By ann summers

Argument from fallacy is the formal fallacy of analyzing an argument and inferring that, since it contains a fallacy, its conclusion must be false.
Generalization from fictional evidence: Using a fake story to make a general point.
Whataboutism (also known as whataboutery) is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent’s position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument, which is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda

Trump continues in his public comments to say very little about Russia since his strange behavior at the G20, among other events like squeezing out the US press coverage of the Russian visit to the Oval Office. Fortunately we know how involved he’s been with Russians and their money since at least the 1980s, and his Russophilic tendencies are more than obvious beyond his financial ties. It stands to reason that he appreciates the cultural warfare waged by the Soviets and their oligarchic successors, even to the claiming that hoaxes exist while deploying the claim as a hoax.

Millions of tweets were flying furiously in the final days leading up to the 2016 US presidential election. And in closely fought battleground states that would prove key to Donald Trump’s victory, they were more likely than elsewhere in America to be spreading links to fake news and hyper-politicized content from Russian sources and WikiLeaks, according to new research published Thursday by Oxford University.

Nationwide during this period, one polarizing story was typically shared on average for every one story produced by a professional news organization. However, fake news from Twitter reached higher concentrations than the national average in 27 states, 12 of which were swing states—including Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan, where Trump won by slim margins.

NEW: Fake news on Twitter—including from Russia—flooded swing states that helped Trump win the White House https://t.co/hPdpKPHwGm pic.twitter.com/VgUZPfSfZ4

— Mark Follman (@markfollman) September 28, 2017

Kremlin trolls stole the identity of an authentic U.S. Muslim organization to smear John McCain and Hillary Clinton https://t.co/cOEG9QPIRR

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) September 28, 2017

Russian hacker arrested in Spain in April told a court today he used to work for Putin’s United Russia party

Spanish police have arrested a Russian programmer following US allegations of large-scale hacking.

Pyotr Levashov was held in Barcelona on Friday and is remanded in custody.

Spanish police said Mr Levashov controlled a botnet called Kelihos, hacking information and installing malicious software in hundreds of thousands of computers.

The arrest was part of a “complex inquiry carried out in collaboration with the FBI”, police said.

Mr Levashov is subject to a US international arrest warrant and a Spanish court will hear whether he can be extradited.

Much of his alleged activity involved ransomware – blocking a computer’s access to certain information and demanding a ransom for its release.

Mr Levashov’s wife Maria told Russian broadcaster RT that the arrest had been made in connection with allegations that Russians had hacked the US presidential election.

www.bbc.com/…