Russian Twitter trolls stoked KKK fears at Mizzou during 2015 protests

Cybit · Feb 14, 2018

I remember this from a couple of years ago (went to university in Missouri and grew up around that area, and knew a fair amount of students from Mizzou). Thought it was an important update and gives a good example of how the goal is to sow dissension rather than pick a side.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article200011139.html

On Nov. 11, 2015, after “#PrayforMizzou” started to trend on Twitter in the wake of student protests over racial issues at the University of Missouri, a Twitter user with the handle @Fanfan1911 dispatched a warning.

The Twitter user’s name was listed as Jermaine. And the message was sinister: “The cops are marching with the KKK! They beat up my little brother! Watch out!”

Attached, was a photo of a black child with a bruised face.

The report was false, and the photo was of a child beaten by Ohio police a year before. But within minutes, the tweet had been shared and retweeted, by at least 70 bots who “chastised” the media for not covering racists on campus and real people, including scared students.

Russian Twitter trolls masterminded a tweet that fueled erroneous reports that the Ku Klux Klan was patrolling Mizzou’s campus during the 2015 student protests at the University of Missouri, a U.S. Air Force officer wrote in an article on “information-age warfare” published in Strategic Studies Quarterly late last year.

...

According to his article, Missouri Students Association president Payton Head was also influenced by the tweet. On Nov. 11, 2015, Head warned students to stay off the streets because KKK members had been confirmed on campus. He later apologized after police stated the reports were unconfirmed, and said he did not intend to “incite more fear in the hearts of our community.”

Thousands of others interacted with the tweet.

“The plot was smoothly executed and evaded algorithms Twitter designed to catch bot tweeting, mainly because the Mizzou hashtag was being used outside of the attack,” Prier wrote. “The narrative was set as the trend was hijacked, and the hoax was underway.”

According to Prier, @Fanfan1911 changed his display name from Jermaine to “FanFan,” after fears at Mizzou subsided. The profile picture of a black man changed to the image of a German iron cross.

“The next few months, FanFan’s tweets were all in German and consisted of spreading rumors about Syrian refugees,” Prier wrote.

By the spring of 2016, the same account began tweeting in English, supporting messages from right-wing news organizations such as Breitbart.

In Sept. 2016, when presidential candidate Hillary Clinton referred to some of Donald Trump’s supporters as “deplorables,” @FanFan once again underwent a transformation.

The account became “Deplorable Lucy,” and its picture became a “white middle-aged female with a Trump logo” at the bottom.

Followers of the account increased by more than 10,000 people.

After the release of Trump’s Access Hollywood tape, Prier said, the account joined other bots, Russian trolls and real American accounts in efforts to “drown out negative attention to Trump on Twitter.”

Also, Mizzou has suffered pretty badly because of the protests from both ends

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/us/university-of-missouri-enrollment-protests-fallout.html

The NYTimes article cites a tweet by Payton Head - who ended up unintentionally giving credence to the Russia trolls.

Earthstrike · Feb 14, 2018

Uh-oh. A university in the south that will have to deal with disinformation? If only there was something a university could do, that would help students process information better...

Lunar15 · Feb 14, 2018

Twitter is fucking trash. Russia's disinformation tactics are shitty too, but the fact that Twitter is such an easy platform to manipulate it makes it extraordinarily dangerous.

Even moreso because these protests are rooted in a necessary premise, but are being made to look extreme because of all this rebel rousing from fake news.

Fulminator · Feb 14, 2018

Lunar15 said:
Twitter is fucking trash. Russia's disinformation tactics are shitty too, but the fact that Twitter is such an easy platform to manipulate it makes it extraordinarily dangerous.

Twitter was a mistake

Chae3001 · Feb 14, 2018

Fulminator said:
Twitter was a mistake

Clearly.

At this point, we should be doing something to retaliate for this in the digital realm. We have the technology to fuck with Russia, in some way. Maybe we should scramble the records keeping track of all of the money the oligarchs and Putin keep off shore. “Oops, don’t know how that happened! Wasn’t us!” We should be doing something to get them to step the fuck off. It will never happen with Comrade Trump in charge.

1.21Gigawatts · Feb 14, 2018

According to Prier, @Fanfan1911 changed his display name from Jermaine to “FanFan,” after fears at Mizzou subsided. The profile picture of a black man changed to the image of a German iron cross.

“The next few months, FanFan’s tweets were all in German and consisted of spreading rumors about Syrian refugees,” Prier wrote.

By the spring of 2016, the same account began tweeting in English, supporting messages from right-wing news organizations such as Breitbart.

In Sept. 2016, when presidential candidate Hillary Clinton referred to some of Donald Trump’s supporters as “deplorables,” @FanFan once again underwent a transformation.

The account became “Deplorable Lucy,” and its picture became a “white middle-aged female with a Trump logo” at the bottom.

Incredible how professionalized this stuff is. Theres probably offices full of people paid to do nothing but this.

Edit: Also clearly visible that this is an effort to spread nationalist feelings and racial resentment.
Russia is trying to break the union of western liberal democracies apart by aiding nationalist movements in all countries.

Kirblar · Feb 14, 2018

1.21Gigawatts said:
Incredible how professionalized this stuff is. Theres probably offices full of people paid to do nothing but this.

There are.

subpar spatula · Feb 14, 2018

Lunar15 said:
Twitter is fucking trash. Russia's disinformation tactics are shitty too, but the fact that Twitter is such an easy platform to manipulate it makes it extraordinarily dangerous.

Even moreso because these protests are rooted in a necessary premise, but are being made to look extreme because of all this rebel rousing from fake news.

All platforms are easy to manipulate. You could pay qualified individuals to manipulate Resetera if you so desired.

Chopchop · Feb 14, 2018

1.21Gigawatts said:
Incredible how professionalized this stuff is. Theres probably offices full of people paid to do nothing but this.

Russia's realization that social media could be weaponized is sheer genius. Evil, but genius.

Who needs to worry about nukes when you could make shitposts of mass destruction? These campaigns of bombarding internet platforms with inflammatory garbage is causing more chaos than any bomb could, for much less risk and less cost than any conventional war.

LegendofJoe · Feb 14, 2018

My wife and most of her best friends are Mizzou graduates. Fuck Russia for spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt like this.

Random Painted Highway · Feb 14, 2018

One of my degrees is from Mizzou. It is amazing what that brief disturbance combine with a hostile legislature has done to the university.

Cybit · Feb 14, 2018

subpar spatula said:
All platforms are easy to manipulate. You could pay qualified individuals to manipulate Resetera if you so desired.

In a modern polarized environment with the ability to self-select at an unprecedented level, people are really easy to manipulate because they want to believe. Even more so those who think they are not easily fooled.

Bold One · Feb 14, 2018

So this is a government job in Russia?

Or are there that many bored Russians?

Watchtower · Feb 14, 2018

Chopchop said:
Russia's realization that social media could be weaponized is sheer genius. Evil, but genius.

Who needs to worry about nukes when you could make shitposts of mass destruction? These campaigns of bombarding internet platforms with inflammatory garbage is causing more chaos than any bomb could, for much less risk and less cost than any conventional war.

What makes this kind of disinformation warfare so dangerous is that it's completely abstract, and thus incredibly difficult to understand without seeing it all the way through.

I've tried to explain the concept of troll farms to my parents, both of whom have decades of IT experience, and neither could understand what could be gained from spreading fake news through alt accounts. The only reason my mother could understand was attempting to rig election results or steal credit card information. Stirring hatred into rioting doesn't make sense, because it's too intangible of an end-goal to be worth the time and effort.

And surely people can't be that stupid, right?

Twilight Suzuka · Feb 14, 2018

Honestly, the fact that its Russian trolls is way less important to me. Trolls can come from any country. The internet is international. People are still responsible for what they do.

"According to his article, Missouri Students Association president Payton Head was also influenced by the tweet. On Nov. 11, 2015, Head warned students to stay off the streets because KKK members had been confirmed on campus. "

This is the only part that really matters. The president of a student organization warned that KKK members were CONFIRMED on campus. Except they weren't confirmed anywhere. Nothing was confirmed at all in fact. It was twitter rumors and troll posts.

Total unprofessionalism. If you actually confirm things you are pretty much immune to Russian trolls, or Jamaican trolls, or Canadian trolls, or trolls from any country. With all the new video editing face swap software coming, people better step up their diligence in ACTUALLY confirming things, because its only going to get wayyyyyyyyyyyyy more difficult to do that in the future.

Dirt McGirt · Feb 14, 2018

1.21Gigawatts said:
Incredible how professionalized this stuff is. Theres probably offices full of people paid to do nothing but this.

Edit: Also clearly visible that this is an effort to spread nationalist feelings and racial resentment.
Russia is trying to break the union of western liberal democracies apart by aiding nationalist movements in all countries.

God damn.

Imagine Trump's twitter timeline. Russia can probably influence him easier than fox and friends with just some algorithms and bots.

Chopchop · Feb 14, 2018

Watchtower said:
What makes this kind of disinformation warfare so dangerous is that it's completely abstract, and thus incredibly difficult to understand without seeing it all the way through.

I've tried to explain the concept of troll farms to my parents, both of whom have decades of IT experience, and neither could understand what could be gained from spreading fake news through alt accounts. The only reason my mother could understand was attempting to rig election results or steal credit card information. Stirring hatred into rioting doesn't make sense, because it's too intangible of an end-goal to be worth the time and effort.

And surely people can't be that stupid, right?

Yep. It's playing the "I'm just saying" card to its logical extreme. You can throw any bullshit out there that sounds big, and it doesn't matter if it's easily disproven because most people don't bother to check it for themselves. Marketing twists public perception with similar tactics, but this is the same thing done to ideologies.

Second, the internet has repeatedly shown that anything can become a meme with enough spam, regardless of content or reason. So logically, you could spam ideologically charged memes and they will eventually take hold, as long as you get enough people (bots) to chant long enough. Which is exactly what is happening.

Finally, as long as you do it all with a flippant attitude, you could always fall back on the "I'm just trolling bro" defense to anything.

It's a neat little box of bullshit that takes way more effort to fight against than it does to propagate. It's brilliantly scummy.

Starlight Glimmer · Feb 14, 2018

I think they tried to help but honestly didn’t even need to get involved. The left eating itself there was all it took.

Sobriquet · Feb 14, 2018

Earthstrike said:
Uh-oh. A university in the south that will have to deal with disinformation? If only there was something a university could do, that would help students process information better...

South?

Canti · Feb 14, 2018

I'll preface by saying I was a recent graduate when this all happened. The speed at which things seemingly escalated from a few isolated incidents of racism was head spinning at the time and didn't square with the school I know. That Russian propagandists were stoking the flames is a shock to me and I hope the damage that has been done to the school will heal over time.

Earthstrike · Feb 14, 2018

Sobriquet said:
South?

If this does not match america's geographical definition of its south then my bad. My classification as south has more to do with political sentiments in the sense that america's south + bible belt constitute a more conservative region.

Canti · Feb 14, 2018

Earthstrike said:
If this does not match america's geographical definition of its south then my bad. My classification as south has more to do with political sentiments in the sense that america's south + bible belt constitute a more conservative region.

We're midwestern. There isn't a huge cultural difference between the rural parts of the state and what you'd think of as the "south" but quite a lot of the students at the university are liberals like me from the suburbs of either Kansas City (which is in Missouri) or St. Louis and I wouldn't consider either of those places southern.

chaos_planes · Feb 14, 2018

subpar spatula said:
All platforms are easy to manipulate. You could pay qualified individuals to manipulate Resetera if you so desired.

they're already here going by wikileaks/russia threads.

Couleurs · Feb 14, 2018

Earthstrike said:
If this does not match america's geographical definition of its south then my bad. My classification as south has more to do with political sentiments in the sense that america's south + bible belt constitute a more conservative region.

Having grown up there, I feel like it’s fair to classify parts of Missouri as southern, like anything south of I-70 is basically North Arkansas. St Louis/KC/Columbia (where Mizzou is located) are definitely not southern

It’s a tricky question though; I can see an argument being made to call MO southern since it was a slave state and kind of part of the Confederacy. Don’t know what you’d want to call them since the state was accepted into the confederacy but never officially joined since the union was able to maintain control over most of the state

Vas · Feb 14, 2018

What makes me upset is that you wonder "How are Russians so knowledgable about complicated domestic issues to exploit them so specifically like this?" Well, they likely aren't. They most assuredly have Americans working for them, telling them what's going on, what to say, and how to exploit the situation. Not just people working with them in Russia, but working with independent political activist groups and partisan figures directly to coordinate Russia's manpower with their own political strategy. I'm sure of it.

Russian Twitter trolls stoked KKK fears at Mizzou during 2015 protests

User banned for use of an alt account.