Page 12 - IAV Digital Magazine #437

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Yahoo: Russian Trolls Watched 'House of Cards' To Learn About US Politics
By Daniella Diaz, CNN
Washington (CNN)Yahoo corre- spondent Michael Isikoff said on CNN's "New Day" Monday that Russians who worked for a St. Petersburg "troll factory" were required to watch Netflix's "House of Cards" to help them write mes- sages that would influence Americans against their own govern- ment.
He was referring to a story he wrote, published on Sunday, in which an interview broad- cast in Russian with a former member of the troll factory revealed the Russians were part of President Vladimir Putin's campaign to influ- ence the 2016 election.
The independent Russian TV station Rain interviewed an agency worker identified as
"Maksim" who said the troll factory, formerly known as the Internet Research Agency, targeted Americans in the comments section of popular web- sites with mes- sages slamming Hillary Clinton about her family's past scandals as well as the scandal of her private email server.
They were also required to post about guns and gays, while men- tioning religion. They were never to mention Russia
or Putin and they were instructed to use VPNs, or virtu- al private net- works, to disguise their Russian ori- gin.
CNN has not veri- fied the Yahoo report, though the network has reported that Russians pur- chased political ads on social media in an attempt to target voters.
"Every comma was reviewed by (Maksim's) bosses to make sure it was in the right
place so it sound- ed like an American posting by Americans," Isikoff told CNN's Chris Cuomo. "Primarily what he was doing was placing comments on the websites of major news organi- zations, The Washington Post, The New York Times and others."
Maksim said he worked for the troll factory during 2015, when they were already post- ing negative com- ments about Clinton.
"At first, we were forced to watch the 'House of Cards' in English," Maksim said in the inter- view, according to Yahoo. "It was necessary to know all the main prob- lems of the United States of America. Tax problems, the problem of gays, sexual minorities, weapons."
"House of Cards" is about Frank Underwood, played by Kevin Spacey, and his wife, Claire (Robin Wright), trying to rise in Washington. It's a show that has always operat- ed on the fringes of absurdity, where
murder and black- mail are among the Underwoods' tools of persua- sion.
"The 'House of Cards' element is new. We hadn't heard that before," Isikoff said. "In some ways, the vision of American politics on 'House of Cards' probably more closely resembles Russian politics rather than American politics. We don't have evi- dence of major American politi- cians ordering the assassinations of political foes or journalists, which we do have in Russia."
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iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine