| Submit your comments on this article | |
| -Land of the Free | |
| Stoking Islamophobia and secession in Texas -- from an office in Russia | |
| 2017-10-07 | |
| [CNN] On May 21 2016, a handful of people turned out to protest the opening of a library at an Islamic Center in Houston, Texas. Two held up a banner proclaiming #WhiteLivesMatter. A counter-protest began across the street; video shows a noisy but non-violent confrontation. The rally -- called "Stop Islamization of Texas" -- was called and promoted by a Facebook page called Heart of Texas, which had wrongly alleged that the Islamic library had received public funding. But the Heart of Texas page listed no contacts in the Lone Star state. In fact, it was operated by a "Troll Factory" called the Internet Research Agency thousands of miles away in St Petersburg Russia, CNN has learned. One of the people who attended the rally later complained: "Heart of Texas promoted this event but we didn't see ONE of them." The Houston rally sheds light on an effort originating in Russia to sow discord in the U.S. through social media; in this case it had real impact on the ground. A source familiar with the matter tells CNN that Heart of Texas was among the 470 accounts and pages that Facebook turned over to Congress, following its investigation into ads generated by the Internet Research Agency. Neither the Facebook page nor a companion Twitter account @ItsTimeToSecede is still accessible. The link between Heart of Texas and the Russian campaign was previously reported by Business Insider. It's not just Heart of Texas that embraced secession. The potential secession of Texas and other states has also been a popular subject for RT America, the Russian state-funded television network that's widely available in the US. It featured several long segments about the subject last year. A 6-minute story in June 2016 has received 250,000 views on YouTube.
| |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
| #3 :-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2017-10-07 22:39 |
| #2 and home grown |
| Posted by: Frank G 2017-10-07 17:23 |
| #1 Does this mean the California secession movement was also a Russian psyop project? No, tw. The California secession movement is driven by Mexico City. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2017-10-07 13:28 |