Talk:Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections/Archive 21

add "2020 Disinformation Campaign" here?

• The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President; How new technologies and techniques pioneered by dictators will shape the 2020 election by McKay Coppins theatlantic.com March 2020 Issue

X1\ (talk) 01:26, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

I've no objection in principle. XOR'easter (talk) 05:27, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

It is indirect, since mentions copying foreign techniques for domestic usage: i.e. Social media in the 2020 United States presidential election. X1\ (talk) 00:39, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

add NYT item on Internet Research Agency ?

• Davey Alba How Russia’s Troll Farm Is Changing Tactics Before the Fall Election; The Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency, which interfered in the 2016 election, is using different methods to hide itself better. March 29, 2020 NYT

X1\ (talk) 05:15, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

May Email Server Attack

NYTimes [1] --Calthinus (talk) 13:58, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

"Red scare" in "See also"

I reverted this addition; it has been restored with the edit summary It is [comparable] because it pigeonholes russians the same way the red scare did. I don't really follow this argument. At best, it seems WP:OR. The extensive documentation in reliable sources already present in this article makes pretty clear that we're talking about something quite different. For starters, the Russians in question ... aren't communists. Listing the Red Scare here is like dropping the controversy over whether MSG is actually unhealthy into the article on TikTok. (Moreover, per the big warning box up top, All editors must obtain consensus on the talk page of this article before reinstating any edits that have been challenged (via reversion). It seems that the item should be removed from the "See also" since it was challenged via reversion, but I'll leave that for somebody else to do if they see fit.) XOR'easter (talk) 06:07, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't think the Red Scare should be listed in "See also". It's a very different episode.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:17, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Split a "Foreign interference" article?

There are some items in this article pertaining to China, Iran, and some minor notes on other countries. We may need to add more on Ukraine, based on this story from yesterday. Perhaps the non-Russian items should be on a separate page? – Muboshgu (talk) 17:51, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Or just move this page to Foreign interference in the 2020 United States elections. – Anne drew 02:11, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 8 November 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus for this move (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 21:42, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

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Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections → Foreign interference in the 2020 United States elections – This article also talks about interference by Iran and China. Foreign interference in the 2020 United States elections currently redirects to this article. – Anne drew 18:52, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. This article has 3 indirect sources used to support the claim for "Russian Interference;" 1 of which, the closest to legitimate &/or of substance, states China, Russia, & Iran, & notes that specific information is entirely classified. Further, the title & link is presented as an example of "Fourth Generation Warfare," i.e., how war is conducted today. The title is itself a victim to the asymmetry of 4GW, yet overtly presents Russia & the US engaged in 4GW as though it were grounded in specific 1st hand information. Omikron.777 (talk) 00:06, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

• No strong opinion The overwhelming emphasis of the reliable sources is on Russia. Actions by other nations are treated as of secondary or ancillary significance. I don't see a fundamental problem with keeping the title focused on Russia; the narrower title doesn't forbid brief discussion of the broader context. Likewise, the title says "2020", but the article also looks back to 2016, and there's no problem with that. XOR'easter (talk) 03:03, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

I think there is a growing problem when editors add information about other countries and other times. This article will just become unintelligible.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:14, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Could be, but if the content is disorganized, it'll be a mess regardless of the title. XOR'easter (talk) 03:15, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

• Weak oppose Having returned to the question and thought about it again, I'm just not convinced that the current title is broken and needs fixing. Having a primary focus doesn't rule out appropriate mentions of other related topics for context. XOR'easter (talk) 22:54, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

  From what I can tell yes it does. Other countries interference in the 2020 elections, with the current title, would be off topic here. PackMecEng (talk) 20:14, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

  I genuinely fail to see how. Including ancillary matters for context is a valid way to write. (Having reviewed the new sources provided below, I've struck the "weak" from my oppose.) XOR'easter (talk) 20:27, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

  Because that is how article scope works. The subject of this article is "Russian interference in the 2020 election". What sources below do you mean and why? All I see is the NYT & the non-RS RawStory noting that others are interfering but less of a threat than Russia. If anything that supports going to a more general title so that information can be included. Again with the current title both those sources would be out of scope for the article. PackMecEng (talk) 21:00, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

• Support I think it is morally and ethically wrong to single out a group of people as being hackers or the only ones causing problems. Just like you wouldn't call the protests over George Floyd The 2020 African American protests because it isnt just African Americans. There is no reason why other countries would not interfere as well. No need to single out a group of people on Wikipedia.--Fruitloop11 (talk) 07:42, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

  We know that other countries did try to interfere, but the preponderance of sources are about Russian efforts. Faithfully reflecting the available documentation isn't singling out anybody; it's just being NPOV. Note that this article does already mention China and Iran. The question is whether those mentions warrant a retitling. XOR'easter (talk) 18:42, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I get that but we are singling out a group of 146 million people as being hackers. 95% of the people we have fought and killed during the war on terror have been muslim yet we dont call the article War on Islamic Terroism because that would make it seem like only muslims are terrorist. The same goes for this article. keeping the article as it is puts all the blame on russia in my opinion. I have a feeling this article will be changed eventually due to political correctness--Fruitloop11 (talk) 00:39, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

I fail to see how we are singling out a group of 146 million people as being hackers. The article says nothing at all about the activities of the vast, vast majority of the Russian population. XOR'easter (talk) 03:36, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose WP:RS clearly signal that Russia was the major player here. Moreover, there is Wikipedia:10YT importance to the Russia title given the importance of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.Casprings (talk) 04:49, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

  Could you please elaborate? None of your arguments seems to be about opposing title change. Politrukki (talk) 19:42, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per NYT:

  ...Iran, as multiple U.S. officials noted, remains far less of a threat than Russia.

  Iran’s actions were an attempt to “rattle our cage” and not a real attempt to change outcomes, said Glenn S. Gerstell, a former general counsel of the National Security Agency.

  And I'm not seeing coverage in RS of the last week corroborating any substantial Chinese effort, despite China being among the countries Trump requested election interference from. The mentions of China currently in this article seem to all be anticipatory. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 10:22, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

  The quote you provided seems to undercut your argument. As it mentions both Iran and Russia, it seems to suggest that general "Foreign interference" title would be more appropriate. We are not here to judge which country has been the naughtiest. Interestingly, your article (NYT) title says "the Feared Attacks Never Came". Politrukki (talk) 19:54, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per most reliable source, Russia plays main rule in interference. In addition, Russia is a country in Eastern Europe/Balkans so i places it under WP:ARBEE along with the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory, and Trump–Ukraine scandal, which all of them were also involved with an Eastern European countries. 36.68.195.164 (talk) 10:48, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
• Support. Much of the content in the article is about other things than Russia. If the current title "Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections" were to be retained, much of content would be off-topic and would need to be deleted per OR, because we don't have an article about "Foreign interference" where excess material could be moved. And if we were to create another article about foreign interference, most of its content would be Russian interference, which would mean that per WEIGHT we would need to have two articles where the main focus is Russian interference, assuming that most of reliable sources are about Russian interference. Based on my quick analysis on more recent sources, it doesn't seem that Russian interference is mentioned without other foreign interference, see my search results below.
  As a side note, the article has already been moved twice without separate discussion. Politrukki (talk) 19:27, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

  Why would WP:NOR be the relevant policy? I don't quite follow; surely the concern would be with how much weight to give, not with "Original Research". XOR'easter (talk) 20:30, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

  If we assume that a source mentions Iranian interference efforts, but no Russia, you cannot use that source out of context to imply that Iranian interference is specifically related to Russian interference. Similarly, not all sources about Russia (Russian literature, Russian salad, etc.) would be in the scope of interference into the 2020 elections. If the connection to Russian interference is made in the source, using that source in proper context would not violate OR. Politrukki (talk) 21:58, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

  Ah, okay, I think I follow now. Thanks for elaborating! That case doesn't seem to apply to this article, though, since the sources do make the connection already. XOR'easter (talk) 00:43, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

• Support - The topic is more broad than just Russia. With the current title interference from other nations would not be appropriate additions and would not be right. PackMecEng (talk) 20:12, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

Based on a quick and small sampling of Google results, it doesn't seem that reliable sources are focusing on Russia specifically. These are one of the first results:

1. Foreign Policy – mentions China, Iran, and Russia
2. The Washington Post – mentions China, Iran, and Russia
3. Nature – mentions China, Ghana, Nigeria, and Russia
4. BBC – mentions China, Cuba, Iran, and Russia
5. The New York Times – mentions Iran, and Russia
6. The Times of India
7. The Guardian – mentions China, Iran, and Russia
8. Vox – mentions Iran and Russia
9. Al Jazeera – mentions Iran and Russia
10. Reuters – mentions Iran and Russia
11. The Associated Press – mentions China, Iran, Israel, and Russia

I used a search term "interference in the 2020 united states elections" without quotes. I included only mainstream news sources (or news analysis pieces, no opinion pieces) that are writing about some kind of foreign interference. (One source I could not check because it was behind paywall.) Google seems to prioritise more recent sources. Politrukki (talk) 19:27, 15 November 2020 (UTC); edited 21:36, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

There's a difference between what a source mentions and what they give the bulk of their coverage to. For example, that Guardian story mentions China in 2 of 15 paragraphs, and only one of those actually talks about election interference specifically (the other is a blurb about the FBI monitoring Chinese efforts to acquire US technology and other sensitive information). That story gives more information about violent domestic extremists than it does about China. Likewise, the AP story is hardly about election interference at all, and the only country it specifically mentions in that context is Russia. The Vox story says "Iran" twice and "Russia" 62 times. XOR'easter (talk) 20:21, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

You are making an argument about giving due weight to each sub-topic, which is not a subject of this discussion. Politrukki (talk) 21:36, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I was probably unclear. The subject of this discussion is whether to rename the article. Having taken a look at the sources in the above list, it seemed to me that they generally follow the pattern that our article does and that the sources we already had did: Russia takes the lion's share of attention, and the actions (or potential actions) of other countries are discussed in the context of Russia's prior operations. So, at least to my eye, they don't really support the argument that the article should be renamed. XOR'easter (talk) 21:45, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.