Hours after Philando Castile was shot and killed by a St. Anthony police officer in 2016, during another heated presidential election, a mysterious Facebook page began to run ads promoting a protest called “Justice for Philando Castile.”
Black Lives Matter activists in Minneapolis knew nothing about it. Soon they learned that the website associated with the Facebook page “Don’t Shoot” was registered to a seemingly false name and address.
A year later, U.S. intelligence analysts released a report saying the Russian government had sought to interfere in the 2016 presidential election using social media. Subsequent law enforcement and media investigations uncovered a sham organization called “Blacktivist” — a troll operation run from St. Petersburg, Russia, led by a Kremlin-linked group known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA). Continue reading.