The Russia connectionTop takes: Suspected Russian intelligence operation

A Russian-based information operation used fake accounts, forged documents, and dozens of online platforms to spread stories that attacked Western interests and unity. Its size and complexity indicated that it was conducted by a persistent, sophisticated, and well-resourced actor, possibly an intelligence operation.

The operation shows online platforms’ ongoing vulnerability to disinformation campaigns. Far more than on Facebook, which exposed it, or Twitter, the operation maintained fake accounts on platforms such Medium and Reddit, and online forums from Australia to Austria and from Spain to San Francisco. Its level of ambition was very high, but its impact was almost always low.

On 6 May 2019, Facebook announced that it had taken down “16 accounts, four pages, and one Instagram account as part of a small network emanating from Russia.” Facebook shared the names (expressed as unique user ID numbers) of the accounts it assessed as involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior shortly before the takedown. Working outwards from those accounts, the DFRLab identified a much larger operation that ran across many platforms, languages, and subjects but consistently used the same approach and concealment techniques.

The operation was strongly reminiscent of the Soviet-era “Operation Infektion” that accused the United States of creating the AIDS virus. That operation planted the fake story in distant media before amplifying it through Soviet channels: it ultimately spread through genuine news media around the world and was often reported as fact. The latest operation — which the DFRLab has dubbed “Secondary Infektion” — used a similar technique by planting false stories on the far reaches of the internet before amplifying them with Facebook accounts run from Russia.

The operation’s goal appears to have been to divide, discredit, and distract Western countries. Some of its stories were calculated to inflame tensions between NATO allies, especially Germany and the United States, as well as Britain and the United States. Others appeared designed to stoke racial, religious, or political hatred, especially in Northern Ireland. Few posts gained traction, but one anti-immigrant story penetrated the German far right and continues to circulate online. It appears likely that the Russian operation fabricated the entire story, including its spurious “evidence.” This was a particularly disturbing case of weaponized hatred stemming from a foreign operation.