Trump's allies are so very helpful

A sample of 600 Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence operations have been promoting hashtags for Charlottesville such as “antifa,” a term for activists on the far left; and “alt-left,” a term Trump used, which was interpreted by many as suggesting an equivalence between liberal demonstrators and white nationalists in the so-called alt-right.

The sample includes accounts that are openly pro-Russian like state-controlled outlets RT and Sputnik, which a joint U.S. intelligence assessment concluded are “part of Russia’s state-run propaganda machine.” The sample also includes those, like “Angee Dixson’s,” that seem to be written by typical Americans. And it follows automated bots that help make messages go viral and even users around the world who spread the Kremlin’s messages whether or not they mean to support Russia. The network is tracked by four researchers working with the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a project of the German Marshall Fund that seeks to expose efforts to undermine Western democracy.

(A spokesperson for Sputnik took issue with the assertions about it in this article, providing 22 links to the news service’s articles that she called “highly critical of the president’s response to Charlottesville.” She argued that to “ignore that reality … would only mean that you are fixing the facts to push a false narrative.” The spokesperson also disputed that Sputnik is a vehicle for any purported Russian disinformation campaign.)

“The Russian influence networks we track are definitely amplifying the broader alt-right chatter about Charlottesville,” one of the researchers, J.M. Berger, said. “The major themes they have been pushing are the ‘both sides are violent’ argument and conspiracy theories that George Soros was behind the counter-protests, although the latter has been trending more sporadically.”