Efforts to influence 2016 election show focus on black voters and a familiar targeting of America’s problem with racism

When Russian agents used social media to sow chaos among the US electorate, they tried all kinds of tactics. They posed as leftwing social justice activists and rightwing defenders of the Confederate flag. They made memes, bought ads, shared fake news and posted opinions from fake users on all sides of hot-button American issues.

Russian propagandists targeted African Americans to influence 2016 US election Read more

But one theme dramatically outpaced the rest: race.

According to two reports prepared for the US Senate intelligence committee, by far the “most prolific” efforts were made to target black Americans. According to one report, Russia’s Internet Research Agency “created an expansive cross-platform media mirage targeting the black community, which shared and cross-promoted authentic black media to create an immersive influence ecosystem”.

To many observers that is no surprise, given the depth of America’s cultural and political faultlines.

“They identified a vulnerability in this nation based on our racial history and our current reality and they exploited that vulnerability,” said Derrick Johnson, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said: “The latest reports confirm that racism is a national security threat.”

Analysts found that Russians used social media “troll farms” to “confuse, distract, and ultimately discourage” black people from voting for Hillary Clinton. They aimed to do so by describing the Democratic candidate for president as too similar to the Republican, Donald Trump, or by using bogus claims such as Clinton accepting donations from the Ku Klux Klan.

To see the way in which Russia has exacerbated the voter suppression faced by African Americans is truly disturbing Kristen Clarke

Over five years, such efforts were expansive: researchers reported 10.4 million tweets, 1,107 YouTube videos, 116,205 Instagram posts and 61,483 unique Facebook posts from Russian operatives. Much of the material was intended to inflame anger among black Americans about skewed rates of poverty, incarceration and the use of force by police and thereby, in the words of one report, to “divert their political energy away from established political institutions”.

It is unclear exactly what effect such efforts had. Black voter turnout fell to less than 60% in 2016, from a record high of 66.6% in 2012. But it is impossible to draw a direct line between Russian influence work and that decline and US civil rights group are already facing homegrown attempts to disenfranchise black voters.

“We are wrestling with voter suppression at the most intense levels at the hands of officials right here on American soil,” Clarke said. “But to see the way in which Russia has exploited that reality and exacerbated the voter suppression faced by African Americans is truly disturbing.”

Some Russian propaganda posts, for example, falsely assured black voters they could vote from home on their mobile devices, instead of casting ballots in person.

The Senate reports laid heavy blame on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google, for continuing failures to turn over relevant data and for offering inaccurate and evasive statements to Congress. The NAACP was so exercised by Facebook’s unwillingness or inability to act that it launched a #LogOutFacebook campaign and returned all donations from the company.

“There is corporate responsibility to ensure that foreign nations are not utilizing their tools, to subvert democracy,” Johnson told the Guardian. “There’s also corporate responsibility to ensure that their platform is not being used to fan the flames of racial hatred and intolerance.”

Johnson said such failures may be reflective of a broader problem that big tech has with racial diversity, especially at the highest levels. Facebook is in the midst of a civil rights audit.

Theodore Johnson, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice who studies black voting behavior, said one thing being missed in the analysis of Russia’s black-centric web content is that a lot of it was probably intended to sway white audiences.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A views of the four-story building known as the ‘troll factory’ in St Petersburg, Russia. Photograph: Naira Davlashyan/AP

“Equally important was putting black activist language out on social media in order to scare white citizens into thinking their nation was changing, and mobilize white voters in support of Trump,” he said, pointing to posts that falsely showed Black Lives Matter activists with guns and claimed they planned to exercise their second-amendment rights.

“Black folks were not the target for that,” Johnson said, adding in reference to pro-law enforcement conservative reactionaries: “I’m convinced the ‘Blue Lives Matter’ crowd was the target there.”

Johnson spent more than 20 years in the US navy, working on cyberwar and information operations. He said the Russian efforts were a “classic example of a nation using psychological operations” to achieve policy goals.

“The No1 objective was to throw chaos into our democracy in our electoral process,” Johnson said. “Lessening people’s faith in the system, having folks question the integrity of your election itself – the process, the results – that was the whole point of this.”

Trump’s victory was of secondary importance, he said.

‘This isn’t new’

The revelation that Russian operatives targeted black American voters should hardly come as a shock. American racism has long presented a vulnerability that foreign governments, led by the former Soviet Union, have sought to attack.

Such attacks are so ingrained in Russian culture, they are a key feature in a brand of humor: “Armenian Radio jokes”. In a common variation, an American and a Russian engage in an argument about the conditions in their homelands. Up against the ropes, the Russian blurts out a last-ditch accusation: “Over there, you lynch negroes!”

The roots of the joke, which is now synonymous with the logical fallacy of whataboutism, actually precede the cold war, Johnson said.

'It's time for significant changes': civil rights groups call for Facebook leaders to step down Read more

“In the 30s, they were already running ads showing America to be hypocrites” for proclaiming equality and freedom while black citizens were regularly lynched, Johnson said.

Others followed the Russian lead. During the second world war, Japan dropped leaflets which told black troops: “You’re up front while whitey stays behind where he won’t get hurt.”

Johnson said: “This isn’t new. It’s an old diplomatic soft power tactic.”

What is new is the social media landscape that allows attacks to penetrate the deepest recesses of American lives. According to Clarke, even should social media companies come to try harder, US law must catch up.

“Our laws in this country just have not evolved and kept pace with the growth of the tech sector,” she said, “and Russia had fully seized on that vulnerability in ways that are now harming American democracy.

“The online community has become the wild west – an unregulated space in which anything goes, and now we’re seeing the ugliest consequences of that.”