New report shows how Russia sought to deceive and influence the fight over fracking

New report shows how Russia sought to ‘deceive and influence’ the fight over fracking
Targeting both environmentalist and pro-drilling crowds, fake accounts pushed disinformation across multiple platforms.
Casey Michel
Mar 1, 2018, 3:17 pm


The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, chaired by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), issued a 21-page report Thursday on Russian attempts to inflame the domestic energy debate via fake social media accounts.

The report details many of the memes, posts, and topics covered by fake Russian accounts, and found that some 4 percent of the tweets linked to fake Russian accounts focused on energy-related material — a noteworthy segment, considering 8 percent of the fake Russian tweets thus far identified were related to the 2016 election.

However, much of the material in the report is a retread of earlier reporting. Likewise, the report offers no new information on potential Russian funding for environmental groups — a claim that has been floated the past few years, including by a former NATO chief and Hillary Clinton.

To be fair to the report’s authors, the overall goal of the report isn’t solely to convince others that Russia sought to target only environmentalists, done in the hopes of continuing Russia’s stranglehold on European gas markets. Rather, the committee wrote that the report is intended to “show Americans the broad nature of Russia’s meddling and to reveal Russia’s attempts to deceive and influence the American public, especially as related to domestic energy issues.”

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https://thinkprogress.org/report-russia-energy-debate-4cfe68f84ac5/