[boombust]

No, it is troll-like behaviour. It is not a legitimate question if the intent of the comment is to deny the claims of the effectiveness of Russian interference, which is nonsense.

It is impossible to know the full extent that Russian interference had on the election, but dismissing its impact because there is no proof of its 'effectiveness' is laughable. We know political ads work. It is why every single modern political campaign runs them. A google search gives you a rough idea of the reach this political campaign had. Put those simple principles together and you get why all western intelligence communities are in agreement that russia interfered and affected the US presidential election. Given how susceptible people are to advertising it shouldn't come as a surprise.

When someone posits a statement that is just insanely ignorant (and demonstrably wrong) like "I would even be satisfied with any ad from any country having the ability to significantly sway any election." then the intent to derail the conversation is clear. Any knowledge of political history (and advertising) would tell you that such a statement is clearly ridiculous. Being obstinate and a pedant doesn't make automatically make you a critical thinker. In this case, it blinds you from seeing the obvious.

Some sources for you even though you are probably too busy commenting something contrarian to google this shit yourself.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/without-the-russians...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/technology/facebook-googl...

[somebehemoth]

I agree completely. My original comment was in regard to the commenter's opinion on the "minuscule" effect of well documented foreign influence. There can be significant and effective foreign influence in addition to other more local reasons the election had the result we are living with. They are not mutually exclusive