Thousands attended protest organized by Russians on Facebook

[Jose Garcia]

Source: The Hill

Thousands of Americans attended a march last November organized by a Russian group that used social media to interfere in the 2016 election.

The demonstration in New York City, which took place a few days after the election, appears to be the largest and most successful known effort to date pulled off by Russian-linked groups intent on using social media platforms to influence American politics.

Sixteen thousand Facebook users said that they planned to attend a Trump protest on Nov. 12, 2016, organized by the Facebook page for BlackMattersUS, a Russian-linked group that sought to capitalize on racial tensions between black and white Americans. The event was shared with 61,000 users.

As many as 5,000 to 10,000 protesters actually convened at Manhattan's Union Square, where they then marched to Trump Tower, according to media reports at the time.

Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/technology/358025-thousands-attended-protest-organized-by-russians-on-facebook

[Ukapau]

1. And sure, Zuckerberg was right when he said that there was no rush and interference through Facebook

Just as Tromple said there was no interference by Russians in our elections. Sure...

[red dog 1]

2. Zuckerberg is a lying, self-serving asshole - just like Cheetolini

Welcome to DU!

[japple]

17. "Rush and interference"????

[red dog 1]

3. Kick

[IronLionZion]

4. Those damn Russians need to get a life

apparently they don't have anything more useful to do with their time and resources?

[Sunlei]

9. If I'm not mistaken this "russian protest organizer" is son of a russian diplomat connected to DC?

spent years in USA as child of wealthy Russian diplomat. Living a fabulous washington DC life', up until recently.

No one IN Russia can get on American social media without "connections" Not allowed in Russia. Just like China doesn't allow their citizens access to Twitter or Facebook.

[IronLionZion]

16. It's so easy enough to do through proxies

I've been behind the great firewall of China during some civil unrest and it's not that hard to get onto American social media for a person who spends just a minute searching online.

There are many techie activists fighting the good fight to get the word out despite government censorship.

These Russian trolls were officially sanctioned by their government so they would not have any problem figuring out how to do it.

[RhodeIslandOne]

5. At the time, this march was highly praised by progressives on social media

I know DU was not yet back online at the time, but I'm sure it would have been praised here.

Edit: There were marches every night for a week, hard to keep up with which was which.

[Sunlei]

7. How do you know its a 'progressive' on crap like social media? & can't regular people be tricked by

this fake stuff as well?

why can't trolls "pretend" they're a D on social media? pretend they're black, pretend they're honest?

Many people lie all the time on "social media'

[RhodeIslandOne]

8. The bigger question is, what was fake about it?

There was no violence as I recall, people just marching to Trump Tower. It was no different than a dozen other protests.

And yes, there were verified people on Twitter who most certainly are known and celebrity progressives who were talking about it. Not fakes.

I'm trying to figure out the end game here.

[Sunlei]

10. probably not enough people to actually have boots on ground violence-just the online crap is enough

to "help" de legitimize BLM. Comments made online, for example anti-police comments harm ligit groups.

[RhodeIslandOne]

12. But trolls from this country do that every single day online

No matter whether the protest organized is "legitimate" or not.

Here are a couple of articles about the protest from that day.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/fourth-day-nyc-trump-protest-draws-5-000-denounce-donald-article-1.2870514?utm_content=buffer78825&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=NYDailyNewsTw&utm_source=twitter.com

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/12/anti-trump-protests-new-york-portland-shooting

If someone had posted these articles the day it happened, who would call this march out and say "Stinks of Russian propaganda"

Sounds to me like the provocateurs failed.

[Sunlei]

13. nope Republicans still hate BLM group.

[RhodeIslandOne]

15. And they always will. They will never change and do not need to be instructed to hate.

They are racists born bred and will die the same.

[Bradical79]

21. So what?

It's still a Trump protest, why wouldn't we have praised it? Was there some reason to be against this one protest?

[Sunlei]

6. RW/Russia foment violence at "fake protests" to de-legitimize BLM even more.

Any Americans who help organize this crap should be outed and nailed to the wall.

[IronLionZion]

18. The most extreme agitators of any movement are usually trolls or undercover agents

RWers online are stupidly sharing supposed liberal groups' calls for violence. It's bullshit. And apparently a lot of it is Russian. But I'm sure some American RW trolls are also doing it out of their own paranoid imaginations and need to anger people to turn them against BLM and Antifa.

These assholes want to divide us as Americans. And too many on the deplorable side are falling for it. I hope our side knows trolling when we see it.

[mdbl]

19. thanks to fux news

people have become completely gullible.

[summer_in_TX]

20. How do we recognize Russian (or Twitler) trolls here?

After Charlottesville I expressed some angst about Antifa's behavior drawing a backlash that would allow Trump supporters and average Joes to justify a crackdown on protestors.

I got a surprisingly (at least to me) sharp disagreement from someone strongly supporting Antifa. I wasn't surprised to get some pushback and a discussion, I hoped for a discussion to help me think it through. But the sharpness of the disagreement made me drop the topic. I haven't posted much since then, feeling hesitant about how my opinions would be received.

One of the effects of the loud angry voices in the media has been to cause many of us to stop expressing our opinions in public unless we are with likeminded people. The extreme responses of Rush and other RWers has made it feel considerably less safe to say what I think.

The sharp tone that was turned on me, that crops up on a lot of threads here, do you think that might be originating with some of these Russian trolls? Now that I think about it, that seems designed to be alienating and make us feel considerable less than cohesive.