Twitter Accounts with User ID near Identified Russian Troll Accounts Appear to be Dormant Accounts Waiting for Activation

Both the Senate and the House Intelligence Committees held hearings November 1 to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, which may be continuing to this day. The House Democrats released a list of more than 2700 social media accounts that Twitter has identified as linked to Russian intelligence agencies.

any Twitter users believe that the influence of Russian intelligence on the Twitter platform is much more widespread than the company has admitted. Bots, which are computer-driven accounts used to boost popularity of content, and trolls, which have a real person behind them (although often not the person represented in the profile) and can criticize, mock, or report targeted accounts for suspension, are common.

Bots, which are computer-generated accounts, can appear to be real on casual inspection. They can answer simple questions and give general support or criticism. The comments can be activated by certain words or hashtags.

Trolls come in a variety of forms. Some of them pretend to be Americans, but are actually working from another country. They can have a profile describing a "Christian grandmother with fibromyalgia," but actually the account is a 20 year-old man working at a troll farm in Saint Petersburg. A false identity is called a persona.

Bot and troll accounts, which can work in coordination to target an account, can foment discord in several ways. Here are a few examples:

• The troll makes an outrageous or inflammatory claim or comment, and multiple bots "like" the post, raising its popularity and visibility; real human users then respond, arguing with the original troll, programmed bots, or other real humans who agree with the original inflammatory post.
• A troll account can have many bot account followers, making the troll appear to be popular.
• Multiple troll accounts can attack a real human user, effectively silencing the real human. While a user might be able to shake off criticism from one persona, human psychology makes people particularly susceptible to coordinated criticism from multiple personas.

My own experience is that turning in accounts that violated the Twitter terms of service got no response until November 3 - two days after the Intelligence Committee hearings. I got no responses to numerous reports of harassment I observed between November 2016 and November 2017. Then I received notice of 7 suspended accounts that had violated the terms of service in the week of November 1.

Twitter deleted the accounts on the list they provided House Intelligence, so interested individuals cannot examine these accounts to see their characteristics.

I ran the User ID numbers near in number to the Russia-linked accounts through tweeterid.com​, a reverse look-up service. I then searched Twitter for the handles associated with those ID numbers. Most of the accounts were "blue eggs" - accounts with generic names, no photos and no profile. Most of the accounts had never Tweeted, or had Tweeted only a few times. Most of the accounts has been formed in 2009 or 2012. The collage of screen captures of some of the accounts are shown above.

What does this show? These accounts appear to be dormant. They were created years ago, and nothing has been done with them yet. Are these nefarious, Russian intelligence accounts? There is no way for me to tell, but it seems that Twitter did not search very hard to identify accounts that are not "authentic" - their word for accounts associated with real people.

These may be innocent accounts made by individuals who never used them. They may also be silent accounts, waiting for someone to activate them and adopt personas that boost content or bully real people. They may also be part of a botnet, a group of bots used to boost the popularity of troll accounts.

More information is needed, and Twitter is likely not finished testifying to Congress.

In the words of Representative Adam Schiff, ranking member on the House Intelligence Commitee:

"​Russia exploited real vulnerabilities that exist across online platforms and we must identify, expose, and defend ourselves against similar covert influence operations in the future.  The companies here today must play a central role as we seek to better protect legitimate political expression, while preventing cyberspace from being misused by our adversaries. "

The Russia-linked Twitter handles submitted to the House Intelligence Committee by Twitter can be found here.
https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/hpsci-11-1/hpsci-minority-exhibit-b.htm

Members of both committees, Republican, Democrat, and Independent, expressed disappointment that the social media companies represented (Twitter, Google, and Facebook) sent their attorneys, rather than the CEOs coming to the hearings.

Politico reported that Senator Mark Warner said Twitter's "actions have not matched their words in terms of grasping the seriousness of the threat ... I'm more than a bit surprised, in light of all the public interest from the subject, that anyone from the Twitter team would think that the presentation made to Senate staff today even began to answer the kinds of questions that we'd asked," he told reporters after the staff briefing. "So there's a lot more work they have to do."

The Politico article can be found here.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/28/twitter-russia-today-advertisements-243268

Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, said Thursday, November 9, that he is willing to testify to Congress, but that he had not been invited. This is inaccurate - according to Recode, "lawmakers previously and repeatedly called on Dorsey and other tech executives to make the trip to Capitol Hill — and they’ve apparently declined."

The Recode article can be found here.
https://www.recode.net/2017/11/9/16631230/twitter-jack-dorsey-congress-russia-testify-lawyers-new-york-times-dealbook