Russian meddling efforts intensifying as US election nears
Source: CNN
Over the past week there have been fresh warnings over Russian hackers targeting the 2020 election, the indictment of a Russian man stealing Americans' identities as part of election meddling, and sanctions against a Russian-linked politician for spreading disinformation.
The episodes are a stark reminder that Russian-linked election interference efforts -- along with the potential threat from countries like China and Iran -- are ramping back up with the November 3 election less than two months away, suggesting Moscow is still looking to duplicate its wildly successful 2016 meddling campaign.
There are signs the Trump administration is taking steps to counter Russian efforts. In addition to new sanctions this week, the intelligence community's top election security official Bill Evanina publicly announced last month that Russia was actively working to denigrate Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
But those actions are playing out against a backdrop of President Donald Trump still refusing to accept that Russia is interfering to benefit his campaign -- and at the same time that Trump's key advisers are putting forward a misleading argument that the bigger election interference threat comes not from Russia but from China, which the intelligence community said prefers Biden but is not actively engaging in a meddling campaign.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/12/politics/russian-meddling-2020-us-election/index.html
It is not just amplifying Qanon. Russia is also trying to attack Biden/Harris from the left and stir unrest.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-facebook-russia/facebook-says-russian-influence-campaign-targeted-left-wing-voters-in-u-s-uk-idUSKBN25S5UI
Facebook says Russian influence campaign targeted left-wing voters in U.S., UK
Facebook Inc FB.O said the operation - which partly focused on U.S. politics and racial tensions in the run-up to the Nov. 3 presidential election - centred around a pseudo media organisation called Peace Data.
The website operated 13 Facebook accounts and two pages, which were set up in May and suspended on Monday for using fake identities and other forms of “coordinated inauthentic behaviour,” the company said.
Facebook said its investigation “found links to individuals associated with past activity by the Russian Internet Research Agency”, a St Petersburg-based company which U.S. intelligence officials say was central to Russian efforts to sway the 2016 presidential election.
Twitter said it had also suspended five accounts as part of the operation which it could “reliably attribute to Russian state actors.”
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