Russia’s IRA used phony news accounts on Facebook to discuss QAnon, coronavirus

Russia’s troll farm again is trying to use Facebook to inflame divisions in the U.S. ahead of a presidential election. Facebook on Tuesday said it removed 13 accounts and two pages, which had 14,000 followers, affiliated with the Internet Research Agency, a Russian organization with a long history of using fake social media accounts to exploit political tension. The accounts impersonated independent news outlets to create discussions about the coronavirus pandemic, Joe Biden’s political candidacy and the right-wing conspiracy QAnon, among other topics. In some cases, IRA members posed as news editors to recruit freelance journalists to post content about contentious political topics. The IRA used an apparent news site called Peace Data, which published anti-Western articles with headlines like “UK Government Creates a Myth of a Migrant Crisis to Distract from Its Failures” and “The gold behind the French presence in Mali.” The Peace Data Facebook page is no […]

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