By Georgia Wells and Deepa Seetharaman
Two accounts that Facebook Inc. said appear to have ties to
Russian operatives amassed more than half a million followers in
the past couple of years with posts, ads and events that stoked
strong emotions over issues including race and immigration.
Most followers never suspected that people with possible Russian
ties were behind the accounts -- except for a few users who
interacted in real life with the people running the sites.
Some users said the content from these accounts seemed like
something their peers would share. "Blacktivist," an account that
supported causes in the black community and used hashtags such as
#BlackLivesMatter, frequently posted videos of police allegedly
shooting unarmed black men. "Secured Borders" often railed against
illegal immigration, publishing material such as a photoshopped
image of a woman holding a sign that said "Give me more free
shit!"
Via several platforms -- Facebook and its Messenger and
Instagram services, as well as Twitter Inc. and YouTube, part of
Alphabet Inc.'s Google -- 470 Russia-backed Facebook accounts
including Blacktivist and Secured Borders quietly infiltrated
communities on social media. The issues they targeted spanned the
U.S. political and social spectrum, including religion, race,
immigration, gun rights and gay rights. Facebook said the accounts
were created by Russian entities to exploit tensions among
Americans and interfere with U.S. elections.
"We were clear that there was a possibility that
less-than-friendly actors would look for ways to align with the
movement," said Heber Brown III, a pastor and activist for racial
justice in Baltimore who first noticed the Blacktivist group on
Twitter in April 2016. "But I had no idea that it would reach all
the way to the Kremlin."
Russia has denied any interference in the election.
The experiences of Facebook users illustrate the apparent
sophistication of people who ran the accounts. The posts mimicked
the tone and topics of conversations in various communities well
enough that the accounts largely were believed to be authentic.
In late August, before it was taken down, Blacktivist had
411,000 followers, according to cached versions of the page,
surpassing the official "Black Lives Matter" Facebook account by
more than 100,000 users.
Facebook disclosed last month that the Internet Research Agency,
a Russian outfit that shares pro-Kremlin views online, created
accounts that bought $100,000 in ads over a two-year period, from
June 2015 to May 2017. At least some of them continued to post
divisive content as recently as August.
"Any time there's abuse on our system, foreign interference on
our system, we are upset," Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl
Sandberg said at an event on Thursday. "But what we really owe the
American people is determination. These are threats. These are
challenges, but we will do everything we can to defeat them because
our values are worth defending." Facebook has declined to say how
many users engaged with the Russian content overall.
The Journal interviewed about a dozen people who followed the
pages to illustrate how the accounts attracted so many users. Most
of the people the Journal interviewed said they don't believe the
content they absorbed sowed divisions or influenced their voting
choices. "No Russian ever called me and said, 'Who are you going to
vote for?'" said Wendy Harris, from Frisco, Texas, who said she
thinks she followed the "Secured Borders" page around the time of
the election. "I do my own research."
Facebook removed the 470 accounts last month for violating its
policy prohibiting accounts from misrepresenting their origin. But
because they weren't identified earlier, and because of an
algorithm that favors posts that trigger reactions regardless of
their authenticity, these groups were able to operate and amass a
following for the past two years or longer.
In interviews, Facebook users often said they couldn't remember
the first time they followed one of these pages. Facebook said the
entities used divisive ads to lure users to their pages, where the
accounts would then serve up unpaid content -- in the form of
posts, photos and videos -- more frequently. Soon the content
filled their newsfeeds, the users said.
One Facebook user in Charlotte, N.C., recalled coming across the
Blacktivist page in late 2014 after a friend shared a Blacktivist
post about the FBI's surveillance of black activists. Soon after,
the person, who declined to be named, shared a different
Blacktivist post that elicited a flood of likes and comments from
the person's friends, potentially drawing more people into
Blacktivist's network. "Whoever wrote that copy definitely had
their finger on the pulse," the person said.
Sometimes the Blacktivist page shared content that came from a
page with a more militant stance called "The Quiet Ri0t," which
published content including an image that said "Black revenge:
white people fear it...But so do most black people." That site is
no longer up and no contact information is listed.
Blacktivist also used Facebook Messenger, the messaging service
spinoff of Facebook, to reach people such as M'tep Merlotte, from
Washington, D.C., who received an invite from the group before the
election. Soon, she was receiving videos, including alleged police
brutality, with a comment about where they happened and what they
meant for black Americans.
The group posted nearly every day so Ms. Merlotte turned off
Messenger notifications. "It was irritating," she said.
Blacktivist began raising suspicion among some followers when
the account tried to organize real-life events. The account planned
several events last year in cities such as Chicago, Baltimore,
Houston and Atlanta, according to archived versions of
webpages.
A march planned for April 2016 in Baltimore to mark the
anniversary of the death of Freddie Gray, a black man who suffered
injuries and died while in the custody of the Baltimore Police
Department, spurred local activists to contact the Blacktivist
administrators about the difficulty of having a group from out of
town organize a sensitive event.
Cortly Witherspoon, a Baltimore-area activist who spoke to one
of the administrators by phone, said he was surprised to hear him
speak with an accent Mr. Witherspoon identified as possibly
European.
Around the same time, Rev. Brown, the Baltimore pastor, also
realized Blacktivist's administrators weren't from his area. He
messaged Blacktivist on Twitter and asked if Blacktivist was a
local organizer because none of his activist acquaintances had
heard of the group.
"Me personally -- no," the administrator for the Blacktivist
account replied, according to a screenshot of the exchange viewed
by The Wall Street Journal. "We are looking for friendship, because
we are fighting for the same reasons."
--Jim Oberman contributed to this article.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 13, 2017 14:32 ET (18:32 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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