incomprehensible. According to a new report for the US Senate, the primary goal of Russia's Internet Research Agency (IRA) was to deepen divisions in US society and convince Democrat-favouring liberals -- including Latinos, youths and the LGBTQ community - not to vote. The most extensive analysis yet of thousands of IRA ads and posts across social media in 2015-2017 showed an emphasis on provoking the anger of black Americans so that they would stay home on election day.

For example, the IRA-created account "Blacktivist" sent out messages on the Democratic candidate such as: "No lives matter to Hillary Clinton. Only votes matter to Hillary Clinton." Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the report by the Computational Propaganda Project at Oxford University and social media specialists Graphika caused "nothing but incomprehension."