Senate report shows social media pushed offline actions too

WASHINGTON — Efforts by Russia to influence the 2016 election weren’t limited to memes and Instagram accounts. A new bipartisan Senate report spotlights even more aggressive actions by Kremlin-allied provocateurs to manipulate people offline — influencing Americans to host protests, sign petitions and, in one instance, even teach selfdefense classes.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, which prepared the report based on a series of hearings over the last two years, reported that Facebook identified at least 130 events that were amplified on its platform by Russia’s Internet Research Agency, reaching about 338,300 genuine Facebook users who engaged with the content.

“Russian-backed trolls pushing disinformation have also sought to connect with and potentially co-opt individuals to take action in the real world,” the senators wrote. “From influencing unwitting Americans to retweet or spread propaganda, to convincing someone to host a real world protest, Russian disinformation agents employ online methods to attract and exploit a wide range of real people.”

The Russian operatives were able to organize a series of “Florida Goes Trump” rallies using Facebook groups like “Being Patriotic,” the Twitter account @March_For_Trump and other fabricated social media personas. Pretending to be Americans, the Russians talked with Trump campaign staff, and even paid some people “to portray Hillary Clinton imprisoned in a cage that had been constructed on a flatbed truck for this purpose,” the report found.

Russia’s efforts to use social media to exert its influence beyond the virtual world have previously been documented in media and the Mueller

But the new Senate report puts the narrative in one place and raises new questions about whether the United States is ready if these tactics are repeated ahead of the 2020 election.

The Senate report outlines broad efforts to influence African Americans in 2016. In one instance, Russian actors used the Facebook page “Black4Black” to target African American led businesses in Cleveland to collect personal information in exchange for free promotions on social media.

The Russian operation also paid an African American activist $700 to teach self-defense classes in a local park through the Facebook page “Black Fist.”

The Senate report underscores how unprepared the social media companies were for Russia efforts to plot such events during the last election. reports report.