Shuttered Facebook group that organized anti-Clinton, anti-immigrant rallies across Texas ...

[DonViejo]

Source: Business Insider

Shuttered Facebook group that organized anti-Clinton, anti-immigrant rallies across Texas was linked to Russia


Natasha Bertrand

A Russia-linked Facebook group attempted to organize a series of anti-immigrant, anti-Hillary Clinton rallies across Texas last November, three days before the election and months after Russian operatives used the social-media platform to organize an anti-refugee-resettlement protest in rural Idaho.

The group, called Heart of Texas, had over 225,000 followers as of last summer. It was shut down last week as part of Facebook's takedown of accounts and pages "affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia," a Facebook spokesman told Business Insider on Wednesday.

Casey Michel, a journalist who has spent years tracing US secession movements to Russia, tracked the group's activity throughout the election and determined it was more than just a platform for far-right Texas secessionists.

Several signs pointed to the page being a Russian influence operation, including a lack of contact information and ads, and a corresponding Twitter account created in November 2015 — right around the time Facebook experienced a surge in Russia-linked, fake accounts, Michel said. Its "about" section read only: "Texas's the land protected by Lord."


A screenshot from Heart of Texas, a Russia-linked Facebook group that has since been shut down. Screenshot/Facebook

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-group-russia-texas-anti-immigrant-rallies-2017-9

[dalton99a]

1. Putin has extensive experience in disinformation and propaganda

And his KGB specialty was political intelligence

[mainer]

2. 225,000 Americans were Putin's stooges

And followed the bidding of a foreign government.

[chowder66]

3. I wonder if this report is the latest tick, tick, Boom story

that is causing Trump to tweet, twitter bots to go crazy, etc that I saw someone post about this morning on twitter.

When trump starts tweeting his narcissistic crap or paranoid crap, and bots explode then it's usually around a report in the news.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Interesting theory. I'll bet it's true. n/t

[chowder66]

7. I suppose if nothing else has come out like this today then this must be it. nt

[LittleGirl]

5. Too bad, a year late. eom

[NCjack]

6. The graphic in the OP is hilarious. "You know you're a Texas when ..." (what does that mean?)

must have been written and proof-read in Russia. And, the Texaco stations have largely disappeared as they converted to Shell, as a result of Texaco's merger with Chevron.

[LeftInTX]

9. I cringed when the BBC repeatedly said, "The Texan city of Houston"

But since it's a redneck FB group, probably nobody noticed or cared.

I see a bit of over the top stuff from the left on FB and I don't give it much thought. If it is has bad grammar, I probably don't notice.

[icymist]

10. LOL! Did you notice that they got 'you're' right? nt

[Achilleaze]

8. republican betrayal of America by pairing up with evil empire russia

is disgusting and evil. It shall not stand.