Let’s talk influence campaigns. You should read this no matter what side of the aisle you’re on. I think people are still misunderstanding the concept of influence campaigns, particularly when it comes to Russia. Let’s look at an example from ten years ago that I think didn’t get near enough attention. In September of 2014, Russian trolls from the Internet Research Agency (IRA), started a Facebook group called “The Heart of Texas” This group promulgated all kinds of bullshit, including secession/TEXIT, Dems are coming for your guns, etc. They also created “The United Muslims of America” This group also promoted of crazy rhetoric, including sharia law in America (which has always been a weird political hot-button issue for the right even though it’s literally not a thing). In 2016–after growing in popularity, partially due to a massive Russian botnet—these groups orchestrated competing rallies and counter-rallies across the street from one another in Houston. They were trying to stoke the flames of cultural violence, and it almost worked. These groups accumulated millions of likes, hundreds of thousands of comments, and influenced thousands of people from a building in Moscow. None of this was organic, and it almost completely devolved into violence anyway. This is only one example. This same story has played out over multiple states, and multiple flashpoints. These efforts have accelerated since 2016, and Russia (and to be fair, China, Iran, etc.) has only gotten better at obfuscation. If you see something online that feels like it’s meant to piss you off, that’s probably because it’s meant to piss you off. While they may have a political preference, the overarching goal of most foreign intelligence agencies is to sow division in the United States. If Russia can make us doubt the process, question the facts, or lose faith in our system(s), it doesn’t matter *who* wins, because they’ve stacked the deck so *they* (Russia) won’t lose. It would be great if Americans could stop helping them with these goals, wittingly or unwittingly.
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