"One of the most divisive issues in the nation is how to handle guns, pitting Second Amendment advocates against proponents of gun control. And the messages from these automated accounts, or bots, were designed to widen the divide and make compromise even more difficult."
"When the Russian bots jumped on the hashtag #Parklandshooting — initially created to spread news of the shooting — they quickly stoked tensions. Exploiting the issue of mental illness in the gun control debate, they propagated the notion that Nikolas Cruz, the suspected gunman, was a mentally ill “lone killer.” They also claimed that he had searched for Arabic phrases on Google before the shooting. Simultaneously, the bots started other hashtags, like #ar15, for the semiautomatic rifle used in the shooting, and #NRA."
-- After Florida School Shooting, Russian ‘Bot’ Army Pounced, by Sheera Frenkel and Daisuke Wakabayashi, New York Times, Feb. 19, 2018
new-york-times-exploits-parkland-tragedy-to-escalate-anti-russian-campaign
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