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Michael Bennet MICHAEL BENNET HOW RUSSIA HACKED SOCIAL MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY First Edition © 2019 Michael Bennet. No part of Dividing America: How Russia Hacked Social Media and Democracy may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the author, which may be provided through Bennet for America, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in an article or review for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast. For information, please contact Bennet for America, PO Box 44494, Denver, CO 80202. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................1 THE RUSSIAN ATTACK ON U.S. DEMOCRACY .........................................4 TOOLS OF INFORMATION WARFARE ........................................................6 Paid Advertising ....................................................................................................7 Algorithmic Impact ...............................................................................................14 FICTITIOUS PERSONAS, PAGES, AND GROUPS ......................................19 Born Liberal ............................................................................................................20 Merican Fury ..........................................................................................................25 South United .........................................................................................................28 Black Matters ........................................................................................................32 Stop All Invaders ..................................................................................................36 United Muslims of America ...............................................................................40 UNDERMINING FAITH IN DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS .........................44 ELECTORAL INTERFERENCE ......................................................................52 President Barack Obama ....................................................................................53 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton .....................................................................57 Candidate and President Donald Trump ........................................................................................................66 HOW RUSSIA HACKED SOCIAL MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY I ISSUES ...........................................................................................................74 Race .........................................................................................................................75 Gender and Sexuality ...........................................................................................85 Safety .......................................................................................................................93 Immigration ............................................................................................................106 Religion ...................................................................................................................122 National Defense ...................................................................................................135 EXPLOITING REAL-WORLD EVENTS .........................................................146 INSTIGATING PROTESTS .............................................................................154 DISCREDITING LEGITIMATE MEDIA ...........................................................160 CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................168 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...............................................................................170 II DIVIDING AMERICA INTRODUCTION DIVIDING AMERICA: How Russia Hacked Social Media and Democracy is a primer on Russia’s use of social media to interfere with American politics before, during, and after the 2016 United States presidential election. It contains more than one hundred images of Russian propaganda that were gathered from publicly available sources. I offer them to you for the assistance they may provide in understanding and explaining how Russia prosecuted its secret misinformation campaign against America, and as a warning of things to come. DIVIDING AMERICA offers an opportunity to examine the extent of Russia’s interference in American elections, just in time for the 2020 presidential election. In January 2017, the United States intelligence community concluded that: “Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process … [and] to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.” 1 The Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation each concluded that Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin directly ordered this attack on American democracy. According to the Mueller report, the Russians: “… conducted social media operations targeted at large U.S. audiences with the goal of sowing discord in the U.S. political system. These operations constituted active measures… a term that typically refers to operations conducted by Russian security services aimed at influencing the course of international affairs.” 2 While their ads and posts typically supported extreme right-wing causes and Donald Trump—first as a candidate and then as President — Russia’s mission was not to support specific policy objectives or outcomes. Its purpose was and is to divide Americans. 1 “Intelligence Community Assessment: Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attribution.” ICA 2017-01D. Office of the Director of National Intelligence. 6 January 2017. Page ii. 2 Mueller, Robert S., III. “Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election, Volume I.” Washington, D. C. March 2019. Page 14. HOW RUSSIA HACKED SOCIAL MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY 1 They seek to fracture our country along every possible line—race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, country of birth, cultural mores, and political belief. Russia’s tactics are well understood and have been described in greater detail in the Mueller report and elsewhere. The Russians had their agents pretend to be on all sides of many of our most contentious issues. They study us, becoming experts in mimicking online behavior. They use common, if at times stilted, vernacular and well-known representations of popular culture to portray themselves as real Americans in the online communities that they infiltrate. They then use outrage and fear to provoke and polarize, ridicule, and dehumanize. They push their audiences to take ever-more extreme positions and treat those who disagree with contempt and disdain, unworthy of consideration or reconciliation. Nations have used agent provocateurs to sow discontent and instability among their enemies for centuries. The Russians have now used the Internet to take the tactic to scale. When I first reviewed the evidence documenting this extended attack on America, two questions immediately came to mind: What does it say about us when propaganda from a hostile nation is indistinguishable from the imagery and vocabulary of a significant portion of our current political discourse? And what does it say about our country that a foreign adversary would see our diversity as a weakness they could exploit to threaten our national security? My years in the United States Senate have coincided with the rise of social media in every aspect of our lives, including our politics. I have often worried that the anonymity of a social media comment section affords us the lazy convenience of indulging our emotional reactions. Isolation and distance make it too easy to diminish one another. By contrast, during face-to-face interactions, we are obliged by proximity to regard our shared citizenship and humanity. The Russians understand that we have not yet figured out how to use social media productively to democratize our republic and strengthen our governing institutions. They exploited this weakness, amplifying and weaponizing some of the most corrosive elements of online behavior. We may never eliminate our worst tendencies, but we can find ways to mitigate against them. Our democracy—and democracies everywhere—still need to find ways to bring the democratic virtues of a terrestrial town hall to the internet. Doing so would be a worthy and important project for someone in America (probably someone under the age of 25) to undertake. 2 DIVIDING AMERICA The underlying challenge we are facing—and the vulnerability the Russians are trying to exploit—has and will always be with us. The goal of solving this problem was a central project of our country’s Founders, one that they enshrined in the traditional motto of the United States: “E pluribus unum.” How do we make one out of many? How do we weave together a single nation from seemingly countless factions? Their solution—pluralism—has been at the heart of America’s exercise in republican government. Our Founders understood that we would always have disagreements, and had seen where their suppression by a tyrant ultimately led. They created a system in which the process of finding resolutions made our differences a strength, not a
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