FBI’s Russia Probe Turns Focus on Social Media Bots

Bots Flooded Facebook, Twitter With Links to 'Pro-Trump Stories'

by Jason Ditz, 

While the FBI continues to struggle with its efforts to find evidence of direct connections between the Trump campaign and the Russian government during the 2016 election campaign, they are continuing to branch out into ever more tentatively linked matters.

Today, it’s social media bots, with investigators looking into the question of whether sites publishing pro-Trump news, of which Breitbart News and InfoWars were singled out by sources, were “assisting Russia’s operatives” in getting Trump elected.

There’s seemingly no evidence of that, but certain bots were flooding Facebook and Twitter with links to the “pro-Trump stories” from the two media outlets, along with Russia’s Sputnik News and RT. Officials are also claiming some of the stories “were false.”

While social media bots are ubiquitous, the FBI appears to believe that this could lead to a link between the sites and Russia. Rep. Adan Schiff (D – CA), always eager to push the Trump-Russia narrative, says it amounts to “circumstantial evidence of collusion,” and suggested that Congress would get involved to investigate the “deception” by the media outlets.