected this offer, RT still invested around $274,000 into advertising on Twitter. Now, considering the fact that Hillary Clinton's campaign cost $1.4 billion, if RT can install a US President for $274,000, why in the world would you ban them, get them to run your campaign for a lot less! RT — We install US presidents for the low low price of $273,999.99.
READ MORE: Moscow: RT, Sputnik Ban by Twitter Reflects Its Dependence on US Establishment
If you dig a little deeper, you realize that it's really all about censorship — Twitter started it, and Facebook may now go down the same path. Facebook is conducting an experiment in Serbia, Slovakia, Bolivia, Guatemala, Cambodia and Sri Lanka. Users in those countries no longer see pages that they liked on their main news feed. 60 of Slovakia's largest media pages registered 4 times less interaction since the testing started.
In these countries, if you want your page post to appear on your followers' main news feed, you have to pay Facebook, which means that only wealthy users can spread news, while the rest are silenced. Now, Facebook claims that this is just an experiment, but if they decide to roll this out globally, and then start banning targeted groups from advertising like Twitter does, we will be looking at complete US deep state control over our social media, all under the umbrella that they're protecting us from the scary big Russian bear, without a shred of evidence that Russia is a threat to us.
Maybe this video and text will get banned too, labeled as „Russian propaganda", even though I'm… not Russian and I was only telling the truth, but when it comes to taking away our freedom of speech, the truth is always the first victim.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.
