Russians roiled US race fear
‘Black Lives’ FB ads
Russian Internet trolls bought Facebook ads promoting the Black Lives Matter movement to stir up fear and cause political chaos in Baltimore and Ferguson, Mo., ahead of the 2016 presidential election, according to a report Wednesday.
A Kremlin-backed group known as the Internet Research Agency used geographically targeted advertising to fuel political discord in various parts of the US as tensions rose between the black community and police last year, sources told CNN.
At least one of the roughly 3,000 ads that the agency bought during the election promoted Black Lives Matter specifically, CNN reported.
The ad, which was first posted in late 2015 or early 2016, appeared to support the social-justice movement — but sources said it could also be seen as depicting it in a negative light.
“This is consistent with the overall goal of creating discord inside the body politic here in the United States, and really across the West,” said Steve Hall, a former CIA officer now a CNN national security analyst. “It shows the level of sophistication of their targeting.”
In addition to the BLM posts, sources told CNN that the Russians were pushing ads that promoted gun rights and the Second Amendment, as well as warnings about undocumented immigrants.
The ads were reportedly purchased through Facebook’s self-service model, which allows users to target people based on geography, demographics and specific interests. What’s unclear, though, is how the Russians knew whom to target. “Did they know this just by following political news in America?” asked Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “Did they geo-target both geography and by demographics in ways that, at least at first blush, appear pretty sophisticated?”
President Trump, meanwhile, blasted Facebook and some news organizations for being against him.
“Facebook was always anti-Trump,” Trump tweeted. “The Networks were always anti-Trump hence, Fake News, @nytimes(apologized) & @WaPo were anti-Trump. Collusion?”