US Accuses Foreign, Online Actors of Inflaming Tensions – By Jeff Seldin (VOA News) / June 4 2020
U.S. adversaries are starting to weaponize protests that have gripped parts of the country “to sow divisiveness and discord,” according to top law enforcement officials who refused to share additional details.
The protests over the killing of George Floyd, an African American man who died in police custody after a white police officer held him down and pressed a knee against his neck, have caught the world’s attention, getting considerable media coverage in Russia, China and Iran.
But the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI now allege that unnamed countries are going a step further, actively manipulating information to make the situation in the United States worse.
“I believe that we have evidence that some of the foreign hackers and groups that are associated with foreign governments are focusing in on this particular situation we have here and trying to exacerbate it in every way they can,” U.S. Attorney General William Barr said Thursday during a news conference about the protests.
Barr further accused the foreign actors of “playing all sides to exacerbate the violence.”
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