Tammy Baldwin seeks hearing after Russians pushed image of Obama in noose at Badgers game
Jason SteinU.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin called for a hearing Wednesday as new cases emerged of Russian Twitter trolls using racially charged incidents to foment tension in Wisconsin and around the country.
The news events spread by fake Russian accounts on social media ranged from the 2015 police shooting of a Madison teenager to a case days before the 2016 presidential election in which a fan at a University of Wisconsin Badgers game came dressed as then President Barack Obama with a noose around his neck.
In a letter Wednesday to Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), Baldwin called for the Senate Commerce Committee to hold hearings on the Russian manipulation of Twitter and other social media platforms to meddle in the election. Baldwin's letter cites a report by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week laying out how Russian trolls spread hate and disinformation in the wake of the August 2016 Sherman Park unrest in Milwaukee.
"I am troubled by these companies' failure both to protect their users' data and to prevent their platforms from being used to disseminate false information, pushed by a foreign power, designed to interfere with our elections and undermine our institutions," Baldwin wrote to Thune.
A spokesman for Thune had no response to the call for a hearing, which Baldwin also wants to use to review the use of Facebook profiles and data by a political consulting firm.
Bipartisan leaders from former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker also called last week for a federal response to the Russian meddling.
For its reporting, the Journal Sentinel has used an NBC News database of tweets made by accounts with ties to the Russian Internet Research Agency. Officials within that shadowy St. Petersburg group were charged with election interference in a recent indictment by special counsel Robert Mueller.
The Russian accounts played both sides of racial tension in the country, for instance spreading both criticism and support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The mock lynching at the UW-Madison Badgers game in late October 2016 sparked national outrage after people showed up to the game dressed as Obama and then Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in a prisoner costume with a noose around their necks. A person dressed as Donald Trump held the noose.
Several Russian-affiliated accounts shared photos or online links to the incident, including one account known as “@jery_robertsyo.” The football game was one of several news stories evoking lynchings that were pushed by Russian-linked accounts in the final weeks before the presidential election.
“Terrible: Football Fan Wears a President Obama Mask with a Noose Around His Neck at Wisconsin Game,” read a retweet posted by @jery_robertsyo.
The Russian-linked accounts also tweeted about Tony Robinson Jr., an unarmed 19-year-old biracial man who was shot and killed in March 2015 by a Madison police officer. The officer was responding to 911 calls about Robinson behaving aggressively and erratically.
Robinson's death sparked large but peaceful protests in Madison, and an account with Russian ties, @michellearry, tweeted about them in May 2015.
"RT @KeeganNYC: Public outcry in the streets of Madison has begun. #TonyRobinson," the tweet reads.
The Journal Sentinel reported last week that Russia-linked accounts got thousands of retweets for their racially charged posts made only hours after the chaos in the Sherman Park neighborhood and less than three months before the 2016 election won by Trump.
On Friday, Holder said Congress should hold hearings on the Russian interference in Milwaukee and the FBI and U.S. attorney's office should investigate as well.
In her letter to Thune, Baldwin said the Senate Commerce Committee should also look into allegations that political data firm Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained Facebook data on millions of Americans and then tried to use that information to help candidates such as Trump.