Dakota Crawford

IndyStar

INDIANAPOLIS – Pay close attention before getting into arguments with Twitter accounts pushing hashtags like #TakeAKnee or #boycottNFL.

The Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan group aiming to "publicly document and expose Vladimir Putin’s ongoing efforts to subvert democracy," monitors 600 Twitter accounts it says are linked to Russia. And that group reported that hashtags like 'nfl,' 'takeaknee,' and 'boycottnfl' have recently been some of the most frequently used by those accounts.

Twitter executives discussed Russian interference in the 2016 election with heads from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center on Thursday. Sports chatter, in comparison, seems pretty harmless.

But Oklahoma's republican Sen. James Lankford explained that the bigger issue is highlighted through these NFL tweets.

"They were taking both sides of the argument this past weekend and pushing them out from their troll farms as much as they could," Lankford said during the hearing, "to just raise the noise level in America and make a big issue seem like an even bigger issue as they're trying to push divisiveness in the country."

More on NFL protests:

► Doyel: Colts players explain why they are kneeling for the national anthem

► Trump's remarks lead to Colts, Browns protest during national anthem

Within 15 miles of Indianapolis, about 40 Tweets have used #boycottNFL since Sunday, when 100-plus NFL players — including several Indianapolis Colts — took a knee during the national anthem. The protest was started in 2016 by quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who wouldn't stand to honor the flag of a country that he said oppresses black people and people of color.

The protest went league-wide for the first time last week after Donald Trump used 'son of a b----' to refer to kneeling NFL players.

Real people have certainly debated this issue. According to Keyhole, a real-time social media monitoring service, there were 708 posts from 608 users Wednesday alone. Those posts racked up more than 6 million impressions on Twitter.

But even here in Indy, it's easy to find accounts using these hashtags that are suspicious.

Take @PatrickRiot1607, an account with five tweets and one follower, for example. The profile picture is a bald eagle watermarked with an American Flag, with bright yellow letters spelling 'Benghazi.'

Here is some of the more productive conversation from real Indianapolis-area Tweeters:

This issue will evolve as social media companies look for better ways to monitor and control fake accounts. Both Twitter and Facebook are working with the government to look into how Russia utilized social media to affect the 2016 election.

"It is clear," said Rep. Adam Schiff of California, "that Twitter has significant forensic work to do to understand the depth and breadth of Russian activity during the campaign."

In the meantime, keep an eye out for the trolls.

IndyStar sports producer Dakota Crawford has a real Twitter account. You can follow it: @DakotaCrawford_.