2016 ELECTION/CYBERWAR/RUSSIA: “Russian operatives targeted users on Facebook Inc. by race, religion and interests such as gun ownership, the Confederate flag and Ivanka Trump’s jewelry line, according to advertising data released by lawmakers Wednesday as part of congressional investigations into Russian manipulation on social media around the U.S. election.
The ads targeted groups on opposite sides of an issue, a move that lawmakers said was designed to amplify social divisions…
Lawmakers also released the Twitter Inc. account names for 2,752 accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency. Many of the handles appeared to impersonate famous politicians, political parties and news agencies, in an apparent attempt to seem credible, such as @_GeorgeSchultz_, @tpartynews, @NewYorkDem and @TheTimesOfLondn. At least one of the accounts was created as early as 2009 and another was tweeting as recently as mid-October, according to data analyzed by The Wall Street Journal. Some accounts with more than 10,000 followers were created in late 2015 as the presidential primaries were in full swing…
Russia has denied any interference in the U.S. election.”
-Georgia Wells and Deepa Seetharaman, “New Facebook Data Shows Russians Targeted Users by Race, Religion, Politics,” The Wall Street Journal online, Nov. 1, 2017 07:09pm