Democrats Ran Fake Russian Bot Campaign on Twitter, Promoted by Media
Liberal billionaire Reid Hoffman funded operation tp smear Republican opponent
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The Democrats ran a fraudulent Twitter campaign to boost Alabama Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in the October 2017 special election, according to reports.
Operatives from the Democrat party created thousands of fake Twitter accounts posing as Russian bots and linked them to Jones's Republican opponent, Roy Moore, to push the 'Russian interference' narrative.
Funded by liberal billionaire Reid Hoffman, the operatives created thousand Russian-language accounts that followed Moore’s Twitter account, making him look like he was being aided by the Russians, according to the The New York Times.
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Operatives received $100,000 from Hoffman to launch the crooked campaign, enabling them to create fake conservative Facebook accounts to convince voters that Moore being helped by Russia.
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“We orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet,” the operatives admitted in an internal report acquired by the Times.
Mainstream media outlets, both in Alabama and nationally, ran with the false narrative without questioning its authenticity.
The Montgomery Advertiser, an affiliate of left-leaning USA Today, ran blindly ran with the story.
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The reporter of the story, Brian Lyman, did not immediately return requests for comments from The Daily Caller News Foundation.
The New York Post headline was: “Roy Moore flooded with fake Russian Twitter followers," citing the Advertiser.
Roy Moore just picked up a whole bunch of twitter followers. But they ain't from around here, comrade. pic.twitter.com/vJBPVxqWIW
— The Ostrich (@ALostrich) October 16, 2017
Jumping on the bandwagon, Mother Jones cited the same report in a story titled, “Russian Propagandists Are Pushing for Roy Moore to Win.”
The reports also cited Russian media’s favorable coverage of Moore to justify the narrative.
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The Russian interference narrative has cost the US taxpayer more than $25 million, according to the most recent spending report released Friday.
In this year alone, between April 1 and Sept. 30, $4.56 million has been spent on the investigation.
