The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012-2018

Executive Summary: Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) launched an extended attack on the United States by using computational propaganda to misinform and polarize US voters. This report provides the first major analysis of this attack based on data provided by social media firms to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). This analysis answers several key questions about the activities of the known IRA accounts. In this analysis, we investigate how the IRA exploited the tools and platform of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube to impact US users. We identify which aspects of the IRA’s campaign strategy got the most traction on social media and the means of microtargeting US voters with particular messages.

Russia's targeting of black voters is a very American thing to do

By David A. Love

(CNN) - When Vladimir Putin focused on black voter depression and sowing racial divisions in the 2016 election to help propel Donald Trump into the White House, he engaged in what is, unfortunately, a longstanding and time-tested American practice. Two reports commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee found that a Russian disinformation campaign interfered in the 2016 election to benefit Donald Trump by exploiting all major social media platforms and sowing racial and political divisions. Specifically, the Russian influence campaign on social media targeted African-American voters to depress Democratic turnout. The first report, produced by Austin, Texas-based cybersecurity company New Knowledge, found that Russian interference in the 2016 election involved hacking attempts on online voting systems, a cyberattack on the Democratic National Committee, and a "sweeping and sustained social influence operation consisting of various coordinated disinformation tactics aimed directly at US citizens, designed to exert political influence and exacerbate social divisions in US culture." The disinformation operation was the work of the Russian state-supported Internet Research Agency (IRA), whose work included 10 million tweets, 116,000 Instagram posts, 61,000 Facebook posts and 1,000 videos.

TARGETING BLACK AMERICANS, RUSSIA'S IRA EXPLOITED RACIAL WOUNDS

By ASON PARHAM - SECURITY

TWO DAYS BEFORE the 2016 presidential election, @woke_blacks posted an anti-voting polemic to its Instagram account. “The excuse that a lost Black vote for Hillary is a Trump win is bs. Should you decide to sit-out the election, well done for the boycott,” the caption read. “I remind us all one more time, anyone who wins can literally change less about the state of Black people, we are on our own, esp. after Obama. Wise up my people!” Another user, @afrokingdom_, shared a comparable sentiment: “Black people are smart enough to understand that Hillary doesn’t deserve our votes! DON’T VOTE!” According to a new report commissioned for the Senate Intelligence Committee by cybersecurity firm New Knowledge, those accounts, along with dozens more, were part of an extensive and complex campaign to suppress the black American vote by the Russian firm Internet Research Agency. In late 2017, it was first reported by CNN that the pro-Kremlin enterprise masterminded a plot to infiltrate online communities of the Black Lives Matter movement. But New Knowledge’s report, released Monday, shows a much more sustained and purposeful focus on black Americans—as the IRA went about instigating mistrust in law enforcement and political institutions, while cultivating seemingly authentic narratives of black pride.

Exclusive: Fake black activist accounts linked to Russian government

by Donie O'Sullivan and Dylan Byers   @CNNMoney

A social media campaign calling itself "Blacktivist" and linked to the Russian government used both Facebook and Twitter in an apparent attempt to amplify racial tensions during the U.S. presidential election, two sources with knowledge of the matter told CNN. The Twitter account has been handed over to Congress; the Facebook account is expected to be handed over in the coming days. Both Blacktivist accounts, each of which used the handle Blacktivists, regularly shared content intended to stoke outrage. "Black people should wake up as soon as possible," one post on the Twitter account read. "Black families are divided and destroyed by mass incarceration and death of black men," another read. The accounts also posted videos of police violence against African Americans. The Blacktivist accounts provide further evidence that Russian-linked social media accounts saw racial tensions as something to be exploited in order to achieve the broader Russian goal of dividing Americans and creating chaos in U.S. politics during a campaign in which race repeatedly became an issue.

When Is a Meme a Foreign-Influence Operation?

By ALEXIS C. MADRIGAL

It’s disturbing how easily Internet Research Agency accounts blended into America’s online life. In their efforts to influence the 2016 election, Russian operatives targeted every major social platform, but one demographic group, black Americans, got special treatment, according to two reports made public by the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday. The reports—one published by New Knowledge, a new disinformation-monitoring group, and the other by the Computational Propaganda Project at the University of Oxford—both tally large numbers of posts across social media that generated millions of interactions with unsuspecting Americans. New Knowledge counted up 77 million engagements on Facebook, 187 million on Instagram, and 73 million on Twitter. The think tank divvied up the activity into three buckets: content that targeted the left, the right, and … African Americans.

Russian propagandists targeted African Americans to influence 2016 US election

Operatives used social media to suppress votes for Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump, new research finds. Russian online propagandists aggressively targeted African Americans during the 2016 US election campaign to suppress votes for Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump, according to new research. Analysts found that Russian operatives used social media to “confuse, distract, and ultimately discourage” black people and other pro-Clinton blocs from voting, using bogus claims such as Clinton receiving money from the Ku Klux Klan. Black turnout declined in 2016 for the first presidential election in 20 years, according to the US census bureau, falling to less than 60% from a record high of 66.6% in 2012. Exit polls indicated that black voters strongly favored Clinton over Trump.

Russia favored Trump, targeted African-Americans with election meddling, reports say

By Ken Dilanian and Ben Popken

The Russians set up 30 Facebook pages targeting black Americans, researchers found, and 10 YouTube channels that posted 571 videos related to police violence against African-Americans. WASHINGTON — Russian agents who favored Donald Trump's presidential candidacy harnessed the major players of America's tech industry in a sophisticated propaganda effort that was far more extensive than originally understood, according to a detailed analysis prepared for the Senate intelligence committee. The Russian efforts included an attempt to suppress the votes of African-Americans. Researchers combed through millions of posts from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube created by the Internet Research Agency, the St. Petersburg-based firm run by a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin whose key executives have been indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller on charges of defrauding the United States.

How Russia exploited racial tensions in America during the 2016 elections

By P.R. Lockhart

New reports detail how Russian internet trolls manipulated outrage over racial injustice in America. More than two years after the 2016 elections, media outlets and academics are still discovering the extent of Russian disinformation campaigns aimed at American voters. Now, a pair of independent reports prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee add to a wealth of evidence that targeting African Americans and suppressing black turnout was a crucial aspect of this effort. According to the reports, one from Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project and Graphika and others from a team of researchers from cybersecurity firm New Knowledge, Columbia University, and Canfield Research, a group of Russian agents utilized not only Facebook and Twitter, but also sites including Instagram, Tumblr, and YouTube in an effort to amplify racial divisions ahead of the 2016 elections. “[M]essaging to African Americans sought to divert their political energy away from established political institutions by preying on anger with structural inequalities faced by African Americans,” the Oxford report states. The reports focus on the Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg-based “troll farm” that used several social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram — including ones called “Woke Blacks” and “Blacktivists” — to urge Americans to vote for third-party candidates or sit out the election entirely. Several operatives working for the group were listed in a February 2018 indictment from special counsel Robert Muller detailing how Russian nationals interfered in the 2016 election.

Russian 2016 Influence Operation Targeted African-Americans on Social Media

By Scott Shane and Sheera Frenkel

The Russian influence campaign on social media in the 2016 election made an extraordinary effort to target African-Americans, used an array of tactics to try to suppress turnout among Democratic voters and unleashed a blizzard of activity on Instagram that rivaled or exceeded its posts on Facebook, according to a report produced for the Senate Intelligence Committee. The report adds new details to the portrait that has emerged over the last two years of the energy and imagination of the Russian effort to sway American opinion and divide the country, which the authors said continues to this day. “Active and ongoing interference operations remain on several platforms,” says the report, produced by New Knowledge, a cybersecurity company based in Austin, Tex., along with researchers at Columbia University and Canfield Research LLC. One continuing Russian campaign, for instance, seeks to influence opinion on Syria by promoting Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president and a Russian ally in the brutal conflict there.

Report: Russians Targeted Black Americans in Social Media Campaigns to Disrupt 2016 Election

By Monique Judge

When most people hear the word “propaganda,” it probably sounds like a far-off concept or idea or something that only happens in other countries and never here in the United States. The fact is that the U.S. launched full propaganda campaigns as part of the war effort during both WWI and WWII. Propaganda is a part of our everyday lives here in the United States, and it comes in many forms, including radio and television commercials, print advertisements and the kinds of “news” reports that come out of outlets like InfoWars and Breitbart. “What is clear is that all of the messaging clearly sought to benefit the Republican Party—and specifically Donald Trump,” the Oxford report says. “Trump is mentioned most in campaigns targeting conservatives and right-wing voters, where the messaging encouraged these groups to support his campaign. The main groups that could challenge Trump were then provided messaging that sought to confuse, distract and ultimately discourage members from voting.”

The Daily 202: Russian efforts to manipulate African Americans show sophistication of disinformation campaign

By James Hohmann With Joanie Greve

THE BIG IDEA: A new report prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee reveals that the Russians, in their bid to boost President Trump, have been more fixated than previously understood on trying to dampen African American political engagement. Researchers at Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project and Graphika, a network analysis firm, spent seven months analyzing millions of social media posts that major technology firms turned over to congressional investigators. Their goal was to understand the inner workings of the Internet Research Agency, which the U.S. government has charged with criminal offenses for interfering in the 2016 election. It turns out that African Americans were targeted with more Facebook ads than any other group, including conservatives. Three of the four most-liked Facebook posts put up by the Russian influence effort came from an account called Blacktivist that urged the community to be more cynical about politics. African Americans were urged to vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein throughout the month before the 2016 election. A post on Oct. 29 that year declared: “NO LIVES MATTER TO HILLARY CLINTON. ONLY VOTES MATTER TO HILLARY CLINTON.” A message on Nov. 3 added: “NOT VOTING is a way to exercise our rights.” On Twitter, four of the Russian agency’s five most‐retweeted accounts catered exclusively to African Americans. On Instagram, all five of the most-liked posts created by the Russians were aimed at African American women. They included the hashtags #blackpower, #blackpride, #unapologeticallyblack, #blacklivesmatter, #icantbreathe, #riot and #blackgirlskillingit.

Lesser of two evils principle

That mantra delivered us to Richard Nixon in 1972 until Watergate did him in. And it delivered us to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in 2000 until they were termed out in 2009" - And Trump on 2016

The Enduring Russian Propaganda Interests in Targeting African-Americans

By Jelani Cobb

”The I.R.A., which is owned by an ally of Vladimir Putin, posted more than a thousand YouTube videos relating to Black Lives Matter and police violence. It created thirty Facebook pages directed at African-Americans that attracted more than a million followers. It created knockoff accounts, such as Black Matters, and outright false ones, such as Blacktivist, to amplify content that was primarily intended to sow dissension. Communist ideology, of course, was no longer part of the equation, but attempting to undermine American authority was: one objective appeared to be planting concerns about Hillary Clinton and racism as a means of depressing the black vote. Alicia Garza, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, told me that activists had noted an uptick in fake content on social media but assumed that it was just standard Internet nuisance. “My suspicion was spamming, and not ‘Holy shit, another government is trying to influence the results of the elections in the United States,’”