Thread: A Russian Twitter bot promoted California secession, or Calexit

A Russian Twitter bot promoted California secession, or Calexit

A campaign by Californians to secede from the rest of the country over Donald Trump's election is gaining steam with suporters given the green light to start collecting signatures for the measure to be put to a vote. (Getty Images)

By Luis Gomez Contact Reporter

A campaign to get California to secede from the United States, better known as Calexit, was long suspected of ties to Russia.

Now new questions about the movement have arisen this week with the revelation that a Russian-linked bot pushed heavily in favor of Calexit.

@CalifroniaRep was listed among the thousands of now-shuttered Twitter accounts linked to Russian efforts to influence politics and the election cycle leading up to the 2016 presidential election, as revealed Wednesday in congressional hearings.

ThinkProgress reporter Casey Michel also discovered a blog published by @CalifroniaRep. The blog, which was shut down two hours after Michel published his reportThursday, described itself as a “Movement for independence of California. Support #Calexit.”

A Google search turned up at least one news storyusing an embedded tweet from @CalifroniaRep. Most tweets from the account are no longer readily visible but a number of images it tweeted remained visible in Google image search results.

The revelation comes as executives for Facebook, Twitter and Google face questions from lawmakers in Washington over how social media helped efforts by Russians to influence the election through the use of ads, memes and fabricated news narratives.

FBI and congressional investigations appear to show these efforts went well beyond what was initially believed.

Related: Why secret Russian ads on Facebook are a worry for America

Among Russian efforts to interfere in U.S. politics was a Facebook page called “Heart of Texas” that, like @CalifroniaRep, pushed for Texas to secede from the United States, according to reporting done by CNN, Business Insider and Michel. The “Heart of Texas” page promoted one event titled “Get Ready to Secede!”

Calexit gained steam in the aftermath of the November 2016 election. It was also stoked in the run-up to the June 2016 referendum on whether Britain should leave the European Union. Voters narrowly backed what was called Brexit.

It was after Trump’s election, according to Michel and other online sleuths as well as web archives, that @CalifroniaRep pushed tweets and blog posts that were critical of the president and pro-Calexit.

Among the tweets it sent was one that read, “Trump’s immigration policies hurt Californian farms. #Calexit,” according to a Twitter user by the name @conspirator0. Michel also published one tweet sent by the now-closed account.

On March 5, @CalifroniaRep published a blog post that promoted “Yes, California!,” a secession campaign with suspected links to Russia, that supported an effort “to collect a total of 600K pro-secession signatures.”

“Doesn’t it prove that the Golden state is better on its own? You can keep your hateful government and all the scandals if you like it, we want our independence!,” the blog post read.

For its part, “Yes, California!” leaders deny its ties to Russia. And in April, the campaign withdrew its petition to propose a ballot measure in the 2018 election asking California voters to hold a special election on March 2019 to formally decide a secession, The Los Angeles Times reported. Its leader, Marcus Ruiz Evans, told the Times that it was not yet ready for a ballot measure.

Because @CalifroniaRep’s tweets are no longer visible, it is hard to know how many followers it had, how many times its tweets got shared or, overall, measure the extent of its influence in the Calexit movement. What is certain is that the movement drew a lot of chatter and news coverage in early 2017.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll found in January that 32 percent of people polled favored a California secession, or Calexit. There have been at least three efforts this year alone to bring a Calexit proposal to the 2018 ballots, the Times reported.

Will more Russian-linked bots that promoted Calexit emerge? Will the Calexit movement lose popularity with the recent revelations? Will “Yes, California!” change its strategy in light of the new information? Share your thoughts on this evolving story.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...htmlstory.html

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