Even Jack Dorsey fell for Moscow’s propaganda, it appears. He retweeted messages from an account identified by an independent Russian news agency as Kremlin-created.
Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey twice retweeted a now-deleted account that was allegedly run out of Russia’s “troll factory” in March of last year.
The account, @Crystal1Johnson, claimed to be an African-American woman, and mostly posted uplifting stories like the one retweeted by Dorsey.
“Rihanna collects her Humanitarian of the Year award from Harvard. She kicked off #WomensHistoryMonth with a bang!” reads the tweet, which is archived on the caching service Archive.is.
Jack retweeted another post by “Johnson” just one week later.
“Nobody is born a racist. This picture is so sweet! Teach your children to judge others by the kind of person they are inside,“ the tweet read, along with a photo that is no longer available due to the account’s August termination.
@Crystal1Johnson was identified as a Kremlin-created account by the independent Russian news agency RBC, which published an exhaustive investigation on the subject earlier this month. The Daily Beast has confirmed some of RBC’s reporting about accounts that were operated out of the Internet Research Agency, or “Russian troll factory.” The Daily Beast is still seeking independent confirmation that @Crystal1Johnson is a Kremlin-backed account at press time.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The retweets show just how pervasive covert Russian propaganda became on major American social media platforms in the run-up to the 2016 election. Accounts like “Johnson’s” were frequently used to build up influence with unwitting actors by posting shareable stories, pictures and content, then weaponized for divisive political messages.
In this case, that unwitting actor was the company’s CEO itself.
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New from me: Looks like Twitter CEO @jack Dorsey twice retweeted one of the deleted Russian troll accounts.https://t.co/88H5t3zRjq
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) October 20, 2017
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