Two new reports on Russia’s widespread online influence campaign detail how online Russian propagandists aggressively used social media to target African Americans with laser-like precision during the 2016 US election campaign to suppress votes for Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump win.
The US Senate commissioned both studies to better understand Russia’s interference operations during the presidential vote. Two separate reports on the operation were prepared for senators. The reports provide some of the most detailed views yet of the purported influence campaign by Russia’s St. Petersburg-based troll factory known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA).
“The most prolific IRA efforts on Facebook and Instagram specifically targeted black American communities and appear to have been focused on developing black audiences and recruiting black Americans as assets,” the report says.
According to the report, Russians set up 30 Facebook pages targeting black Americans, the researchers found, and 10 YouTube channels that posted 571 videos related to police violence against African-Americans.
“This newly released data demonstrates how aggressively Russia sought to divide Americans by race, religion and ideology, and how the IRA actively worked to erode trust in our democratic institutions,” said Senate Committee on Intelligence chairman Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C.
“These attacks against our country were much more comprehensive, calculating and widespread than previously revealed. This should stand as a wakeup call to us all that none of us are immune from this threat, and it is time to get serious in addressing this challenge,” said Committee vice chair Sen. Mark Warner, D.-Va.
