The Forward Unhinged: “Pro-Trump Russian Twitter Bots Boosted Pamela Geller” #FakeNews

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“Russian-operated bots promoted tweets and articles by Geller, Robert Spencer and Frank Gaffney, all of whom are identified as anti-Muslim extremists by the Southern Poverty Law Center.”

The anti-Jew troll farm strikes again.

The number of bot tweets dedicated to the extremists was apparently small, no more than a few dozen out of hundreds of thousands.

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Ah ha! The number was small — a dozen out out hundreds of thousands (not to mention the millions of other bots trolling the web), but truth will never get in the way of the deranged left. Note, too, the use of the word  “extremist” to describe me. Pot meet kettle. This smear piece is extremist journalism. Where are the Snopes, Politifact and Facebook fake news police teams?

The [anti] Jewish newspaper, The Forward, is yellow press at its worst. Under a huge screen-sized Pamela Geller banner, the kapo press is amping up its war on proud and practicing Jews. The Forward has deployed extremist journalist Josh Nathan-Kazis — a left-wing Jew who tries to make his bones on the backs of other Jews. He’s written a nasty little piece of fiction smearing those with whom he disagrees as Russian spies. It sounds an awful lot like Soviet Russia. Somewhere in Nathan-Kazis’ family history, his ancestors fled Russian persecution (or some similar system of antisemitism and oppression). Only to see this troll engage in the very behavior that drove our people out of so very many leftist countries.

Pro-Trump Russian Twitter Bots Boosted Pamela Geller – The Forward

BY Josh Nathan-Kazis, The Forward

The Russian troll farm indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for interfering in the 2016 election also used its Twitter bots to boost the message of a handful of prominent anti-Muslim extremists, including right-wing Jewish activist Pamela Geller.

The Russian-operated bots promoted tweets and articles by Geller, Robert Spencer and Frank Gaffney, all of whom are identified as anti-Muslim extremists by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The number of bot tweets dedicated to the extremists was apparently small, no more than a few dozen out of hundreds of thousands. But they point to a Russian effort to boost anti-Muslim sentiment as part of a broader campaign to sow divisions in American society.

In September 2016, Geller, a Long Island-based Jewish activist who came to prominence a decade ago as a flamboyant anti-Muslim ideologue, tweeted a link to a story on her personal blog headlined “Christian Teen Raped and Hung: Muslim Cops Say ‘Natural Causes.’”

More than 100 people retweeted Geller’s tweet. According to a database posted online by NBC News of Twitter handles operated by Russian Internet trolls, at least two of the accounts that retweeted the Geller tweet were Russian bots.

Twenty of the Russian troll bots in all retweeted or mentioned Geller, according to the NBC database. Eighteen retweeted or mentioned Spencer, who co-founded the group Stop Islamization of America with Geller. Nineteen retweeted or mentioned Gaffney, the anti-Muslim founder of the Center for Security Policy. The Russian bots used the hashtag “#islamkills” 477 times and the hashtag “#stopislam” another 232 times.

Last week, Mueller’s office indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies, including St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, known for its trolling on social media.

The court document said those accused “had a strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political system, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”

The indictment said Russians adopted false online personas to push divisive messages; traveled to the United States to collect intelligence, visiting 10 states; and staged political rallies while posing as Americans.

There is no sign so far that Geller or any of the other anti-Islam activists collaborated with the Russian effort.

Neither Geller nor the Center for Security Policy responded to a request for comment. Geller is among the most polarizing figures in the American Jewish community, a far-right activist whose anti-Muslim rhetoric has drawn condemnation from some in the Jewish community, and an open ear from others. Leftist Jews protested in 2013 when a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Long Island invited her to speak. And a major mainstream Jewish donor-advised fund sent money to Geller’s nonprofit in 2012 and 2013.

In 2015, police killed two men who attempted to attack an event Geller organized in Texas. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Geller “the anti-Muslim movement’s most visible and flamboyant figurehead.” It is, perhaps, no wonder that people looking to exacerbate divisions in American society would seek to boost her profile.

The Russian bots, whose tweets have been deleted by Twitter and whose accounts have been suspended, were controlled by a shadowy company called the Internet Research Association, a Russia-based firm that the special prosecutor’s office charged last week with fraud, among other crimes. Mueller’s indictment described a vast, well-funded effort to interfere in American elections. But beyond election meddling, the troll farm seems to have been working to heighten tensions within America. One aspect of that effort appears to have been an attempt to boost anti-Muslim sentiment online.

In addition to the retweets and mentions of anti-Muslim activists, the bots promoted conspiracy theories connected to Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s aide, who is Muslim. In October 2016, a bot account with the handle @prettylaraplace retweeted Gaffney asking, “Has Hillary Clinton’s aide, #HumaAbedin ever denounced Islamist Supremacism?”

“If you support Hillary Clinton you support Huma Abedin who has ties with radical islamists #Hillary4prison,” tweeted another bot account, @southlonestar, in September 2016. The tweet was retweeted 264 times.

The efforts by the troll farm to stoke anti-Muslim sentiment didn’t stop with Twitter. According to The New York Times, a Facebook group created by the same Russian trolls actually organized a real-life rally it called “Stop the Islamization of Texas” in May 2016. Twelve people attended the rally, which took place in Houston, according to the Times. Some of the protesters were armed.

It’s impossible to say how much of an impact the Russian efforts had on the wave of anti-Muslim sentiment that swept American discourse in 2016 and 2017. Trump himself retweeted videos produced by an anti-Muslim British group last November. During the 2016 election, his attacks on Khizr Khan, whose son was a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq, were widely seen as anti-Muslim. And early last year, Trump tried to impose a travel ban that he had referred to during his campaign as “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

“The indictment alleges that the Russian conspirators want to promote discord in the United States and undermine public confidence in democracy,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said in a statement announcing the indictment. “We must not allow them to succeed.”

 

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AlgorithmicAnalystD
AlgorithmicAnalyst
6 years ago

No mention by the Forward of social media giants censoring Pamela, of course 🙂

Thorsten
Thorsten
6 years ago

… The Southern Poverty (allah’SS) ‘Law’ quran.com/5/48 Center calls Geller “the anti-Muslim(? anti-iSSlam, ‘kill them’ https://quran.com/4/89 ) movement’s most visible and flamboyant figurehead.”

John Dragon
John Dragon
6 years ago

Are jews genetically leftist? Is Judaism a leftist religion? Do these people seriously believe that Russia is a bigger threat to Western civilization than Islam and mass immigration? WTF will it take to get these liberal jews to wake up and stop subverting our nations?

Richard Harris
Richard Harris
6 years ago
Reply to  John Dragon

Yes…Good question, what will it take? Sadly, the majority of Jews lean towards the Left. Just look at their voting patterns. MOST Jewish American voters voted for Pro OPEN BORDERS Leftist Hillary Clinton. Most Jews in the media, be it ethnic Jewish newspapers like the Forward or “American” newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post, etc. are also hard Leftists. And they make up lies and propaganda all the time to push their Leftist narratives. Then you have Billionaire Jews like George Soros doing every thing he can to push Leftism/Multiculturalism/OPEN BORDERS onto Western nations. It’s appears there are many many Jews who worship Leftism. Especially the ones in the media and Hollywood.

Achmed Mohammedan
Achmed Mohammedan
6 years ago
Reply to  Richard Harris

Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen (birth name of Bezos) is not Jewish. His mother, Jacklyn Gise, was not Jewish … nor was the Cuban that adopted him. He owns the Washington Post. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr, Chair of the New York Times is Episcopalian. How does that make those newspapers “Jewish” controlled?

John Flynn
John Flynn
6 years ago
Reply to  Richard Harris

It all depends in which “Jews” you’re talking about. I can almost assure you that Amer Jews and Israeli Jews have different priorities, as do less “liberal” Jews in America

Michael Garfinkel
Michael Garfinkel
6 years ago
Reply to  John Dragon

Are jews genetically leftist?

Answer) Although the question is absurd, the short answer is No. Your reading these comments on Pam Geller’s site, aren’t you?.

Is Judaism a leftist religion?

Answer) More absurdity, but again, the (very) short answer is no.

Janet
Janet
6 years ago

I got an email from Twitter saying they believed I liked and re-twitted some people who they thought were Russian bots. I thought I must of liked or agreed with what they said. How would I know if they were Russian bots or not. I wouldn’t! Did anyone else get anything from Twitter? I follow mostly Conservatives on Twitter. People who think and believe like I do.

Jane Dowe
Jane Dowe
6 years ago

This whole ‘Russian bot’ bull$#it has gotten out of hand. It’s a lie- there aren’t any. It’s simply a ploy by the Dems to attack the Repubs. It’s another slimey trick.

Anyone with an IQ over 80 knows that Russia has been tight with the Clintons.

Of course, the low IQ explains why liberals believe that conservatives are paired up with the Ruskies

Carol
Carol
6 years ago

Any time So Poverty Law Center condems someone you know you are being conned. One more reason to cheer
Pamela Geller. Thanks for being aware &..keeping us aware.

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