Russian trolls posed as black activists on Tumblr and generated hundreds of thousands of interactions for content that ranged from calling Hillary Clinton a “monster” to supporting Bernie Sanders and decrying racial injustice and police violence in the US, according to new findings from researcher Jonathan Albright and BuzzFeed News.
While Facebook and Twitter continue to face intense public and congressional pressure over the activity from trolls working for the Russian Internet Research Agency, Tumblr has somehow managed to escape scrutiny. But the blogging platform was in fact home to a powerful, largely unrevealed network of Russian trolls focused on black issues and activism.
“The evidence we’ve collected shows a highly engaged and far-reaching Tumblr propaganda-op targeting mostly teenage and twenty-something African Americans. This appears to have been part of an ongoing campaign since early 2015,” said Albright, research director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University.
a “propaganda-op targeting mostly teenage and twenty-something African Americans”
“ongoing campaign since early 2015”
im gonna spell it out loud and clear for everyone: theyre attempting to say black lives matter is a russian psyop.
don’t let this happen.
actually they’re saying russians co-opted the black lives matter movement to further their agenda and that should piss you off rather than inspire you to spread misinformation
“russia supported black lives matter in the usa according to western media outlets servicing a neoconservative foreign policy”
Liberals and fauxgressives: “wtf i hate black people now”
They didn’t support Black Lives Matter, they mimicked it to further their own ends. And I’m pretty sure Buzzfeed isn’t servicing a neoconservative foreign policy agenda.
Russian Trolls Ran Wild On Tumblr And The Company Refuses To Say Anything About It
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