Earlier this year, Jessica Ann Mitchell Aiwuyor saw a friend arguing on Twitter about Black identity. Aiwuyor noticed that the Twitter account her friend was fighting with was a new one, with zero followers and also wasn’t following anyone else. She told her friend he was probably arguing with a bot or troll. The revelation stopped the online debate in its tracks: her friend stopped engaging with the suspicious account.

Indeed, her friend may have been a victim of a broad disinformation campaign aimed at the Black community in the U.S. by Russian-backed Internet Research Agency or other bad actors.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, “no single group of Americans was targeted by IRA information operatives more than African-Americans,” according to a Senate Intelligence Committee report released in October 2019.

This year, an unprecedented pandemic, race-related protests, and polemical U.S. elections, provide ample fodder for disinformation campaigns. Bad information can discourage people from voting, exacerbate COVID-19 health risks, and sow distrust in government and institutions.

Black people are particularly vulnerable to false health information because they are more likely to have existing and untreated health conditions. Distrust exists in Black communities “due to a long-documented history of medical experimentation, neglect, and the limited diversity of the medical profession,” according to a report from the Shorenstein Center at Harvard Kennedy School.

But various organizations are combating disinformation in innovative ways. New Georgia Project, based in Atlanta, forges connections with young people, especially Black and other people of color, through hackathons and video game launches to get them interested in elections. In November 2019, some 150 coders, designers and esports players attended a “game jam” to come up with apps and games to demystify elections.

Read the full article about disinformation targeted at Black communities by Amy Yee at YES! Magazine.