Russia Used Facebook Events to Organize Anti-Immigrant Rallies on U.S. Soil

[HipChick]

Russian operatives hiding behind false identities used Facebook’s event management tool to remotely organize and promote political protests in the U.S., including an August 2016 anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim rally in Idaho, The Daily Beast has learned.

A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to the Daily Beast that the social-media giant “shut down several promoted events as part of the takedown we described last week.” The company declined to elaborate, except to confirm that the events were promoted with paid ads. (This is the first time the social media giant has publicly acknowledged the existence of such events.)
The Facebook events—one of which echoed Islamophobic conspiracy theories pushed by pro-Trump media outlets—are the first indication that the Kremlin’s attempts to shape America’s political discourse moved beyond fake news and led unwitting Americans into specific real-life action.

“This is the next step,” Clint Watts, a former FBI agent and expert on Russia’s influence campaign, told The Daily Beast. “The objective of influence is to create behavior change. The simplest behavior is to have someone disseminate propaganda that Russia created and seeded. The second part of behavior influence is when you can get people to physically do something.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/exclusive-russia-used-facebook-events-to-organize-anti-immigrant-rallies-on-us-soil

[msongs]

1. one wonders how effective were promotions by Democrats and allies compared to this nt

[Eko]

2. Kinda gives credence to calling them

Tools.

[Snarkoleptic]

3. The drip, drip, drip is picking up steam!

[4now]

4. Manipulating "unwitting Americans" worked pretty well this time

I hope we are much smarter next time.

[gratuitous]

5. Huh!

I remember how right wingers absolutely lost their shit when they thought Bill Clinton, during his time as a Rhodes Scholar (seen any of those in the ranks of Republicans lately?), might have gone to the Soviet Union. Totally meant he was a tool of the Kremlin.

Nowadays, all of these amazing coincidences of Russian contact and coordination between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign, and we barely get a shrug from the right wing.

[Initech]

6. What is Russia getting out of this? World domination?

[forgotmylogin]

7. Stuff they want.

I know people have said there's no precedent to nullify a US election, but this creeps very close to a constitutional crisis that should inspire at minimum some talk about having a process to deal with this type of situation.

[UCmeNdc]

8. Manipulation of the United States foreign policy agenda.

They are making the United States their puppet government.