'Paul Wood, a reporter at the BBC who’s been ahead of the pack on the
Russia-Trump investigation, had some eye-catching information in a story
back in March. He wrote:
[“This is a three-headed operation,” said one former official, setting
[out the case, based on the intelligence: Firstly, hackers steal
[damaging emails from senior Democrats. Secondly, the stories based on
[this hacked information appear on Twitter and Facebook, posted by
[thousands of automated “bots”, then on Russia’s English-language
[outlets, RT and Sputnik, then right-wing US “news” sites such as
[Infowars and Breitbart, then Fox and the mainstream media. Thirdly,
[Russia downloads the online voter rolls.
[The voter rolls are said to fit into this because of “microtargeting”.
[Using email, Facebook and Twitter, political advertising can be
[tailored very precisely: individual messaging for individual voters.
[“You are stealing the stuff and pushing it back into the US body
[politic,” said the former official, “you know where to target that
[stuff when you’re pushing it back.”
[This would take co-operation with the Trump campaign, it is claimed.'
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https://www.justsecurity.org/41199/connecting-dots-political-microtargeting-russia-investigation-cambridge-analytica/>