Russian trolls on social media have certainly become a hot topic, especially since popular Facebook and Twitter accounts, such as @Crystal1Johnson, were used in effort to sway the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Some of the Russian actors played upon racial tensions, hoping to stir up trouble with the United States. Now, another social media giant, Tumblr, has announced that Russian agents worked to manipulate American users (particularly black American users) on its platform, NPR reports.
According to NPR, the social blogging platform recently identified over 80 accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency (IRA). The IRA is a Russian-based digital propaganda organization that was recently indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Russian-linked accounts on Tumblr targeted black users by using names such as "black-to-the-bones," "blackness-by-your-side," "blacknproud," "blacktolive," "bleepthepolice," "noteverythingiswhite," "starling-all-black-all-day" and "weproud2black."
Tumblr posted the announcement on its official blog and issued a list of steps the company plans to take.
"Their goal is to sow division and discontent in the countries they target," read Tumblr's blog statement. "What makes them so difficult to spot is that they're not spambots. They're real people who get trained and paid to spread propaganda."
Some of the accounts urged black Americans not to vote in the election, arguing that both Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton and President Trump would be bad for black people. More recently, the propaganda agents have sought to sow race-based discord over the #TakeAKnee protests, Charlottesville and the Austin bombings.
Actors behind these accounts even occasionally switched usernames to alleviate suspicion. For example, "blackprideworldwide" transformed to "shoutoutworldwide" while another switched from "heygeraldmartinjohanssen" to "ghettablasta" to "postingwhileblack."
"They want to drive a wedge between us so that we spend our time fighting with each other instead of building towards the future," Tumblr said. "We'll be watching for signs of future activity, but the best defense is knowing how they operate and how to judge the content you see."
Tumblr has emailed all users who interacted with the IRA accounts in any way (including liking posts, reblogging or replying), and has posted a list containing all the known usernames linked to the IRA. It has also turned over information regarding the IRA accounts to law enforcement.
The company has left it to specific users to determine whether they would like to delete any posts they reblogged from the associated accounts. Tumblr has also released a list of helpful tips that include ways to stay aware of online manipulation, how one can identify disinformation tactics and how to take steps to stop the spread of misinformation.
