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  1. #1
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    The Russians pretended to be Texans — and the Texans believed them

    In early 2016, while researching some of the most popular U.S. secession groups online, I stumbled across one of the Russian-controlled Facebook accounts that were then pulling in Americans by the thousands.At the time, I was writing on Russia's relationship with American secessionists from Texas, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. These were people who had hitched flights to Moscow to swap tactics, to offer advice and to find support. They had found succor in the shadow of the Kremlin.

    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.

    The page started slowly — just a few posts per week. Unlike other secession sites I'd come across, this one never carried any contact information, never identified any of the individuals behind the curtain. Even as it grew, there was nothing to locate it in Texas — or anywhere else, for that matter. It was hard to escape the suspicion that there might be Russian involvement here as well.

    There were other oddities about the site. Its organizers had a strangely one-dimensional idea of its subject. They seemed to think, for example, that Texans drank Dr Pepper at all hours: while driving their giant trucks, while flying their Confederate battle flags, while griping about Yankees and liberals and vegetarians.

    But Heart of Texas, sadly, was no joke. 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.

    By the summer of 2016, other themes began to emerge. Posts began to follow a perceptibly hard-right course, stressing Texas' status as a "Christian state," or touting the Second Amendment as a "symbol of freedom ... so we would forever be free from any tyranny." Some of the page's contributors talked about the need to "keep Texas Texan," whatever that meant. There was also a generous dollop of conspiracy theory. There were posts about the allegedly unnatural death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and the supposed federal invasion orders behind the Jade Helm military exercise. Fake Founding Father quotes mingled with anti-Muslim screeds and paeans to Sam Houston. And the number of followers steadily crept into the hundreds of thousands.

    Though the site's authors understood their audience well, there was something off about their writing. The page's "About" section proclaimed that "Texas's the land protected by Lord (sic)." Grammatical and spelling glitches were everywhere: "In Love With Texas Shape," "State Fair of Texas — Has You Already Visited?," "Always Be Ready for a Texas Size," "No Hypoclintos in the God Blessed Texas." (Or take this caption for a photo of country music star George Strait: "Life is not breaths you take, but the moments that take your breth (sic) away.") Yet the typos never seemed to raise any suspicions in readers' minds.

    Even the page's calls for an early November protest across the state — part pro-secession, part anti-Clinton — were garbled. One post declared that "we are free citizens of Texas and we've had enough of this cheap show on the screen." The site called on those who showed up to "make photos."

    Heart of Texas chugged on after the election, bringing in tens of thousands of new followers in 2017 who were unbothered by its mangled English, its rank nativism and its calls to break up the United States.

    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. (It's worth noting that another Instagram account started posting Heart of Texas material as soon as the original Facebook page was taken down.)

    Despite its claims of transparency, Facebook has effectively prevented the public from examining these posts and these pages. So far Heart of Texas remains the only example of a Russian account that I and other researchers managed to study in detail before Facebook pulled the rug out from underneath it.

    We know that the Russians behind these sites played all of their readers, and especially those who showed up at its protests, for fools. Considering that the number of their combined followers ranged into the millions — with some estimates placing total views potentially in the billions — they're probably right.

    The creators of Heart of Texas not only targeted the sociopolitical tensions within the United States. They also exploited our gullibility, which turned out to be far greater than I could ever have imagined. And by assisting them in this massive lie, Facebook has enabled one of the greatest frauds in recent American history.

    The Russians pretended to be Texans ? and the Texans believed them - Chicago Tribune

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by bsnub View Post
    Yet the typos never seemed to raise any suspicions in readers' minds.
    Quote Originally Posted by bsnub View Post
    tens of thousands of new followers in 2017 who were unbothered by its mangled English,
    And the author is surprised by this???
    Hey; Trump followers. Gun lovers. Rednecks.
    What did you expect?

  3. #3
    Thailand Expat AntRobertson's Avatar
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    We know that the Russians behind these sites played all of their readers, and especially those who showed up at its protests, for fools
    Well say what you like about those pesky Ruskies but they sure know their audience!

  4. #4
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    jesus christ, you people are delusional, Trump really did a number on you

    Vive Putin

  5. #5
    fcuked off SKkin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Maanaam View Post
    And the author is surprised by this???
    Hey; Trump followers. Gun lovers. Rednecks. Facebook users.
    What did you expect?
    FTFY...

  6. #6
    fcuked off SKkin's Avatar
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    The better question is who is really behind this effort to cast Russia as a US enemy?

    Cui bono...

    "The Pentagon needs and wants Russia to be the next big enemy that they are arming against it, budgeting against it, that they are targeting. Certainly, we have talked for a long time about China and China plays an important role as the enemy of choice for the U.S. military. But Russia is ideal in part, because we don’t import a lot of things from Russia, in part because we don’t have the debt relationship with Russia that we do with China. So, Russia makes for a very convenient enemy for the Pentagon in terms of its mission, its budgeting, and its intelligence organization.” ~ Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, Feb. 2016

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by SKkin View Post
    FTFY...
    Hehe. Fair enough.

    ^ Worth thinking about.

  8. #8
    fcuked off SKkin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Maanaam View Post
    Worth thinking about.
    Not just the Pentagon though...

    One of the many dirty little secrets of the U.S. Cold War was that anti-communism functioned as a pretext and cover for Washington’s Wall Street-fueled ambition to force open and run the entire world system in accord with its multinational corporate elite’s globalist- “Open Door” political-economic needs. From this imperial perspective, the real Cold War enemy was not so much “communism” as other peoples’ struggles for national, local, and regional autonomy and independence. The enemy remains long after the statues of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin have come down.

    It doesn’t matter than Russia is no longer “socialist.” Nationalist and regional push-back against Uncle “We Own the World” Sam has been more than sufficient to get Putin designated as the next official Hitler and Russia targeted as a malevolent opponent by the U.S. elite political class and media.
    above quote from:

    How Russia Became Our "Adversary" Again
    https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05...versary-again/


    Americans were taking the bait long before the Trump Clinton election fiasco...

    Gallup poll Feb. 2015

    Americans Increasingly See Russia as Threat, Top U.S. Enemy

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by SKkin View Post
    The better question is who is really behind this effort to cast Russia as a US enemy?

    Cui bono...

    "The Pentagon needs and wants Russia to be the next big enemy that they are arming against it, budgeting against it, that they are targeting. Certainly, we have talked for a long time about China and China plays an important role as the enemy of choice for the U.S. military. But Russia is ideal in part, because we don’t import a lot of things from Russia, in part because we don’t have the debt relationship with Russia that we do with China. So, Russia makes for a very convenient enemy for the Pentagon in terms of its mission, its budgeting, and its intelligence organization.” ~ Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, Feb. 2016
    yep, after losing the war on terror, Russia was an easy enemy back then, but no more

  10. #10
    fcuked off SKkin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bsnub View Post
    I stumbled across one of the Russian-controlled Facebook accounts that were then pulling in Americans by the thousands.
    How can we be 100% certain that these Facebook accts were "Russian controlled?"

    Because I just can't forget that story from 8 years ago or so, about the US Govt/Military acquiring Persona Management software. Which is capable of:

    According to the contract between US Central Command (Centcom) and California company Ntrepid, the software would let each user control 10 personas, each “replete with background, history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographically consistent.” The software would also be able to let personas “appear to originate in nearly any part of the world” and interact through “conventional online services and social media platforms,” while using a static IP address for each persona to maintain a consistent online identity.
    that quote from here:

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/..._n_837153.html

    Other sources:

    https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...ocial-networks

    https://www.rawstory.com/2011/02/rev...irtual-people/

    https://boingboing.net/2011/03/17/us...-launches.html

    from the boing boing link there's this:

    Update: Commander Bill Speaks of the Centcom public affairs office, who is quoted in the Guardian piece excerpted above, tells Boing Boing:
    Regarding your post, I want to make clear that the persona management software contract discussed in Ian Cobain's Guardian story is not, and will not, be used in any online engagements with US audiences, or on web sites based in the US. This includes, of course, Facebook and Twitter. I hope you will see fit to update your post, as the suggestion that this technology will be used to set up "phony Facebook, Twitter psyops accounts" is inaccurate.
    Now you know these military types would never ever lie to us, right?

    US military creates fake online personas - Telegraph

    https://privacysos.org/blog/company-...works-at-home/

    http://seankerrigan.com/us-governmen...te-propaganda/

    https://www.scribd.com/document/1278...ement-Software

    Antifascist Calling...: Sock Puppet Planet: The Secret State's Quest for 'Persona Management Software'

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/so-why-...-media-update/

  11. #11
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    are those Clinton shills still crying..

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