A Facebook page that seemed to be sharing local news in North Carolina is a textbook example of a disinformation campaign, BBC News has been told.
The site accumulated more than 50,000 followers in less than a month but also raised suspicions it was peddling fake news.
Administrators of the site claimed to be students at the North Carolina State University, working on a news project.
The university told BBC News that was not the case and blamed Russian bots.
Disinformation expert Dr Claire Wardle said: "It has all the hallmarks - it is labelled as 'satire' to get it past the Facebook fact-checkers, it is using genuine content but stories that are from years ago and from all over the US and not just North Carolina, it has stories that are meant to be racially divisive - it is a playbook of how to make disinformation work.
"I would be interested to know how it got so many followers so quickly but I would be nervous about saying it is a Russian account because it is difficult to verify.
"This could have been created by an American who wants to cause trouble."