A Russia-linked Facebook group attempted to organize a series of anti-immigrant, anti-Hillary Clinton rallies across Texas last November, three days before the election and months after Russian operatives used the social-media platform to organize an anti-refugee-resettlement protest in rural Idaho.
The group, called Heart of Texas, had over 225,000 followers as of last summer. It was shut down last week as part of Facebook's takedown of accounts and pages "affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia," a Facebook spokesman told Business Insider on Wednesday.
Casey Michel, a journalist who has spent years tracing US secession movements to Russia, tracked the group's activity throughout the election and determined it was more than just a platform for far-right Texas secessionists.
Several signs pointed to the page being a Russian influence operation, including a lack of contact information and ads, and a corresponding Twitter account created in November 2015 — right around the time Facebook experienced a surge in Russia-linked, fake accounts, Michel said. Its "about" section read only: "Texas's the land protected by Lord."
Perhaps the most revealing clue that Heart of Texas was not a project spearheaded by dissatisfied Texans was the language. The memes posted in the group contained typos, grammatical errors, and a general unfamiliarity with basic English phrases.
This of course follows news that the Russians used Facebook to organize anti-immigration rallies as well.
At this point if I were a conservative Trump voter I would be wondering or ANY of the memes I liked, posts I shared, or rallies I attended were NOT created by the Russians.
For the rest of us I think we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg and that there is a whole lot more we are going to learn about just how the Russians stole the 2016 election.
Source http://ift.tt/2xBrTb0
