As stunned Americans mourned Wednesday’s school shooting in Parkland, Florida, Russian propaganda designed to inflame discord flooded social media, according to a tracking network operated by the bipartisan trans-Atlantic Alliance for Securing Democracy. Trending hashtags that the Russia-linked accounts used on Thursday included #nikolascruz, #gunreformnow, #parklandshooting and #floridaschoolshooting, according to data on the Alliance for Securing Democracy’s Hamilton 68 website. The site monitors English-language tweets from some 600 Twitter accounts, including bots, that analysts have identified as spreading Russian propaganda. One highly shared example included a disturbing Instagram post tied to accused shooter Nikolas Cruz that presented Cruz as particularly unstable. RoBhat Labs’ Botcheck.me, which monitors 1,500 political propaganda bots not necessarily linked to Russia, also found that its tracked bots’ top hashtags on Thursday included #Parkland, #guncontrol, and #guncontrolnow.

Source: Huffington Post February 16, 2018 04:18 UTC