Report: Russia Used Pokemon GO to Interfere in 2016 US Election

The topic for nearly a year now, in the US, has been about how Russia was able to meddle in the 2016 presidential election, to help elect Donald Trump. It was already uncovered that Facebook and Twitter were used by Russia to meddle in the election, but now it appears that Russia also used other sites like YouTube and Tumblr, and even Pokemon GO. CNN did an investigation to see other ways that Russia interfered in the US election, and found out that these three products were also used to raise racial tensions in the US, and divide the country.

According to CNN, a campaign titled “Don’t Shoot Us” is now offering some new insights in how Russia was able to meddle in the US election. The country built a pretty broad online ecosystem that was able to spread messages and links to news (and in some cases, fake news) across multiple platforms. This was all done by the Kremlin-linked troll farm, the Internet Research Agency or IRA. Furthermore, the Don’t Shoot Us Facebook page was part of the more than 470 pages taken down, that were connected to the IRA. The name Don’t Shoot Us likely came from the slogan “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” which started to gain steam after police brutality really became a big deal and a more common theme in the US.

When it comes to Pokemon GO, it’s being reported that the Tumblr page that the dontshoot.us website redirects too, held a contest back in July of 2016 that encouraged users to play Pokemon GO. This was also the time that Pokemon GO had actually launched, so this contest was sort of shortlived, due to the server issues Niantic was having. But the contest was aimed at getting people to go into areas where police brutality had occurred. And winners would receive an Amazon gift card. CNN does state that is has found no proof of anyone actually entering the contest or being awarded the promised Amazon gift cards. But that doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen, and with this campaign doing it at the height of Pokemon GO’s popularity means that it probably did.

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