2016 ELECTION/RUSSIA/SOCIAL MEDIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Russia’s disinformation campaign during and after the 2016 presidential election touched nearly every top social media platform as it sought to sway U.S. voters, according to a pair of reports prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee that offer the most detailed look yet at the Kremlin’s interference effort. The reports, commissioned by Senate Intelligence leaders, shed light on the breadth of the Russian strategy, which included posting content on not only Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, but also Instagram, Reddit, Tumblr and Pinterest. The findings corroborate the conclusions of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team that Russia carried out a long-term, comprehensive effort to sow political divisions in the U.S., including over racial issues — but in some ways find it was even more sweeping than Mueller has portrayed it.Russian influence operations extended well beyond the presidential race and into the 2018 election cycle, the researchers found, with Kremlin-linked trolls consistently pushing narratives supportive of President Donald Trump and critical of impeachment talk. And as the major tech companies moved to curb the spread of online disinformation after 2016, the trolls evolved their strategies and shifted their resources to other platforms.”
–Cristiano Lima, “Reports show Russia mounted sweeping effort to sow divisions, support Trump,” Politico, December 17, 2018 12:24 pm