Russian troll factory paid US activists to help fund protests during election
“Russian trolls posing as Americans made payments to genuine activists in the US to help fund protest movements on socially divisive issues, according to a new investigation by a respected Russian media outlet….
“[T]he most alarming element of the article was the claim that employees of the troll factory had contacted about 100 real US-based activists to help with the organisation 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.
“The main topics covered by the groups run from Russia were race relations... RBC counted 16 groups relating to the Black Lives Matter campaign and other race issues that had a total of 1.2 million subscribers. The biggest group was entitled Blacktivist and reportedly had more than 350,000 likes at its peak.
“Last month, CNN also reported that US authorities believed the Blacktivist Facebook group and Twitter account were the work of Russian impostors….
“Google has said Russian operatives spent tens of thousands of dollars on targeted ads on YouTube, Google and Gmail, according to reports. Last month, Facebook released a statement saying it had found $100,000 of ad spending on about 3,000 ads that it linked to 470 ‘inauthentic’ accounts that it had linked to Russia. The company later clarified that the ads focused on ‘divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum’…
“‘The task wasn’t to support Trump,’ one of the factory’s employees told RBC. ‘We raised social issues and other problems that already existed in the US, and tried to shine as bright a light as possible on them.’ The employee said that because hildebeest was part of the current regime, she was also a target.”
(The Guardian)