Before Election Meddling, Russians Trolled Food

摘要

Before the Ruskies started influencing American elections, they cut their digital teeth spreading hoaxes about American food poisoning incidents. At least that's the story in the Feb. 21 Wall Street Journal, which reported about a 2015 Thanksgiving incident in which 200 people in New York City went to the hospital with food poisoning from a Koch Turkey Farms bird sold at Walmart. Except it never happened. The fictitious story began on a cooking website forum, then spread to Twitter, where it was repeated hundreds of times, many apparently by legitimate U.S. citizens who were simply trying to warn others.