Russian Trolls Used Activists To Organize Events In US, Report Finds

Activists were recruited to help organize events in the United States both before and after the election by the same St. Petersburg-based Russian troll farm behind scores of fake social media accounts that purchased ads to sow discord during the 2016 campaign.

The report estimates about 70 million people a week saw Russian propaganda posted by those accounts, propaganda meant to disrupt the election.


The events included an October 2016 rally in Charlotte, North Carolina to protest police violence by promoting a fake Black Lives Matter protest there. The organizers of the October protest were not with BLM, they were with BlackMattersUS, the unmasked fake organization outed as a Russian front last week.

That Charlotte rally was one of ten 'BlackMattersUS' events catalogued.