 Twitter recently announced that they will let nearly 700,000 users that they interacted with accounts identified as part of a propaganda campaign financed by the Russian government in 2016. Unless you have seen the process taking place in real time, it is difficult to understand how bots (automated social media accounts), trolls (real individuals aggressively attempting to sow division or discredit experts), and sock puppets (persona accounts run by a real person who is not the person portrayed in the account profile) can spread divisive messages, silence debate, and use abuse and harassment to push political issues in a particular direction. Once you have seen it in real time, it is clear how influential Russian government-financed troll, bot, and sock puppet activity split American voters into angry, isolated camps with little inclination or ability to bridge divides and find consensus. A team of researchers at the University of Washington examined Twitter discourse related to #BlackLivesMatter and police-related shooting events in 2016, and their discoveries have broad and important implications for how Americans can combat the onslaught of divisive messaging and disinformation. One important discovery is that the groups on the two “sides” of the issue were quite separate, with almost no overlap in retweets or conversation. The researchers found that Russian accounts identified as originating at the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg - a Russian government-financed troll farm - were clearly working in both pro-Black Lives Matter and anti-Black Lives Matter groups.   The diagrams tell the story. The first shows the isolation of the two groups - people in each group interact primarily with others who express the same views. The second diagram shows Russian-Internet Research Agency identified accounts in orange. It is clear that Russian paid accounts were very active in the separate groups, amplifying divisive messages and increasing division and disagreement. The researchers conclude: “In this paper, we have located RU-IRA-affiliated troll accounts in the retweet network of a politically polarized conversation surrounding race and shootings in the United States. Our findings suggest that troll accounts contributed content to polarized information networks, likely serving to accentuate disagreement and foster division. Furthermore, our findings imply that the troll accounts gained a platform in a domestic conversation, suggesting a calculated form of media manipulation that exploits on the crowd-sourced nature of social media.” Two articles from the University of Washington research group can be found here. Thanks to Kate Starbird of the University of Washington for sharing this research on Twitter. http://faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/Stewart_Starbird_Drawing_the_Lines_of_Contention-final.pdf http://faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/examining-trolls-polarization.pdf An article about the announcement by Twitter about notifying users that they interacted with Russian-financed propaganda accounts can be found here. http://nationalpost.com/news/world/twitter-tells-677000-users-they-were-conned-by-russias-u-s-election-propaganda Angry Twitter bird image by Roweig at Deviant Art
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 There were three open Congressional hearings this week addressing Russian interference in U.S. social media. Google, Facebook, and Twitter sent lawyers to represent them. Congressional leaders expressed clear dissatisfaction with the lack of company Chief Executive Officers at the hearings, given the seriousness of the issue.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, at Wednesday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, told the representatives that she doesn’t think they get it. She said she went home disappointed from the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing the day before: https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/extremist-content-and-russian-disinformation-online-working-with-tech-to-find-solutions While you might not ordinarily think Congressional hearings are riveting television, these three hearings present the information that shows how far the Russian information operation went in an effort to interfere in the U.S. presidential election. It is fascinating to see the scope of the effort to use divisive social issues to confuse, frighten and pit Americans against each other. Disinformation was used on both sides of social issues to create a wedge between fellow citizens. All voters should see what was done to us as a nation. The hearings are linked here. Tuesday, October 31: Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing “Extremist Content and Russian Disinformation Online: Working with Tech to Find Solutions” https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/extremist-content-and-russian-disinformation-online-working-with-tech-to-find-solutions Wednesday, November 1: Senate intelligence Committee Hearing “Social Media Influence in the 2016 U.S. Elections https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-social-media-influence-2016-us-elections House Intelligence Committee Hearing “Russia Investigative Task Force Open Hearing with Social Media Companies” Opening statements and prepared testimony can be found here. https://intelligence.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=814 The hearing can be found here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=42c9oMBggIk The many exhibits used in the Senate Intelligence hearing can be accessed at the Senate committee website. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-social-media-influence-2016-us-elections An article from Wired summarizes the three hearings. https://www.wired.com/story/six-revealing-moments-from-the-second-day-of-russia-hearings/ An article from Engadget contains examples of some of the propaganda released by the Internet Research Agency. https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/01/house-intel-committee-releases-russia-backed-facebook-election-a/ The Hamilton 68 dashboard for tracking social media topics on Twitter, created by Securing Democracy and referenced in the hearings, can be found here. http://dashboard.securingdemocracy.org/  Source: Vox Agents of the Russian government contacted Americans to organize events in the U.S. designed to divide and confuse the U.S. public during the 2016 presidential campaign. Friday on NPR's All Things Considered, Ari Shapiro interviewed Conrad James, who was contacted by a group run by Russian trolls and asked to organize a protest. James asserts that he had no idea the group was operating from St. Petersburg, Russia. http://www.npr.org/2017/10/20/559113232/russian-operatives-secretly-ran-websites-to-emphasize-divisive-issues-in-u-s An investigation by the Russian media organization RBC identified numerous social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram that were run by government operatives within Russia. The article is in Russian, but several graphics from the investigation are included at the end of this article. Russian news outlet Meduza published an article with details about the St. Petersburg toll factory previously reported on by the New York Times and The Atlantic. Molly McKew, a lobbyist who has worked extensively in former Soviet countries and is familiar with techniques used by the Russian government to influence public opinion, warns that we are likely only seeing what the Kremlin wants us to see, and that there are many more operatives who worked and are still working to influence current events in the U.S. She posted on Twitter regarding the Meduza article: "Read this for tools/tactics. But keep in mind what PURPOSE info has. 90 paid interns not whole effort. There's more." The Meduza article can be found here. https://meduza.io/en/news/2017/10/17/russian-journalists-publish-massive-investigation-into-st-petersburg-troll-factory-s-u-s-operations More articles delving into Russian activity designed to push the American presidential election in the direction of Trump can be found here. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-campaign-staffers-pushed-russian-propaganda-days-before-the-election?source=twitter&via=desktop http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/18/media/black-fist-russia-self-defense-classes/index.html https://www.buzzfeed.com/kevincollier/twitter-was-warned-repeatedly-about-this-fake-account-run?utm_term=.xtgDxVJee4#.gornxv1KKQ https://www.buzzfeed.com/kevincollier/twitter-was-warned-repeatedly-about-this-fake-account-run?utm_term=.xtgDxVJee4#.gornxv1KKQ https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/19/16504510/ten-gop-twitter-russia Graphics from the RBC article are included below. They show some of the accounts that have been traced to Russian operatives in St. Petersburg. The bright blue circles represent Facebook accounts, the lighter blue represent Twitter accounts, and the red circles represent Instagram. The size of the circle indicates the level of activity of the account.    |
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