2016 Social Media Campaign

How was social media used to influence the 2016 election?

The number one Russian goal was to create DIVISION.  They did this by promoting competing candidates from different parties simultaneouslly through ads on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, and more.  They promoted 2 candidates to detract from Hilary Clinton voters, Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein.  They have used YouTube to spread conspiracy theories and disinformation and “Swallowing the Red Pill” has become a cultural meme for losing one’s loved one to the algorithms. Propaganda promotes a candidate, like “America First”, while they committing treason and purposefully ruining the country and lives of common people.

The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012-2018 by the Computational Propaganda Research Project at the University of Oxford


The 9 Russian Words That Explain KremlinGate  It’s International Talk Like a Chekist Day—here’s a quick primer on kombinatsiya, konspiratsiya and more By  March 28, 2017

“ProvokatsiyaProvocation is complicated, but at its most basic involves secret acts to confuse and dismay your enemy. The recent antics of Devin Nunes, chair of the House Intelligence Committee—positing conflicting and unsubstantiated allegations of malfeasance by our spy agencies—are a classic provocation designed to divert attention from the White House as its Russia crisis mounts. Provokatsiya gets more complicated and nefarious from there, with the ultimate aim of turning the tables on your enemy and defeating him detail—before he realizes what’s happened.

Konspiratsiya (yes, conspiracy), the Russian term for what we call espionage tradecraft. This is the clandestine nuts and bolts of recruiting and running agents, placing targets under surveillance, running covert action and whatnot.

Kompromat (compromising material), which is used to coercively recruit people to spy for Russia—and to keep already recruited agents in line.

Dezinformatsiya (disinformation) is another Russian term once known only to espionage mavens but which, thanks to the events of 2016, now falls off the tongue of average citizens. Deza, as it’s called for short, is the original “fake news,” an alluring amalgam of fact and fantasy—much of it unverifiable—designed to confuse readers and shift political discussions. It was part of the KGB’s Cold War arsenal, when Chekists faked documents and disseminated lies through trusted Western journalists, in order to embarrass the West, especially NATO and the United States. Some of these vintage disinformation fables are still with us, despite being debunked decades ago.

Aktivniyye Meropriyatiya (Active Measures), which is a vital Chekist concept lacking a precise Western equivalent. It roughly aligns with our notion of political warfare, albeit with a highly clandestine side. The bureaucratically bland-sounding KGB definition of Active Measures covers a broad brush of nefarious spy-games.

Pushing disinformation is perhaps too easy these days, and now the FBI is investigating the Kremlin-to-far-right-websites deza loop which has become commonplace in America.”


World War Meme: How a group of anonymous keyboard commandos conquered the internet for Donald Trump—and plans to deliver Europe to the far right.

Over 100 Macedonian fake news sites have been fueling the Right.

Vanity Fair compares Putin’s propaganda playbook to Trump’s

Mercers Fund Cambridge Analytica on Cruz Campaign: Ted Cruz using firm that harvested data on millions of unwitting Facebook users The Guardian

Trump Campaign 2016


“The most important bits. Linking Andrew Breitbart to an army of trolls. Who connect to the Anthony Weiner takedown-the first one. pic.twitter.com/9SabEwBEZP — K. Louise Neufeld #HuntressDianaOfTercel🦉⚖️🇺🇸 (@ninaandtito) December 5, 2017


 

Jill Stein 

 

Bernie Sanders

“On another thread I told a bit of a story of how instantly radicalized the pro-Bernie Sanders facebook pages went as the general election 2016 drew close. Much of that content has been wiped either by FB taking down IRA pages or the pages themselves wiping. Many pages are gone. I did find a page that still looks a lot like I remember. It started out as “local” with pro Sanders messaging and then went dark. I remember hearing stories of admins being bought out or frozen out back then. That may be true, or it may be that these were not organic at start. This page started as “Boulder for Bernie” and ended as “Bernie for President 2016”. Its first substantive photo post was this from May 1, 2015. It got 3 likes. pic.twitter.com/ppxzAfAE27 — Dirk Schwenk (@DirkSchwenk) December 18, 2018

There were many posts that resonate with people like me – pro science – this was a repost in May 2015 from the Maryland for Bernie Sanders (which has largely been scrubbed). pic.twitter.com/uESNj5oCfl — Dirk Schwenk (@DirkSchwenk) December 18, 2018

There were lots of posts which resonated with me on economic issues and democratic fairness issues. pic.twitter.com/01IY0KTBh0 — Dirk Schwenk (@DirkSchwenk) December 18, 2018

There was also pretty dark messaging on the anti-HRC point that resonated with me – the question of whether HRC would be willing to challenge the economic elite. pic.twitter.com/MRIKxUfOLr — Dirk Schwenk (@DirkSchwenk) December 18, 2018

I don’t remember this kind of thing, but its up in November 2015 and elicited two responses saying “take it down” and “this is not warranted” so I gather it was not yet usual. pic.twitter.com/umHZzXYA4T — Dirk Schwenk (@DirkSchwenk) December 18, 2018

This December 2016, so I guess at this point I should mea culpa and say the signs were there for me to see and I was tuning them out. pic.twitter.com/PsBPOepXQK — Dirk Schwenk (@DirkSchwenk) December 18, 2018

While there was lots of nasty woman trolling (as above) there was also lots of support for Elizabeth Warren until the page changed. That change was June 30, 2016 and this was the second post was the first of the new regime. pic.twitter.com/qY2nKglGtt — Dirk Schwenk (@DirkSchwenk) December 18, 2018

By July 2, 2016 it was close to full MAGA. These are July 2 -6. HRC wrapped up the nomination June 6 and Sanders endorsed her on July 26. pic.twitter.com/ivdYvUv2Ka — Dirk Schwenk (@DirkSchwenk) December 18, 2018

The page also moves further into purely RU active measures themes. pic.twitter.com/K9It8uwh11 — Dirk Schwenk (@DirkSchwenk) December 18, 2018

There’s plenty of anti-government/anti police stuff in here. pic.twitter.com/wxoTSSHCTM — Dirk Schwenk (@DirkSchwenk) December 18, 2018

Post election — yikes pic.twitter.com/D6kAdD5n6L — Dirk Schwenk (@DirkSchwenk) December 18, 2018

I can’t take much more of this shit. March 2017 they start the attack on the russia investigation. Right around the time @patribotics is getting warmed up. pic.twitter.com/G7BKTkRLJy — Dirk Schwenk (@DirkSchwenk) December 18, 2018


There’s plenty more if you have the stomach. Timeline photos in the Bernie Sanders for President 2016 FB page. Typical of RU Active Measures its not all of a consistent theme. There’s anti trump stuff too. And “rocketman” type current events. The timeline *mostly* supports my recall – that there was a dramatic shift in tone of Sanders pages around time that HRC secured win. There were indicators before that I chose to ignore – I wasn’t a fan of either HRC or Wasserman at the time. But it went full MAGA when I left. I should note that this is an “unofficial” page, as many were. I doubt (prove me wrong though) that you would find this stuff on official pages.

I also note that you can still find up Muslims for Bernie Sanders which was specifically mentioned in the new report as well as “Storm is Coming” which was a left leaning page looks like it turned RU Active Measures. They have practically the same memes, including pic.twitter.com/8y7wvqHYy0 — Dirk Schwenk (@DirkSchwenk) December 18, 2018