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Russian trolls created fake muslim Facebook-group to stir anti-Muslim hatred.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/exclusive-russians-impersonated-real-american-muslims-to-stir-chaos-on-facebook-and-instagramThe Facebook group United Muslims of America was neither united, Muslim, nor American.
Instead, sources familiar with the group tell The Daily Beast, it was an imposter account on the world’s largest social network that’s been traced back to the Russian government.
Using the account as a front to reach American Muslims and their allies, the Russians pushed memes that claimed Hillary Clinton admitted the U.S. “created, funded and armed” al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State; claimed that John McCain was ISIS’ true founder; whitewashed blood-drenched dictator Moammar Gadhafi and praised him for not having a “Rothschild-owned central bank”; and falsely alleged Osama bin Laden was a “CIA agent.”
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Unlike other known accounts linked to the Russians, the United Muslims of America Facebook group was impersonating an actual organization.
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The imposter account identified itself as the “United Muslims of America,” and used the URL Facebook.com/MuslimAmerica, which may have helped Russia obscure its masquerade. The real United Muslims of America operates a Facebook page at Facebook.com/UnitedMuslimsofAmericaUMA.
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One post, from April 2016, contained a video purporting to show that “#Hillary #Clinton admits #America created, funded and armed Al Qaeda ISIS terrorists … but everybody is still blamming [sic] Muslims?” (America did none of those things and Hillary Clinton, a former Secretary of State, never claimed it had.) Another meme depicted a smirking John McCain – whose loathing of the Kremlin is mutual – appearings beside text spreading the disinformation that “your tax dollars are funding ISIS.”
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After an American admirer of ISIS massacred 49 people at an Orlando nightclub in June 2016, the community quickly created an event titled “Support Hillary. Save American Muslims!” that presented Clinton’s name in an Arabic-style font.
The fake United Muslims of America page was quick to point out Clinton was “the only presidential candidate who refuses to ‘demonize’ Islam after the Orlando nightclub shooting,” and boasted that “with such a person in White House (sic) America will easily reach the bright multicultural future.”
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As recently as July, the social-media giant maintained it had seen no evidence that the Russians had surreptitiously purchased ads – a position that collapsed earlier this month, when it announced finding 3000 such ads linked to nearly 500 fraudulent Facebook accounts.
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