Black or Bot?

As trolls and foreign agents co-opt Blackness for political gain, it's becoming harder and harder to identify truth online.

- By Morgan Jerkins

In late February, just after Russia invaded Ukraine, my Twitter feed began filling up with videos showing Black exchange students being refused passage on trains fleeing the escalating conflict, while white students had no problem boarding. But not everyone was buying it. In a now-deleted tweet, Teen Vogue Editor-in-Chief Versha Sharma shared a Washington Post article reporting on the spread of disinformation, and added, "as videos go viral, a reminder about verifying sources before sharing-and a reminder that Russia disinfo ops have specifically targeted Black people in the past with fake accounts and media."

"The videos and the ppl are real," Q. Anthony Omene, creator of RZNWA Media, who had been amplifying the voices of those speaking out about anti-Black racism in Ukraine, shot back in response. Omene and others raising concerns were not part of a disinformation campaign, he asserted, but rather real people who had been in contact with African students who were struggling to escape. "People were accusing me of being a Russian bot," he tells me, wondering whether his internationalist politics and identity as a communist played a role in why both white and Black users distrusted him. "I still get called to this day a Russian disinformation agent."