Russia wasn’t just attacking Clinton and helping Trump from the right. It also set up fake accounts that looked like they were attacking Clinton from the left. One on particular case, they created the Blacktivist accounts on Twitter and Facebook to sow discord among Democrats:
A social media campaign calling itself "Blacktivist" and linked to the Russian government used both Facebook and Twitter in an apparent attempt to amplify racial tensions during the U.S. presidential election, two sources with knowledge of the matter told CNN. The Twitter account has been handed over to Congress; the Facebook account is expected to be handed over in the coming days.
The Facebook account was one of the many Russia-related accounts turned over to Congress.
Russia attacked the US from many angles, working to get the American people angry at each other. And a number of their operations were coordinated, such as ads coordinating with tweets:
One of the Russian-bought Facebook ads that the social media network is handing over to Congress backed Green Party candidate Jill Stein. "Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein," the ad read. "The only way to take our country back is to stop voting for the corporations and banks that own us. #GrowaSpineVoteJillStein." The Stein ad was first reported by Politico.
A segment of that wording appeared verbatim on the @Blacktivists Twitter account on November 2, 2016. "Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein. Trust me, it's not a wasted vote," the account tweeted.
The accounts were still recently active.
This is something we have to be careful of. How many sources that sound like what we want to hear are actually being run by Russia? How do we figure it out? Well, in some cases we have to be grammar Nazis:
The Twitter account, @Blacktivists, provided several clues that in hindsight indicate it was not what it purported to be. In several tweets, it employed awkward phrasing that a native English speaker would be unlikely to use. It also consistently posted using an apostrophe facing the wrong way, i.e. "it`s" instead of "it's."
Yes, we’re still in a cold war with Russia. They have figured out how to infiltrate and to sow discord. We have to push back, take back control. And that will require us to be diligent, even with something that sounds like what we want to hear.