On Monday , two new independent studies commission by the Senate Intelligence Committee were made public , supply the most in - depth look at online Russian hitch in the 2016 election to engagement . The studies get that societal medium connection have n’t been totally forthcoming with lawmakers , and the propaganda efforts were decidedly contrive to elect Donald Trump as president of the United States .
The two report — oneby Oxford University ’s Computational Propaganda Project and Graphika , andoneby cybersecurity company New Knowledge — confirm much ofwhat we ’ve been toldabout the selective information war perpetrated by Russia ’s Internet Research Agency ( IRA ) . The researchers found that the Russian surgical procedure used accounts on platforms that let in Facebook , Instagram , Twitter , YouTube , Google+ , Reddit , Tumblr , Pinterest , and Vine . According to the reports , the IRAtroll factory ’s exploit lead off in earnest during the 2016 Republican primary election and promoted Trump ’s military campaign while belittle his Republican competition . Black Americans were heavy aim with messages to discourage voting or to vote for one of Hillary Clinton ’s more liberal rivals . “ Extensive measure ” of the information provided to the Intel Committee by the social networks and analyse by the researchers was antecedently unknown to the public , and it ’s the first analysis of much of the organic content that propagate during and after the election .
The authors of both account were at times decisive of the data compliance methods used by societal medium companies and the ways their executives characterise the round drive . The extent of activity on YouTube and Instagram , in picky , was antecedently unknown or play down . New Knowledge break down the information it received as follow :
just about 10.4 million tweet ( of which ~6 million were original ) across 3841 Twitter score , with ~73 million engagements on original content .
Approximately 61,500 unparalleled Facebook posts across 81 Pages , with ~77 million engagement .
around 116,000 Instagram posts across 133 account , with ~187 million conflict .
Approximately 1,100 YouTube TV across 17 account channel , date / number of sentiment was unlisted .
The reports report a sophisticated intermingling of accounts that spread influential meme and amplified depicted object make organically by other , non - IRA users . It ’s nigh impossible to say where the line could be take out between Russians imitating Americans and Americans drawing inspiration from Russians . The Oxford report characterize the evolution of social sensitive as having “ fail from being the instinctive base for deal collective score and coordinating civil engagement to being a computational tool for social control , misrepresent by canny political consultants and uncommitted to politicians in democracies and dictatorships alike . ”
They often focused on controversial demerit lines in U.S. politics like the Black Lives Matter protests and the subsequent Blue Lives Matter counter - movement . Instagram , in picky , was single out as being an effective platform to build an audience with minority ; the most successful account was identify as @blackstagram , which had 303,663 followers .
The end of targeting African Americans was to inflate content that liberal candidate like Senator Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein were better choices than Hillary Clinton — or to encourage them not to vote at all . On the other side of the partizan divide , Russian operation would focus on issues like Confederate history or veteran ’s issue when place older group . When direct younger conservatives , they would focus on “ meme and ‘ red anovulatory drug ’ acculturation . ”
Sometimes these efforts were surreal and laughable . One Instagram report , Army of Jesus , morphed from a Muppets Show fan pageboy to focalise on The Simpsons to last settling on a religious theme . At one power point , the account ’s opposite number on Facebook offered intimate dependency counsel with an advertising that say “ ‘ sputter with addiction to masturbation ? Reach out to me and we will beat it together ’ – Jesus . ” It ’s easy to give the sack images of Jesus in a MAGA lid or Clinton as Satan but one should n’t undervalue the power of constant reenforcement . While white-hot evangelicals may be quite literal in their rendition and representations of Christianity , they ’re also the only religious groupthat supportsTrump .
The researchers did not have direct data from other networks aside from the freehanded four , but they traced some account and activities other platform like Tumblr and Reddit as well as “ widespread activity ” on Vine , Gab , Meetup , VKontakte , and LiveJournal . Even plot , web internet browser extensions , and medicine apps were weaponize . Pokémon Go was rive into the mixture when Tumblr was used to encourage histrion to name their Pokémon after victims of police fury .
The researcher were also critical of tech executives ’ manipulation of the campaigns , their subsequent public reactions , and response to questions from lawmakers . New Knowledge write :
Regrettably , it appears that the platform may have misrepresented or parry in some of their statements to Congress ; one platform claimed that no specific chemical group were targeted ( this is only true if mouth strictly of advertising ) , while another dissembled about whether or not the Internet Research Agency created content to deter voting ( it did ) . It is undecipherable whether these answers were the result of faulty or wanting depth psychology , or a more calculated equivocation .
In written reply to the Senate in October , Facebook ’s representatives said they conceive the only people who could answer whether any of the activeness was project to suppress the right to vote were “ investigator with access to classified intelligence agency and information from all relevant companies and industry . ” New Knowledge extensively outlines voter inhibition efforts that would be obvious to anyone .
In response to the composition , a spokesperson for Facebook told Gizmodo that it provide “ thousands of advertising and small-arm of content to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for review and portion out entropy with the public about what we found . ” They reiterated that they still consider “ Congress and the intelligence biotic community are well placed to use the information we and others provide to fix the political motivations of actors like the Internet Research Agency . ”
It further wrote that meshing have a responsibility to protect users ’ privacy , but “ sharing data point about public trouble should be more than performative , it should be meaningful and constructive . ”
Google refuse to notice for this paper but pointed us toseveralpreviousblog postson the subject .
A spokesperson for Twitter told us that its “ singular focusing is to improve the health of the public conversation on our platform , and protecting the integrity of elections is an significant aspect of that mission . ” They say that the ship’s company has “ made important tread since 2016 to counter handling of our service , including ourrelease of extra datum in Octoberrelated to previously disclosed activity to enable further independent donnish inquiry and investigation . ”
[ Graphika Report , New Knowledge Report , Washington Post ]
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