The Russia connectionRussia's 2016 Twitter campaign far broader, deeper, and incredibly successful: Symantec
The archives of the Internet Research Agency, the St. Petersburg-based troll farm, show a broad, coordinated, and effective campaign which was, in the words of one report, “incredibly successful at pushing out and amplifying its messages.” The Internet Research Agency conducted a campaign on Twitter before the 2016 elections that was larger, more coordinated and more effective than previously known.
The archives of the Internet Research Agency, the St. Petersburg-based troll farm, show a broad, coordinated, and effective campaign which was, in the words of Politico, “incredibly successful at pushing out and amplifying its messages.”
The Internet Research Agency conducted a campaign on Twitter before the 2016 elections that was larger, more coordinated and more effective than previously known, research from cybersecurity firm Symantec out Wednesday concluded.
The Kremlin’s successful campaign against the United States aimed to help elect Donald Trump president; deepen social and cultural divisions; increase political polarization; intensify feelings of alienation and disaffection among both liberal and conservative voters; and erode trust in democracy and institutions such as the free press, the courts, and U.S. intelligence community.
The detailed Symantec analysis uncovered a heretofore unknown fact: the average lag between account creation and first tweet was 177 days. Analysts say that this very long delay between the creation of an account and the initial tweet points to a lot of patient preparation by the Kremlin operatives, and the retweets indicate that a lot of unaffiliated Twitter users were amplifying the IRA’s message.
Symantec notes that the Internet Research Agency campaign may not only have had more influence — reaching large numbers of real users — than previously thought, and was more patiently and meticulously prepared: it might also have generated income for some of the phony accounts. Symantec estimates that the phony accounts earned the Internet Research Agency about $1 million.
The report’s key findings:
The operation was carefully planned, with accounts often registered months before they were used – and well in advance of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The average time between account creation and first tweet was 177 days.
A core group of main accounts was used to push out new content. These were often ”fake news” outlets masquerading as regional news outlets or pretended to be political organizations.
