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Anything is better than talking about separated families, traumatized children or trade wars, secret meetings with Putin, rampant corruption and incompetence, both for Trump and his Russian backers.
And so it begins.
Right on the heels of Republican senators meeting in Moscow, and Trumps private meeting with Putin. I'm sure it is a coincidence that both of these happen right in the run-up to the midterms, and indications Russia continues its disinformation operations to affect the election.
As pundits, politicians, and other Very Serious People spent last weekend admonishing “the left” for not being civil enough in their approach to pushing back against the Trump administration’s cruel policy of forcibly separating immigrant children from their parents, a peculiar and carefully crafted narrative began to take shape on social media. A closer look at this emerging narrative—a self-described “grassroots movement” of former Democrats fleeing the party—revealed an astroturfed campaign driven by pro-Trump Twitter users and amplified by automated and Russian-linked accounts.
The surge of tweets started on Saturday, June 23, when news broke that White House press secretary Sarah Sanders had been quietly asked to leave a restaurant in Lexington, VA, the night before. The social media campaign really took off the next day, after Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said in a speech that administration officials who support Trump’s policies should expect to face pushback when they go out in public.
Most of the tweets were strikingly similar, and the vast majority pushed a very familiar narrative. Using the hashtag #WalkAway and claiming to be former Democrats, social media users shared their stories of leaving the Democratic party after being turned off by the “hate” and “division” of “the left.” Many of them cited the incidents involving Sanders and Waters as examples of the “intolerance” and “bullying” that supposedly drove them to support Trump after years—in some cases, decades—of voting for Democrats.
https://arcdigital.media/pro-trump-r...t-20359c1906d3
Anything is better than talking about separated families, traumatized children or trade wars, secret meetings with Putin, rampant corruption and incompetence, both for Trump and his Russian backers.
Bots, Trolls, and Russian-Linked Accounts
Over the next several days, the hashtag was been picked up and amplified by Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence operations, as evidenced by its prominent position on Securing Democracy’s Hamilton 68 dashboard, which tracks activity in a network of 600 such accounts. These accounts include human users, bots, “trolls,” cyborgs (accounts that are automated some of the time and human-controlled at other times), and media accounts for propaganda outlets like RT and Sputnik.
People troll on Twitter? Shocking!
Across time, conspiracy theory-related hashtags—including #QAnon, #QArmy, #Q, #TheGreatAwakening, and #DeepState—all featured prominently in #WalkAway hashtag clouds. Pro-Trump hashtags, like #MAGA and #Trump, were also among the most consistent and common themes—another giveaway that this movement of self-declared “former Democrats” was actually a creation of Trump supporters posing as ex-Democratic voters.
Amplified and messaged by Russian propaganda outlets, and Russian-linked automated software bots.Early in the morning on June 25, #WalkAway appeared as a trending hashtag on Hamilton 68. Trending hashtags are measured by the percent increase in usage by accounts in the network, and are indicative of a new and rising trend. Later that morning, #WalkAway jumped into the top 10 hashtags overall, as measured by the number of times it was used in the past 48 hours by the accounts monitored by Hamilton 68. Over the next several days, #WalkAway climbed from the 7th most popular hashtag among accounts linked to Russian influence operations (on June 25) to the #1 hashtag (on June 30), where it has remained through the time of this writing (the early morning hours of July 5).
About the only thing this proves is how ready Russia is to help, and how easily people like you are manipulated.While the “WalkAway Movement” isn’t likely to convince—not to mention convert—many people, it offers important insight for those interested in understanding psychological operations aimed at manipulating and influencing social media users. This includes people who are interested in developing better defenses against manipulation, as well as those who want to develop more effective methods of manipulation.
Perhaps the most important observation is how quickly Russian propaganda outlets and Russian-linked social media accounts took notice of the campaign and started promoting it. While not exactly surprising, this tells us that Russia is still actively monitoring U.S. social media and looking for opportunities to amplify narratives that are aligned with the Kremlin’s goals.
Similarly, the “WalkAway Campaign” also shows that Russian interests are still very closely aligned with far-right U.S. media outlets and pro-Trump social media users, indicating that we will likely see continued cooperation (witting or unwitting) in the future. This is also a reflection of Trump’s failure to condemn Russia’s interference in our elections and society, which appears to have given his supporters the impression that it’s not something to be taken seriously.
Good object lesson though. Going to point my kids to it. The article dissects this rather well, with timelines, data, and methodology.
lmao russia is shaping our thoughts by social media! too funny.
This message is hidden because koriwhat is on your ignore list.
Sweet bliss.
funny how random thinks he has to post that over and over again... no one cares boy.
You are easily manipulated by linguistics and things like hashtags. Just post the entire article so you don't have to spam your rhetoric piece-meal.
"Hey everyone - I'm totally ignoring this guy!"
right? some people are just weak minded and i guess random is one of those people."Hey everyone - I'm totally ignoring this guy!"
I don't really do the twitter thing. Kind of hard to be manipulated by a media that you don't use.
The sum of the article was that Russian influence ops magnified an original campaign, and a lot of Trump supporters essentially faked being ex-Democrats to further pump it up.
There are ex-liberals, just like there are ex-conservatives. Nothing new, other than this being linked to Russian attempts to support Trump ahead of the mid-terms.
BOTS EVERYWHERE!!!
TROLL FARMS!!!
this social media manipulation hoax is hilarious.
In this case, yes.
Harder to dismiss for you are the Russia Times and Sputnik pieces that directly tie into the social media operations.
This is right in front of you.
Sokay. I can pull the curtain aside, but I can't make you look at the man behind it. That takes work on your part.
Over the next several days, the hashtag was been picked up and amplified by Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence operations, as evidenced by its prominent position on Securing Democracy’s Hamilton 68 dashboard, which tracks activity in a network of 600 such accounts. These accounts include human users, bots, “trolls,” cyborgs (accounts that are automated some of the time and human-controlled at other times), and media accounts for propaganda outlets like RT and Sputnik.
CYBORGS!!!
They don’t need Russian bots to be turned off by the regressive left. Going to college should red pill them.
Perhaps this young Asian lesbian #walkedAway
Russians! *ding*
Sounds like you care.
white conservatives love Asian women to an absolutely creepy levelPerhaps this young Asian lesbian #walkedAway
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