If you ever need an example for russian meddling, here's a list:
* Heart of Texas - secessionist, anti-Clinton Facebook-group - fake
* Jenna Abrams - Alt-Right anti-Clinton blogger - fake
* Williams and Kalvin - pro-Trump, anti-Clinton Youtube-channel made by two African-Americans who somehow don't know shit about the US - fake
* United Muslims of America - conspiracy-theory peddling anti-Clinton Facebook-group impersonating the actual "United Muslims of America" - fake
Even russian media has verified the existence of russian internet-trolls and their meddling.
And these are just the famous cases I had at the top of my head! There's way more. (Plus one in Florida, I loosely remember.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2017/10/17/how-the-russians-pretended-to-be-texans-and-texans-believed-them/?utm_term=.b128241d5707
That was how I eventually found my way to the “Heart of Texas” Facebook page (and its @itstimetosecede Twitter feed as well). Heart of Texas soon grew into the most popular Texas secession page on Facebook — one that, at one point in 2016, boasted more followers than the official Texas Democrat and Republican Facebook pages combined. By the time Facebook took the page down recently, it had a quarter of a million followers.
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At one point the page’s organizers even managed to stir up its followers into staging an armed, anti-Islamic protest in Houston. As gradually became clear, this was part of a broader strategy. The sponsors of the page were keen to exacerbate America’s own internal divisions. At certain moments they lent support to Black Lives Matter, while in others they would play to the latent (or obvious) racism of Donald Trump’s base.
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Even the page’s calls for an early November protest across the state – part pro-secession, part anti-Clinton — were garbled.
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And then, in August, it was gone. Just like that, the most popular Texas secession page on Facebook was revealed to be a Russian front, operated by the notorious Internet Research Agency, with Facebook removing all of the posts from public view.
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/05/politics/heart-of-texas-russia-event/index.html
http://www.businessinsider.de/facebook-group-russia-texas-anti-immigrant-rallies-2017-9?r=US&IR=T
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http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/jenna-abrams-twitter-account-russia-propaganda-far-right-voice-alt-tweet-blog-xenophobic-donald-a8035411.html
A popular far-right Twitter account has reportedly been revealed as a Russian propaganda account.
Jenna Abrams gradually grew a large following on the social media platform over a number of years.
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Then gradually she began to tweet and blog about politics, advocating for xenophobic and far-right policies and expressing support for Donald Trump.
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The account, which has now been deleted, gathered up to 70,000 followers and was quoted as a figure on the so-called 'alt-right' blogsphere.
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But the Abrams account, @jenn_abrams, is now believed to have been created by the Internet Research Agency, a “troll farm” in St Petersburg funded by the Russian government which is believed to have created thousands of troll accounts and dark ads on social media to target US voters during the presidential election, the Daily Beast reported.
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/russia-recruited-youtubers-to-bash-racist-btch-hillary-clinton-over-rap-beats
According to the YouTube page for “Williams and Kalvin,” the Clintons are “serial killers who are going to rape the whole nation.” Donald Trump can’t be racist because he’s a “businessman.” Hillary Clinton’s campaign was “funded by the Muslim.”
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Williams and Kalvin’s content was pulled from Facebook in August after it was identified as a Russian government-backed propaganda account, The Daily Beast has confirmed with multiple sources familiar with the account and the reasons for its removal. Williams and Kalvin’s account was also suspended from Twitter in August. But the YouTube page for Williams and Kalvin remains live at press time.
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None of Williams or Kalvin’s Facebook friends are from Atlanta, where the two claim they live on Facebook and in videos. On Facebook, both Williams and Kalvin claim their hometown is Owerri in Nigeria.
In 2015, Williams Johnson claimed he had just spent his “first Thanksgiving with my LIL BROTHER in America!” and attached a since deleted Tweet from Alex Jay, who is a rapper and Instagram model. Jay told The Daily Beast he had never heard of Williams.
“My last name is Johnson, but nope,” he said. “Don’t know anyone with that name.”
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Williams and Kalvin’s videos are not particularly rigorous about nuances of American culture and geography. Kalvin, for example, claims that Baton Rouge is in “L.A.” Another video calls LeBron James the best “basket” player of the year.
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/exclusive-russians-impersonated-real-american-muslims-to-stir-chaos-on-facebook-and-instagram
The Facebook group United Muslims of America was neither united, Muslim, nor American.
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Using the account as a front to reach American Muslims and their allies, the Russians pushed memes that claimed Hillary Clinton admitted the U.S. “created, funded and armed” al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State; claimed that John McCain was ISIS’ true founder; whitewashed blood-drenched dictator Moammar Gadhafi and praised him for not having a “Rothschild-owned central bank”; and falsely alleged Osama bin Laden was a “CIA agent.”
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The Kremlin-backed trolls did all this while simultaneously using other accounts to hawk virulently Islamophobic messages to right-wing audiences on Facebook, such as an August 2016 Twin Falls, Idaho rally demanding, “We must stop taking in Muslim refugees!” Taken together, the newest revelation of Russian propaganda on Facebook shows the sophistication of the Russian “active measures” campaign to influence the U.S. voting public.
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Unlike other known accounts linked to the Russians, the United Muslims of America Facebook group was impersonating an actual organization. The real UMA is a California-based nonprofit that promotes interfaith dialogue and political participation.
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https://thinkprogress.org/new-expose-shows-the-extent-of-a-russian-troll-factorys-online-influence-ade5fa7a0a18/
A Russian troll farm spent more than $2 million and used dozens of employees to help foster division and influence the U.S. election over the course of two years, a new investigation by the Russian news agency RBC has discovered.
According to RBC, the notorious “Internet Research Agency” (IRA), based in St. Petersburg, had around 90 employees working in its “American department” during the height of 2016 election. They were responsible for 118 communities, mostly on Facebook, but also on Instagram and Twitter, which focused inciting racial animosity by posting material that supported Black Lives Matter or immigration activists.
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