On Wednesday, Twitter released a collection of more than 10 million tweets related to thousands of accounts affiliated with Russia\u2019s Internet Research Agency propaganda organization, as well as hundreds more troll accounts, including many based in Iran. The data, analyzed and released in a report by The Atlantic Council\u2019s Digital Forensic Research Lab, are made up of 3,841 accounts affiliated with the Russia-based Internet Research Agency, 770 other accounts potentially based in Iran as well as 10 million tweets and more than 2 million images, videos and other media. Russian trolls targeting U.S. politics took on personas from both the left and the right. Their primary goal appears to have been to sow discord, rather than promote any particular side, presumably with a goal of weakening the United States, the report said. DFRlab says the Russian trolls were often effective, drawing tens of thousands of retweets on certain posts including from celebrity commentators like conservative Ann Coulter. \u200bSome of the tweets posted: \u201cJudgement Day is here. Please vote #TrumpPence16 to save our great nation from destruction! #draintheswamp #TrumpForPresident,\u201d said a fake Election Day tweet in 2016. \u201cDaily reminder: Trump still hasn\u2019t imposed sanctions on Russia that were passed 4,193 in the House and 982 in the Senate. Shouldn\u2019t that be grounds for impeachment?\u201d said another tweet in March of this year. Multiple goals The Russian operation had multiple goals, including interfering in the U.S. presidential election, polarizing online communities, and weakening trust in American institutions, according to the DFRLab. \u201cThe thing to understand is that the Russians were equal opportunity partisans,\u201d Graham Brookie, one of the researchers behind the analysis, told VOA News. \u201cThere was a very specific focus on specific ideological communities and specific demographics.\u201d Following an initial push to prevent Hillary Clinton from being elected in 2016, the analysis identified a \u201csecond wave\u201d of fake accounts, many of which were focused on infiltrating anti-Trump groups, especially those identified with the \u201cResistance\u201d movement, exploiting sensitive issues such as race relations and gun violence. These often achieved greater impact than their conservative counterparts. \u201cDon\u2019t ever tell me kneeling for the flag is disrespectful to our troops when Trump calls a sitting Senator \u201cPocahontas\u201d in front of Native American war heroes,\u201d tweeted an account posing as an African-American woman named \u201cLuisa Haynes\u201d under the handle @wokeluisa in November 2017. The tweet garnered more than 32,000 retweets and over 89,000 likes. \u201cThey tried to inflame everybody, regardless of race, creed, politics or sexual orientation,\u201d the Lab noted in its analysis. \u201cOn many occasions, they pushed both sides of divisive issues.\u201d Iran trolling Iran\u2019s trolling was primarily focused on promoting its own interests, including attacking regional rivals like Israel and Saudi Arabia. However, Iran\u2019s trolling was less effective than the Russian posts, with most tweets getting limited responses. This was partially because of posting styles that were less inflammatory, according to the report. \u201cFew of the accounts showed distinctive personalities: They largely shared online articles,\u201d according to the report. \u201cAs such, they were a poor fit for Twitter, where personal comment tends to resonate more strongly than website shares.\u201d Generally, many troll posts were ineffective, and \u201ctheir operations were washed away in the firehose of Twitter.\u201d All of the accounts linked to the massive trove of tweets released by Twitter have been suspended or deleted, and the analysis notes that overall activity from suspected Russian trolls fell this year after Twitter clampdowns in September and June 2017. But, that does not mean political trolls do not still pose a threat. \u201cIdentifying future foreign influence operations, and reducing their impact, will demand awareness and resilience from the activist communities targeted, not just the platforms and the open source community,\u201d according to the report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Wednesday, Twitter released a collection of more than 10 million tweets related to thousands of accounts affiliated with Russia\u2019s Internet Research Agency propaganda organization, as well as hundreds more troll accounts, including many based in Iran. The data, analyzed and released in a report by The Atlantic Council\u2019s Digital Forensic Research Lab, are made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70931,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70930"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}