Russia’s sinister social media campaign against the U.S.

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The large scope of the multi-year Russian operation and the nefarious tactics it employed to exploit divisions along race and political ideology in the U.S. on a range of social media platforms, including Google-owned YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and on Facebook-owned Instagram.

According to the report released on Monday, the massive operation reached 126 million people on Facebook, posted 10.4 million tweets on Twitter, uploaded over 1,000 videos to YouTube, and reached over 20 million users on Instagram. The report states that roughly 6 percent of tweets, 18 percent of Instagram posts and 7 percent of Facebook posts mentioned Trump or Clinton by name. However, Trump was mentioned roughly twice as often as Clinton on most platforms. The report, titled "The Tactics and Tropes of the Internet Research Agency," warns that the manipulation of U.S. political discourse continues in 2018.

The report, which was commissioned by cybersecurity firm New Knowledge, Canfield Research and Columbia University's Tow Center for Digital Journalism, reveals that the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian company owned by a businessman who is reportedly a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, hit on a range of themes and social issues over and over again across multiple online platforms, including Muslim culture, black culture, gun rights, LGBT issues, patriotism, Tea Party issues, veterans' rights, pro-Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein content, Christian culture and Southern culture and American separatist movements.

The themes selected by the IRA were "deployed to create and reinforce tribalism within each targeted community," according to the report, which notes that a majority of posts created by a given Facebook page reinforced in-group camaraderie. Partisan content was also presented to targeted groups in on-brand ways: for example, one meme featured Jesus in a Trump campaign hat on an account targeting Christians.

Additionally, the report notes that the IRA co-opted the names of real groups with existing reputations among the targeted communities, including "United Muslims of America," "Cop Block, Black Guns Matter," and "L for Life." Researchers said this was possibly an attempt to loosely backstop an identity if a curious individual did a Google Search, or to piggyback on an established brand.

Source: Shocking scale of Russia’s sinister social media campaign against US revealed

Where's the evidence?

Don't ask silly questions like that. The report says so, so we must all abide and believe. Faith is important.

There are two reports. The first is 100 pages long was commissioned by cybersecurity firm New Knowledge, Canfield Research and Columbia University's Tow Center for Digital Journalism. It is in the hands of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The second report by Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project and social media analysis specialist Graphika is also in the hands of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

So these reports are in a Senate Committee on Intelligence. I would guess unclassified summaries are probably being generated and will be released shortly.

Damn those Russian for spreading disinformation and propaganda on social media! That's our f*****g job!

The Russians don't have our best interests at heart.....

All of Europe is making zillions of daily social media posts having to do with US elections and politics... and then there's Russia. Russia BAD.

But are the other European governments directing this effort in order to hurt America? That's the difference between them and Russia.

Stop peddling these lies.

There are millions of people in Europe, Canada, Australia etc weighing in on American politics throughout social media who don't work for the government. Likewise there are plenty of people in Russia doing the same who don't work for the government. I've seen many highly emotionally charged claims that Russia is out to hurt the United States, but I have not seen any evidence of it occurring post cold war.

Russia doesn't like it when the US "interferes" with their designs on the Ukraine and (more specifically) the Crimean Peninsula.

This could have been the motivation behind Russia's efforts to elect Trump. Obama used to really let Russia have it when it came to its expansionist ideas.

I have no trouble believing Russia preferred Trump over Clinton for that very reason. When it comes to several people from countries outside the US posting political rhetoric here, they obviously have had the goal or at least desire to see Trump removed from office.

The goal or at least desire to see Americans turn against Trump. And I'm sure that's the case throughout social media. They are basically trying to influence American voters. As 2020 nears it will increase.

I think the complaint against Russians doing the same as other countries, is that they are perceived as pro-Trump rather than anti-Trump. And that's why they are perceived as a threat by liberals/democrats. I don't think the people who are outraged over Russian interference would be if they were perceived as anti-Trump.

On those posts are they portraying themselves as your neighbor? No, you know who you're dealing with. That's the difference. Had Russia made posts over here and you knew it was the Russians, no problem, you know who you're dealing with. The issue here is that Russia was running millions of ads that appeared to be American in nature but were not- i.e. lying to gain an advantage. Take Obama making a pitch for Macron in the French election, yeah he was peddling his influence there, but he wasn't calling himself Pierre, shouting "Viva le resistance!" after every sentence to make it appear he was a Frenchman-- they knew exactly who he was, it was open and transparent.

That's sheer tripe. The Uranium One deal was done under Obama. Russia didn't elect Trump. The US started it with Ukraine with the military coup of an elected government. Ukraine outlawed Russian in Russian speaking Crimea.

The establishment calls accounts "Russian bots" etc when they're not. The whole thing is an utter hoax. They spent 4700 dollars on Google ads. Enough already.

First, we had nothing to do with Ukraine, not a single troop, intelligence officer, etc. Yanukovych was forced out by popular protest on the ground. He was almost removed by the parliament but fell 3 votes shy of the 3/4 of all votes needed to remove him. Meaning, he was exceptionally unpopular in Ukraine itself: the citizens themselves did not want him. But, being a Russian toadie, the Russians did not like the people of the Ukraine voicing their opinion and thus occupied the eastern portion of the country. That's how it all played out, not a single event was instigated by the U.S. so you can peddle that BS someplace else.