Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Russia twitter accounts spreading videos white v minority confrontations to stoke racial tensions
I just saw a piece on early AM MSNBC with Richard Engle discussing this. Damn. Racism is real and many of these incidents are real, but how do we not allow Americans to be manipulated?
Russia-linked Twitter accounts have been spreading videos of confrontations between white people and minorities to stoke racial tensions in America, according to Clemson University researchers.
Link to tweet
Russia-linked Twitter accounts promoted 'doxxing' over racial tension videos
Clemson University researchers found videos of confrontations between white people and minorities received instrumental early social media promotion from inauthentic accounts.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/russia-linked-twitter-accounts-promoted-doxxing-over-racial-tension-videos-n1040596
By Ben Popken, Richard Engel, Kate Benyon-Tinker and Monika Ghosh
In October 2018, a cellphone video of a Brooklyn woman calling 911 to claim a 9-year-old black boy grabbed her rear went viral on social media, becoming one of a series of videos that activists and journalists seized upon as an example of the everyday racism faced by minorities in America.
That woman became known as “Cornerstore Caroline.” Other individuals who became the subjects of similar stories would be known by nicknames such as “Basketball Becky” or “Taco Truck Tammy.”
Now, Clemson University researchers have found those videos received instrumental early social media promotion from inauthentic accounts, some of which have since been removed by Twitter and linked by U.S. intelligence to Russia’s efforts to stoke racial tensions in America.
The tweets by the suspicious accounts drew 50-90 percent of the initial retweets before the stories took off, an indication their content played a leading role in drumming up attention, the researchers said.
Darren Linvill, an associate professor of communications, and Patrick Warren, an associate professor of economics, both at Clemson, identified more than 300 tweets from almost 30 suspicious Twitter accounts that appeared to look for and promote videos of racially tense incidents.
In October 2018, a cellphone video of a Brooklyn woman calling 911 to claim a 9-year-old black boy grabbed her rear went viral on social media, becoming one of a series of videos that activists and journalists seized upon as an example of the everyday racism faced by minorities in America.
That woman became known as “Cornerstore Caroline.” Other individuals who became the subjects of similar stories would be known by nicknames such as “Basketball Becky” or “Taco Truck Tammy.”
Now, Clemson University researchers have found those videos received instrumental early social media promotion from inauthentic accounts, some of which have since been removed by Twitter and linked by U.S. intelligence to Russia’s efforts to stoke racial tensions in America.
The tweets by the suspicious accounts drew 50-90 percent of the initial retweets before the stories took off, an indication their content played a leading role in drumming up attention, the researchers said.
Darren Linvill, an associate professor of communications, and Patrick Warren, an associate professor of economics, both at Clemson, identified more than 300 tweets from almost 30 suspicious Twitter accounts that appeared to look for and promote videos of racially tense incidents.
--more--
9 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
