Leveraging the hate espoused by candidate Trump during his campaign, the Russians exploited racism and religious-ism in half of the Facebook ads they purchased in support of their candidate.
The top ad, with 1.3 million views, was a
“Back the Badge” page, targeting users who liked law enforcement friendly pages such as Police Wives Unite and Officer Down Memorial. This came after a summer of 100 Black Lives Matter protests, police shooting protests and Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest. The next day, USA Today’s analysis showed that ads targeting people who liked Black history included “driving while Black” and police brutality being a dominant issue.
With 25 million views of ads covering race, crime or policing, immigration and guns, they jumped from 44 per month in 2015 to 400 per month right before the election. After the election, 900 per month were posted until May 2017, according to USA Today’s analysis.
People were targeted by interest, category and even by city, Wired reported. Ads published by the page Black Matters targeted those in Baltimore, Md., and Ferguson, Mo., where there were racism and police brutality headlines. Those who were interested in Hillary Clinton and the Muslim Brotherhood had an ad on the United Muslims of America showing Clinton smiling with a woman in a hijab, and invited people to attend an event entitled “Support Hillary. Save American Muslims.”
Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., tweeted in response to the analysis:
Cut to the chase. The Russian facebook ads during the election season focused overwhelmingly on race. As I have said, racism is a national security vulnerability. We should be treating it as such.
https://t.co/7bRYfu4kx7
Sherrilyn Ifill (@Sifill_LDF)
May 12, 2018
So I know that many want to talk about the economy and rural v urban, and millenials v boomers, and swing voters . But even the Russians recognize how easily Americans can be manipulated around race. It is a driving force – maybe the driving force – in American politics.
Sherrilyn Ifill (@Sifill_LDF)
May 12, 2018
First and foremost our civil rights laws – enacted by sacrifice, blood, hard work and relentless demand, must be enforced. When the nation’s chief law enforcement ofcr, the AG, has all but abandoned vigorous enforcement, he further weakens our country.
Sherrilyn Ifill (@Sifill_LDF)
May 12, 2018
In the election Clinton used intellect, while Trump went after raw hate, a study published in the Journal of Quantitative Linguistics shows. In November 2015, when it was reported that a BLM protester was assaulted outside Trump’s Alabama rally, Trump suggested, Maybe he should have been roughed up.” He incited violence to his all white supporters. In June 2015, his speech at Trump Tower demonized Mexicans: They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” And in addition to his retweets of anti-Muslim violence videos, he proposed a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” instituted a ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. and desired a database of all Muslims in America.
While the Russians stirred the racial pot, content online is racist without the Russians, Bret Schafer of the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy told USA Today.
