http://www.salon.com/2017/03/31/fak...ers-supporters-to-spread-conspiracy-theories/
Friday, Mar 31, 2017 02:48 PM PDT
Fake news websites targeted Trump, Bernie Sanders supporters to spread conspiracy theories
It turns out that Bernie Bros and Trump supporters have something in common: Russian trolls
As a certified Twitter addict who is also fond of conspiracy theories, President Donald Trump has become an easy target for foreign intelligence agencies looking to peddle falsehoods to him, a former FBI agent told the Senate intelligence committee on Thursday.
Clint Watts, a senior fellow at Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University, told committee members that during the 2016 presidential campaign season, Trump routinely recycled conspiracy theories which were promoted by spurious news websites which are openly operated by the Russian government.
According to Watts, both Trump and the websites feed off of each other to promote false beliefs through a system of propaganda which was called “active measures” by the former Soviet Union. Russian President Vladimir Putin worked as a spy for the communist dictatorship’s KGB intelligence service.
Trump has “made claims of voter fraud, that President Obama’s not a citizen and, you know, Congressman [Ted] Cruz is not a citizen,” Watts told committee members. “Part of the reason active measures works, and it does today in terms of Trump Tower being wiretapped, is because they parrot the same lines.”
Such theories have been around long before social media but the popularity of social media has made their propagation much easier. Conservative Americans, who have long hated and distrusted the mainstream press, are particularly vulnerable to misinformation.