Huge "Police Lives Matter" Facebook page run from Kosovo, pushed misinformation about U.S. cops

[Dennis Donovan]

https://popular.info/p/huge-police-lives-matter-facebook

The "Police Lives Matter" Facebook page accumulated over 170,000 fans, with viral content that reached more Facebook users than some of the largest media outlets. The page purported to be run by U.S. police officers, with cops posting about the "first dayshift of my career with a K9" or being "brand new dad." Other posts contained more generic pro-police messaging.



What these posts did not mention is that the page was operated by three people from Kosovo. It was part of a complex network of pro-police pages based out of Kosovo. One such page run by Kosovars, Pro Police Officer, falsely listed a physical address in New York City.

These pages used blatant misinformation to provoke an emotional response from Facebook users. For example, on August 19, 2019, the Police Lives Matter page posted that "a little under three weeks ago" Deputy Farrah Turner had been shot and had just died of gunshot wounds. Turner was actually shot on October 3, 2018, and died on October 24, 2018.



This tactic of misrepresenting and exploiting a police officer's death for shares and likes was used repeatedly throughout the network.

The pages sought to exploit the right-wing backlash against the "Black Lives Matter" movement, which protests the killing of African-Americans by police officers. Pages in the network, all run by managers in Kosovo, included "All Lives Matter," "I Support The Police US not Criminals," and "Blue Lives Matter USA." This right-wing movement has been embraced by Trump, and the Police Lives Matter page included some explicitly pro-Trump messaging.



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[dalton99a]

1. They're coordinated by American patriots in St. Petersburg

[superpatriotman]

2. The only Unions the right can tolerate

Ponderous

[mopinko]

3. pounding those wedges. i wonder how many "pro-life" pages

they run?
anything to keep people at each other's throats. and we dumb enough to fall for it.

[Farmer-Rick]

4. So Putin is still involved in trying to stir up racism

And Traitor Trump is tweeting calls for a civil war.

And Zuckerberg and Facebook are raking in the money from spreading propaganda for our country's enemies. Zuckerberg is in cohoots with Little man Putin.

That really short man in Russia knows how to find and promote traitors in our country.

All the filthy rich capitalist kings from the Waltons to the Gates are turning their back on our democracy and letting Putin manipulate it. And they are doing this for their own personal profit.

[dalton99a]

5. +1