It\u2019s another charge in connection with a \u00ab\u00a0troll farm\u00a0\u00bb that posts social media propaganda.<\/b>
\nFederal prosecutors have criminally charged a Russian national with trying to interfere with the 2018 midterm elections, the Justice Department announced Friday.
Elena Khusyaynova of St. Petersburg was accused of working as the accountant for a Russian social media propaganda and \u201cinformation warfare\u201d operation, run by an oligarch close to Vladimir Putin. (Since she lives in Russia, she will likely never face this charge in a US court.)
This is the same Russian \u201ctroll farm\u201d that was the focus of charges filed by special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s office back in February, and accused of crimes related to interfering with the 2016 election.
But the DOJ says this interference is still continuing as the 2018 midterms approach \u2014 and gives new details of what the Russian trolls have been up to while Donald Trump has been president.
According to the government, the main goal of this \u201cconspiracy\u201d has been \u201cto sow division and discord in the US political system, including by creating social and political polarization, undermining faith in democratic institutions, and influencing US elections.\u201d
The operation, budgeted at $1 million or more per month, involved creating false online personas \u201cto inflame passions on a wide variety of topics, including immigration, gun control, and the Second Amendment, the Confederate flag, race relations, LGBT issues, the Women\u2019s March, and the NFL national anthem debate,\u201d the government said.
It\u2019s important to note that these personas were not all designed to support Trump or to spread conservative messages. Some of these personas were posing as progressives and liberals, and trying to inflame passions from the left, including by attacking Trump. So this does seem to be more about causing chaos than simply supporting Trump.
Once again, US investigators say they\u2019ve gotten internal communications from the Russian troll farm, laying out their strategic guidance about certain messages. Here is the guidance given to members of a Facebook group called \u201cSecured Borders\u201d in August 2017, in relation to various news articles mentioning the following political figures:
Other Facebook activity included posting conspiratorial or racist images like this one:
All of this might sound a whole lot like what Trump might like to hear. But that wasn\u2019t always the case. Note that the above was guidance for a group called \u201cSecured Borders\u201d \u2014 meant to reflect the personas of anti-immigration, pro-Trump conservatives. Other fake personas, though, pretended to be progressives or liberals, attacking Trump and praising Democratic candidates.
The charging document described how this activity would play out on Twitter. Phony liberal accounts \u2014 @wokeluisa, @KaniJJackson, @JemiSHaaaZzz \u2014 would attack Republicans, including Trump. Meanwhile, phony conservative accounts \u2014 @Amconvoice, @JohnCopper16, and @CovfefeNationUS (really) \u2014 would attack Democrats.
One \u201cliberal\u201d account, \u201c@wokeluisa\u201d went after Trump and his family in personal ways. (The account is now suspended, but you can see some of its tweets at the Wayback Machine).
Sometimes, there was even a call-and-response aspect \u2014 with a \u201cliberal\u201d account saying people should take to the streets if Mueller is fired, and a \u201cconservative\u201d account dismissing that same message as a \u201ctalking point\u201d from the DNC.
Amusingly, the Russian trolls even posted contrasting tweets about special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s indictment of their own operation back in February. A \u201cliberal\u201d account tweeted: \u201cStill think this Russia thing is a hoax and a witch hunt? Because a lot of witches just got indicted.\u201d
Then a \u201cconservative\u201d account tweeted that \u201cthose Internet Research Agency f*ckers\u201d should be \u201csent to gitmo.\u201d And added: \u201cWe didn\u2019t vote for Trump because of a couple of hashtags shilled by the Russians. We voted for Trump because he convinced us to vote for Trump.\u201d
And to be honest, this is somewhat convincing. \u201cInformation warfare\u201d sounds frightening, but sometimes trolls are just that: trolls.<\/p>\n

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