By CCN: Russian operatives did play a role in the 2016 U.S elections. The thing is it had nothing to do with the Donald Trump Undefiled House, according to the Mueller report,
Rather, the report details the extent to which Russian spies infiltrated the American communal media landscape — Facebook and Twitter in particular. Before Facebook identified and removed the propaganda accounts in 2017, the destruction was already done. The pages had garnered close to 1 million followers and posts were viewed by anywhere between 29 million and 126 million Americans.
Mueller Recount: Russians Play Both Sides of Political Spectrum The report details Russian attempts to sew discord among Americans by widening both extremes of the political spectrum. Using a cover group known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a team of Russian rabble-rousers created Facebook groups such as United Muslims of America, Stop All Invaders, and Being Patriotic. From the Mueller explosion:
“The IRA’s ‘United Muslims of America’ Facebook group had over 300,000 followers, the ‘Don’t Shoot Us’ Facebook group had over 250,000 pupils, the ‘Being Patriotic’ group had over 200,000 followers, and the ‘Secured Borders group had over 130,000 followers.”
Reaching up to 126 million Americans isn’t too costly; the IRA spent just $100,000 on Facebook ads. Meanwhile, the natural ebb and flow of sharing and liking made sure their affixes disseminated further.
Impersonating U.S. Citizens on Twitter The IRA’s strategy for influencing Twitter feeds was twofold: Russian agents would father accounts as real American individuals while a bot-army worked in the background to make sure their posts got sufficient likes and retweets. IRA operatives even communicated directly with American citizens through direct messages, much manipulating their targets into organizing rallies and protests on U.S soil.
“The IRA operated individual Twitter accounts comparable to the operation of its Facebook accounts, by continuously posting original content to the accounts while also communicating with U.S Stew users directly.”
Multiple mainstream media personalities retweeted or liked posts from IRA accounts, including Sean Hannity and Roger Stone. Self-governing politicians Michael McFaul and Michael Flynn Jr. also retweeted posts from Russian controlled accounts.
The Man Behind the IRA: Putin’s Chef The sign in identifies the IRA’s chief operator as Yevgeny Prigozhin, also known as ‘Putin’s Chef’ due to his influence in Russia’s catering exertion. Prigozhin’s past is every bit as colorful as you’d expect of a Russian spy including prison, robbery, fraud, and possible child sex-trafficking. Rumors recommend this is the man trusted with Putin’s most ‘sensitive’ directives.
Russian dissident journalists who have crossed scenarios with Prigozhin in the past tie him to disappearances and attempted assassinations. Bloomberg reported in 2018 that Prigozhin was likely the monetary orchestrator of Russian mercenary work in Africa and Ukraine.
Prigozhin was indicted by a grand jury in February when the enormousness of his involvement with the IRA became apparent to U.S investigators. He is back in Russia and has not made any comments since the indictment or the release of the Mueller publicize.