Russia used Facebook to organize anti-immigrant rallies in U.S.

First it emerged that Russian operatives were using Facebook to spread propaganda online, and now a new report shows that Moscow was also remotely organizing anti-immigrant, Trump-leaning rallies on U.S. soil ahead of the 2016 election.

The report from the Daily Beast reveals that Russian operatives – hiding behind fake identities – used Facebook’s own event management tool to organize real-life rallies which echoed the messages espoused at the time in the pro-Trump media.

One event, which can still be seen online, was entitled “Citizens before refugees,” and featured the incendiary call-to-arms: “We must stop taking in Muslim refugees! We demand open and thorough investigation of all the cases regarding Muslim refugees! All government officials, who are covering up for these criminals, should be fired!”

This is the first evidence that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election went beyond the spreading of fake news, and moved into the real world. Facebook confirmed to the Daily Beast that it had “shut down several promoted events as part of the takedown we described last week.”

Last week the social media giant admitted it had discovered 470 “inauthentic [Russian] accounts and Pages” that spent $100,000 between them to place about 3,000 ads on the network between June 2015 and May 2017. About a quarter of the ads were “geographically targeted” to Facebook users, and roughly 2,200 of the ads — about $50,000 worth — were “potentially politically related.”

Facebook would not confirm if any of the events it had shut down had already happened or were yet to take place.

The “Citizens before refugees” event was scheduled to take place in Twin Falls, Idaho in August 2016, with 48 people saying they were “interested” in the protest, several of whom were local residents according to their Facebook profiles. However only four people confirmed they went to the City Council Chambers that day.

Twin Falls takes has been taking in up to 300 refugees annually since the 1980s, and in 2015 yogurt giant Chobani opened a new manufacturing facility in the town, with a commitment to employing some of those immigrants.

This situation led to Twin Falls becoming a focal point for anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. ahead of the 2016 election, with right-wing media outlets like Breitbart, WorldNetDaily, and InfoWars running stories which suggested that immigrants were taking over the town.

In May, far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was forced to retract comments he made in a video entitled “Idaho Yogurt Maker Caught Importing Migrant Rapists.” Three weeks before the settlement, Jones had said he was “not backing down, I’m never giving up, I love this.”