Facebook groups created by Russian trolls not only attempted to sway election, they also attempted to incite violence.

Courtesy of CNN: 

Posts from three now-removed Facebook groups created by the Russian Internet Research Agency suggest Russia sought not only to meddle in U.S. politics but to encourage ideologically opposed groups to act out violently against one another. The posts are part of a database compiled by Jonathan Albright, the research director at Columbia University's Tow Center for Digital Journalism, who tracks and analyzes Russian propaganda. 

For example, "Being Patriotic," a group that regularly posted content praising Donald Trump's candidacy, stated in an April 2016 post that Black Lives Matter activists who disrespected the American flag should be "be immediately shot." The account accrued about 200,000 followers before it was shut down. 

Another Russia-linked group, "Blacktivist," described police brutality in a November 2016 post weeks after the election, and stated, "Black people have to do something. An eye for an eye. The law enforcement officers keep harassing and killing us without consequences." 

The group "Secured Borders" had the most violent rhetoric, some of it well after the presidential election. A post in March 2017 described the threat of "dangerous illegal aliens" and said, "The only way to deal with them is to kill them all." Another post about immigrants called for a draconian new law, saying, "if you get deported that's your only warning. You come back you get shot and rolled into a ditch... BANG, problem solved." And a post about refugees said, "the state department needs to be burned to the ground and the rubble reduced to ashes."

Well that's troubling.

And it also indicates that the Russian trolls were likely more interested in sowing unrest and even violence than in getting Donald  Trump elected.

In fact they probably believed that getting him elected would create even more disharmony and distrust.

Which would help to explain this next story.

Courtesy of Politico:

Top lawyers from Facebook and Twitter said Tuesday that Russian-linked posts and advertisements placed on the social networks after Election Day sought to sow doubt about President Donald Trump's victory. 

Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch told a Senate Judiciary panel that content generated by a Russian troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency after Nov. 8 centered on “fomenting discord about the validity of [Trump’s] election.” That's a change from Russia's pre-election activity, which was largely centered on trying to denigrate Hillary Clinton, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a January report. 

“During the election, they were trying to create discord between Americans, most of it directed against Clinton. After the election you saw Russian-tied groups and organizations trying to undermine President Trump’s legitimacy. Is that what you saw on Facebook?” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) asked at the hearing. 

Stretch and his Twitter counterpart, Sean Edgett, called that an "accurate" statement.

Donald Trump is the chaos candidate, which is likely why Putin wanted him in the White House.

I imagine that Putin also hoped that he could do something about the sanctions against Russia, but when Trump proved impotent in that regard, well then  it was time to use him to ignite more unrest among the American people.

I have said it before, but it bears repeating.

If you are getting your information from Facebook it is almost certain that your opinions have been manipulated in one way or another.

Twitter may have been even more damaging to our democracy in 2016 than Facebook.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

For three weeks, a harsh spotlight has been trained on Facebook over its disclosure that Russians used fake pages and ads, designed to look like the work of American activists, to spread inflammatory messages during and since the presidential campaign. 

But there is evidence that Twitter may have been used even more extensively than Facebook in the Russian influence campaign last year. In addition to Russia-linked Twitter accounts that posed as Americans, the platform was also used for large-scale automated messaging, using “bot” accounts to spread false stories and promote news articles about emails from Democratic operatives that had been obtained by Russian hackers.

Twitter has struggled for years to rein in the fake accounts overrunning its platform. Unlike Facebook, the service does not require its users to provide their real name (or at least a facsimile of one) and allows automated accounts — arguing that they are a useful tool for tasks such as customer service. Beyond those restrictions, there is also an online black market for services that can allow for the creation of large numbers of Twitter bots, which can be controlled by a single person while still being difficult to distinguish from real accounts. 

Since last month, researchers at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan initiative of the German Marshall Fund, a public policy research group in Washington, have been publicly tracking 600 Twitter accounts — human users and suspected bots alike — they have linked to Russian influence operations. Those were the accounts pushing the opposing messages on the N.F.L. and the national anthem.

Facebook has been receiving the lion's share of the attention concerning the Kremlin using social media to manipulate American voters and spread misinformation, and certainly they played a big part, but Twitter may have been an even bigger player in the undermining of our democracy.

Courtesy of CNN: 

A social media campaign calling itself "Blacktivist" and linked to the Russian government used both Facebook and Twitter in an apparent attempt to amplify racial tensions during the U.S. presidential election, two sources with knowledge of the matter told CNN. The Twitter account has been handed over to Congress; the Facebook account is expected to be handed over in the coming days. 

Both Blacktivist accounts, each of which used the handle Blacktivists, regularly shared content intended to stoke outrage. "Black people should wake up as soon as possible," one post on the Twitter account read. "Black families are divided and destroyed by mass incarceration and death of black men," another read. The accounts also posted videos of police violence against African Americans. 

The Blacktivist accounts provide further evidence that Russian-linked social media accounts saw racial tensions as something to be exploited in order to achieve the broader Russian goal of dividing Americans and creating chaos in U.S. politics during a campaign in which race repeatedly became an issue.

Apparently there was no group that the Russians did not find a way to manipulate.

And I mean NO group.

Did you know there are 200+ more fake antifa? See list w/ IDs and names. https://t.co/6ucY1soXll cc @RVAwonk pic.twitter.com/BTonwS2258

— OperationWolverines (@OpWolverines) September 27, 2017

Clearly the Russians recognized divisions within the country, and exploited as many of them as they could in order to disrupt our ability to get along with each other and to undermine any chances of communicating openly and honestly.

There are super villains in comic books who had less devious schemes.

Trump supporter interrupts "HAMILTON" in Chicago with shouts of "We won! You Lost! Get over it! F*ck you!" Such reasonable people.

Courtesy of Broadway World:  

Broadway World has learned that a Trump supporter interrupted the Saturday evening performance of Hamilton in Chicago. An audience member seated in the balcony allegedly shouted "We won! You Lost! Get over it! F*ck you!" during the number "Dear Theodosia." 

One Twitter user who attended the show alleges that the audience member also shouted profanities and had an altercation with security before being removed from the auditorium. 

One Facebook user wrote "At the end, the performers were crying... so was I. They didn't break characters once. They still sang their hearts out."

Later there there was an update that what seemed to incense the man was this line from the play, "immigrants, we get the job done," and the cheers which followed.

The man also admitted that he was intoxicated at the time, which I am sure is a condition that a lot of Trump supporters will share as they finally come to learn just who they put into the White House. 

I guess that this is the country that we live in today.

A country where people rudely interrupt a popular stage show, and act out in anger when confronted with knowledge of the contributions made by immigrants to this great nation.