#MacronLeaks hashtag started in US, apparently launched by Alt-Right figure Jack Posobiec

[CousinIT]

5. RELATED: Russia, the far right, and anti-Macron bots

Thousand of automated social network accounts are being used to spread fake news attacking centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron ahead of the French presidential run-off on Sunday (7 May).

Fake news often originating on Russian news outlets such as RT and Sputnik has for weeks targeted Macron, who is opposed to Russia-backed far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.

Ben Nimmo, a researcher who investigated all posts mentioning or retweeting RT France and Sputnik France, found that some of the accounts spreading the fake news were openly pro-Russian, but most were "strongly French nationalist and opposed to Emmanuel Macron".

Nimmo, a senior fellow on information defence at the Washington-based Digital Forensic Research Lab, told EUobserver these accounts were also not united in their French political views. Some supported Le Pen, others supported Francois Asselineau, another anti-EU candidate who failed to make it to the run-off.

https://euobserver.com/elections/137756

Same M.O. as what was done to Dems/HRC in the US in 2016 - including hacking, stealing data and feeding it to Wikileaks for publication - likely done by pricks like Posobiec and other alt-right Trump operatives.