The 2016 presidential campaign in the United States was one of the most chaotic, aggressive, and vertiginous in recent memory, with the constant suspicion of a direct intervention by the Russian government using platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, and Instagram. However, a recent investigation published by CNN indicates that Pokémon Go was part of the package of tools used by Russian agents to deepen racial tensions and stimulate the division of the American people.
There are plenty of reasons not to think about 2016. That was the year that took David, Carrie, and many others. But it was also the year of Pokémon Go, of its meteoric rise and its return to irrelevance, caused by a company that bit off more than it could chew. Personally, I try to keep the good things about Pokémon Go: spontaneous meetings, squares full of people, complete strangers forming groups to capture Pokémon... from a certain point of view, it was a celebration. Unfortunately, politics found a way to contaminate the game, although it's likely that most people didn't realize it.
A recent investigation by CNN announces that Pokémon Go was one of several platforms used by the “troll farm” known as the Internet Research Agency, linked to the Kremlin. The data speaks of a campaign called “Don’t Shoot Us”, a name apparently derived from the phrase “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” that became popular after the death of Michael Brown in August 2014. The campaign, which posed as part of the Black Lives Matter movement, had several social media profiles, including a Tumblr account that suggested readers play Pokémon Go and participate in a contest. The objective was to visit those places where an act of police brutality had been committed, and name the captured Pokémon after the victims. Winners would receive Amazon gift cards.
CNN was unable to determine whether any Pokémon Go players participated in the contest, or if any prize was awarded, but the email address that appears in the official image was used to contact journalists, give interviews, and “promote” real-life protests. The striking thing is that one of the documents shared by a supposed representative of Don’t Shoot Us had metadata in Russian, something very unusual for a group of activists operating in the United States. Niantic simply said that the game’s resources had been taken “without authorization”, and stressed that Pokémon Go cannot be used as a data exchange system between players. However, the story is just beginning. Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, participated in an interview in Washington after the social network discovered more than three thousand advertisements of political content, paid with Russian resources, in the months leading up to the presidential campaign. And the rounds of statements will continue...
