Propaganda Watch: Russian Social Media Ads–7/28/19

Russian President Vladimir Putin superimposed into a Russian Flag. Image by Lenny Ghoul.

This is part of an ongoing series where I review some of the ads purchased by the Russians. In doing so I hope we can get a better understanding of what they were trying to do, and how to recognize it the next time we’re faced with propaganda.

If you want to follow along, the ads can all be downloaded here. All of today’s ads can be found in the 2016-q1/2016-03 folder.

At last we begin with the primary candidates, including Trump. The first ad to mention Trump came from Williams and Kalvin. It doesn’t seem the most flattering portrait of Trump but, from what I understand, Williams and Kalvin will become some of his biggest supporters. P(1)0001475:

If anyone wants to read the lyrics to the song mentioned above (the video is still available, but even more offensive than the lyrics by themselves) you can read them here.

Black Matters posted, not specifically about Trump, but how one of his supporters punched a black man at a rally. P(1)0001989:

Yet, at the same time that one ran, the same Black Matters group posted about Trumps “promise” to African Americans in ad p(1)0001991:

This folder has no shortage of strange ads. One of the strangest ponders why Hilary Clinton is “allowed” to be friends with KKK members, but Trump isn’t. P(1)0002400:

As we can see, candidates other than Trump were discussed that month, but they’ll be discussed in the coming weeks. March of 2016 brought out some…interesting ads.

THIS IS AN OPEN THREAD. Have a pleasant Sunday.

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