Facebook and Twitter suspend Russian trolls trying to stoke US race tensions
Source: The Verge
Facebook and Twitter have disabled dozens of accounts tied to an elaborate Russia-linked troll network based in Ghana that targeted African Americans across social media in an effort to provoke racial tensions, according to CNN, which shared its findings with the two social media platforms. To evade detection, Russia-linked actors helped set up what functioned as a non-governmental organization called EBLA, or Eliminating Barriers for Liberation of Africa, The Washington Post reports.
Facebook disabled 85 Instagram accounts, 49 Facebook accounts, and 69 pages. It said about 13,500 accounts followed one or more of the disabled pages, and about 265,000 people were following one or more of the Instagram accounts. Twitter removed 71 accounts, which had a total of 68,000 followers.
“This network was in early stages of audience building and was operated by local nationals — witting and unwitting — in Ghana and Nigeria on behalf of individuals in Russia,” Facebook’s head of security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, wrote in a blog post. “It targeted primarily the United States.” The network violated Facebook’s policies against engaging in coordinated, inauthentic behavior, which is why the accounts linked to it were ultimately removed, the blog post said.
The activity “was linked to individuals associated with the IRA [Internet Research Agency], an entity we had previously banned,” Gleicher wrote. Facebook rejected the network’s repeated attempts to buy issue or political ads in the US “because the people behind it were not authorized to run political ads in the US.” In 2016, the Russia-based Internet Research Agency wreaked havoc on the US elections, setting up Facebook troll accounts and creating a targeted effort to steal and disseminate emails from the Democratic National Committee.
Read more: https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/13/21178071/facebook-twitter-suspend-russia-troll-ghana-african-americans
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The disinformation is in full force even in stream chatter: You tube and even porn!
It's never ending with the polarized world, thanks to parties and religion, tribe/herd mentality, etc etc.
Ultimately it's GREED at #1?
GREED includes being LAZY.
