On Tuesday, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, A. Wess Mitchell, said that Russia’s targeting of the U.S. elections are meant to sow discord within the United States rather than helping one party over another.
Mitchell said, “Putin’s thesis is that the American constitution is an experiment that will fail if it is challenged from the right way within.”
“Putin wants to break apart the American republic not by influencing an election or two, but by systematically inflaming the fault lines within our society,” he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Mitchell gave specifics citing that the Russians are financially supporting those on the far-left and the far-right “that stood for really heinous and hideous causes.”
The goal, he said, is to “pit preexisting political camps against one other.” – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]Facebook announced Tuesday night that it had removed 652 pages, groups and accounts linked to Iran for “coordinated inauthentic behavior” — including the sharing of political material — and had also removed other pages tied to Russian military intelligence services.
In a statement, the social network said the activity originating in Iran and the activity sourced to Russia were not related. It also said it was not aware of any activity from the Russia-based accounts that targeted American users.
Facebook said it had not concluded its review of the material and declined to say how or why the state-backed actors were behaving the way they did. But it said it has informed the British governments, as well as the U.S. Treasury and State departments because of ongoing sanctions against Iran.
“There’s a lot we don’t know yet,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a conference call with reporters Tuesday afternoon.
Facebook said the actions to remove the pages, groups and accounts Tuesday morning resulted from four investigations — three involving Iran and one involving Russia. – READ MORE
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