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Welcome to the American Nationalists’ European Vacation: How US groups targeted a spate of EU elections since 2017 in their preparation for this year’s US presidential election https://www.politico.eu/article/us-nationalists-far-right-europe-elections-digital-facebook/
From attacking France’s @EmmanuelMacron to last year’s EU parliamentary election, US groups promoted hate speech, #misinformation & other online tactics to promote mostly far-right views among locals — often w/ limited results
But where these Us groups were successful was using Europe to promote their messages back home to US voters — using the Old World in their years-long preparation ahead of November
As side effects of this campaign? Both US and European extremists used similar, but (mostly) not coordinated tactics to spread #COVIDー19 misinformation and hate in recent months https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/12/trans-atlantic-conspiracy-coronavirus-251325
This story has been a while in the making, and shout out to @ISDglobal, @DFRLab, @firstdraftnews, @Graphika_NYC & many others for helping with top-notch research.
