Study Says Russian Trolls Didn't Have Much Influence On Election; But It's More Complicated Than That

from the nothing-is-black-and-white dept

Since the election, I've been pretty firmly in the camp that believes that those who rushed to blame social media and things like (well documented) Russian attempts to interfere in the election via social media, have been vastly blown out of proportion. It's resulted in silly things like famous comedians suggesting that if Mark Zuckerberg allows Russians trolls to try to influence another election Zuck should go to jail. That's just silly. Much of it, to me, seems to be people who expected one outcome in the 2020 election casting blame towards something they could latch onto. Did Russian trolls try to use social media to influence the election? Absolutely. Did the results of the 2016 Presidential election surprise the politically savvy? Absolutely. Does that single correlation mean anything? There's been little evidence to suggest there is, even as many people assume their must be.

Given those priors, you might think that I'd be quick to jump on board a new study that suggests that my intuition is accurate. The study, entitled Russian Influence on US Twitter Users, by some Duke University researchers suggests little impact from Russian trolling operations.

There is widespread concern that Russia and other countries have launched social-media campaigns designed to increase political divisions in the United States. Though a growing number of studies analyze the strategy of such campaigns, it is not yet known how these efforts shaped the political attitudes and behaviors of Americans. We study this question using longitudinal data that describe the attitudes and online behaviors of 1,239 Republican and Democratic Twitter users from late 2017 merged with nonpublic data about the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) from Twitter. Using Bayesian regression tree models, we find no evidence that interaction with IRA accounts substantially impacted 6 distinctive measures of political attitudes and behaviors over a 1-mo period. We also find that interaction with IRA accounts were most common among respondents with strong ideological homophily within their Twitter network, high interest in politics, and high frequency of Twitter usage. Together, these findings suggest that Russian trolls might have failed to sow discord because they mostly interacted with those who were already highly polarized. We conclude by discussing several important limitations of our study—especially our inability to determine whether IRA accounts influenced the 2016 presidential election—as well as its implications for future research on social media influence campaigns, political polarization, and computational social science.

As Will Oremus summarizes at OneZero, the evidence mostly suggests that "the people most likely to interact with Russian trolls are the ones who were already the most entrenched in their partisan views." And thus, the people least likely to change their views in the first place.

In short, “the type of people who are most likely to interact with political influence campaigns are the least likely to be influenced by them,” said Christopher Bail, the paper’s lead author, who is a professor of sociology at Duke and the director of its Polarization Lab. That doesn’t mean the tweets had zero effect, but they failed to move the needle on any of six survey questions designed to measure different ways that one’s politics could change.

In a phone interview, Bail also highlighted two other reasons Russian influence campaigns might struggle to make a measurable impact. One is that their content makes up only a tiny fraction of most users’ feeds, if any. Another is that previous research has shown that political persuasion in general tends to be challenging, and the effects of political advertising hard to detect. “We know that most attempts to influence people’s politics fail,” Bail said. “Put in that light, why should we expect Russians to have influence if the most sophisticated American campaigns can’t move voters?”

The results of this study also support other research that found little direct impact from Russian online propaganda campaigns, which only seemed to generate real momentum once the propaganda/conspiracy theories appeared on Fox News. So, in those cases, there was influence, but only once the gullible suckers at Fox bit on them.

Still, I'm not sure that this study really actually shows that much. It's a useful addition to the literature, to be sure, but there are some pretty significant limitations to the study and its findings -- which, to their credit as good academic researchers, the authors of this study readily admit and highlight. Still, Renee DiResta, who also studies these things (currently at Stanford) had a good Twitter thread about this study, highlighting some of the challenges in determining the actual impact. In that thread, she notes that the trolling campaign wasn't always about trying to drive voters from one candidate to another, but often to do what it appears to have actually done, which was to entrench certain views (perhaps destructive views) and to divide people. And, even if everything in the study above is accurate and true, those two goals might have been accomplished anyway.

And, of course, it's difficult to measure "persuasion" anyway, and it's even more difficult to measure "impact" on any particular voter or set of voters of a single channel of messages, given just how many bits of information everyone processes every damn day. Josh Farkas, who also studies this stuff, highlighted another critique of this style of study, amusingly quoting from a book from the 1960s, Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes that similarly notes that most studies on propaganda show little direct result from any individual piece of propaganda. But that doesn't mean the propaganda wasn't useful:

Farkas quotes further, including: "You cannot measure with any precision the effects of a film because you cannot dissociate it from current newspaper articles and radio broadcasts on the same subject." Again, this is useful in thinking about this study and the framing of it -- along with all discussions regarding using the internet and internet trolls to try to "influence" elections.

The end result is that thinking this is an "internet" problem, or that it's an issue that is unique (or even brand new) to the internet would be wrong and not particularly helpful. And that's why, even if this study isn't particularly useful in showing what impact there was (or was not) from Russian trolls on the internet, at the very least, it serves as a useful reminder that if we want to tackle the challenges of disinformation, simplistic solutions that amount to little more than telling social media companies "you solve it!" will not do a damn thing.

Filed Under: elections, influence, propaganda, russian trolls, social media, trolls

Russian Troll Farm Tries Again To Sue Facebook, Despite Having Its Original Complaint Dismissed On 230 Grounds

from the try,-try-again dept

Last month we wrote about how Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act did exactly what it was supposed to do in protecting Facebook from a bogus lawsuit from a Russian news trolling operation, called Federal Agency of News (FAN). Facebook had kicked FAN off its platform soon after the 2016 election, when it realized it was a Russian operation spewing nonsense, often targeting people voting in the 2016 US election. FAN somehow found US lawyers from a previously reputable firm to represent them in this quixotic attempt to sue Facebook. The whole thing flopped, of course, because Facebook is free to kick whomever it wants off its platform, including Russian trolls seeking to spread fake news to influence an election. The court dismissed the case easily under Section 230. All of the Russian attempts to claim it violated their 1st Amendment rights, California civil rights, breach of contract, etc., went nowhere fast.

But, since the court left FAN free to try an amended complaint, it has now filed an amended complaint (first spotted by John Roddy). Somewhat incredibly, it does not appear to make any new arguments. It just repeats the old ones with more emphasis.

The key to the new filing is an incredibly, laughably weak attempt to connect Facebook to the US government, in an attempt to argue that the Constitution applies to Facebook as well. This is almost comically badly done in the complaint. It basically looks for any scrap of evidence of Facebook working with the US government to combat Russian election interference as somehow proof that Facebook magically becomes a state actor.

The United States government has been complicit in Facebook’s efforts to rid the platform of Russian language accounts.

In a United States Intelligence Community report regarding alleged Russian activities and intentions in the 2016 United States presidential election, published in January 2017, the United States Intelligence Community referred to the IRA as an agency of “professional trolls” whose likely financier is “a close Putin ally with ties to Russian intelligence.” United States Intelligence Community, Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections, available at: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf.

[....]

On September 21, 2017, Facebook’s General Counsel, Colin Stretch, stated that Facebook would provide the United States Congress with information related to the 3,000 advertisements Facebook previously located. Colin Stretch, Facebook to Provide Congress With Ads Linked to Internet Research Agency, available at: https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/09/providing-congress-with-ads-linked-to-internet-researchagency/.

[....]

On or about September 21, 2017, co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, published a video on Facebook explicitly stating that Facebook is “actively working with the U.S. government on its ongoing investigations into Russian interference” and providing information to the United States Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel (“Special Counsel”), headed by Robert Mueller.

Sorry, but sharing some information on Russian interference with the US government does not, in any way, make Facebook a state actor. Even if what happened was presented honestly (and it is not), at best, it would show that the trolls have an argument against the US government for supposedly telling platforms to remove the Russian trolls' content and accounts. But that's clearly not what happened. And nothing in the complaint comes anywhere close to the standards necessary to turn a private company into a public state actor.

But, hey, FAN's lawyers seem to be happy to give it a shot.

The internet is a public forum available to all persons around the world to post or otherwise publish news articles. It also is intended to allow persons around the world, including citizens of the United States to access news and opinions from entities around the world.

The internet may be a public forum, but Facebook is a private company guys. Nice try.

The “Rules of Facebook” state that anyone who abides by Facebook’s rules and signs a user agreement is entitled to use its forum.

They also state that Facebook can remove your account, so, who cares?

The constitutional protections of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution apply to all public fora and, since Facebook is a public forum, or at least a limited public forum, the constitutional protections of the Bill of Rights apply to Facebook and the actions it takes to curtail free speech on the internet.

This is not how any of this works -- and indeed, the court, in its ruling last month, totally rejected this. From that ruling, which the lawyers here ignore:

Courts have rejected the notion that private corporations providing services via the internet are public fora for purposes of the First Amendment. For instance, in Prager Univ. v. Google LLC, this Court rejected the notion that “private social media corporations . . . are state actors that must regulate the content of their websites according to the strictures of the First Amendment” under public forum analysis. 2018 WL 1471939, at *8 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 26, 2018) (emphasis in original). In addition, the Ebeid court rejected the argument that Facebook is a public forum. 2019 WL 2059662, at *6. Moreover, in Buza v. Yahoo!, Inc., the court held that the plaintiff’s assertion that “Yahoo!’s services should be seen as a ‘public forum’ in which the guarantees of the First Amendment apply is not tenable under federal law. As a private actor, Yahoo! has every right to control the content of material on its servers, and appearing on websites that it hosts.” 2011 WL 5041174, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 24, 2011). Furthermore, in Langdon v. Google, Inc., the court held that “Plaintiff’s analogy of [Google and other] Defendants’ private networks to shopping centers and [plaintiff’s] position that since they are open to the public they become public forums is not supported by case law.” 474 F. Supp. 2d 622, 632 (D. Del. 2007).

At bottom, the United States Supreme Court has held that property does not “lose its private character merely because the public is generally invited to use it for designated purposes.” Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, 407 U.S. 551, 569 (1972). Thus, simply because Facebook has many users that create or share content, it does not mean that Facebook, a private social media company by Plaintiffs’ own admission in the complaint, becomes a public forum.

This lawsuit's weak attempt to tie Facebook to the US government is not going to work. This is just Russian trolls throwing money away to expensive US lawyers.

In addition, Facebook also acts at the behest of the government of the United States in its attempts to regulate free speech.

If this were true (and it's not), then their complaint would be with the US government and not Facebook. But you don't see them suing the US government.

Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, published a video on Facebook explicitly stating that Facebook is “actively working with the U.S. government on its ongoing investigations into Russian interference.” In addition, it is believed that many of Facebook’s current security personnel are former members of the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities.

None of that makes Facebook a state actor.

This agreement between Facebook and the U.S. government constitutes a conspiracy to deny FAN its free speech rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.

Bring on the RICO claims...

This lawsuit is going to get tossed. And probably pretty quickly. I'm guessing the judge won't be particularly happy about it. But, hey, the lawyers will get their cash for filing what they must know is a laughably silly amended complaint.

Filed Under: cda 230, fake news, russian trolls, section 230
Companies: facebook, federal agency of news

Section 230 Works: Russian Trolls Don't Get To Sue Facebook For Being Kicked Off Facebook

from the don't-feed-the-trolls dept

Sorry Russian trolls (oh, and also all you people insisting that Section 230 doesn't and or shouldn't allow Facebook to kick trolls off its platform), but a court has made it clear that Facebook is clearly protected in kicking trolls off its platform. In this case, the Federal Agency of News (FAN) was kicked off Facebook soon after the 2016 election, when Facebook realized that various Russian trolling outfits had used the platform to push propaganda, often directed by the Russian "Internet Research Agency." Among the pages that Facebook removed was FAN's. For what it's worth, the "General Director" of FAN was one Aleksandra Krylova, who is among those who were indicted by Robert Mueller last year, for trying to influence the US election.

Somewhat incredibly, FAN decided to sue Facebook over this, claiming a violation of the First Amendment along with some other claims -- which I'll just note in passing seem oddly similar to the claims used by white supremacists and other trolls who have sued social media for being removed. This includes claims of a civil rights violation under both federal law and California's Unruh Civil Rights Act, a breach of contract claim and a breach of "implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing."

All of this fails. Miserably. For all the reasons we've discussed for years. Judge Lucy Koh points out that CDA 230 clearly applies here, and walks through why each of FAN's arguments are legally nonsense. We'll give a few examples, mainly highlighting the silly arguments that (other?) trolls keep putting forth lately to argue why CDA 230 does not protect such content moderation. First up, an argument that the CDA is only supposed to apply to obscenity or other kinds of "offensive" content, and therefore doesn't apply to garden variety trolling. Nope, nope and nope:

Plaintiffs argue that the Communications Decency Act does not immunize Facebook because the instant case “does not concern obscenity or any other form of unprotected speech; it concerns political speech that strikes at the heart of the First Amendment.”.... It is telling that Plaintiffs fail to cite any authority for this argument. Immunity under the Communications Decency Act does not contain a political speech exception. The statutory text provides that no “provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1) (emphasis added). No distinction is made between political speech and non-political speech.

Then there's the argument that Facebook is a "public forum" and therefore is bound by the First Amendment. Judge Koh is having none of that:

Courts have rejected the notion that private corporations providing services via the internet are public fora for purposes of the First Amendment. For instance, in Prager Univ. v. Google LLC, this Court rejected the notion that “private social media corporations . . . are state actors that must regulate the content of their websites according to the strictures of the First Amendment” under public forum analysis. 2018 WL 1471939, at *8 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 26, 2018) (emphasis in original). In addition, the Ebeid court rejected the argument that Facebook is a public forum. 2019 WL 2059662, at *6. Moreover, in Buza v. Yahoo!, Inc., the court held that the plaintiff’s assertion that “Yahoo!’s services should be seen as a ‘public forum’ in which the guarantees of the First Amendment apply is not tenable under federal law. As a private actor, Yahoo! has every right to control the content of material on its servers, and appearing on websites that it hosts.” 2011 WL 5041174, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 24, 2011). Furthermore, in Langdon v. Google, Inc., the court held that “Plaintiff’s analogy of [Google and other] Defendants’ private networks to shopping centers and [plaintiff’s] position that since they are open to the public they become public forums is not supported by case law.” 474 F. Supp. 2d 622, 632 (D. Del. 2007).

At bottom, the United States Supreme Court has held that property does not “lose its private character merely because the public is generally invited to use it for designated purposes.” Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, 407 U.S. 551, 569 (1972). Thus, simply because Facebook has many users that create or share content, it does not mean that Facebook, a private social media company by Plaintiffs’ own admission in the complaint, becomes a public forum.

Koh also easily rejects the idea that Facebook might be a public forum because it engages in functions "that are traditionally and exclusively governmental." As Koh points out, it doesn't:

Here, the Court finds that Facebook did not engage in functions that are traditionally and exclusively functions of the state. Examples of functions that are traditionally the exclusive prerogative of the state include “hol[ding public] elections”, “govern[ing] a town,” or “serv[ing] as an international peacekeeping force.” Brunette v. Humane Society of Ventura Cty., 294 F.3d 1205, 1214 (9th Cir. 2002). There are no allegations that Facebook holds public elections, governs a town, or serves as an international peacekeeping force.

And, no, Facebook kicking foreign trolls trying to meddle in elections off its platforms is not a "state action" either, just because it shared information about Russian trolling with the government.

Plaintiffs argue that Facebook, a private actor, was a willful participant in joint action with the government because Facebook provided the government with information for the government’s investigation of Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election.... Plaintiffs’ argument lacks merit. The Deeths court found that there was no joint action even though a state actor relied upon a private actor’s information and recommendation to remove the plaintiff’s child from the plaintiff’s care..... In the instant case, Plaintiffs only allege that Facebook provided the government with information. ... Thus, under Deeths, Facebook was not a willful participant in joint action with the government.

In addition, Plaintiffs’ claims of joint action between Facebook and the government fail for another equally dispositive reason. The Ninth Circuit has held that for there to be joint action, there must be “‘state actions’ directed by or jointly conceived, facilitated, or performed by the [government actor].” Brunette, 294 F.3d at 1213. Plaintiffs’ Bivens claim for violation of the First Amendment is predicated on the alleged violation of “FAN’s First Amendment rights by deleting the contents of FAN’s Facebook Page and blocking FAN’s access to its Facebook account.”... However, the only interactions between Facebook and the government alleged in the complaint pertain to how Facebook provided information to the government for the government’s Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election investigation.... Plaintiffs do not allege that the government played any role in shutting down FAN’s Facebook page or blocking FAN’s access to its Facebook account. Thus, Plaintiffs fail to allege any state action “directly by or jointly conceived, facilitated, or performed by the” government that relates to the deletion of FAN’s Facebook page or restriction on FAN’s access to its Facebook account.... Consequently, there is no joint action here because there is no indication that the government directly or jointly conceived, facilitated, or performed a role in Facebook’s decision to shut down FAN’s Facebook page or the decision to prevent FAN from accessing its Facebook account.

Judge Koh does give the Russian trolls -- represented by actual respectable lawyers and everything -- a chance to amend their complaint, while making it pretty clear it still has no chance. We'll see whether they even bother.

In Professor Eric Goldman's discussion of this ruling, he notes that anyone supporting Senator Josh Hawley's silly bill to remove Section 230 protections from big internet platforms is effectively supporting Russian trolls like the ones who filed this case:

Just a reminder to anyone complaining about Facebook “censoring” them, arguing that Facebook is the new public square, or demanding that Facebook “must carry” content neutrally: you are making the exact same arguments as Russian trolls seeking to destroy our country. Either that’s the goal you intentionally want, or you are so narrowly focused on your concerns that you don’t realize or care how Russian trolls are weaponizing your arguments against our democracy. Want to Make America Great Again? (or keep America great, if we never stopped being great). Stop trying to destroy the editorial freedom of online publishers to decide what’s fit to publish and what isn’t.

In particular, this case reiterates the depravity of Sen. Hawley’s “[Ending] Support for Internet Censorship Act.” FAN was promoting its own political viewpoints, so Sen. Hawley’s proposal would force Facebook and other major Internet companies to treat FAN’s trolling as equally legitimate as the Republican Party’s social media activities. (Please, no “jokes” about how Republicans have become unexpectedly enthusiastic supporters of Russia’s policy and world views). Why would Sen. Hawley–and the few supporters of his bill–want to prevent online crackdowns against Russian trolls? It appears Sen. Hawley doesn’t understand the consequences of his bill–or worse, perhaps he does.

Filed Under: cda 230, civil rights, content moderation, russian trolls, section 230, unruh act
Companies: facebook, federal agency of news, internet research agency

If The US Government Can't Figure Out Who's A Russian Troll, Why Should It Expect Internet Companies To Do So?

from the it's-not-that-easy dept

A few weeks back, following the DOJ's indictment of various Russians for interfering in the US election, we noted that the indictment showed just how silly it was to blame various internet platforms for not magically stopping these Russians because in many cases, they bent over backwards to appear to be regular, everyday Americans. And now, with pressure coming from elected officials to regulate internet platforms if they somehow fail to catch Russian bots, it seems worth pointing out the flip side of the "why couldn't internet companies catch these guys" question: which is why couldn't the government?

Declan McCullagh has an excellent article over at Reason pointing out that all these government officials trying to blame internet companies should probably look a little more closely at their own houses first.

In the bowels of Washington officialdom, despite billion-dollar intelligence budgets and a peerless global surveillance apparatus, very little appears to have been done. No Russian nationals associated with the disinformation campaign were deported from the United States. (Three were improvidently granted U.S. visas.) No official warnings appear to have been sent to social networks or payment processors. And no indictments were made until a few weeks ago.

Facebook notified the FBI about Russian activity in June 2016, but no U.S. law enforcement or intelligence officials visited the social media company to compare notes. During the 2016 presidential campaign, the State Department pulled the plug on a project to combat Russian disinformation. The New Yorker concluded that the FBI, despite its $9 billion budget and 35,000 employees, simply "is not up to the job of detecting and countering Russian disinformation." The Washington Post summarized the bureaucratic failures: "Top U.S. policymakers didn't appreciate the dangers, then scrambled to draw up options to fight back. In the end, big plans died of internal disagreement."

So it's a surprise to see senior members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, which are charged with providing "vigilant legislative oversight" of the nation's spy and counter-espionage agencies, pointing fingers approximately 2,800 miles westward instead.

Of course, you can argue that now, way after the fact, the DOJ has brought out this indictment. But, so too, have most of the internet platforms now been able to research and investigate what happened. But looking back retrospectively is quite different from proactively determining any of this on the fly.

McCullagh notes, correctly, that this doesn't mean internet platforms should do nothing. They obviously all are scrambling to figure out what to do going forward. But it does raise questions as to why the government seems to think the internet platforms can magically figure all of this out when they themselves could not. And, it's particularly telling that it's the two Congressional Intelligence Committees, which are supposed to oversee the intelligence community -- but usually just bolster or shield the intelligence community from criticism -- that are doing the most finger pointing. Perhaps it's more because they want to distract from the failures of the intelligence community.

I'm sure that some will argue some version of the "nerd harder" excuse for why internet companies should be better at detecting foreign influence than the NSA, but (1) any "nerd harder" argument is automatically void for being specious and (2) come on, the NSA has much great ability to connect these threads than any internet platform, no matter what some people will tell you.

Filed Under: censorship, filters, internet, russia, russian trolls
Companies: facebook, google, twitter, youtube

DOJ Russia Indictment Again Highlights Why Internet Companies Can't Just Wave A Magic Wand To Make Bad Stuff Go Away

from the troll-troll-troll-troll dept

As you've certainly heard by now, earlier today the Justice Department announced that it had indicted thirteen Russian individuals and three Russian organizations for various crimes related to trying to influence the US election. You should read the full indictment if you haven't already. Not surprisingly it focuses on the infamous Internet Research Agency (IRA), which was the giant Russian online trolling operation that we've discussed going back to 2015.

While many are trying to position the indictment as a "significant" bit of news, I have to admit to being a bit underwhelmed. It really does not reveal much that wasn't already widely known. It's been widely reported that the Russians had interest in disrupting our democracy and sowing discord, including setting up and pushing competing rallies from different political sides, and generally stoking fires of distrust and anger in America. And... the indictment seems to repeat much of that which has already been reported. Furthermore, this indictment actually reminds me quite a bit of a similar indictment four years ago aginst various Chinese officials for "hacking" crimes against the US. As we noted then, indicting the Chinese -- who the US would never be able to arrest anyway -- just seemed to be a publicity stunt, that had the potential to come back to haunt the US. It kinda feels the same here.

What is interesting to me, however, is that the indictment also demonstrates why all the hand-wringing against Facebook, Twitter and Google seems kind of misplaced. For months we've been seeing big articles and Congressional hearings questioning why the platforms allowed the Russians to use their services as propaganda tools -- even getting the companies to recently send out (useless, confusing) announcements to people about whether or not they saw or reposted Russian troll propaganda. But what the indictment makes pretty clear, is that the Russians made it nearly impossible for an internet service to ferret them out. The money used was spread out among many different banks and laundered through various means to make it more difficult to trace back. And it details just how far the trolls went to appear to be Americans, including traveling to the US, posing as Americans online to talk to actual US activists and push them in certain directions. And, of course, confusing the internet platforms into thinking they were Americans:

ORGANIZATION employees, referred to as "specialists," were tasked to create social media accounts that appeared to be operated by U.S. persons. The Specialists were divided into day-shift and night-shift hours and instructed to make posts in accordance with the appropriate U.S. time zone. The ORGANIZATION also circulated lists of U.S. holidays so that specialists could develop and post appropriate account activity. Specialists were instructed to write about topics germane to the United States such as U.S. foreign policy and U.S. economic issues. Specialists were directed to create "political intensity through supporting radical groups, users dissatisfied with [the] social and economic situation and oppositional social movements."

Defendants and their co-conspirators also created thematic group pages on social media sites, particularly on the social media platforms Facebook and Instagram. ORGANIZATION- controlled pages addressed a range of issues, including: immigration (with group names including "Secured Borders"); the Black Lives Matter movement (with group names including "Blacktivist"); religion (with group names including "United Muslims of America" and "Army of Jesus"); and certain geographic regions within the United States (with group names including "South United" and "Heart of Texas"). By 2016, the size of many groups had grown to hundreds of thousands of online followers.

Most of those groups (if not all?) had previously been revealed by the platforms or by news reports. But the extent to which the Russians went to cover their trails is more revealing.

To hide their Russian identities and ORGANIZATION affiliation, Defendants and their co- conspirators--particularly POLOZOV and the IT department--purchased space on computer servers located inside the United States in order to set up virtual private networks Defendants and their co-conspirators connected from Russia to the U.S.-based infrastructure by way of these VPNs and conducted activity inside the United States? including accessing online social media accounts, opening new accounts, and communicating with real U.S. persons--while masking the Russian origin and control of the activity.

Defendants and their co-conspirators also registered and controlled hundreds of web-based email accounts hosted by U.S. email providers under false names so as to appear to be U.S. persons and groups. From these accounts, Defendants and their co-conspirators registered or linked to online social media accounts in order to monitor them; posed as U.S. persons when requesting assistance from real U.S. persons; contacted media outlets in order to promote activities inside the United States; and conducted other operations, such as those set forth below.

Use of Stolen U.S. Identities

In or around 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators also used, possessed, and transferred, without lawful authority, the social security numbers and dates of birth of real U.S. persons without those persons' knowledge or consent. Using these means of identification, Defendants and their co-conspirators opened accounts at PayPal, a digital payment service provider; created false means of identification, including fake driver's licenses; and posted on social media accounts using the identities of these U.S. victims. Defendants and their co-conspirators also obtained, and attempted to obtain, false identification documents to use as proof of identity in connection with maintaining accounts and purchasing advertisements on social media sites.

This was not just some run-of-the-mill "pretend to be Americans," this was a hugely involved process to make it very difficult to determine that they were not Americans.

I've seen some people online claiming that this shows why the platforms have to take more responsibility for who is using their platform:

But my read on it is exactly the opposite. It shows just how ridiculous such a demand is. Would any of us be using these various services if we were all forced to go through a detailed background check just to use a social media platform? That seems excessive and silly. Part of the reason why these platforms are so useful and powerful in the first place is that they're available for nearly everyone to use with little hurdles in the way. That obviously has negative consequences -- in the form of trolling and scams and malicious behavior -- but there's also a ton of really good stuff that has come out of it.

We should be pretty cautious before we throw away all of the value of these platforms just because some people used them for nefarious purposes. People are always going to be able to hide their true intentions from the various platforms -- and the response to that shouldn't be "put more blame on the platforms" -- it should be a recognition of why it's so silly to blame the tools and services for the actions of the users.

Yes, we should be concerned about foreign attempts to influence our elections (while noting that the US, itself, has a long history of doing the same damn thing in other countries -- so this is a bit of blowback). But blaming the technology platforms the Russians used seems to be totally missing the point of what happened -- and risks making the internet much worse for everyone else.

Filed Under: doj, impersonation, indictment, influence, intermediary liability, propaganda, russia, russian trolls
Companies: internet research agency

New Whistleblowers Highlight How Russia's Information War On U.S. Was Larger Than Initially Reported

from the pouring-gasoline-on-a-bonfire dept

A few years ago, Russian whistleblowers like Lyudmila Savchuk began to reveal that Vladimir Putin had built a massive new internet propaganda machine. At the heart of this machine sat the "Internet Research Agency," a Russian government front company tasked with operating warehouses filled with employees paid 40,000 to 50,000 rubles ($800 to $1,000) a month to create proxied, viable fake personas -- specifically tasked with pumping the internet full of toxic disinformation 24 hours a day. Initial reports on these efforts were often playful, suggesting little more than shitposting and memes.

Subsequent reports by folks like Adrian Chen at the New York Times highlighted in great detail how deep this particular rabbit hole went. Chen detailed how these efforts often went well beyond routine online trolling, and frequently extended into the real world (like the time online trolls urged American citizens to visit a Russian-operated Chelsea art gallery solely to try and distort and downplay the country's annexation of Crimea). By the summer of 2016, reports began to emerge that these same employees were also posing as Trump supporters to help stoke already raw political divisions in the States.

Fast forward to this week, when Russian newspaper RBC issued a fairly massive and comprehensive report (in Russian, the Guardian has an alternative take here) showing that these efforts went even further than most initial reports indicated. From the creation of popular Texas secessionist Facebook groups to the hiring of more than 100 U.S. activists who had no idea they were working for Russia -- all tasked with stoking division inside the United States:

Perhaps the most alarming element of the article was the claim that employees of the troll factory had contacted about 100 real US-based activists to help with the organisation of protests and events. RBC claimed the activists were contacted by Facebook group administrators hiding their Russian origin and were offered financial help to pay for transport or printing costs. About $80,000 was spent during a two-year period, according to the report.

And while some on both sides of the political spectrum have tried to downplay Russia's propaganda and disinformation efforts as amateurish, unimportant and ineffective, the collective scope of the IRA's work revealed by whistleblowers continues to indicate otherwise:

Today, business site RBC revealed the numbers that allegedly made the company work. It reports that over two years the agency spent $2.3 million on its US operations. Most of that was spent on Russian staff—around 90 employees were working on the US at the height of the trolling campaign in 2016—but it also paid for 100 US activists to travel around America, organizing 40 rallies in US cities, and spent $120,000 spreading their message on Facebook. (The Silicon Valley giant has admitted that thousands of ads were bought under Russian IP addresses during the campaign.) The 100 activists didn’t suspect any Russian involvement in the funding, RBC reports.

In addition to the RBC report, Russian journalists at Dozhd interviewed a new whistleblower named "Maxim" who worked at the Internet Research Agency. According to Maxim, the organization included a "Russian desk," a "foreign desk," a "Facebook desk," and a "Department of Provocations." Whereas the Russian desk operated the country's now infamous Twitter bots and online trolls, the foreign desk was notably more sophisticated in its information assaults, trained in the more nuanced aspects of U.S. politics in order to "set Americans against their own government," and "provoke unrest and discontent."

Meanwhile, the Russian government's Facebook desk was tasked with battling Facebook administrators who would try to delete fake accounts and groups -- and who would often buckle to opposition from Russian trolls who raised First Amendment concerns when challenged:

"The troll farm also had its own "Facebook desk," whose function was to relentlessly push back against the platform's administrators who deleted fake accounts as they began gaining traction. When Internet Research Agency employees argued against having their accounts deleted, Max said, Facebook staffers would write back, "You are trolls." The trolls would in turn invoke the First Amendment right to free speech — occasionally, they won the arguments.

By the latter half of 2016, up to a third of the Internet Research Agency was tasked with stoking existing tensions ahead of the U.S. election, according to yet another report by Russian media outlet Meduza. Another whistleblower claims that the IRA's goal wasn't always specificlly to aid Trump, but to help encourage American infighting, contributing to partisan gridlock in the States (though the IRA's disinformation work is just one prong in Russia's efforts, and the Mueller investigation may obviously have more to say on this subject in time).

The RBC report notes that Chen's 2015 bombshell story in particular forced the Russian government to notably revamp its disinformation efforts, so what it looks like now is far from certain. What is certain is that Russia's online disinformation efforts -- a response to years of equally brazen efforts by the United States -- are just the latest in a multi-generational cold war that perpetually seeks to take horrible ideas to new and obnoxious levels. The biggest concern now isn't just how a country immeasurably susceptible to bullshit combats this kind of attack, but just how ham-fisted and harmful the United States' inevitable response will be.

Filed Under: elections, influence, russia, russian trolls, trolls

Ex-Kremlin Hired 'Troll' Wins One Ruble In Damages From Putin's Internet Propaganda Factory

from the propagandist-whac-a-mole dept

As we've been exploring, whistleblowers have been exposing Putin and the Kremlin's use of "troll factories" to fill the internet with propaganda. The efforts run amazingly deep, with employees paid 40,000 to 50,000 rubles ($800 to $1,000) a month to create proxied, viable fake personas -- specifically tasked with pumping the internet full of toxic disinformation 24 hours a day. One of these employees, Lyudmila Savchuk, spent two months employed by the operation and was so disgusted that she quit, launched an anti-propaganda social activist campaign, and decided to sue the Russian government.

Amazingly enough Lyudmila Savchuk is not only still alive, but she has won her case. A Russian court has awarded Savchuk symbolic damages of one ruble, her requested damage amount after suing the disinformation barn for non-payment of wages and for failing to give workers proper contracts:

"I am very happy with this victory. I achieved my aim, which was to bring the internet trolls out of the shade," said Savchuk, 34. The Kremlin has claimed that it has no links to the operations of the Agency for Internet Studies. Authorities in Russia have intensified a propaganda campaign as the crisis over Ukraine has sent tensions with the west soaring to their highest level since the cold war.

So yes, Savchuk managed to bring a small portion of one of Putin's companies involved in propaganda (Agency for Internet Studies, or Internet Research) out of the shadows briefly. But the Russian government continues to deny they've any connection to the operation, and the company itself continues to operate unfettered, as do the myriad other similar companies the Kremlin employs to pollute the global discourse mud puddle.

Case in point: as Russia waits for the report on what caused the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over the Ukraine last year (investigators believe the downing missile was Russian made, and the report is expected to show it was fired from territory held by pro-Russian rebels), a rather ham-fisted attempt to blame the CIA for the crash has been circulating online ahead of the report's release:

"A Russian newspaper posted an audiotape on its website that purports to reveal two US spies plotting to bring down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine last year. One hitch: The conversations are so stilted and oddly worded that they have been widely dismissed by native English speakers as obviously fake. "If you wanted to believe the CIA is responsible for downing MH17, now you've got the 'proof,'" the self-exiled Russian online newspaper Meduza headlined its report pointing out the awkward language used by the purported spies.

The recording itself certainly sounds as if two sad actors are simply reading from a poorly-translated English script:Of course any Russian internet propagandist worth their salt will probably conclude that this ham-fisted attempt to frame the CIA was cleverly devised by the CIA itself as a sort of reverse head fake (and since the CIA has done numerous stranger things, many might even believe it). Either way, the point stands: while Savchuk may have bravely succeeded in winning one small battle against Putin's propaganda army, it's only the tiniest of dents in what's now a well-established Russian internet disinformation apparatus.

Filed Under: internet trolls, lyudmila savchuk, propaganda, russia, russian trolls

Putin Has Shifted His Internet Propaganda Army Into Overdrive

from the truth-should-not-be-relative dept

While propaganda is certainly not the exclusive territory of Putin's Russia, it has become clear that Putin and friends -- when not busy arranging accidents for administration critics -- have taken internet propaganda specifically to an entirely new level. Back in April, reports started emerging detailing how Putin has built entire factories dedicated to soiling and seeding the internet with propaganda. Armies of paid sockpuppets get paid 40,000 to 50,000 rubles ($800 to $1,000) a month to create proxied, viable fake personas -- specifically tasked with pumping the internet full of toxic disinformation twenty-four hours a day.

It has been fascinating to watch whistleblowers at these factories coming forward in recent months, detailing how they're shocked by how effective such efforts are on shaping public discourse:

"The scariest thing is when you talk to your friends and they are repeating the same things you saw in the technical tasks, and you realize that all this is having an effect,” the former worker said."

Interestingly, one of the workers at these factories was recently courageous enough to put her name in print. Journalist and single mother Lyuda Savchuk states she knew she was entering an "Orwellian universe" when she took the job, but found things notably worse than she ever imagined once inside:

"I knew it was something bad, but of course I never suspected that it was this horrible and this large-scale," she said in an interview in her apartment, which has colorful drawings on the walls for her two preschool-age children. She described how the trolls manage several social media accounts under different nicknames, such as koka-kola23, green--margo and Funornotfun. Those in her department had to bash out 160 blog posts during a 12-hour shift. Trolls in other departments flooded the Internet with doctored images and pro-Putin commentary on news stories that crop up on Russian and Western news portals."

While the AP report states Savchuk quit, other reports suggest that she was fired only after speaking to the media. Not only that, Savchuk is suing the government, focusing on the lack of paperwork outlining her responsibilities or the reason for her firing (apparently the Russian government isn't keen on a paper trail). She's also organizing an activist retaliation to the propaganda efforts:

"The ‘troll factory’ operates based on very weird schemes, but all those firms are connected to each other, even though they are separate legal entities,” Savchuk was quoted as saying. Since her dismissal, Savchuk has been organising a public movement against online trolling called Informatsionny Mir – a name that can be translated both as “Information World” and "Information Peace." "There are both opposition activists and supporters of the government among us, but we all believe that such methods of information war are unacceptable,” she said."

Several of the reports note that there has been a concerted effort to hire more English speaking trolls to try and influence thinking in the United States as well, as Russia gleefully annexes the Ukraine and tries to defend its atrocious positions on gay rights. Internet Research, the company that runs the operation and is owned by a friend of Putin, has also taken to hiring more Serbian trolls to try and pull Serbia off of its trajectory as a future EU member. As has long been the case, this propaganda operates hand in hand with the use of violence to silence opposition:

"When Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was killed in Moscow in late February, the Serbian trolls were quick to react. "Who is to gain from this assassination but America? It must have been CIA," was the dominant mantra that took hold in discussions on Serbian news sites. "Likes" went into the hundreds, while comments such as "Putin is responsible" received widespread ridicule."

Putin's problem? Propaganda usually only works well when it's not easily identifiable as propaganda. Putin and friends appear to believe they can overcome this problem by simply operating on a massive scale, using not only its troll factories but tens of thousands of Twitter bots to shout nonsense from every internet street corner. Of course you'd like to think the pillars of truth have their roots in firmer bedrock, and on most of these issues (like gay rights) Putin's simply throwing money at a thunderstorm. But on other issues (like eroding support for Serbian EU integration or fostering support for Russia's invasion of the Ukraine), Putin's army of disinformation jackasses have been worryingly effective.

Filed Under: internet, internet trolls, lyuda savchuk, russia, russian trolls, trolls