It also calls into question statements tech executives have made under oath to Congress in the past 18 months. The report sheds new light on the ways the IRA trolls targeted African Americans and the outsized role Instagram played in their work. This report, along with a second one written by the Computational Propaganda Project at Oxford University and Graphik, offers the most extensive look at the IRA’s attempts to divide Americans, suppress the vote, and boost then-candidate Donald Trump before and after the 2016 presidential election. This particular meme is one of many revealed in a new report released on Monday, commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee and written by New Knowledge, a cybersecurity firm whose director of research, Renee DiResta, is a WIRED contributor. In other words, we live in a time when American democratic debate is being influenced by liars spreading memes about our inability to understand the truth.

“Born Liberal” was a creation of the Internet Research Agency, the Russian propaganda wing that might as well be part of Oceania. The text declares: “The People Believe What the Media Tells Them They Believe: George Orwell.” The quote is surely false, but it’s also perfect in a way. There’s a meme on Instagram, circulated by a group called “Born Liberal.” A fist holds a cluster of strings, reaching down into people with television sets for heads.

Repix ussian memes