Long before the FBI, CIA, DNI and NSA figured out that Russia was bombarding social media with an avalanche of disinformation, fake news and bots, a fellow blogger, Rob Goldstein of Art by Rob Goldstein.com had been sounding the alarms about this issue for several months in advance of the US presidential election day. And others including myself picked up on the mantle.
Tidbit: In months July/ August 2017 watch groups have noted a 5300% increase in Russian bots/ trolls demanding the firing of the NSA secretary, General H.R. McMaster.
Here’s the rest of the story…
On August 4, 2017, Shimon Prokupezc, Pamela Brown and Evan Perez of CNN penned the following report, “Exclusive: FBI tracked ‘fake news’ believed to be from Russia on Election Day.”
Excerpts:
“The FBI monitored social media on Election Day last year in an effort to track a suspected Russian disinformation campaign utilizing “fake news.”
“In the months leading up to Election Day, Twitter and Facebook were the feeding grounds for viral “news” stories floating conspiracies and hoaxes, many aimed at spreading negative false claims about Hillary Clinton.”
On Election Day, dozens of agents and analysts huddled at a command center arrayed with large monitoring screens at the FBI headquarters in Washington watching for security threats, according to multiple sources.”
“That included analysts monitoring cyber threats, after months of mounting Russian intrusions targeting every part of the US political system, from political parties to policy think-tanks to state election systems.”
“On this day, there was also a group of FBI cyber and counterintelligence analysts and investigators watching social media.”
“FBI analysts had identified social media user accounts behind stories, some based overseas, and the suspicion was that at least some were part of a Russian disinformation campaign, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.”
“For the FBI, this was uncomfortable territory, given the First Amendment’s free speech protections even for fake news stories.”“We were right on the edge of Constitutional legality,” a person briefed on the investigation said. “We were monitoring news.”
“As the hours ticked by on Election Day, teams at the FBI, Homeland Security Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence held conference calls every three hours with a team at the Situation Room in the White House to discuss possible problems, according to multiple sources.”
“Minor issues popped up in far-flung parts of the country, from Alaska to Georgia.
At the end of day, top officials exchanged congratulations for an election day that was completed without disruptions of the vote.”
“One Obama White House official responded to the messages of congratulations with the opposite view, saying the US government response to the Russian operation was “a failure of imagination.”
“Are you kidding?” that official recalled saying to others at the White House as they celebrated a successful election. “What they did worked!”
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Gronda Morin 
FINALLY!!! I so glad that the intelligence agencies came out and admit HOW Russia interfered in our elections. Not b/c of hacking but primarily a disinfo campaign launched via social media to influence voters. Why didn’t they just release this crucial information during the election so the American public become aware of what’s going on?!
The IC were monitoring the situation in real time and tracking Russian Bots, and i understand they didn’t want to influence/ interfere with the election themselves, but this is really important intel that we the ppl should have been informed! Perhaps ppl on the fence wouldn’t have voted for Mr Orange if they had known.
If you recall, fellow blogger and geopolitical analyst Lada Ray had predicted a Trump victory not b/c she supported or endorsed him. She reported massive interference by Russia to influence the outcome. First Putin unethically outright came out and endorsed Trump, which is against presidential protocol. Then Russian state run operatives follow that up with a smear campaign against Hilllary, and the massive DNC breach leaked to WikiLeaks. All these factors contributed to where we are today.
Voting reform of the system should really be in place prior to 2018 and 2020.
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Dear !EarthUnited,
Months ago, I was conversing by blog with Rob Goldstein where he demonstrated that one could Google WikiLeaks and the name of Hillary Clinton simultaneous with any combination of words, and up would pop a complete fake story about Mrs. Clinton, all of them were unflattering.
My favorite ref for tracking Russian fake news via tweeter accounts is Hamilton 68 – Alliance for Securing Democracy
dashboard.securingdemocracy.org/
Hugs, Gronda
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These bots and trolls are likely continuing to this day. If the Russians don’t like a certain person as they are too competent or anti-Russian, they can pound him or her with “bots.” There are too many poor sources of info that will grab it and run with it.
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Dear Keith,
The Russians are still at it today. They get their cues from Breibart and InfoWars and then they get started with the bots and trolls. Lately Hannity of FOX TV, Breitbart and InfoWars have been hammering against General H.R. McMaster who has been countering the Alt-right wing of the WH.
HUGS, GRONDA
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Gronda, as you, Rob and others have noted, we are in full out disinformation mode. Putin utilizes it best, but we have a President, known for his prolific lying, who has realized that the truth is fungible.
What they fail to realize is their word means nothing. So, they can fool their followers, but at some point the truth becomes apparent. It does not stop them from lying, though. Keith
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It’s relentless. I even get ‘spoof’ yahoo news pages with reports on the latest FBI leaks about Obama. Putin is not going to give up the white house without an all out assault on our minds.
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Dear Rob,
You were way ahead of the curve in figuring out Russia’s social media campaign against Hillary Clinton.
Now these Russian trolls have become so sophisticated that they follow folks like Hannity at FOX News, and outlets like Breitbart and Infowars to amplify whatever issues these entities are advocating like recent attacks on the president’s NSA Adviser,
General H.R. McMaster.
General Kelly coming on the scene as Chief of Staff is helping with this. Gen. McMaster has been confronting the racist WH staff, like Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller and Sebastan Gorka.
For keeping track of Russian trolls, I’ve been using the link, http://dashboard.securingdemocracy.org/about.
Thanks a million times over for your support and for this reblog.
Hugs, Gronda
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Thanks for this link Gronda!
The Kremlin propaganda outlets are working overtime to subvert Mueller’s investigation.
This should outrage anyone who lives in a Democratic nation.
We need a united international effort to remove Putin from the U.S. Government, dismantle his propaganda machine, and isolate him so he never again threatens the NATO alliance.
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Thanks for the mention Gronda and for the props. It was weird and I still don’t know how professional journalists reported these smears against Clinton with out noticing how outrageous they were.
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Reblogged this on Art by Rob Goldstein.
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Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
This has long been brewing … what I don’t understand is why, if known, it was allowed to happen? In spite of sanctions and actions from previous Admin. 😳
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Dear Horty,
I suspect that President Obama went overboard in attempting to avoid the appearance of throwing the election to Hillary Clinton but in doing this, he sold the American peoples, short. He blew this one, bigly.
As usual, thanks a million times over for all of your support and for this reblog.
Hugs, Gronda
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My thoughts exactly! I don’t/didn’t understand the idea of politicizing this info during campaign … to avoid looking like tipping the scale. The option he opted for left this country with this idiotic man/child who’s ruining the country in all aspects. Even if Drumpf were gone, the door he’s opened will never be closed! It’s Pandora’s box … you can’t put the toothpaste back in!! The hate, bigotry, division, etc. … out in the open, will remain. I don’t think I’ll live to see a fully recovered America! 😢
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Dear Mz. Gronda,
There were many of us that spotted this problem several years ago during the campaign of Ron Paul. We were able at that time to determine that his supporters use of social media was extremely strong and made up of a lot of non existent people. Face book and MSN were both favored media sites used by his “fake” supporters. It was much easier then to identify those fake supporters as their information they posted on their pages was in a lot of cases simply unbelievable at best. We failed at that time to actually realize not only the full scope of the problem, but also did not realize that his campaign was being used as a test bed for what was to come. If you were watching and listening to Paul’s campaign and the voices of his supporters you could not help but realize that he had a huge and massive following, but the reality of it all was his actual supporter base was made up by a relatively small and loud and vocal base much like that of tRump. The supporter base (in numbers) in Ron Pauls case just like those of tRump simply did not contain sufficient numbers to elect the person. While they are still inferring that no actual vote was manually affected, it is my and many others who have followed this trend for quite some time, opinion and view that the vote was hacked and manipulated to place tRump into the office.
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Dear Crustyolemothman,
I suspect that this has been going on for awhile. This problem is finally getting the media attention that this issue deserves.
But not enough is being done by DDT’s administration to stop and/ or to minimize its occurrence and to educate the public, and most importantly, to prevent this from happening in 2018.
Since experts have not been allowed to audit voting machines used in the 2016 election cycle, we will never know for sure whether votes were manipulated or not.
Hugs, Gronda
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