Red in the face
Russians at play in the social media morass
The Russians are at it again. More likely, the Russians who attempted to undermine American elections in 2016 never took a break from trying to undermine U.S. democracy.
Last week, Facebook told lawmakers in Washington that the company had flagged and deleted eight Facebook pages, 17 Facebook profiles and seven Instagram accounts the company said were working to disrupt the upcoming midterm elections.
The suspect pages, which Facebook discovered several weeks ago, were created between March 2017 and May 2018 and had names such as Aztlan Warriors, Black Elevation, Mindful Being and Resisters. The accounts leveraged divisive social issues in the United States to attract followers and sow discord.
If you think only foolishly gullible social media users would be duped by such efforts, Facebook reported that one of the suspect pages alone had nearly 300,000 followers.
Even beyond spreading misinformation, many of these fake accounts organized real-world events, including a planned Aug. 10 event in Washington that 600 of the page’s followers signed up to attend
The “No United the Right 2 — DC” was initially organized by one of the suspect-Russian pages as a counterprotest to a white supremacist rally planned for the same weekend. Despite the revelations of its organizers’ origins, American participants have said they plan to carry on with it anyway.
Lest one thinks the Russians behind these pages are doing all this because they prefer one American political party or ideology over another, keep in mind that the pages were aimed at left- and right-leaning social media users.
For instance, some Facebook accounts run by Russian meddlers called for abolishing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and some were organizing a followup rally to the white supremacist march last year in Charlottesville, Va.
The Russian forces behind these efforts are not after Democratic or Republican victories in November. What they are after is a weakened America.
The way they achieve this is to use our freedoms against us to create division and distraction. The goal is simply to drive wedges between Americans, regardless of what we believe or who we support politically. When they divide us, they win.
So, the next time you find yourself worked up by a social media feed that is stoking your outrage, whatever your political persuasion, take a step back. You’re probably being played.