After Russian trolls target black Americans, one city fights back
As he marched in protest through Charlotte shortly before the 2016 presidential election, Theodore Smith could not shake a strange suspicion that a foreign force was stalking his city.
What had begun as a heartfelt popular response to the police shooting of a local black man was taking on an unfamiliar hateful edge that felt inauthentic. On the internet, he saw protest campaigns that seemed to be no more than mash-ups of images designed simply to stir instinctive emotions.
“I wasn’t the only one thinking, ‘This doesn’t seem like our community,’” says Mr. Smith, a dreadlocked warehouse worker who recalls seeing pages such as “Black Matters US” popping up on his phone screen. “It felt purposefully manipulated.”
Turns out, he was right.
About two-thirds of Russian activity on Facebook and other social media platforms seeking to influence the 2016 election was aimed at black Americans, according to a new Senate Intelligence Committee report. And at least one of the Moscow-linked trolls was focusing on Charlotte.
The internet campaign appeared designed to convince African Americans, who traditionally favor Democrat candidates, that it was not worth voting – at least not for Hillary Clinton. It was built on false messages such
“At the direction of the Kremlin”Soviet legacy“I can remember it to this day”During the next election