Regular reader Donald Pay suspects that the anti-Muslim hate rallies staged in Aberdeen and elsewhere in South Dakota by out-of-state speakers and mostly unknown funders may be part of the ongoing Russian campaign to sow division and discord in the United States. I never spotted Maria Butina sitting next to Al Novstrup at our local crypto-Klan meetings, and I have no evidence beyond the brief-lived Keep South Dakota Safe PAC’s filings to indicate where some of the funding for those rallies and their web presence originated.
But last year, we learned that Russia faked social media accounts and hijacked a Muslim group’s identity to stoke conflict over Islam in America:
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.”
Sources confirmed that the imposter account bought Facebook advertisements to reach its target audience. It promoted political rallies aimed at Muslim audiences. And it used the Twitter account “muslims_in_usa” and the Instagram account “muslim_voice” to pass along inflammatory memes under cover of the UMA. The Twitter account has been suspended, and the account on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, was shuttered at around the same time as the Facebook page.
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 [Ben Collins, Kevin Poulsen, and Spencer Ackerman, “Exclusive: Russians Impersonated Real American Muslims to Stir Chaos on Facebook and Instagram,” The Daily Beast, 2017.09.27].
Russia trolls spread false information about public funding for a Texas library to provoke a hate rally in 2016:
The rally — called “Stop Islamization of Texas” — was called and promoted by a Facebook page called Heart of Texas, which had wrongly alleged that the Islamic library had received public funding. But the Heart of Texas page listed no contacts in the Lone Star state. In fact, it was operated by a “Troll Factory” called the Internet Research Agency thousands of miles away in St Petersburg Russia, CNN has learned [Tim Lister and Clare Sebastian, “Stoking Islamophobia and Secession from an Office in Russia,” CNN, 2017.10.06].
Russia’s anti-Muslim online propaganda war smells a lot like what happened in Myanmar:
The violence that was unleashed against Rohingya Muslims by Buddhist extremist groups, operating in cahoots with Myanmar security forces, did not just spring out of nowhere in late 2016. Genocide never does. All genocides begin first with wordsl; the violence comes later.
In this case, the words came in an endless stream of Facebook and Twitter posts that are all too familiar to those who either study Islamophobia or those who are the victims of it.
Thousands upon thousands of posts falsely accused the Rohingya of carrying out a secret plot to carve out a separatist Islamic emirate or province, enact Sharia and kill the Buddhist majority. Others accused claims of “ethnic cleansing” against the Rohingya to be the part of a western government led conspiracy.
These echo the kind of claims leveled against Muslim minority populations in China, India, Europe, United States, Australia and elsewhere by political entrepreneurs who lever ultra-nationalistic sentiments to scapegoat the ‘Other’ as a dangerous threat.
So it’s not at all surprising that these efforts are increasingly tracing back to a dominant source: Russia [C.J. Werleman, “Russia’s Islamophobic Fake news Trolls Are Doing Putin’s Dirty Work,” The New Arab, 2018.03.12].
Anti-Muslim propaganda worldwide helps Russia strengthen its hand in Syria:
In case you missed it, the Russian geopolitical playbook here is quite simple to decipher: Create internal violence by whipping up fear of Muslim minority, and then capitalise on said violence by selling arms and establishing closer bilateral ties at the expense of a rival great power.
Putin’s Russia has levered its new hybrid form of information warfare by playing on Islamophobic tropes and capitalising on negative sentiments towards Muslims in the West, in order to further its foreign policy objectives in Syria [Werleman, 2018.03.12].
Recall that Red Fox Maria Butina got a master’s degree in May from American University in International Service with “a concentration in cyber policy, the ‘internet of things’, cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology” (but also recall that her fake South Dakota boyfriend Paul Erickson did her homework for her). In 2017, the Red Fox tried unsuccessfully “to interview a D.C.-based civil rights group about its cyber-vulnerabilities for what she said was a school project” shortly after the group’s website “was defaced with fake Islamic State messaging.”
Aberdeen’s anonymous Islamophobes have maintained a trickle of their usual hate posts this summer on their Facebook page, but they’ve gotten lazy on their blog since primary season and haven’t publicized a hate-speaker event since April. But the continuing exposure of Russian influence behind fake social media accounts is all the more reason that patriotic Americans should ignore these anonymous sources of propaganda whose hyperbolic rhetoric and disinformation only weaken our nation and serve the interests of a rival foreign power.
Religion and hate go together like South Dakota Republicans and stupidity. So, Russia mixes those four ingredients together and they get the South Dakota Attorney General, the South Dakota Secretary of State, several county parties, and maybe the state Republican Party chairman involved in Russia’s efforts to subvert and take over the United States. They get a hefty chunk of of South Dakota’s Christian conservatives to boot. And they get comrade Al. None dare call it treason? I do.
I noticed regulars on the Hate Blog (War College) continuing to rant about Black Lives Matter and Ablolish Ice. Hey! Those are Russians trying to make you mad. A Russian propogandist said recently that there are a lot of Americans that will believe any lie you tell them, as long as they agree with it. Ever wonder why Russians only target Republicans? #LowHangingFruit #BewareTheZealots
https://money.cnn.com/2018/04/09/technology/fake-black-lives-matter-facebook-page/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/us/politics/facebook-political-campaign-midterms.html
Thank you for your sleuthing and pulling it together, Cory. This is very informative.
HEADLINES: As the democratic party worried about the Russians, BLM, Open Borders, hiding the spying on Trump, Illegals in jail, straws, legalizing pot, promoting ATIFA and generally whining the communist took over their party. Story on November 7.
OS … Those are the eight main topics addressed by Russian propagandists working to undermine USA and our elections. You’re a subconscious Russian sympathizer, aren’t you? Or, are you one of the thousand Russian agents already in USA? Either way, welcome to America. We can flip anyone.
Here’s the good news: Those running statewide in the South Dakota Republican primary who were most identified or involved with the Muslim hate effort failed to gain nomination. Those statewide officeholders who played footsie with the Muslim hate effort by attending one or more of their hatefests failed in attempts to secure nominations to higher positions.
Johnson and Noem were not connected to Muslim hate, at least from my abilities to determine that from two states away. I expect, however, that both may have to play to that ilk of person in order to assure that part of the Republican base stays attached to the Republican fold during the general election.
The Sioux Falls mayor seems, however, to have gotten somewhat close to a few people in the Muslim hate effort during his recent run. That is unfortunate. He needs to be watched and checked if he gets deeper involved. His efforts to pump up the riot budget might be a way to placate the drooling haters he cultivated during his election. Because Sioux Falls has had, maybe if you count liberally, one mini-riot in my 67 years on the planet, it seems unnecessary.
Right now the Muslim hate effort seems to have gone mostly silent, except for a few deadenders still posting. Maybe the loss of Russian funding is causing this relative quiet. Maybe there is more political acumen being shown, similar to the old Communist and Fascist cells in the 1930s that would go silent, then pop up later.
~ How To Stop Anti-Islamist Hate Groups ~ (public exposure and peer shaming)
We like to think that we set our own morality by following some internal moral compass, or perhaps by drawing from philosophical or religious teachings. But there’s a fascinating body of social science that suggests that people, to a significant degree, derive their sense of right and wrong from social cues.
In other words, people form their own morality — not just their outward actions, but their internal beliefs — according, in part, to what they think the people around them believe.
~ An experiment to reduce violence against women in Mexico. ~
Researchers and aid workers recorded an audio soap opera intended to discourage domestic violence against women in rural Mexico. In some areas, people had the audio played for them privately in their homes. In others, the audio was broadcast on village loudspeakers or played at community meetings.
The results were fascinating. People who listened to the audio at home were no less likely to commit violence against women. But people who listened to it in group settings became significantly less likely to commit such violence. People in the latter group — and this is important — also changed their personal beliefs, becoming more likely to consider violence against women morally objectionable and to consider gender equality desirable.
The implication is that people altered their fundamental moral beliefs to fit what they thought the people around them believed. Merely knowing that their neighbors had listened to the audio recording made them internalize it, whereas listening to it on their own didn’t persuade them.
https://static.nytimes.com/email-content/INT_4425.html?nlid=72790262
Tapio, Krebs, Jackley, all beaten—interesting point, Donald! And they lost among their own primary base.
Public exposure and peer shaming—Porter, that actually fits with one of my campaign points. When all three of District 3’s legislators attend and applaud these hate rallies, they signal that espousing bigotry, racism, conspiracy theories, and outright lies is o.k. We need at least one legislator who will publicly condemn these hate rallies and their attack on real American values.
Cory,
I thought of how much you’re responsible for slowing down the Muslim Hate Machine in Aberdeen but didn’t want to bring it up. Glad you did. Also, the high school kids should be lauded. When the haters could hide like cockroaches, they were swimming. Once exposed and ridiculed they were beached.
As research shows, when people know what their neighbors think about hate, they’re then able to justify personal change.
So, right, Porter.
Speaking of Comrade Dusty’s sex kitten, her ties with trump come out now. Wow, seems like everyone was getting in on the action with her prrrrrrrrrrrr. Pro gun? or get your gun? Maria has smitten the South Dakota boys in a yuuuuge way. What a gal this spy was.
“Maria Butina, the Russian gun-rights activist who was charged last month with working as an unregistered agent of the Kremlin, socialized in the weeks before the 2016 election with a former Trump campaign aide who anticipated joining the presidential transition team, emails show, putting her in closer contact with President Trump’s orbit than was previously known.
Butina sought out interactions with J.D. Gordon, who served for six months as the Trump campaign’s director of national security before leaving in August 2016 and being offered a role in the nascent Trump transition effort, according to documents and testimony provided to the Senate Intelligence Committee and described to The Washington Post.”
Poor poor Comrade Dusty, always the last to know…Do we really need this kind of clown dealing with national secrets?
If you really want to slow down hate that means asking what tolerance really means. Listen to some Christopher Hitchens he’s smarter than any far-right bigot or progressive apologist: Best Christopher Hitchens Arguments 7 Hour Compilation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cwcw9FVHlQ
Next thing ya know, they will be teaching Arabic numbers. Gwwaad, what next?