Nyet Just a Conspiracy Theory?

During the presidential campaign, Daily Beast executive editor Noah Shachtman opened up Twitter, saw all the vitriol and fake news and conspiracy theories, and thought 'Man, is this really my country?'  Then Noah and his team started to investigate Russian interference in the election. Videos made in Russia, purporting to be from the American South. Activist groups invented in Russia, prompting Americans in Idaho to attend real-life protests. Is this his country? Yes. Also, maybe no.   As Facebook, Twitter and Google’s parent company Alphabet sit down before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Note to Self is separating conspiracy from reality. Connecting the dots without turning the office into a scene from Homeland. With Noah Shachtman and reporter Spencer Ackerman of The Daily Beast. Plus, a look back at what we knew all along. We started in November 2016 with tech under the Trump administration. In March, we questioned Facebook’s responsibility for fake news with former ad executive Antonio Garcia Martinez. Exploring the Trump campaign’s use of psychometrics, we interviewed the chief product officer of data-profiling company Cambridge Analytica. April brought a foray into the alt-right corners of Reddit, and the origins of the word cucked. And in May, we talked to Phil Howard, an Oxford University professor among the first to research the armies of Russian bots spreading garbage and confusion on Twitter. Turns out, almost without realizing it, we’ve been assembling pieces of this puzzle all year. Become a member today and support our work. Just visit NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.  This is the first episode of our series on Russia. Listen to the second and third parts next. For more spy terms explained, reasonable/sensible coping strategies for when democracy is under threat, and Nyet more puns.