Americans Are Easy Marks for Russian Trolls, According to New Data
This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by DonViejo (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).
Source: Daily Beast
You don’t need to read the federal indictments to spot the moment Russia began targeting the United States with its army of internet trolls.
Just chart the American flag emoji. Best estimates trace the founding of the Internet Research Agency to August 2013, and for eight months of its existence the Saint Petersburg troll farm was focused on influencing citizens in Russia and Russia’s near abroad. Then in April 2014 the Kremlin-linked organization launched “Project Lakhta,” according to federal prosecutors, aimed squarely at the United States.
The IRA’s first American flag emoji appeared on Twitter the next month, first a trickle, and then a torrent. Over the next four years the Saint Petersburg troll farm unfurled 70,372 American flags, reaching peak flagness on August 12, 2017 when one IRA sock puppet crammed 43 flags into a single tweet with the hashtag “MAGA.”
snip
In the end the biggest contributor to the troll’s American success story was the divisiveness already present here, said Fox. “This content is still circulating because it resonates so well with people who are angry on both sides... It exploited an environment that we were and are living in.” Even the IRA’s decision to slather its content with American flags might have been a deliberate ploy. A series of experiments in 2008 demonstrated that being in the presence of the flag doesn’t inspire patriotic love of country, as one would expect, but instead reliably summons feelings of nationalism, defined by the scientists as “an ideology of superiority of the ingroup over outgroups and implies the exclusion or even domination of others.” In its secret campaign to sow division in the U.S., Russia may well have tried to weaponize Old Glory.
Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/americans-are-easy-marks-for-russian-trolls-new-data-prove
What Russia did and is still doing was and still is an act of war and Trump & company, Fox News,
McConnell, Ryan*, Trey Gowdy, the RNC, and others who worked hand and glove w/Russia in order
to gain political advantage and power are guilty of treason.
* The New Yorker; Paul Ryan Keeps It All in the Family
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/paul-ryan-keeps-it-family-kevin-mccarthy-russia-trump
= new reply since forum marked as read
Kick in to the DU tip jar?
This week we're running a special pop-up mini fund drive. From Monday through Friday we're going ad-free for all registered members, and we're asking you to kick in to the DU tip jar to support the site and keep us financially healthy.
As a bonus, making a contribution will allow you to leave kudos for another DU member, and at the end of the week we'll recognize the DUers who you think make this community great.