Russia Reportedly Bought Thousands of Facebook Ads Sought To Stress Racial Divisions (thehill.com)

According to The Washington Post, Russia government actors bought Facebook advertisements during the 2016 election cycle that sought to exploit and divide based on hot-button racial issues. Some of the ads promoted civil rights groups such as Black Lives Matter, while others criticized them in an effort to sow division. The Hill reports: Facebook is handing over some 3,000 ads to congressional investigators as part of probes into the Kremlin's alleged effort to influence the outcome of last year's presidential election. Other ads allegedly highlighted Hillary Clinton's support among Muslim women and promoted anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant messages. Facebook didn't comment on the story, but did refer to a statement earlier this month from its chief privacy officer, Alex Stamos: "Rather, the ads and accounts appeared to focus on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the idealogical spectrum -- touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights."

Comments

An inconvenient truth

[DNS-and-BIND]

Well, it seems the most harmful, divisive acts that a malevolent foreign power could come up with were the same ones so enthusiastically engaged in for free by the Left. It seems this evil foreign country thinks that sowing racial discord with Black Lives Matter is a good idea. Well, this is certainly inconvenient. I have complete faith in our media to tell the truth: by completely overlooking this niggling detail and trying to discredit anyone who points it out.

And there has got to be the burn of doing for free what the Kremlin would have paid you for. Doing work and not getting paid for it? I thought that was for suckers. All you had to do was show up and collect your rubles. In fact you'd have been more valuable than any KGB spy, as an established American your material would be worth far more to them and qualified for a high rate of pay. That has to sting.