Stealing the Black Vote
Published by A. B. Man III in Opinion · Sunday 18 Aug 2019
Tags: Russia, black, vote, trump, election
Tags: Russia, black, vote, trump, election
Stealing the Black Vote
How Russia depressed the black vote and sowed racial divisions to help elect Donald J. Trump.
A.B. Man
08/18/2019
08/19/2019
Russia is using racial divisions to depress the black vote and divide America. Vladimir Putin focused on depressing the black voter by sowing racial divisions in the 2016 election to make Donald J. Trump the president of America. The disinformation operation was the work of the Russian state-supported Internet Research Agency (IRA), whose work included 10 million tweets, 116,000 Instagram posts, 61,000 Facebook posts and 1,000 videos. Over 30 million users, between 2015 and 2017, shared the IRA’s Facebook and Instagram posts with their friends and family, liking, reacting to, and commenting on them along the way. The IRA went about instigating mistrust in law enforcement and political institutions, while cultivating seemingly authentic narratives of black pride.
In late 2017, it was first reported by CNN that the pro-Kremlin enterprise masterminded a plot to infiltrate online communities of the Black Lives Matter movement. New Knowledge’s report, shows a much more sustained and purposeful focus on black Americans—as the IRA went about instigating mistrust in law enforcement and political institutions, while cultivating seemingly authentic narratives of black pride. CNN reported Wednesday that at least one of the Facebook ads bought by Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign referenced Black Lives Matter and was specifically targeted to reach audiences in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, two cities that had gained widespread attention for the large and violent protests over police shootings of black men.
Black Americans were among the most exploited online communities by the IRA. The IRA went about instigating mistrust in law enforcement and political institutions, while cultivating seemingly authentic narratives of black pride. The IRA specifically targeted black people by leveraging popular social media sites. The campaign was “designed to exploit societal fractures” and “erode our trust in media entities and the information environment, in government, in each other, and in democracy itself,” the report states. “This campaign pursued all of those objectives with innovative skill, scope, and precision.” Of the 1,107 videos linked to the IRA, the majority of the content—96 percent, according to researchers—centered on Black Lives Matter and police brutality.
The Russians set up 30 Facebook pages targeting black Americans, researchers found, and 10 YouTube channels that posted 571 videos related to police violence against African-Americans. Russian agents who favored Donald Trump's presidential candidacy harnessed the major players of America's tech industry in a sophisticated propaganda effort that was far more extensive than originally understood, according to a detailed analysis prepared for the Senate intelligence committee. The Russian efforts included an attempt to suppress the votes of African-Americans. Researchers combed through millions of posts from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube created by the Internet Research Agency, the St. Petersburg-based firm run by a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin whose key executives have been indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller on charges of defrauding the United States.
The I.R.A., which is owned by an ally of Vladimir Putin, posted more than a thousand YouTube videos relating to Black Lives Matter and police violence. It created thirty Facebook pages directed at African-Americans that attracted more than a million followers. It created knockoff accounts, such as Black Matters, and outright false ones, such as Blacktivist, to amplify content that was primarily intended to sow dissension. Communist ideology, of course, was no longer part of the equation, but attempting to undermine American authority was: one objective appeared to be planting concerns about Hillary Clinton and racism as a means of depressing the black vote. Alicia Garza, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, told me that activists had noted an uptick in fake content on social media but assumed that it was just standard Internet nuisance. “My suspicion was spamming, and not ‘Holy shit, another government is trying to influence the results of the elections in the United States.
Messaging to African Americans sought to divert their political energy away from established political institutions by preying on anger with structural inequalities faced by African Americans,” the Oxford report states. The reports focus on the Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg-based “troll farm” that used several social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram — including ones called “Woke Blacks” and “Blacktivists” — to urge Americans to vote for third-party candidates or sit out the election entirely. Several operatives working for the group were listed in a February 2018 indictment from special counsel Robert Muller detailing how Russian nationals interfered in the 2016 election. The website, BlackMattersUS also sought to build legitimacy by connecting with racial justice activists and by promoting already scheduled protests and events, as well as operating a podcast and creating a Tumblr account that included “descriptions of Hillary Clinton as ‘Satan’s daughter,’ ‘The root of all evil,’ and ‘Himmlery aka (‘Death for Dollars’) – ‘The Benghazi Bullshitter.’”
The Russian influence campaign on social media in the 2016 election made an extraordinary effort to target African-Americans, used an array of tactics to try to suppress turnout among Democratic voters and unleashed a blizzard of activity on Instagram that rivaled or exceeded its posts on Facebook, according to a report produced for the Senate Intelligence Committee. The report adds new details to the portrait that has emerged over the last two years of the energy and imagination of the Russian effort to sway American opinion and divide the country, which the authors said continues to this day. “Active and ongoing interference operations remain on several platforms,” says the report, produced by New Knowledge, a cybersecurity company based in Austin, Tex., along with researchers at Columbia University and Canfield Research LLC. One continuing Russian campaign, for instance, seeks to influence opinion on Syria by promoting Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president and a Russian ally in the brutal conflict there.
The influence operation — run out of St. Petersburg — was sophisticated, relentless and became more effective with time. Its goal was to manipulate identity politics to tear America apart. The Soviet Union had also tried to heighten racial divisions during the Cold War, but their operatives lacked access to the technology platforms that now make it so easy. “Messaging to African Americans sought to divert their political energy away from established political institutions by preying on anger with structural inequalities … including police violence, poverty, and disproportionate levels of incarceration,” the report says. “These campaigns pushed a message that the best way to advance the cause of the African American community was to boycott the election and focus on other issues instead.”
Some black Americans believed the Russian propaganda and did not vote. Some black Americans bought into the Lesser of two evils principle and did not vote. That Lesser of two evils mantra delivered us to Richard Nixon in 1972 until Watergate did him in. It delivered us to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in 2000 until they were termed out in 2009" and delivered us to Donald J. Trump in 2016.
Republicans have made compromise a bad word, it is not; if no one compromised nothing would get done wars would never end until everyone was dead. We make compromises every day with family members, coworkers and others; without compromising our core values. It is rare that you will agree with everything a person says or does including the person you vote. Your vote should be based on who will provide the best protections for you, your family, your children and your grandchildren.
If you are one of the 1 percenters or/and don’t care about regulations that save lives, poorer Americans, the land you use, the air you breath or the water you drink then you should vote for a republican, they will help you keep your money and protect your business(s). However you, your family, your children and your grandchildren, may not have access to some government services, may not be able to drink the water or breathe the air in the years ahead thanks to Republicans. Of course, 1 percenters do not need government services; can buy all the water they need when water sources become contaminated. 1 percenters can also buy breathing equipment when the air becomes too unhealthy to breathe. As a 1 percenter you may not care about the public school system since your children attend private schools. As a 1 percenter you may not care about our crumbling infrastructure while you’re flying in your private jet or helicopter. If you are willing to put your greed above your country then you should vote for a republican. If you believe a woman should not have control over her body and her own life and that the government should have control over a woman’s body and life, you should vote for a republican. The Republican Party is no longer the party of Lincoln, in 1964, the racist started taken over the Republican Party, with election of Trump the takeover is complete. If you support racism or dislike people of color, you should vote for a republican. If you believe lies, and alternative facts over truth and facts, you should vote for a republican.
If you are not one of the 1 percenters or/and care about regulations that save lives, poorer Americans, the land you use, the air you breath or the water you drink then you should vote for a democrat. Regulations save lives, the lives, it saves could be yours, a family, one of your children or one of your grandchildren. If you think, you, someone in your family, one of your children or your grandchildren care about the air you breathe and the water you drink, may need government services you should vote for a democrat. If you, someone in your family, one of your children or your grandchildren cannot buy all the water they need when water sources become contaminated, cannot afford to buy breathing equipment when the air becomes too unhealthy to breathe you should vote for a democrat. If you care about care about America, our schools or crumbling infrastructure you should vote for a democrat. If you believe, a woman should have control over her body and her own life you should vote for a democrat. If you are a person of color or do not support racism you should vote for a democrat. Who you vote for is up to you black Americans died so black Americans could vote; do not dishonor them by not voting.
This article was sourced from the following sources:
Executive Summary: Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) launched an extended attack on the United States by using computational propaganda to misinform and polarize US voters. This report provides the first major analysis of this attack based on data provided by social media firms to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). This analysis answers several key questions about the activities of the known IRA accounts. In this analysis, we investigate how the IRA exploited the tools and platform of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube to impact US users. We identify which aspects of the IRA’s campaign strategy got the most traction on social media and the means of microtargeting US voters with particular messages.
By David A. Love
(CNN) When Vladimir Putin focused on black voter depression and sowing racial divisions in the 2016 election to help propel Donald Trump into the White House, he engaged in what is, unfortunately, a longstanding and time-tested American practice. Two reports commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee found that a Russian disinformation campaign interfered in the 2016 election to benefit Donald Trump by exploiting all major social media platforms and sowing racial and political divisions. Specifically, the Russian influence campaign on social media targeted African-American voters to depress Democratic turnout. The first report, produced by Austin, Texas-based cybersecurity company New Knowledge, found that Russian interference in the 2016 election involved hacking attempts on online voting systems, a cyberattack on the Democratic National Committee, and a "sweeping and sustained social influence operation consisting of various coordinated disinformation tactics aimed directly at US citizens, designed to exert political influence and exacerbate social divisions in US culture." The disinformation operation was the work of the Russian state-supported Internet Research Agency (IRA), whose work included 10 million tweets, 116,000 Instagram posts, 61,000 Facebook posts and 1,000 videos.
By ASON PARHAM - SECURITY
TWO DAYS BEFORE the 2016 presidential election, @woke_blacks posted an anti-voting polemic to its Instagram account. “The excuse that a lost Black vote for Hillary is a Trump win is bs. Should you decide to sit-out the election, well done for the boycott,” the caption read. “I remind us all one more time, anyone who wins can literally change less about the state of Black people, we are on our own, esp. after Obama. Wise up my people!” Another user, @afrokingdom_, shared a comparable sentiment: “Black people are smart enough to understand that Hillary doesn’t deserve our votes! DON’T VOTE!” According to a new report commissioned for the Senate Intelligence Committee by cybersecurity firm New Knowledge, those accounts, along with dozens more, were part of an extensive and complex campaign to suppress the black American vote by the Russian firm Internet Research Agency. In late 2017, it was first reported by CNN that the pro-Kremlin enterprise masterminded a plot to infiltrate online communities of the Black Lives Matter movement. But New Knowledge’s report, released Monday, shows a much more sustained and purposeful focus on black Americans—as the IRA went about instigating mistrust in law enforcement and political institutions, while cultivating seemingly authentic narratives of black pride.
by Donie O'Sullivan and Dylan Byers @CNNMoney
A social media campaign calling itself "Blacktivist" and linked to the Russian government used both Facebook and Twitter in an apparent attempt to amplify racial tensions during the U.S. presidential election, two sources with knowledge of the matter told CNN. The Twitter account has been handed over to Congress; the Facebook account is expected to be handed over in the coming days. Both Blacktivist accounts, each of which used the handle Blacktivists, regularly shared content intended to stoke outrage. "Black people should wake up as soon as possible," one post on the Twitter account read. "Black families are divided and destroyed by mass incarceration and death of black men," another read. The accounts also posted videos of police violence against African Americans. The Blacktivist accounts provide further evidence that Russian-linked social media accounts saw racial tensions as something to be exploited in order to achieve the broader Russian goal of dividing Americans and creating chaos in U.S. politics during a campaign in which race repeatedly became an issue.
By ALEXIS C. MADRIGAL
It’s disturbing how easily Internet Research Agency accounts blended into America’s online life. In their efforts to influence the 2016 election, Russian operatives targeted every major social platform, but one demographic group, black Americans, got special treatment, according to two reports made public by the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday. The reports—one published by New Knowledge, a new disinformation-monitoring group, and the other by the Computational Propaganda Project at the University of Oxford—both tally large numbers of posts across social media that generated millions of interactions with unsuspecting Americans. New Knowledge counted up 77 million engagements on Facebook, 187 million on Instagram, and 73 million on Twitter. The think tank divvied up the activity into three buckets: content that targeted the left, the right, and … African Americans.
Operatives used social media to suppress votes for Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump, new research finds. Russian online propagandists aggressively targeted African Americans during the 2016 US election campaign to suppress votes for Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump, according to new research. Analysts found that Russian operatives used social media to “confuse, distract, and ultimately discourage” black people and other pro-Clinton blocs from voting, using bogus claims such as Clinton receiving money from the Ku Klux Klan. Black turnout declined in 2016 for the first presidential election in 20 years, according to the US census bureau, falling to less than 60% from a record high of 66.6% in 2012. Exit polls indicated that black voters strongly favored Clinton over Trump.
By Ken Dilanian and Ben Popken
The Russians set up 30 Facebook pages targeting black Americans, researchers found, and 10 YouTube channels that posted 571 videos related to police violence against African-Americans. WASHINGTON — Russian agents who favored Donald Trump's presidential candidacy harnessed the major players of America's tech industry in a sophisticated propaganda effort that was far more extensive than originally understood, according to a detailed analysis prepared for the Senate intelligence committee. The Russian efforts included an attempt to suppress the votes of African-Americans. Researchers combed through millions of posts from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube created by the Internet Research Agency, the St. Petersburg-based firm run by a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin whose key executives have been indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller on charges of defrauding the United States.
By P.R. Lockhart
New reports detail how Russian internet trolls manipulated outrage over racial injustice in America. More than two years after the 2016 elections, media outlets and academics are still discovering the extent of Russian disinformation campaigns aimed at American voters. Now, a pair of independent reports prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee add to a wealth of evidence that targeting African Americans and suppressing black turnout was a crucial aspect of this effort. According to the reports, one from Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project and Graphika and others from a team of researchers from cybersecurity firm New Knowledge, Columbia University, and Canfield Research, a group of Russian agents utilized not only Facebook and Twitter, but also sites including Instagram, Tumblr, and YouTube in an effort to amplify racial divisions ahead of the 2016 elections. “[M]essaging to African Americans sought to divert their political energy away from established political institutions by preying on anger with structural inequalities faced by African Americans,” the Oxford report states. The reports focus on the Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg-based “troll farm” that used several social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram — including ones called “Woke Blacks” and “Blacktivists” — to urge Americans to vote for third-party candidates or sit out the election entirely. Several operatives working for the group were listed in a February 2018 indictment from special counsel Robert Muller detailing how Russian nationals interfered in the 2016 election.
By Scott Shane and Sheera Frenkel
The Russian influence campaign on social media in the 2016 election made an extraordinary effort to target African-Americans, used an array of tactics to try to suppress turnout among Democratic voters and unleashed a blizzard of activity on Instagram that rivaled or exceeded its posts on Facebook, according to a report produced for the Senate Intelligence Committee. The report adds new details to the portrait that has emerged over the last two years of the energy and imagination of the Russian effort to sway American opinion and divide the country, which the authors said continues to this day. “Active and ongoing interference operations remain on several platforms,” says the report, produced by New Knowledge, a cybersecurity company based in Austin, Tex., along with researchers at Columbia University and Canfield Research LLC. One continuing Russian campaign, for instance, seeks to influence opinion on Syria by promoting Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president and a Russian ally in the brutal conflict there.
By Monique Judge
When most people hear the word “propaganda,” it probably sounds like a far-off concept or idea or something that only happens in other countries and never here in the United States. The fact is that the U.S. launched full propaganda campaigns as part of the war effort during both WWI and WWII. Propaganda is a part of our everyday lives here in the United States, and it comes in many forms, including radio and television commercials, print advertisements and the kinds of “news” reports that come out of outlets like InfoWars and Breitbart. “What is clear is that all of the messaging clearly sought to benefit the Republican Party—and specifically Donald Trump,” the Oxford report says. “Trump is mentioned most in campaigns targeting conservatives and right-wing voters, where the messaging encouraged these groups to support his campaign. The main groups that could challenge Trump were then provided messaging that sought to confuse, distract and ultimately discourage members from voting.”
By James Hohmann With Joanie Greve
THE BIG IDEA: A new report prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee reveals that the Russians, in their bid to boost President Trump, have been more fixated than previously understood on trying to dampen African American political engagement. Researchers at Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project and Graphika, a network analysis firm, spent seven months analyzing millions of social media posts that major technology firms turned over to congressional investigators. Their goal was to understand the inner workings of the Internet Research Agency, which the U.S. government has charged with criminal offenses for interfering in the 2016 election. It turns out that African Americans were targeted with more Facebook ads than any other group, including conservatives. Three of the four most-liked Facebook posts put up by the Russian influence effort came from an account called Blacktivist that urged the community to be more cynical about politics. African Americans were urged to vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein throughout the month before the 2016 election. A post on Oct. 29 that year declared: “NO LIVES MATTER TO HILLARY CLINTON. ONLY VOTES MATTER TO HILLARY CLINTON.” A message on Nov. 3 added: “NOT VOTING is a way to exercise our rights.” On Twitter, four of the Russian agency’s five most‐retweeted accounts catered exclusively to African Americans. On Instagram, all five of the most-liked posts created by the Russians were aimed at African American women. They included the hashtags #blackpower, #blackpride, #unapologeticallyblack, #blacklivesmatter, #icantbreathe, #riot and #blackgirlskillingit.
That mantra delivered us to Richard Nixon in 1972 until Watergate did him in. And it delivered us to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in 2000 until they were termed out in 2009" - And Trump on 2016
By Jelani Cobb
”The I.R.A., which is owned by an ally of Vladimir Putin, posted more than a thousand YouTube videos relating to Black Lives Matter and police violence. It created thirty Facebook pages directed at African-Americans that attracted more than a million followers. It created knockoff accounts, such as Black Matters, and outright false ones, such as Blacktivist, to amplify content that was primarily intended to sow dissension. Communist ideology, of course, was no longer part of the equation, but attempting to undermine American authority was: one objective appeared to be planting concerns about Hillary Clinton and racism as a means of depressing the black vote. Alicia Garza, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, told me that activists had noted an uptick in fake content on social media but assumed that it was just standard Internet nuisance. “My suspicion was spamming, and not ‘Holy shit, another government is trying to influence the results of the elections in the United States,’”
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