His name was “Jermaine,” and based on his Twitter profile picture, he was a young black American male.
In early November of 2015, Jermaine was angry and outraged about racial tensions on the campus of the University of Missouri, and also fearful of the violence being perpetrated there.
“The cops are marching with the KKK!” he claimed on Twitter. “They beat up my little brother! Watch out!” Attached to the tweet was a picture of a black child with a severely bruised face.
Jermaine’s warning went viral and was quickly retweeted hundreds of times. The student body president sent out a statement in response, warning students that “KKK members were confirmed on campus.” Media outlets quickly reported the claim of KKK involvement, further inflaming an already tense racial situation.
Yet Jermaine did not exist, the photo of his beaten little brother had been stolen off the Internet from an unrelated case, and KKK members were not rampaging on campus. It was all a fraud. As outlined in an article by Lt. Col. Jarred Prier, published in the December “Strategic Studies Quarterly,” Jermaine was a Russian operative.
A few months later, the Twitter account used by Jermaine -- @FanFan1911 -- transformed itself. Jermaine vanished, and the profile picture of a young black man was replaced by a German iron cross. Suddenly, Prier reports, the account began to tweet in German, this time trying to stir up outrage against Syrian refugees and spreading messages that were ”anti-Islamic, anti–European Union, and anti-German Chancellor Angela Merkel.”
In early 2016, the account was retargeted yet again, “this time to ‘Deplorable Lucy’—and the profile picture became a white, middle-aged female with a Trump logo at the bottom of the picture.”
Like other Russia-based accounts, “Deplorable Lucy” gradually began to ingratiate itself into the right-wing Twitter network, “developing a symbiotic relationship with American right-wing news organizations like Breitbart and its followers on social media—a group of true believers in the Russian propaganda narrative.”
Through his investigation, Prier established eight primary themes to that Russian propaganda narrative, attempting to undercut faith in American democracy and institutions:
- "Anything discrediting to Hillary Clinton;"
- "News media hides information;"
- "Politicians are rigging the system;"
- "Global elite trying to destroy the world;"
- "Globalism is taking jobs and destroying cultures;"
- "Refugees are terrorists;"
- "Russian foreign policy is strong on antiterrorism;"
- "Democrats and some Republicans want WWIII with Russia."
By Prier's account, somewhere between 16,000 and 36,000 Russian bots insinuated themselves into the pro-Trump, alt-right Twitter universe during the 2016 campaign to push those narratives. As one indication of the power of that network, he writes that after the first Trump-Clinton debate, "the #TrumpWon hashtag quickly became the number one trend globally. Using the TrendMap application, one quickly noticed that the worldwide hashtag seemed to originate in St. Petersburg, Russia."
Prier is a career officer in the U.S. Air Force; the article in Strategic Studies Quarterly originated as his masters thesis in international relations. Strategic Studies Quarterly is the Air Force’s peer-reviewed academic journal in national-security studies.
So Prier is not, as President Trump might try to describe him, a Democrat advocating a hoax to explain away the party’s 2016 presidential campaign loss. He is not a member of some “secret society” in the FBI out to get Trump. Nor are the six top-ranking intelligence chiefs -- all Trump appointees -- who testified to Congress this week about the concerted effort by Russia to interfere in our 2016 elections and the certainty that it will do so again in the upcoming mid-terms.
Under tough questioning, all six intel chiefs also acknowledged reluctantly that Trump has paid the issue no attention, and that we still lack a central, comprehensive strategy for how to counter such efforts.
Prier echoes that assessment, writing that “thus far, the United States response has been relatively weak.” We haven’t paid it enough attention, and “unfortunately, countering Russian influence operations has taken a partisan slant” that has so far blocked concerted action. His most pressing recommendation?
“Most importantly, politicians must commit to not using (Russian) active measures to their benefit.”
He concludes:
“As technology improves, techniques are refined, and internet connectivity continues to proliferate around the world, this saying will ring true: He who controls the trend will control the narrative— and, ultimately, the narrative controls the will of the people.”
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