- Welcome back to the show.
By now, most Washington officials
acknowledge that Russian hackers used social media to interfere
with the 2016 election.
Well, except the Washington official who won it.
But last week gave us a new perspective
into just how massive the operation was and is.
REPORTER 1: Facebook now admitting 150 million Americans
may have been exposed to Russian posts.
REPORTER 2: An operation innocuously
named "The Internet Research Agency" uploaded 1,100 videos
to YouTube and published more than 131,000
divisive messages on Twitter.
Granted, a lot of those videos were just
Putin's annoying vlog posts.
But still, (RUSSIAN ACCENT) next week, I
teach you how to contour face and poison journalists.
Now I know it's hard to imagine anything these days not somehow
being about Donald Trump.
But Russia's disinformation campaign wasn't
just about the 2016 election.
The Kremlin didn't care if Americans were
fighting for Hillary or Donald.
They just cared that we were fighting.
And it turns out whether we're Democrats
or Republicans, we're as easily manipulated
as Vlad's signature slime.
The shadowy Russian troll farm used a number of fake accounts
to promote issues that would basically
push our buttons as Americans.
It exploited differing opinions over immigration, refugees, gun
rights, the LGBTQ community.
A social media campaign calling itself "Blacktivist"
and linked to the Russian government
used both Facebook and Twitter.
The bogus Facebook account had 360,000 likes.
That's more than the verified Black
Lives Matter Facebook page.
Of course, when white people appropriated Black Lives Matter
it got more likes.
It's Miley Cyrus all over again.
They even use these fake Black Lives Matter accounts
to trick activists into organizing and attending
real life protests.
And sometimes, they arranged the counter-protests too.
A rally is set for later today in front of a Houston mosque.
A group called Heart of Texas is scheduled
to protest outside the Islamic Dawah Center.
REPORTER 1: The counter-protest was organized
to oppose a group against Islam who
called for an armed demonstration at the location.
What neither side could have known
is that Russia trolls were encouraging both sides
to battle in the streets and create division
between real Americans.
(CHANTING) Muslim people are welcome here.
White power!
Its like when Tiffany told Stephanie
that Bethany called her fat.
And then Tiffany told Bethany that Stephanie called her fat.
And then NATO dissolved.
So how do trolls blow up an unhinged message board
post into a front page story?
I will tell you.
The life cycle of a Russian troll op
is complex and putrid like if a flower
grew out of a stiff nightstand's sweat sock.
Starts with a seed of controversy.
Trolls begin by targeting something
Americans already hate.
Mostly Americans hate other Americans.
Trolls post about it.
Bots amplify it till they get lots of real people
to start arguing online.
And we argue and argue and argue.
And that amplification of pain is called trending.
Then Russian media reports on the rumors Russians created.
And they creep through the media cesspool
till they get on real news.
Americans see the rumor they were posting about on the news,
which makes it true. Well, trueish.
It feels true.
And that is what matters.
And this works because they are exploiting divisions that
already exist in our society.
The Russians wouldn't have succeeded
if they were trying to convince us
all to turn on American cheese.
On this we are united.
You will never convince us to give
up our orange sandwich vinyl.
But turn on each other?
No problem.
And as is true of literally everything, most of this
could have been avoided if we listened to women.
In 2014, black women began marking accounts they thought
were bots posing as black users with the hashtag
YourSlipIsShowing.
And it turned out they had correctly identified
a Russian propaganda operation that it took researchers
three more years to figure out.
Oh my god!
[APPLAUSE]
Black women can see the future.
Is that what black-girl magic is?
I asked Ashley to explain what's going to happen in 2020,
and she just said burning.
Oh, I hope that's cool slang.
So what does Putin get out of pressing
the self-destruct button on America?
The Kremlin can crumble democracies
from the inside out, achieving two key milestones--
one, the dissolution of the European Union,
and two, the breakup of NATO.
How dare Russia destroy America over two things
Americans don't give a shit about?
This better not have anything to do
with soccer or the metric system, you sick bastards.
[LAUGHTER]
So what does this all mean?
We don't yet know exactly how much
impact Russian internet trolls and bots
had on the 2016 election.
And I bet we'll still have questions
by the time national Vladimir Putin Day 2027 rolls around.
Don't knock it.
The mattress sales are going to be fantasti chiski.
Getting tricked into attending a pro-human-rights protest
isn't the worst thing that can happen to you.
The worst thing that can happen to you
is saying goodbye to someone and then realize that they're
walking the same way.
But remember, while the real Black Lives Matter was meeting
with candidates in an attempt to work for change,
a fake BLM account with more followers
was telling people to give up and do the most useless
thing any American can do--
vote for Jill Stein.
We'll be right back.
[THEME - "FULL FRONTAL"]