Facebook has previously been accused by the US establishment of allowing Russia-linked pages to "sow discord among Americans," but this time there is no finger-pointing at Russia. The mastermind is a reputable US researcher, whose bot-powered effort to drum up support for write-in Republican candidate Mac Watson while smearing the Trump-endorsed Roy Moore, was recently exposed by the New York Times.

The Times reported on Wednesday that Morgan and his team attempted to paint Moore as a Kremlin candidate, linking thousands of alleged Russian Twitter bots to his account and alerting the media to the fact.