How Russia Created the Most Popular Texas Secession Page on Facebook

Earlier this week, Facebook announced that they had shuttered almost 500 accounts they believe were associated with a Russian company that spent some $100,000 on ad buys since June 2015. As a release from Facebook noted, “these accounts and Pages were affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia.” Tabbing the accounts as “inauthentic,” Facebook added that the accounts and affiliated ads “focus[ed] on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum — touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights.”

One other arena these actors may have targeted: secession movements within the U.S. At this point, it’s little secret that a number of American secession movements — including Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and both white and black nationalists — have constructed links with Russian actors, including those funded by the Kremlin. Tracing these links has become an unexpected hobby of mine, and I’ve written on the topic a handful of times, from The Diplomat to Slate to The Daily Beast.

Moscow’s ties to the California secession movement, which received a boost following Donald Trump’s election, have seen the greatest coverage — understandably so, given the former #Calexit leader’s willingness to highlight his links to the Moscow-funded Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR) at every turn. Only so many people would be willing to open a “California Embassy” in Moscow, after all. (For my own writings on #Calexit’s myriad ties to Russia, in addition to the links above, click here, here, or here.) As Jonathon Morgan, the founder of Data for Democracy, noted a few months back in detailing the online footprint of Russia and California secessionists, the primary group pushing #Calexit was further “amplified by many of the same accounts that infiltrated conservative Twitter communities and promoted a pro-Trump, white nationalist agenda.” Not exactly an organic upswell.

#Calexit was further “amplified by many of the same accounts that infiltrated conservative Twitter communities and promoted a pro-Trump, white nationalist agenda.”

But for all of the egregious links between Russia and California separatists, the earliest foray into ties between Moscow-linked actors and American secession movements, per my research, was found in my former home: Texas. Back in 2015, I put together a piece for POLITICO Magazine detailing the ties between Lone Star secessionists and Russia, dovetailing off a recent visit from the Texas “foreign minister” to St. Petersburg, where the Texan turned to Russian media to fan the flames of secession. As local Russian officials were threatening to deliver arms to Mexico (and unidentified “guerrillas”) to allow Mexico City to reclaim Texas, Texas secessionists themselves were finding sympathetic ears in Moscow.

Then, in 2016, the same “foreign minister,” the Texas Nationalist Movement’s (TNM) Nathan Smith, returned to Russia, attending the same pro-secession conference as the California secessionists — and, this time, with the AGMR, the group behind the conference, receiving funding from the Kremlin. In the time since, it’s come out that the AGMR also helped fund the Texan’s travel to Russia.

But promotional efforts behind Smith’s trip were kept to a minimum. Not only did the TNM not mention Smith’s travel to Moscow — despite promoting his stop-overs in France and the U.K. — but the only evidence of Smith’s presence, besides a clip shared by RT (see 0:12), is a tweet from, of all people, former #Calexit head Louis Marinelli.*

And that’s where the evidence, as of mid-2017, stood, as it pertained to Moscow’s links with Texas separatism. Funding for travel to, and organizing in, Moscow; plumping support in Russian-backed outlets like RT and Sputnik; odd comments about funding Mexican guerrillas to claim lands lost. Noteworthy enough developments, but without much evidence of success, or much lasting impact.

***

Enter the “Heart of Texas.” The Facebook site, for the past two years, existed as the most prominent Texas secession social media presence online. With over 225,000 followers as of summer 2017, the page, at one point last year, boasted more Facebook fans than the official Texas Democrat and Republican pages combined. [Edit, 17 Sept. 2017: It turns out the “Heart of Texas” page actually accrued nearly a quarter-million followers before Facebook pulled the plug.]

The page was laced with the kind of xenophobic, nativist, and anti-immigrant material many still associate with the Texas secession movement. Plenty of posts targeted Muslim immigrants and refugees, slammed liberals and LGBT activists, condemned vegetarians and Hillary Clinton. Taken on its face, the “Heart of Texas” page plugged material largely associated the American far-right — an amalgamation of InfoWars conspiracy, neo-Confederate separatism, and white nationalist calls for a return to an America past. The page supported the armed insurgents in Malheur, pushed conspiracies surrounding Jade Helm and Antonin Scalia’s death, shared fake Founding Father quotes, and came with the type of Texas-first chauvinism few other states can match:

But there was always something off about the “Heart of Texas” page. There was no contact information ever listed, for instance. Unlike TNM, there was no address, no phone number. No individuals identified behind the “Heart of Texas” page. Unlike those fake news pages run by Macedonian teens, there were never any ads placed on the pages, meaning the project was either a bizarre labor of love or something backed by some kind of money. Likewise, while it’s unclear when the Facebook page was founded, the site’s Twitter page (twitter.com/itstimetosecede) went live in November 2015 — within the time-frame listed by Facebook for its surge of Russia-linked “inauthentic” accounts. And when it came to the site’s paltry “about” section, all we learned was that “Texas’s the land protected by Lord [sic].”

And then there were the typos. Horrible, no-good, laugh-till-you-cry typos, lining every other post, especially through 2016. There’s no possible way I can capture the types of aggressively strange typos — often complete with Russian grammatical structures, no less — in a synopsis, so I’ll let these posts provide an overview of the type of grammar and spelling the “Heart of Texas” page brought to bear:

The site also ginned up Election Day-related outrage, calling on Texans to “look who vote [sic] in the elections in order to avoid large groups of voting illegal migrants.”

If the site was limited to eye-bleeding typos and paeans to Dr. Pepper and Whataburger, the page might have been simply another odd, tone-deaf attempt from actors trying to collect fans who don’t care about things like literacy or fact-based analysis. Idiotic, sure — but largely harmless.

Last November, however, the “Heart of Texas” page tried to roll into the real world, organizing a series of Nov. 5 rallies across the state. Claiming that “It’s time to say a strong NO to the establishment robbers,” the page said a Clinton victory would lead to “higher taxes to feed undocumented aliens,” more “refugees, mosques, and terrorist attacks,” and even the outright banning of guns. “We are free citizens of Texas and we’ve had enough of this cheap show on the screen,” the organizers wrote.

The “Heart of Texas” Twitter page also plugged the rallies — even offering to send details via direct message — while its Facebook complement “drew up an approximate map for the #Texit statewide rally,” whatever that means. The site further called for supporters to “open carry” and “make photos.” For some reason, the Facebook page also included a picture of Chris Kyle, co-opting the American veteran’s legacy into the secession movement.

As it is, the rallies didn’t generate much participation — only a few dozen people showed up at scattered sites across the state, if memory serves correctly. (In combing my screenshots, it doesn’t look like I snagged any screen-caps of the small turnout, unfortunately.) But in transferring its support from online to on-the-ground participation, the move mirrored, in a certain sense, the Columbian Chemicals plant explosion hoax in Louisiana, perpetrated, presumably, by Russian actors.

But the rally organization did do one thing. In gathering online support, the “Heart of Texas” page obtained identities of potential supporters of Texas secession — supporters whose information the folks at the “Heart of Texas” said they would pass along to the TNM. That is to say, the “Heart of Texas” page — a page likely run by foreign, presumably Russian, actors — was putting its talents toward recruiting for a very real Texas secession organization, one that had already received funding from a Kremlin-backed group.

***

For the past few months, things seemed hunky-dory for the folks behind “Heart of Texas.” They chugged along, posting much of the same material, albeit recently (and unfortunately, for those laughing along) cleaning up many of the site’s typos.

Then, Facebook announced it was cleaning up hundreds of “inauthentic” accounts linked to Russia. And like that, the “Heart of Texas,” along with its Twitter page, was gone. Just like that, Facebook’s most popular Texas secession page was no more.

While no Russian actors have come forward to claim responsibility for the site, there’s any amount of circumstantial evidence — the typos and grammatical structure; the strategic goals behind the site, and the fact that it was shuttered at the same time as hundreds of other Russia-linked fake pages; the parallel rhetoric put forth by other Russia-linked, U.S. domestic politics-related pages; even the ties with the TNM, a group already supported materially by a Kremlin-financed outfit — pointing to actors in Russia as the ones pulling the site’s secession strings. [Edit, 13 Sept. 2017: Business Insider’s Natasha Bertrand has confirmed that the “Heart of Texas” page was part of Facebook’s removal of Russia-linked Facebook groups. “It was shut down last week as part of Facebook’s takedown of accounts and pages ‘affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia,’ a Facebook spokesman told Business Insider on Wednesday,” she wrote. A Facebook spokesperson also told me that “Heart of Texas was removed as part of the takedown we described last week.”]

So RIP, “Heart of Texas.” We hardly knew ye. (Literally.) Looking forward to seeing where pro-secession foreign actors turn to next on Facebook — and where we can enjoy those wonderful typos once more. After all, as “Heart of Texas” told us, for those in love with Texas shape, always be ready for a Texas size.

*Update, 11 Sept. 2017: Marinelli ended up leaving the YesCalifornia group earlier this year to live permanently in Russia. During his tenure at YesCalifornia, Marinelli worked with Marcus Ruiz Evans, who served as vice president of the YesCalifornia group. While vice president, Evans not only attempted to raise a banner in San Francisco claiming that “California and Russia will always be friends!” — a move that was covered by the Russian-funded RT outlet — but helped lead the group in charge of the “California Embassy” in Moscow, and served as the second-in-command at an organization constructing ties with the Kremlin-funded AGMR.

Evans worked with the California Freedom Coalition (CFC) earlier this year, which retained him through July, until, according to a CFC official, Evans “quit … without giving anyone in the CFC any warning.” That is to say, higher-ups at CFC saw fit to work with— and continue working with for a number of months — someone who was intimately involved in constructing #Calexit’s ties with Russia, with the relationship ending only when Evans quit the group.

This post has been updated.