The media narrative since the 2016 presidential election is that according to U.S. intelligence agencies, Russia "meddled" in the election by creating fake social media accounts. Only three of 17 intelligence agencies were cited in the Director Of Intelligence (DNI) Report, The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and The National Security Agency (NSA), as having a high degree of confidence that Russia's intent was to "help" Donald Trump win the presidential election.
Media outlets erroneously reported, then corrected those reports, that all 17 intelligence agencies approved of that conclusion.
The NYT Correction stated "A White House Memo article on Monday about President Trump’s deflections and denials about Russia referred incorrectly to the source of an intelligence assessment that said Russia orchestrated hacking attacks during last year’s presidential election. The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community."
Technically, even the NYT correction was wrong as the DNI put the report together, but states in the report that the information gathered was directly from the three aforementioned agencies, not their own independent investigations. So it wasn't four agencies as NYT stated, but three.
This report includes an analytic assessment drafted and coordinated among The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and The National Security Agency (NSA), which draws on intelligence information collected and disseminated by those three agencies....
NOTE- Confidence by many as to the accuracy and unbiased conclusions of that DNI report has been undermined by the recent scandals that have engulfed the FBI and the CIA since the initial report was released.
The other intelligence agencies did agree Russia waged a social media campaign, but they did not hold the same confidence that it was in support of Donald Trump, but rather the endgame goal was simply to "sow discord."
The point is the official narrative, still being pushed by the establishment media, is that Russia interfered to support President Trump. A narrative that is shattered after the newly revealed information by Facebook about newer fake accounts that they have found and disabled.
FB FINDS COORDINATED EFFORT TO PROMOTE LIBERAL CAUSES
While not directly naming Russia as being behind the newly discovered 32 accounts/pages that Facebook has revealed to be in violation of their "ban on coordinated inauthentic behavior," reports indicate that FB does claim they are "similar" in nature to those "foreign influence campaigns" that sowed discord during the 2016 election, which have been blamed on Russia.
Whether Russia, or someone else, the newly removed pages with the most activity, content and followers, have one thing in common, as Bloomberg points out, they are "either anti-Trump or politically neutral."
CBS describes some of the content and campaigns, for lack of a better word, being promoted by these "inauthentic" accounts, and all of them are protests and political events of the left, not the right.
One deleted post called for protesters to occupy the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Posted by a group called “Resisters,” an event that was initially titled “Stop Ripping Families Apart! DC,” was later retitled “Stop Ripping Families Apart! Take over ICE HQ” after Facebook users said they would attend. A total of 131 people later marked themselves as having attended the June 27 rally outside of ICE’s Washington offices.
Bloomberg reports that another event promoted by these accounts Facebook removed, was a counter-protest to the Unite The Right march planned for August 10.
(Page from "inauthentic" group removed by Facebook)
The racial rhetoric of the deleted pages echoes the paid advertisements that Facebook revealed in 2017 that the company said were purchased by the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency “troll farm.”
The goal seems to be the same: to sow discord and pit American voters against each other, particularly along racial or ethnic lines.
Wait. What? Is isn't to help Democrats in the midterm elections??? But... but.... isn't that the narrative the media has been pushing for nearly two years? According to them, when the "Russians" promoted pro-Trump events, it was to help Trump!
Now though, because these accounts that the media believes are Russian, even though Facebook couldn't determine one way or another definitively who was behind the accounts, are promoting policies and events sponsored by liberals, the intent isn't to "help" Democrats, but is just to sow discord.
Hmmmmmm........
Here is a little reminder of what was revealed a year after the media programmed Americans into thinking those Facebook ads they attributed to Russia were all about helping Donald Trump in 2016. The events pushed by those accounts back then promoted both sides of an event for the specific purpose of ... yes, sowing discord.
Via Fox News and others in November 2017 we see examples of the actual Facebook events and promotions that were used during the 2016 presidential campaign cycle:
Among them was an attempt to get pro-Texas Facebook users and Muslims to clash at competing events in Houston on May 21, 2016. The pro-Texas page—called Heart of Texas—encouraged its 253,000 followers to gather at an Islamic Center in the city on that day to stop the "Islamization of Texas," while a "United Muslims of America" page, which had 328,000 followers, pushed an event at the same time and place, calling on supporters to "Save Islamic Knowledge."
Frankly unless someone is living in Russian President Vladimir Putin's head, no one can say with 100 percent confidence whether he preferred Trump to Clinton, or whether the main goal, if it was Russia, (DNI report basically said 'just trust our conclusions even though we won't show you the evidence'), was to help anyone or just to cause mischief, by meddling in our elections as the U.S. has a long history of doing in other countries elections.
As the Federalist points out in an outstanding piece titled "Why Russia Should Be Free To Campaign For Or Against Trump On Social Media," if we seriously want to prosecute Russia for a social media influence campaign, then if the same standard was applied, we would also have to prosecute England!
A QUESTION FOR CNN
In the CBS report on these 32 accounts being removed from Facebook, in describing one of the events promoted by these accounts listed as "inauthentic" by Facebook, that "A total of 131 people later marked themselves as having attended the June 27 rally outside of ICE’s Washington offices."
Someone needs to ask CNN if they plan to ambush any of those people, at their homes, in order to dox then and harass them by asking if they knew they were colluding with Russia.... as they did with an elderly Trump supporter that attended an event they linked to a promotion by a group they claimed was linked to Russia.
CNN dedicated time, money and resources into hunting the Trump supporter down, publishing her name, which caused her to be harassed online and off, then ambushing her at her home while browbeating her by accusing her of working with the Russians, but does anyone think they will do the same to liberals that attended liberal events that were promoted by "foreign influence campaigns?"
It is that type of blatant double standard that has rally-goers at Trump events chanting "CNN Sucks," as they did at the rally in Tampa on Tuesday, which has CNN's Jim Acosta whining yet again.
BOTTOM LINE
The media has spent two years claiming that Russian social media influence campaigns were meant to help Donald Trump win the 2016 election, yet now as another group of pages have been found to be "similar," and believed to be Russian-linked, are promoting liberal ideological events, the media is claiming is it just to sow discord, with no one accusing them of trying to "help" liberals in the midterms.
Their narrative is shattered.
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