'Our pain for their gain': the American activists manipulated by Russian trolls

It’s painful for Tawanda Jones to talk about her brother. But when she’s offered a chance to speak publicly about how he died in Baltimore police custody, she pushes through her grief to condemn police brutality.

So Jones was grateful to take part in an emotional protest in April last year and meet other families who had lost loved ones to police violence, a reminder that she was not alone: “There’s power in numbers. There’s power in their stories.”

Then she learned this month that some of the organizers behind the event had had a very different agenda.

“Blacktivist” – a social media account coordinating and promoting the march online – was not run by black American activists, but instead, it is now believed, was operated by an agent of Russia attempting