Fake Facebook pages for veterans raised cash, spread lies for years

The big picture: Online disinformation is often scrutinized for its potential ability to tip elections — but beyond the political moment, there's a longer game.

• Pages drum up support and inflate their followings with memes and harmless posts, only to slip in the occasional, easily missed poison pill: a mistruth or bigoted jab.
• "It is constant. It is ever-present. It is every day," says Kristofer Goldsmith of the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), a long-standing veterans service organization. Goldsmith spent the last 2 years investigating fake veterans groups and pages.

Driving the news: In a report published Tuesday, Goldsmith outlines a network of fraudulent Facebook pages that claim to advocate for American veterans, but are largely designed to divide and confuse. They are run from 30-plus countries, including Russia, Macedonia and Iran.

"They're trying to confuse the American public, make us less trusting of important institutions, and to pit us against one another, make us suspicious of one another."

One example: After President Trump was elected, a Facebook page called "Vietnam Veterans" began posting photos taken from the official VVA Facebook page and selling flags and pins emblazoned with VVA's logo, though the page is not affiliated with the organization.

• But before long, the page took a turn. It posted a photo of a man wearing camo with a sign reading "Vets before illegals," which was shared hundreds of times. Another post sold a T-shirt that reads "Veterans before refugees."
• The page also recycled memes from another faux-veterans page based in Bulgaria that imitated VVA and from a page that the Mueller Report connected to the notorious Russian troll factory, the Internet Research Agency.
• The "Vietnam Veterans" page, which appears to be administered by 13 accounts based in Vietnam and 1 in the U.S., currently has more than 233,000 followers.

"We've talked a lot since 2016 about how candidates have been targeted, but this [report] shows how conversations have been targeted," says the Alethea Group's Lisa Kaplan, a disinformation consultant who read over the VVA report before its publication.

After years studying fake veterans accounts, pages and groups on Facebook, Goldsmith says he recognizes recycled memes as they pop up again and again, some with characteristic colors and fonts.

• "Propaganda back in the days of the USSR was a billboard or a sign," says Goldsmith. "Now you're getting those propaganda pieces directly in your face."
• They blend in with the anodyne photos and posts that crowd Facebook feeds, such that unwitting users — including members of the bona fide VVA organization — follow the pages and share the memes with their friends.

What they're saying: In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson said, "We take these issues seriously and will continue to work with the veterans community to address their concerns."

Go deeper: A Macedonian-controlled "Vets for Trump" page (WaPo)

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to make clear that only some, not all, of the Facebook pages in the study solicited donations.

Why it matters: As the Trump administration ramps up its multifront trade war with China, a number of foreign companies are reconsidering their place in the U.S. While some are concerned about doing business in an "America First" environment, others appear to be delaying big-ticket projects — with scores of jobs hanging in the balance.

• Chinese investment in the U.S. dropped almost 90% from 2016 ($46 billion) to 2018 ($5 billion), per the Rhodium Group. "Trade and other economic frictions between the two countries have substantially reduced the attractiveness of the U.S. as a destination for Chinese foreign direct investment," says Eswar Prasad, a trade policy expert at Cornell.

The backdrop: Chinese companies went from employing 500 U.S. workers in the manufacturing sector in 2007 to over 26,000 as of 2016, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. "It seemed like it was on this dramatic uptick," says Joe Parilla, a scholar at Brookings.

• In some cases, Chinese companies have stepped in to bail out failing American factories. As documented in Netflix's "American Factory," China's Fuyao Glass bought a shuttered General Motors plant in Ohio in 2014 and turned it into a glass supplier for the American automaker.

"FDI [foreign direct investment], including from China, has been a significant source of manufacturing employment growth," says Brookings' Mark Muro. "But now that is ebbing."

In Arkansas, 2 factories bought by Chinese companies stand vacant as the trade fight rages on.

• In 2017, a Chinese firm bought a factory in Forrest City, Arkansas, that had been empty for 10 years and pledged to create 800 jobs, an investment that would have made that company the biggest employer in the county, reports the American Communities Project. Two years later, the facility is still a ghost town.
• “There are various factors that have gone into the delay, but the main factor is the tariffs,” Forrest City Mayor Cedric Williams told the American Communities Project. “We’re at a standstill until they get that resolved.”

Another Chinese company's plan to build a paper mill is on hold in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. In an interview with Christian Science Monitor, Stephen Bell, who heads the city's chamber of commerce, called the trade conflict "a dark cloud hanging over the future of the project."

What to watch: In another potential blow to Chinese-owned companies in the U.S., the Trump administration is considering restricting American firms from investing in them, reports Bloomberg.

"If you saturate a neighborhood with dozens of dollar stores, there’s just no room left in the market for anyone else."

The big picture: There are about 30,000 dollar stores in the U.S. today — more than the total number of Walmarts and McDonald's combined. And Dollar Tree and Dollar General have plans to open 20,000 more.

The problem is more acute in some cities than others, per a report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit research and advocacy group that opposes concentrated economic power.

Consider Birmingham, where close to 70% of city residents live in food deserts and the 2 dollar giants have opened more than 40 locations in the last decade. Since 2005, 5 Birmingham supermarkets — undercut by the cheap chains — have closed, and the city has struggled to get new grocers to come to town, the report notes.

• Now Birmingham has passed a pair of laws: The city is banning new dollar stores from setting up shop within a mile of an existing location and it's financing the opening of new supermarkets.

Northeast Oklahoma City was confronted with the problem of dollar stores after its last grocery store closed in July.

• The city has now prohibited new dollar stores from opening within a mile of old ones unless the store commits to saving 500 square feet of floor space for fresh produce.

The other side:

• A Dollar General spokesperson told Axios: "We are disappointed a small number of policymakers have chosen to limit our ability to serve their constituents and communities."
• "Our stores provide an affordable and convenient fill-in shopping option for our customers in between their weekly or bi-weekly grocery store trips, all while creating more jobs and investing in the communities we serve," a Dollar Tree spokesperson said.

The bottom line: The backlash against dollar stores is here — and spreading. More cities, from small ones like Hutchinson, Kansas, to big metros like Cleveland and Fort Worth, are considering laws to limit the chains.

• The findings are a roadmap for politicians, the entertainment industry and technology executives seeking to tap into less romanticized measures of success.

"When you aren't saying publicly what you privately believe, you end up with really bad policies and with things that stay in place that nobody really wants. But nobody changes it,” said Todd Rose, president and cofounder of Populace.

• "Being famous" was the top answer for what respondents thought mattered according to society's view of success.
• But that was the last answer for what individuals felt was important to achieve to be successful in their own lives.
• Parenthood was the most common achievement for individuals' standards of success, but ranked at 33 out of 76 when people were asked about things society considers important for success.
• "Very conservative” Americans tend to consider being a parent twice as important as those who self-identified as "very liberal."
• Having an advanced degree was something respondents valued both in terms of how society judged them and how they judged themselves.
• Having a purpose in life, a couple of close friends and regularly seeing family were all important components to how people judged their own success — but so was not having to worry about money.
• Women were more likely than men to view fame and having a large social media following as important to society's view of success — something that may correlate to other trends like women being overrepresented on Instagram, Rose said.

Between the lines: Milestones and traits related to status, education and finances were at the top of the list for what most people believe others consider markers of success. But people said success in their own lives has more to do with educational achievement, relationships and personal character.

• "We can do something with that if we can just realize that this silent majority exists, and that it crosses political and ideological and other demographic bounds," Rose said.