With most Americans consumed with the Trump-led "take a knee" nonsense in the NFL, and other drama-filled stories surrounding immigration, DACA, and the "Rocket Man" in North Korea, other stories that cut to the heart of America's deteriorating democratic experiment need to be kept on the front burner. Let's start with this ...
Not many know this but, by law, foreign nationals are prohibited from spending money to influence U.S. elections. With Donald Trump's razor thin margin of victories reaching 22,000 in Wisconsin, 10,700 in Michigan, and 47,750 in Pennsylvania, the story below is just one of several reasons why Americans of all political stripes should continue to follow the Russia-Trump investigation.
The Washington Post is reporting that Facebook sold ads to a Russian firm during the 2016 presidential election, specifically targeting U.S. voters. U.S. officials have traced these ads to a Kremlin-affiliated "troll farm," the International Research Agency (IRA). Operatives from the Russian-linked IRA then set up misleading and social media pages specifically designed to identify voters susceptible to propaganda.
The IRA ad purchasing process works much in the same way that advertising companies learn about your spending habits and personal likes, and then target you with ads and information on everything from jackets to shoes. The big difference here is that susceptible U.S. voters in 2016 didn't have a clue where the ads were coming from, or for what purpose.
By using the Facebook tool "Custom Audiences" IRA operators were able to send "susceptible" voters specific messages, with the goal of influencing their political behavior. For maximum effect, these ads touched on politically divisive and emotionally charged issues like gun rights, race and immigration (among others).
On September 28 Twitter told congressional investigators it had also been similarly targeted. Twitter also recently announced that it has shut down 201 accounts tied to the same troll farm.
Watch how the story unfolds here ...
While Facebook did not originally release their Russian ad information, in part because of "privacy concerns," on Oct. 2 they finally released copies of 3,000 ads bought by "Russian accounts."
As the story continues to unwind, you can bet that allegations of collusion between team Trump and the Russians will become even more politically charged. It's also helps explain why Trump is on his "fake news" March of Ridicule. What better way to cast doubt on the real story than to discredit the messenger(s) before they can tell the truth.
Stay tuned.
- Mark
FYI: The Horsey "Facespook" cartoon was added after the original post.
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