Category Archives: influence operations

How Twitter, Facebook say they will treat premature claims of electoral victory

Posted on by

With less than 24 hours before Election Day in the United States, social media platforms were still announcing plans about how they intend to flag premature and unfounded claims of victory in the event that a candidate tries to seize on a moment of global anxiety for their own gain. While Twitter previously said it would flag misleading claims about election results, the company on Monday clarified the criteria on which it will base its decisions. President Trump has told several close associates that he plans to declare victory on election night if he looks like he’s “ahead,” regardless of the official tally, according to Axios. Twitter, meanwhile, has made it clear that it will consider such claims premature if they come before at least two outlets from a pool including ABC News, the Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, Decision Desk HQ, Fox News, and NBC News publicly share their projections or election results. Twitter has also said […]

The post How Twitter, Facebook say they will treat premature claims of electoral victory appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading How Twitter, Facebook say they will treat premature claims of electoral victory→

Don’t let election-themed misinformation fool you. Here’s what to watch out for.

Posted on by

Whether it’s Russian trolls or verified Twitter accounts spreading disinformation during the current political moment almost is besides the point. Four years after Russian operatives aimed to influence the 2016 election in favor of President Donald Trump by spreading lies on social media, a large range of groups, lawmakers and influential political voices have been amplifying false claims in to boost their own political goals ahead of the 2020 elections. U.S. voters are bombarded with misinformation prior to Election Day in the form of social media posts, text messages, robocalls and tweets from President Trump and his campaign staffers. There’s also been threatening emails traced to Iran, and recent reports of how a Russian agent sought to sway political opinion in the U.S. While many could feel a sense of whiplash from the onslaught of manufactured narratives, academics and social scientists are advising Americans to be careful, and fact-check claims about the election, voting processes, and any political candidate, particularly if the allegations […]

The post Don’t let election-themed misinformation fool you. Here’s what to watch out for. appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Don’t let election-themed misinformation fool you. Here’s what to watch out for.→

Iran’s bogus email campaign on U.S. elections had a Facebook disinformation prong

Posted on by

Facebook has removed a network of fake accounts and pages with connections to the Iranian government, one of which was peddling misinformation related to the U.S. elections, the company announced Tuesday. The Iranian network broadly focused on the U.S. and Israel, but it included one fake account that was operating as part of the Iranian email misinformation campaign that sent unsubstantiated threats about voting to Democratic voters in the U.S., Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher told reporters in a phone call. The email campaign, which the U.S. government called out last week, threatened targets to vote for President Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential elections. After a tipoff from the FBI, which announced Iran was behind the email misinformation campaign last week, Facebook removed the related account on its platform and discovered it was connected with 11 other fake Facebook accounts, six fake Facebook pages, and 11 fake Instagram accounts. These accounts […]

The post Iran’s bogus email campaign on U.S. elections had a Facebook disinformation prong appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Iran’s bogus email campaign on U.S. elections had a Facebook disinformation prong→

Twitter introduces banner debunking voter misinformation

Posted on by

Twitter launched a feature on its platform Monday that seeks to debunk misinformation about voting in a last minute effort to inform users of weaponized information operations. The feature, which appears as a a banner that greets Twitter users at the top of their feeds, already had a message for American voters Monday: People are spreading misinformation about election fraud and voting by mail. “You might encounter misleading information about voting by mail,” the banner reads. “Election experts confirm that voting by mail is safe and secure, even with an increase in mail-in ballots. Even so you might encounter unconfirmed claims that voting by mail leads to election fraud ahead of the 2020 US elections.” President Donald Trump has claimed without evidence that voting by mail is linked with fraud, when in reality mail-in ballot fraud-related cases are extremely rare. The announcement of the Twitter feature is just the latest effort from social […]

The post Twitter introduces banner debunking voter misinformation appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Twitter introduces banner debunking voter misinformation→

US Treasury sanctions 5 Iranian organizations for alleged election influence operations

Posted on by

The Treasury Department on Thursday announced sanctions against five Iranian organizations for allegedly trying to influence the U.S. election through disinformation campaigns and other attempts to sow discord. Those sanctioned for the activity included the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, one of its alleged front companies, the IRGC’s Quds Force and media companies allegedly linked to the Quds Force. It’s part of a broader federal effort to push back on foreign influence operations less than two weeks from Election Day. The Iranian media outlets are accused of using English-language articles that amplify “false narratives” to sow divisions among U.S. audiences. “As recently as summer 2020, Bayan Gostar was prepared to execute a series of influence operations directed at the U.S. populace ahead of the presidential election,” Treasury said in a statement, referring to one of the alleged front companies. The Iranian Mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to […]

The post US Treasury sanctions 5 Iranian organizations for alleged election influence operations appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading US Treasury sanctions 5 Iranian organizations for alleged election influence operations→

Why the US was so fast to blame Iran for voter intimidation emails in Florida

Posted on by

By trying to quickly resolve concerns about an apparent Iranian influence operation, and bolster Americans’ confidence the country’s electoral process, U.S. officials have sparked an entirely new set of questions: Why were they able to connect Iran to the attack so quickly, and how? During a briefing announced to reporters 10 minutes before it began Wednesday, John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, said the U.S. government had determined Iran was behind an email campaign meant to intimidate American voters. Neither Ratcliffe nor FBI Director Christopher Wray, who was also at the briefing, provided any technical evidence to support the allegation that the emails, purported to be sent by the Proud Boys as threats to Democratic voters in Florida to vote for President Donald Trump, in fact were sent by Iranian attackers. The disclosure came quickly after Motherboard on Tuesday reported on a surge of suspicious emails that seemed to use technical means to try to hide their […]

The post Why the US was so fast to blame Iran for voter intimidation emails in Florida appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Why the US was so fast to blame Iran for voter intimidation emails in Florida→

US blames Iran for threatening emails sent to Florida voters

Posted on by

Iran is been behind a series of intimidating emails sent to registered Democratic voters in Florida in recent days, the U.S. government has assessed. The emails, which appeared to be sent by the Proud Boys, a designated hate group supportive of President Trump, threatened voters to “Vote for Trump or else!” as Motherboard first reported. “You will vote for Trump on Election Day or we will come after you,” said some of the emails received by registered Democrats. The series of messages were “spoofed” as part of an influence campaign aimed at interfering in the U.S. election, American officials said. Voters in Alaska and Pennsylvania have also received emails like those received in Florida, according to The Washington Post. “We have already seen Iran sending spoofed emails designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest,” Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said during a press conference Wednesday. “You may have seen some reporting on this in the […]

The post US blames Iran for threatening emails sent to Florida voters appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading US blames Iran for threatening emails sent to Florida voters→

With an eye on election interference, Facebook scrubs networks of phony Russian accounts

Posted on by

Facebook on Thursday removed over 200 phony accounts and dozens of pages that originated in Russia and pumped out information on sensitive geopolitical issues targeting people from Turkey to the U.S. Facebook said it traced the fraudulent activity to either people connected with Russian military intelligence services or the Internet Research Agency, a notorious Russia-based troll farm. It’s the latest in a series of actions that Facebook has taken against suspected foreign influence operations heading into the U.S. presidential election. “While we have not seen the networks we removed today…directly target the US 2020 election, they are linked to actors associated with election interference in the US in the past, including those involved in ‘DC leaks’ in 2016,” Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security policy, said in a blog post. As with another suspected Russia-based influence operation that Facebook uncovered this month, the latest activity saw operatives pose as journalists or writers in an […]

The post With an eye on election interference, Facebook scrubs networks of phony Russian accounts appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading With an eye on election interference, Facebook scrubs networks of phony Russian accounts→

Black Hat 2020: Influence Campaigns Are a Cybersecurity Problem

Posted on by

An inside look at how nation-states use social media to influence, confuse and divide — and why cybersecurity researchers should be involved. Continue reading Black Hat 2020: Influence Campaigns Are a Cybersecurity Problem→

Twitter nabs a network of Chinese accounts demonizing pro-democracy protests, spinning coronavirus news

Posted on by

Just because Twitter is banned in mainland China doesn’t mean Beijing won’t use it to influence public opinion around the world. Twitter announced Thursday it removed 23,750 accounts linked to Chinese-backed propaganda campaigns. Those accounts made up the core of the effort, the company said, while another 150,000 sought to amplify the content on those core accounts. Much of the activity was aimed at undermining pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, the coronavirus pandemic and discrediting Chinese dissidents, researchers found. Researchers from Stanford University’s Internet Observatory determined that the Twitter activity focused on COVID-19 accelerated in January and peaked in March. Often, the accounts would praise the Chinese government’s response to the pandemic, call for global unity on the issue and bristle at the notion that Taiwan’s government responded to the health crisis in an effective manner. The themes echo prior propaganda in other suspected Chinese social media operations and official […]

The post Twitter nabs a network of Chinese accounts demonizing pro-democracy protests, spinning coronavirus news appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Twitter nabs a network of Chinese accounts demonizing pro-democracy protests, spinning coronavirus news→