Wow. The mainstream media have totally neglected an explosive report from the Vietnam Veterans Association documenting a massive Russian online disinformation effort targeting US veterans with pro-Trump messages and attacking VP Biden and other Dems. 1/12 vva.org/trollreport/
From August 2017 - August 2019, VVA revealed a coordinated online campaign targeting American servicemembers, veterans, and their families that was run by "a number of different foreign entities seeking to disrupt American democracy." 2/12
VVA reports that Russian propaganda targeting servicemembers and veterans was (and still is) spread by account administrators from at least 30 different foreign countries, with concentrations in Eastern Europe and Vietnam. 3/12
For eg, the “Veterans Nation” FB page spreads Russian-generated content and is administered from Vietnam, Brazil, and Ukraine. The “Honoring our American Heroes” FB page has admins in the US, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Philippines, & Vietnam. These purport to be US groups. 4/12
As VVA notes, the cooperation among account administrators from multiple countries "suggests an international conspiracy possibly related to and larger than the previously reported Russian disinformation campaign" in 2016. 5/12
One such page, “Veterans of Vietnam,” with nearly 160,000 followers, is administered from Russia, Ukraine, and Italy. We're talking about a page ostensibly run by American Vietnam vets! 6/12
VVA notes fake accounts are also being used by hostile Chinese intelligence services to target influential members of the US intelligence and defense communities to exploit financially vulnerable members and leverage debts to recruit spies. 7/12
VVA also discovered foreign entities targeting veterans for the purpose of interference in the 2020 presidential campaign. Admins from Macedonia and the UK controlled the “Vets for Trump” FB page from April to August 2019, which amassed over 131,000 followers. 8/12
As VVA notes, the Vets for Trump page "posts explicitly pro-Trump and anti-Democratic-candidate messages and memes. The page also posts pro-Russia/Putin, pro-Assange/WikiLeaks, as well as anti-Robert-Mueller and anti-FBI content." 9/12
In terms of offensive messaging, Vets for Trump has been primarily focused on attacking the top Democratic presidential candidates: Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Bernie Sanders, as well as O’Rourke, Harris, Booker, and Gillibrand. 10/12
In short, the VVA report provides more compelling data showing how we are facing an even bigger foreign-funded (mostly Russian, but with other countries also active) disinformation campaign in advance of the 2020 election cycle, and just how little we're doing to combat it. 11/12
You can read the full report here: vva.org/wp-content/upl…
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