Collaborate Disseminate
Together with her troll colleagues, she managed 200 fake social profiles, promoted clients’ products, and trolled their competitors. Continue reading Undercover reporter tells all after working for a Polish troll farm
A Russian financier with ties to Vladimir Putin was behind three networks of Facebook accounts that worked to interfere in the domestic politics of eight countries in Africa, the social media company said. Facebook took down a total of 66 accounts, 83 pages, 11 groups and 12 Instagram pages for their part in information campaigns meant to manipulate legitimate users, the company said Wednesday. The operations focused on issues like elections in Madagascar, Russian involvement in Africa, Sudanese-Russian relations and U.S. foreign policy, Facebook said. The company’s cybersecurity team traced all of the activity to Yevgeniy Prizgohin, a businessman previously indicted by former U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller in connection with the Russian Internet Research Agency. The IRA is the so-called Russian troll farm that sought to manipulate U.S. social media users before and after the 2016 presidential election. Since then, Prigozhin reportedly has directed his energy into boosting Russia’s presence […]
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It took down four foreign interference campaigns and announced initiatives to prevent foreign interference in US elections.
Continue reading Facebook pulls fake news networks linked to Russia and Iran
Facebook on Monday announced a new security program for the Facebook and Instagram accounts of presidential campaigns and election officials in a bid to keep them from getting hacked. The voluntary program requires Facebook page administrators to enable two-factor authentication and, in turn, Facebook will monitor login attempts from unusual locations or devices. Once an anomalous login attempt is detected, Facebook’s security personnel can warn the whole organization. Administrators of Facebook pages will also go have to go through a separate step confirming they are authorized to publish information on behalf of an organization. The new program is another effort by Facebook to show the public that it has made security strides since Russian-backed actors used the social media platform as part of a sprawling operation to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election. “I’m confident that we’re a lot more prepared [than in 2016],” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told reporters Monday. […]
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Authorities in Belarus have released a Russian national whom former Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted for interfering in the 2016 U.S. election. Anna Bogacheva allegedly worked for the notorious Internet Research Agency, a propaganda-spouting company with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. A February 2018 indictment from the Department of Justice alleges that Bogacheva traveled to the U.S. in 2014 “under false pretenses for the purpose of collecting intelligence” to support the IRA’s disinformation campaigns. Bogacheva was released after being detained in the capital of Minsk, according to multiple media reports quoting Belarus’s prosecutor general’s office. Her detention initially raised the possibility that one of the 13 Russians charged by Mueller might see the inside of the U.S. courtroom. Bogacheva immediately returned to Russia upon being released, The Washington Post reported. Belarusian authorities did not find grounds to detain Bogacheva for extradition, according to reports. A spokesperson for the office could not be […]
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While Russian propagandists relied heavily on Facebook and Twitter to spread disinformation before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a new congressional report elaborates on how they also used Google and YouTube to sway Americans’ public opinion in favor of Donald Trump. The Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday released a report detailing expansive, and ongoing, information warfare directed against American internet users. The 85-page explanation confirmed much of what was already known about Russian operations: a Kremlin-directed effort utilized an array of social media networks, with their targeted advertising capabilities, to provoke and confuse likely voters ahead of a contentious presidential election. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were the most crucial aspects of this effort, though Russia’s Internet Research Agency also leveraged Google and its subsidiaries for its own gain. “Periodically, particularly in the context of fast breaking news, Google’s algorithm can elevate extremist content or disinformation to the top of certain […]
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Continue reading How Russian operatives also used Google to influence Americans in 2016
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have issued an advisory to state election officials that the Russian government could use voter suppression tactics in an attempt to interfere in the 2020 U.S. election, according to U.S and state officials familiar with the memo. The advisory sent this week to states’ secretaries of state and security advisers cautions that Moscow could try to keep Americans away from the polls next year by, for example, trying to breach voter registration databases or fanning political tensions online, said the officials familiar with memo, which is titled, “Russia May Try to Discourage Voter Turnout and Suppressing Votes in 2020 US Election.” The document is marked “For Official Use Only.” The officials described the advisory as a proactive effort to stay on top of the threat. “We want to make sure we’re pushing out as much information as possible to the front lines,” a senior Trump administration […]
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The U.S. Treasury announced Monday it is sanctioning Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the Russian financier and six Russian operatives behind the Russian troll farm Internet Research Agency that sought to interfere in both the 2016 and 2018 elections. “Treasury is targeting the private planes, yacht, and associated front companies of Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the Russian financier behind the Internet Research Agency and its attempts to subvert American democratic processes,” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said in a statement. “Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of American democracy, and we will use our authorities against anyone seeking to undermine our processes and subversively influence voters.” Specifically, the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control is sanctioning three aircraft and four entities associated with Prigozhin. It is also designating six IRA members, Dzheykhun Nasimi Ogly Aslanov, Mikhail Leonidovich Burchik, Vadim Vladimirovich Podkopaev , Vladimir Dmitriyevich Venkov, Igor Vladimirovich Nesterov, and Denis Igorevich Kuzmin, four of whom […]
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Twitter said Thursday it has removed thousands of accounts associated with six state-backed disinformation campaigns from Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and Spain. The 4,946 accounts taken off the social media site engaged in malicious activity ranging from the amplification of political propaganda and the impersonation of American politicians, among other terms of service violations, the company said. Twitter has “reliably” linked the accounts with state-affiliated organizations, Yoel Roth, chief of site integrity, said in a blog post. But the takedowns also demonstrate how, even as Silicon Valley invests more resources into uncovering this kind of activity, governments still are exploiting Twitter’s influence. “We only disclose datasets associated with coordinated malicious activity that we are able to reliably associate with state-affiliated actors,” Roth wrote. The goal of sharing these campaigns is to enable researchers to further analyze disinformation so the world can better respond to it, especially as it relates to elections, he […]
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Twitter accounts deployed by Russia’s troll factory in 2016 didn’t only spread disinformation meant to influence the U.S. presidential election. A small handful tried making a buck, too. An analysis of 3,836 Twitter accounts and nearly 10 million tweets published Wednesday by Symantec shows how Russian efforts to amplify propaganda went further than previously reported. The Kremlin’s Internet Research Agency thoughtfully planned its information operations, creating Twitter accounts an average of 177 days before sending the first tweet. Many accounts also posed as falsified news operations, and spread content meant to antagonize U.S. citizens across the political spectrum by impersonating users affiliated with pro-Trump and Black Lives Matter movements. Accounts typically remained active for 429 days, mostly from the beginning of 2015 through August 2016, when many suddenly went quiet. “Most accounts were primarily automated, but they would frequently show signs of manual intervention, such as posting original content or […]
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Continue reading Russian Twitter bots laid dormant for months before impersonating activists