Russian players in the US election campaign in 2016 and afterwards apparently committed far more to today’s US President Donald Trump than previously known. So it says in a report for the US Senate on Russian interference, which is to appear this week, and whose design template of the „Washington Post“ exists.
The report explains exactly how the employees of a Russian company proceeded: Firstly, interest profiles were made by Americans on various social media channels and these were deliberately used with propaganda for the presidential candidate Trump, writes the Washington Post.
The propaganda work was carried out by Russians, which they carried out on behalf of the Internet Research Agency based in Saint Petersburg . The US Department of Justice had filed charges against several employees of the company for criminal election interference in February.
For this, millions of social media posts from several years to mid-2017, which the companies Facebook , Twitter and Google made available to the authors of the study, were examined. The paper was produced by the Computational Propaganda Project of the University of Oxford and the network analysis firm Graphika.
Social Media: „tools of social control“
„It is clear that all embassies clearly aimed at benefiting the Republican Party – especially Donald Trump,“ the newspaper quoted from the unpublished report. „Trump is best-known in campaigns aimed at right-wing conservatives and voters who are called upon to support his (Trump’s) campaign, and the main groups that could challenge Trump were provided with messages aimed at them to distract, distract and ultimately discourage them from voting. “
According to the Washington Post, the report finds that conservative Americans were primarily sent content on the irritant issues of immigration and gun laws. On the other hand, left-leaning US citizens were given material that was intended to undermine their confidence in the electoral system and misinformation about how to vote.
Donald Trump narrowly won the US presidential election in 2016 against Democrat Hillary Clinton . Crucial was Trump’s success in a few – crucial for the distribution of electoral votes – US states. Trump managed the win with the worst total vote (46 percent) since the early nineties. At that time, the Democrat Bill Clinton had made the race with only 43 percent.
New to the „Washington Post“ article is also that YouTube and Instagram have been heavily affected by the Russian campaign, as were Google+, Tumblr and Pinterest, which has received little attention so far.
According to the newspaper, the report also contains a firm warning against social media platforms: „These platforms have become a ‚computer-aided tool of social control,“ according to a „tool that expresses collective discontent and coordinates civic engagement.“ the authors .. The tools would be „manipulated by politicians, both in democracies and in dictatorships“.
