We have been told repeatedly by our intelligence experts that Russian agents, working under Putin’s orders, will again try to manipulate 2020 presidential election. (Have no doubt, they will not be trying to help the Democratic nominee win.) In addition it is highly likely that they will be using the same playbook that brought them success in 2016 – Russian trolls will again pose as everyday politically active Democrats and independent progressives in order to try to sow dissension between various Democratic and progressive groups.
They will again try to turn normal disagreements over policy and candidates into nasty political fights. They will do their best to turn whole demographics of Democratic voters against the eventually nominee just as they tried to suppress the black vote and did their best to turn progressives against Hillary Clinton in 2016. They will try to convince the supporters of candidates who don’t win that their favorites got a raw deal. Early on they might even try to spread fake news in an effort to bring down the candidates who are most likely to beat Trump. And the Trump administration certainly won’t be taking any extraordinary measures to interfere with their work.
However, the typical Russian troll can’t simply start up a new Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter account and instantly begin posting fake news and content meant to pit us against one another and expect to be successful. Even the most gullible would see through that charade. No, a troll has to slide himself slowly and smoothly into our conversations and deftly assume his cover as one of us.
I am not big into Instagram or Twitter, but it is easy to imagine how a troll might accomplish this on Facebook. Starting a new or reactivating a dormant Facebook account is the easy part, but then he has to make that account look like it is the product of an ardent Democrat/progressive that has been around Facebook for quite a while. That accomplished he needs to locate and target those that he intends to influence and weasel his way into their conversations in a manner that doesn’t set off their alarms.
The quickest way to make a Facebook profile look like it belongs to a Democrat/progressive who has been on Facebook for quite a while is to gather a whole bunch of posts, maybe forty or fifty, from the timelines of Democrats and progressives and from their Facebook groups and post them on the fake timeline. People taking a cursory look at the many anti-Trump and anti-Republican posts on the fake timeline will assume that “this guy is one of us” without noticing that the dates of all of those posts are recent.
Now this might take you or me quite a while to accomplish, but keep in mind the troll is probably a Russian GRU (military intelligence) operative and this is his job; this is all he does all day. And he is probably setting up many such fake Facebook accounts at the same time. Once a timeline looks right, it is time to identify those who are to be influenced and establish contact with them.
The identification part is easier than it sounds. According to CNN Business, “A Russian internet company with links to the Kremlin was among the firms to which Facebook gave an extension which allowed them to collect data on unknowing users of the social network after a policy change supposedly stopped such collection.” So, chances are the Russian trolls have lists of targets gathered from a database of Facebook users which has in it all information, including political preferences and ability to influence others, which can be gleamed from the information we share on Facebook on an ongoing basis. Their operatives also can spend all day everyday scanning Facebook Democratic/progressive and anti-Trump/Anti- Republican groups picking out potential targets.
With his targets identify a Russian troll only needs to establish contact without unduly alarming them. Facebook makes that easy. All he has to do is send out friend requests and join the certain Facebook groups. If potential “friends” and group administrators do only cursory checks of his fake timeline, they will find it loaded with posts of articles with pro-progressive/pro-Democratic and anti-Trump/anti-Republican themes as far down the timeline as they have time to check. Many will miss the small detail that all of those articles were posted over a relatively short period of time and subsequently approve the request. Until recently I did that as well.
Then I received a friend request from a guy who called himself Bo Sebo. He and I had over 500 mutual friends, and in the past that would have been enough to accept his friend request without further checking. However, lately I have forced myself to be more careful. So I checked his timeline. What I found there was very reassuring. The wasn’t anything of a personal nature, but there were posts after posts of anti-Trump articles and rants and pro-Democratic content. As I scrolled down again and again I saw nothing but more of the same.
After I had scrolled several times I just happened to notice that I was still in September on his timeline. I had to scroll down a lot further until I got down into the August posts and they they went on and on. That’s when I figured that this Bo Sebo either has too much time on his hands or that something weird was going on. When I got to the middle of August, Sebo’s timeline abruptly ended. There were no posts made before that point.
Bo had added many anti-Trump and liberal posts every day since then and had already accumulated hundreds of progressive friends, 500 hundred of which he and I had in common. (That means many my Facebook friends had already accepted his friend request.) So it looks at first glance that he has been on Facebook forever. He was also even starting a new pro-progressive Facebook group.
I had to ask myself why, after Trump has been in the White House two and a half years, is Bo Sebo suddenly so enthusiastic and obviously on a mission to pick up hundreds of politically active Democratic/progressive friends? At the time I thought that there was a chance Bo Sebo was perfectly legitimate, a late comer to Facebook who had always been into liberal causes and who had always hated Trump and was just trying to make up for lost time.
On the other hand, in the picture he posted he looked fairly young man, maybe in his early 30’s; not someone who would have normally joined Facebook only recently. Just to be on the safe side I reported his page to Facebook checking the option which indicated that it appeared that Bo might not be who he was pretending to be.
A week later when I checked, the Bo Sebo page it was nowhere to be found; Facebook had apparently done their own investigation and deleted it. I am now 99% sure that “Bo Sebo” was a troll, very likely of the Russian variety, who was preparing for the 2020 election.
A week after the Seabo incident I receive yet another friend request from someone with whom I shared a large number of progressive friends. Now alerted to the possibility of Russian trolls I checked his timeline. Like the Bo Sebo page, this guy also had posted very little of a personal nature that might be used to identify him. However he had posted many anti-Trump/anti-Republican and pro-Democrat/pro-progressive articles recently with virtually nothing in the preceding months. On the other hand there were number of posts in the months preceding the 2018 off year elections.
I reasoned that this could be a troll who had meddled in the 2018 mid-term elections and was preparing to do so again in 2020. Just to be on the safe side I rejected the friend request and reported that “gentleman” to Facebook as well. Unfortunately I loss track of his name so I was unable to determine what if anything happened to his Facebook page.
You can bet that Russian operative who his behind the Bo Sebo page is also using numerous other fake Facebook accounts, making the same preparations to sow discontent among us. Remember, that is his job; the only thing that he has to do all day (or all night so that the posts look like they were made by an American). And there are many others who were also recruited for their English language and social media skills in the same complex in Russia who are paid to do the same thing. Perhaps the person behind the other page that I identified as suspicious is one of them as well
These are weird times. When evaluating friend request and requests to join Facebook groups, check their timelines and do more than take cursory looks. A lot of posts can be accumulated in a short period of time. Check check how long the requester has been on have been on Facebook and be leery if he/she is new arrival or have long intervals where they posted virtually nothing.
If you see a large number of posts made recently, be leery and keep checking. If you scroll down again and again and see nothing but fairly recent posts, skip back in time. You can do this easily. Notice that as you scroll down in someone’s timeline, a box with the person’s name, the word “Timeline”, the month (with a downward arrow), and the year (with a downward arrow) appear at the top to the page.
When you click on the down arrow near either the month or the year you can skip back in time on the timeline. Using this feature you can easily check how long someone has been on Facebook. You can also easily determine if there were time periods period of intense posting activity and others were there were no posts at all.
If that check makes you suspicious, be safe and delete the request. You should also report the suspicious profile to Facebook. You can make that report by locating the message square at the top of the home page. Click on the three dots to the right of the word “Message”. A drop down box will appear. Click on the line “Find support or report profile”. I would then click on the choice, “Pretending to be someone else”. The choice “Fake Account” will also work. Facebook will investigate; they have their ways of identifying fake accounts. If the account is legit, no harm will be done.
Social media is under siege and we must do our part to not become the victims of Russian manipulation. However, that regardless of how vigilant we and the social media platforms are, it is inevitable that some of the trolls will slip through the net and do their best to help Trump seize victory. Be very wary of anyone who tries to turn us against each other.
Cajun 9/23/19