Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

TEXIT. Very interesting article. Huge cheer for the vet who made the connections, do hope he is able to remain anonymous. No doubt Russia's biggest threat is it's ability to spread false information. Just underlines yet again how important an independent investigative press is.

This excerpt is the end of the article:

"Still, the NAFO member the Current spoke to for this story maintains that some of the accounts Ross interacts with via X are Russian bots. The online sleuth argues that adding that some legitimate TEXIT supporters may not even realize their followers or those commenting on their posts are doing so on Russia's behalf.

That's a problem, American University's Gallaher said.

Russian bot mills not only create misinformation but also actively promote false or divisive content via "coordinated link sharing," when one bot shares something from another bot or real person, according to the professor's research. If they share the information enough times, the rhetoric can seep into mainstream political discourse.

Indeed, according to the 2018 U.S. Senate report on Russian election interference, the Facebook page Heart of Texas specifically emphasized and promoted unproven claims that fraudulent votes cast by migrants helped the Democratic Party during the 2016 election cycle.

With Abbott's backing, the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature in 2021 passed a sweeping "election security" bill which civil-rights advocates have called one of the most restrictive pieces of voting legislation enacted in recent history. Lawmakers, including the governor, defended the proposal with debunked claims of rampant voter fraud.

Gallaher also points to the Republican Party's sudden fascination with child sex trafficking as something that was talked into existence via online chatter around the far-right Qanon conspiracy mill.

"The whole child sex trafficking thing was not an issue until Qanon made it an issue," she said. "Qanon came out of 8chan and that corner of the internet. But then you start seeing this getting repeated over and over again, and a lot of the accounts that were repeating it over and over again were Russian."

Indeed, Nathan Buchanan, a Republican running for Bexar County Sheriff this election cycle, told TNM members during a February meeting of the group's San Antonio chapter that stopping child sex trafficking was among his top priorities should he be elected.

"It would be harder to [spread disinformation] before social media and it would be harder if we had some unifying place that produced news," Gallaher said.

"That's not to say that the news has always been completely partisan, but we could debate. Those parameters have collapsed, and I don't think the Russians created it, but they boosted it.""

Tour - https://www.sacurrent.com/news/to-texas-with-love-what-russias-support-of-texit-tells-us-about-the-frayed-nature-of-us-politics-33862864