Thousands of people marched against Trump last November. Russia secretly organized that protest.
On Nov. 12, 2016, thousands of people in New York City protested against Donald Trump, then the president-elect, by marching from Manhattan's Union Square to Trump Tower some 40 blocks away. At the time, PBS reported that the march was organized by BlackMatters, "a nonprofit news outlet which focuses on black issues in the United States."
In reality, BuzzFeed News reported Wednesday, the event was hosted on Facebook by "BM, a known alias of the BlackMattersUS." Last month, Russian news outlet RBC outed BlackMattersUS as linked to the Internet Research Agency — a Russian troll farm operating out of St. Petersburg.
The BlackMattersUS page is no longer accessible on Facebook, but an archived events page shows the march had been shared with 61,000 people. Roughly 33,000 more were interested in the event, and 16,000 people marked themselves as "going."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The New York Daily News reported at the time that roughly 5,000 people ultimately attended the march. In September, The Daily Beast reported on Russian attempts to organize pro-Trump rallies during last year's election, and on Monday The Wall Street Journal reported that Russia-linked Facebook accounts helped organize events around fatal shootings of unarmed black men by police officers.
On Wednesday, House Democrats released a trove of data, metadata, Facebook ads, and Twitter accounts run by Russia-linked troll farms. Read more about the incendiary Russia-linked ads at The Daily Beast.
-
Metaverse: Zuckerberg quits his virtual obsessionFeature The tech mogul’s vision for virtual worlds inhabited by millions of users was clearly a flop
-
Frank Gehry: the architect who made buildings flow like waterFeature The revered building master died at the age of 96
-
Is MAGA melting down?Today's Big Question Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Laura Loomer and more are feuding
-
Kushner drops Trump hotel project in SerbiaSpeed Read Affinity Partners pulled out of a deal to finance a Trump-branded development in Belgrade
-
Senate votes down ACA subsidies, GOP alternativeSpeed Read The Senate rejected the extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits, guaranteeing a steep rise in health care costs for millions of Americans
-
Abrego García freed from jail on judge’s orderSpeed Read The wrongfully deported man has been released from an ICE detention center
-
Indiana Senate rejects Trump’s gerrymander pushSpeed Read The proposed gerrymander would have likely flipped the state’s two Democratic-held US House seats
-
Democrat files to impeach RFK Jr.Speed Read Rep. Haley Stevens filed articles of impeachment against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
-
$1M ‘Trump Gold Card’ goes live amid travel rule furorSpeed Read The new gold card visa offers an expedited path to citizenship in exchange for $1 million
-
US seizes oil tanker off VenezuelaSpeed Read The seizure was a significant escalation in the pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro
-
Judge orders release of Ghislaine Maxwell recordsSpeed Read The grand jury records from the 2019 prosecution of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will be made public
