Russian trolls pushed graphic, racist tweets to American voters

[sabra]

Source: NBC News

Warning: this story contains offensive content.

A zealous band of Russian trolls flooded Twitter with hundreds of thousands of divisive posts in 2016 — accusing Democrats of satanic practices and supporting rape — in an attempt to influence the presidential election, according to a new analysis of a Twitter database by NBC News.

The effort tricked thousands of users into spreading graphic racial epithets across social media, interweaving provocative content with disinformation and falsehoods.

The tweets were uncovered in a database of over 202,000 deleted Russian troll tweets that NBC News compiled from several sources, including three sources familiar with Twitter's application programming interface, or API, an online system that allows outside software developers to work with the data underlying users' tweets.

All of the sources asked for anonymity to avoid being identified as possibly violating Twitter's developer policy; two of the sources asked not to be identified because they didn't want to become targets of Russian trolls themselves.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/russian-trolls-pushed-graphic-racist-tweets-american-voters-n823001

[SunSeeker]

1. They're still at it, judging by what the righties on facebook are sharing. nt

[msongs]

2. but but but everything on twitter is TRUE! nt

[Wwcd]

4. And Facebook! And on the campaign trail!! Repeated lie after lie

And still repeated & believed today

[IronLionZion]

3. It's disgusting how many believed and shared this nonsense without checking first

as it exposed many long simmering biases and divisions. It really amplified a lot of prejudice

In the end, the troll strategy was an export of methods Russia has used for years domestically to get citizens to see themselves not as part of a nation but as members of smaller ethnic and identity-based groups, and play all sides against each other.

"They want us fighting among ourselves," said McFaul, the former ambassador. "Then we're distracted. We're not talking about Syria. We're not talking about American leadership. We're questioning whether democracy will survive. We're less of a player internationally — and that's good for Russia."

[FailureToCommunicate]

5. Ya have to wonder why the Repubs got so much free help from Russia.

[Blue_Tires]

6. Greenwald and Snowden were unavailable for comment...

I'm old enough to remember reading that government-backed trolling was cause for global outrage and was an assault on the very cornerstones of wellbeing for every denizen of the free world...

Life comes at you fast...

[LudwigPastorius]

7. "Russian trolls pushed graphic, racist tweets to American voters..."

...and Hannity and Drudge dutifully regurgitated that crap.

Is it time to register the entire GOP as Agents of a Foreign Government?