Here’s a Completely Fake Pro-Trump Twitter Account Created by Russian Trolls
Faux profile exposed by congressional investigation
Sean Burch | November 3, 2017 @ 12:02 PM
Last Updated: November 3, 2017 @ 12:11 PM
More than 70,000 followers looked to Twitter personality Jenna Abrams for her thoughts on a myriad of hot-button topics, from political correctness to segregation to President Trump and Hillary Clinton.
The right-leaning account offered pearls of wisdom, like this nugget from April 2016: “To those people, who hate the Confederate flag. Did you know that the flag and the war wasn’t about slavery, it was all about money.”
Tweeted amid the rise of alt-right-leaning media personalities, including Milo Yiannopoulos and Tomi Lahren, its sounds pretty familiar.
The only difference with Abrams is — she doesn’t exist. She was the creation of the Internet Research Agency, a pro-Kremlin troll farm funded by the Russian government, according to a House of Representatives investigation, cited by The Daily Beast.
Data turned over by Twitter and Facebook helped congressional investigators peg Abrams to the Russian agency — which has been in the headlines lately for leveraging social media sites like Facebook and Twitter before and after the 2016 U.S. election.
Abrams — who operated under the the handle @Jenn_Abrams for three years — quickly became a high-profile rabble rouser on Twitter. Roseanne Barr responded to one of her tweets, calling a mutual enemy a “pro-pedophile.” Russian propaganda expert and former U.S. ambassador Michael McFaul routinely got into arguments with her. Ex-White House National Security Advisor Michael Flynn retweeted her. And Abrams’ tweets were featured on an array of websites, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Buzzfeed.
Russian agents went the extra yard to make Abrams appear as real as possible. Her Twitter profile included a Gmail account, a Medium blog and a GoFundMe account (perhaps Putin doesn’t pay that well). Abrams didn’t just talk about politics, either, touching on pop culture issues like the Kardashians and, of course, “manspreading.”
“Her” account has since been suspended by Twitter, but her legacy brings attention to how effectively Russian trolls can pose as American personalities online. Read the full Daily Beast report here.
6 Tech Giants Shaking Up News, From Jeff Bezos to Laurene Powell Jobs (Photos)
Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.
Jeff Bezos – Washington Post
The Amazon founder purchased the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million in cash. President Trump has called the paper the “Amazon Washington Post.”
The Facebook co-founder purchased The New Republic in 2012, becoming executive chairman and publisher. However, he sold the venerable political magazine to Win McCormack in 2016, saying he "underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate."
The eBay founder is a well-known philanthropist who created First Look Media, a journalism venture behind The Intercept. Inspired by Edward Snowden's leaks. Omidyar teamed up with journalists Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras to launch the website “dedicated to the kind of reporting those disclosures required: fearless, adversarial journalism.”
The PayPal co-founder doesn’t own a news organization, but he makes this list because he essentially ended one -- Gawker -- proving once again the power of an angry billionaire. Thiel secretly bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s sex-tape lawsuit against Gawker Media because he was upset that the website once outed him as gay. Hogan won the defamation lawsuit against the site that sent its parent company into bankruptcy, and Gawker.com is no longer operating.
OK, so Facebook isn’t technically a news organization… yet. However, the company is preparing to launch its much-anticipated lineup of original content later this summer, and there are also signs that it's on the verge of becoming an even bigger media platform.
Campbell Brown, Head of News Partnerships at Facebook, confirmed last week it’s developing a subscription service for publishers willing to post articles directly to Facebook Instant Articles, rather than their native websites.
Tech is increasingly intertwined with news, for better or worse
Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.