Russia Hacked U.S. Energy Policy

Republicans Accuse Russia of Using Social Media to Roil U.S. Energy Policy

Ari Natter and Alan Bjerga, March 1, 2018 (Bloomberg News)

The same Russian operatives accused of manipulating the 2016 U.S. presidential election used inflammatory social media posts to disrupt U.S. energy policy, including inciting environmentalists to protest against pipeline projects…[A report from by the Republican majority in the House Science Committee] found evidence Russian-sponsored agents used Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to suppress the research and development of fossil fuels and stymie efforts to expand the use of natural gas and fracking…

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...[According to the report, social media posts and tweets targeted the Dakota Access pipeline, the Keystone XL pipeline, and] subsidies for oil companies and offered links to content aimed at stopping [other] pipeline projects…In other cases, the posts favored the oil industry…[Between 2015 and 2017, there were an estimated 4,334 accounts across Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram from the Internet Research Agency, a Russian company with links to the Russian government…More than four percent of all of the agency’s tweets were related to energy or environmental issues…” click here for more

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