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Russian Troll Factory Paid US Activists To Fund Protests During Election (theguardian.com)
bestweasel writes: The Guardian reports on another story about Russian meddling, but interestingly, this one comes from a respected Russian news source, the RBC. From the report: "Russian trolls posing as Americans made payments to genuine activists in the U.S. to help fund protest movements on socially divisive issues. On Tuesday, the newspaper RBC published a major investigation into the work of a so-called Russian 'troll factory' since 2015, including during the period of the U.S. election campaign, disclosures that are likely to put further spotlight on alleged Russian meddling in the election. RBC said it had identified 118 accounts or groups in Facebook, Instagram and Twitter that were linked to the troll factory, all of which had been blocked in August and September this year as part of the U.S. investigation into Russian electoral meddling. Perhaps the most alarming element of the article was the claim that employees of the troll factory had contacted about 100 real U.S.-based activists to help with the organization of protests and events. RBC claimed the activists were contacted by Facebook group administrators hiding their Russian origin and were offered financial help to pay for transport or printing costs. About $80,000 was spent during a two-year period, according to the report."
It is absurd that RBC, which is now run by Putin loyalist and tabloid owner Grigory Berezkin, is being described as "a respected Russian news source". RBC USED to be a respected news source, until early 2016 when their reporting on government corruption got their leadership forcibly ousted and replaced with people that would play nice with the administration. There's probably some true information mixed into this story along with the falsehoods because that's how Russian intelligence generally operates, but to present what is straight-up Russian government-backed propaganda as journalism is, at very best, negligent to the point of maliciousness.
Why are we even talking about a couple of Facebook ads when today's breaking news is the Obama administration was investigating Russian infiltration of the US nuclear material transport trucking company in 2009, by none other than Mueller of the FBI.
Fascinating to watch the Slashdot moderation system in action.
As I post this, there are three topically relevant and accurate stories modded down to 0 or -1. The one above this one reads "0 interesting", the "interesting" tag gets added for an upvote.
This one (and the others) are perfectly legitimate: Both news stories are in the current news cycle, and are largely what the writers say they are. (Clinton Uranium deal investigated by the FBI, and Comey wrote the Hillary conclusion months before interviewing Hillary.)
I have faith that the number of people with integrity far outweigh the trolls on this board.
We're the smart people in the room, the ones that others *should* look up to.
If we can't abide the truth, then we're no different from the media talking heads.
...none of them had an agenda to support Trump.
One might almost believe that narrative was...fake news?
The Guardian article mentions that basically their efforts were to show division, not particularly meddle in the election. Their funding supported mainly Texas independence (ludicrous), gun rights, and racial issues, particularly black lives matter protests. This is pretty much what Russian Intel has done for years; the history of kgb funding for anti American, labor, and leftist movements in Europe and the USA has been well documented historically.
The notion that they put $80k into this just suggests how little they expected of it.
-Styopa