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

[highplainsdem]

Source: Daily Beast

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.”

-snip-

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

[dalton99a]

1. Kick.

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. Of course they did. And Idaho would be a good easy place to start.

[Mrs. Overall]

3. OMG

RUSSIA organized racist rallies in the US via Facebook?

What is going on??

[lunasun]

9. plenty of US takers ready to rally that's what

[Hoyt]

4. I doubt that took a lot of effort among Trump's supporters.

[Girard442]

5. I saw a Facebook post a while back:

"I voted for Trump because he's the right man. The Russians didn't tell me to."

Turns out you're 0 for 2, Bucky.

[Dustlawyer]

6. K&R!!!

I am sure there is a lot more they have done we either don't know about or our government is not telling us, aside from this administration.

I hope the CIA is funneling millions to anti-Putin groups and spreading the word about how much Putin and his cronies are looting their country! The Russian people got really pissed when they found out their #2 guy had a heated house for his ducks at one of his many palatial estates. They protested by carrying little plastic yellow ducks.

[Eyeball_Kid]

8. This makes logical sense. We don't know whether or not the CI is doing this.

It makes sense if they are. They've had to have been watching this for some time. There must be quite a few pro-Trump supporters in the intelligence field (an oxymoron?) for there not to have been a more pronounced response in real time.

[ToxMarz]

7. This illustrates why these countries so tightly control and monitor their citizens on the internet

and social media.

[DFW]

10. There was an article yesterday, I forget where

It had one part about some guy in Pennsylvania who had been a Democrat but turned to Trump--except that there was no such guy, and the photo posted had been stolen from someone in Brazil.

This was no casual prank but a well-organized large-scale campaign. If the Federal Election commission had any teeth or power, they'd be annulling the fraudulent results of 2016 and ordering a re-do.

[fierywoman]

14. Instead of a re-do, award the presidency to the person who won the most votes.

[DFW]

16. We can't change the rules after the fact

But if the election is proved to have been fraudulently influenced, void the result, do it over, and introduce reform by law.

None of that will ever happen of course, as the "winners" make the rules, but it should. The framers never envisioned Fox Noise or Facebook, understandably enough.

[Maven]

11. Facebook is now exposed as a tool of social and political manipulation for hire.

And any corporation or government who pays enough can wreak havoc on our elections, our government and our social fabric if they choose.

FaceBook needs to be investigated and regulated immediately.

[BigmanPigman]

12. People should boycott them even though financially it won't

have an impact. They should do so as a social and political statement. They are guilty of complicity just like Ryan and McConnell and many others.

[defacto7]

13. Did it have to take us this long to figure this out?

This shit's been in the Facebook frying pan for years and most people just thought of it as freedom of speech and small bananas. Easy to distance from if we're liberals, easy to fall into if your vulnerable. The good old usa, so above ignorance, so immune to all that outside influence while it was staring us right in the facebook. Complacency is a real bit chit.

Never used it, never will because I always knew what it would become.

[fierywoman]

15. (I think) when facebook started, Julian Assange said it was like the Stasi's wet dream.

[treestar]

17. We could play at that game

Get Putin out of office.