MY SIDES! Those 3,000 ‘Russian Troll Farm’ Facebook Ads ‘Showed Support for Clinton’

With the Trump-Russia narrative nearly extinguished under the weight of its own lunacy, the latest log tossed on the dying pyre of credibility was the revelation earlier this month that a “Russian troll farm” had purchased up to $150,000 worth of ads – 3,000 total, through 470 phony Facebook accounts.

Initial reports were that the ads were mostly taken out in 2015 and did not support a specific candidate. Facebook initially published the following information when they announced their findings:

• The vast majority of ads run by these accounts didn’t specifically reference the US presidential election, voting or a particular candidate.
• Rather, the ads and accounts appeared to focus on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum — touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights.
• About one-quarter of these ads were geographically targeted, and of those, more ran in 2015 than 2016.
• The behavior displayed by these accounts to amplify divisive messages was consistent with the techniques mentioned in the white paper we released in April about information operations.

and after Facebook turned over the 3k ads to congressional investigators, a little bird whispered to the Washington Post – which reports that some of the 3,000 ads highlighted support for Hillary Clinton.

And while the Washington Post was happy to paint in broad brush strokes, leaving out specifics and declining to print examples of the actual ads – they’re happy to conclude that Russia’s objective was to “sow discord.”

Via WaPo:

The Russian campaign — taking advantage of Facebook’s ability to simultaneously send contrary messages to different groups of users based on their political and demographic characteristics – also sought to sow discord among religious groups. Other ads highlighted support for Democrat Hillary Clinton among Muslim women.

So it appears we have pivoted from “Russia helped Trump” to “Russia used pro-Hillary ads to ‘sow discord’ and beat Hillary by dividing her base.”

Sure, and virtually the entire GOP rejecting Trump as their nominee after the primaries didn’t divide the right as much as the Russians and their 3,000 ads.

Wapo goes on to report:

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, said he hoped the public would be able to review the ad campaign.

“I think the American people should see a representative sample of these ads to see how cynical the Russian were using these ads to sow division within our society,” he said, noting that he had not yet seen the ads but had been briefed on them, including the ones mentioning “things like Black Lives Matter.”

There you have it; Russia placed pro-Hillary ads in 2015 and influenced the election by dividing the country. Devious.