Reuters: Experts say automated accounts sharing fake news ahead of French election

[Independent voter]

This propaganda has two purposes, the first is to swing the election the way the Russians want it to swing, eg, Le Pen becomes President, and to cast doubt on the democratic process in France. The Russian's can't lose.





http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN17M31G

French voters are being deluged with false stories on social media ahead of the country's presidential election, though the onslaught of "junk news" is not as severe as that during last year's U.S. presidential campaign, according to a study by Oxford University researchers.

The study to be published Friday and another published on Wednesday add evidence to complaints by officials in France, Germany and the United States that Russia is trying to replicate its cyber-powered election meddling in American politics.

Just days before France votes in the first round of a presidential election, the study said misinformation at times has accounted for one-quarter of the political links shared on Twitter in France. It defined "junk news" as deliberately false stories and those expressing "ideologically extreme, hyper-partisan or conspiratorial" views with logical flaws and opinions passed along as facts.

"French voters are sharing better quality information than what many U.S. voters shared and almost as much quality news and information as German users share," according to the study by the Oxford Internet Institute, which will be published on Friday but was made available on Thursday to Reuters.

The French study uses data from a recent week on Twitter but a greater role is being played by Facebook, said Kevin Limonier of the University of Paris VIII, who is studying social media manipulation in the election with a grant from the French government.

Facebook recently suspended 30,000 suspected automated accounts in France. Although it characterized the cleanup as an objective move against spamming, many of the profiles were distributing politically driven misinformation and propaganda.

On Twitter, where automated accounts are allowed, many of the same accounts that promoted Republican Donald Trump in the U.S. campaign last year have turned their attention to pushing conspiracy theories and far-right viewpoints, according to Limonier and Clinton Watts, a former FBI agent and now a senior fellow at the George Washington University Center for Cyber and Homeland Security.

RUSSIA SHIFTS FOCUS TO GERMANY

"A contingent of the Trump campaign supporters we believe to be 'bots' and accounts from Russia have shifted to Germany,” Watts said. "If I had to estimate, about one-third of previous Trump supporter accounts are now trying to influence the German election."

Another study published this week from the private research group Bakamo showed a similar percentage of fake news versus real news on social media in France as that found by the Oxford researchers. Much of the fake news came from sources that were "exposed to Russian influence," the Bakamo study said.

The Oxford researchers say their study of social media traffic in the days before the U.S. presidential election last November showed that Michigan voters shared an equal amount of genuine and fake news with each other.


By contrast, in the days leading up to the less divisive German presidential election in February, the Oxford study "found Germans sharing four professionally produced news stories for every one piece of junk."

"All in all, U.S. voters were sharing very poor quality news and information about major public policy debates at a critical time before a national election," Philip Howard, director of the Oxford Institute said. "Both German and French voters are sharing much smaller amounts of junk news."

Before he left office in January, President Barack Obama said sharp political divisions made the United States particularly vulnerable to foreign influence and information warfare. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russian government interfered in the election to help Trump win.

The Oxford Institute said that while the biggest proportion of postings in France concerned moderate candidate Emmanuel Macron, who has done well in polls, "highly automated accounts" have "occasionally generated large amounts of traffic about" conservative Francois Fillon.

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball and Joseph Menn; Additional reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Bill Trott)

[Deleted]

This is pathetic. Luckily, we have a better education system in Europe and the overwhelming majority of people just laugh at this shit and everyone talking about it.

[Independent voter]

So that's why we have threads with news posted but no commentary from the OP.

I put my comments at the top.

It seems like Russian manipulations of elections are common knowledge these days but the Russians keep trying. I guess it must have some effect.

[Shalcker]

Does "exposed to Russian influence" means "ever visited RT"?

[Noradin]

Does "exposed to Russian influence" means "ever visited RT"?

No it means "read posts by Shalcker on MMO"

[Ravenblade]

This is pathetic. Luckily, we have a better education system in Europe and the overwhelming majority of people just laugh at this shit and everyone talking about it.

My firsthand daily experience with my fellow countrymen/-women in my own federal state: Education ("Bildung" in German) is based on your knowledge about what you read in the toilet rag mistaken as newspaper (BILD), what you have learned at Youtube university and the Facebook college. Russia is seen friend, eternal bringer of peace and glory, they are great liberators and much better than US and EU combined and even sliced bread pales against them. Count on fertile soil here. My own state is also counted as bootcamp for rightwing movements in Germany and Europe in general, we do have a few professional fake news editors and mouthpieces for Russia who are also active on vk.com where they can do business otherwise illegal. A famous example: Mario Rönsch aka Anonymous.Kollektiv coming from Erfurt, the state capitol.

However: The reason for why they will however not be as successful as The_Donald & Co. would hope is fairly simple. The populists and other politicians with a mindset on the fringe right are too disunited and there's too much strive among them. Recently the head of the AfD forewent candidacy for the next elections and now the different camps and egos are fighting over scraps while the party itself has surpassed its zenith of approval months ago. They never had a real chance to end up more than in the role of the opposition in the parliament however their power might just only be as big as the Left, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats.

I don't know how much it will work in France. I suppose the reality of having to live in a state of emergency and the recent attacks will have a far greater impact than what foreign fake news posters could actually achieve. I mean I have even heard myself people saying here: "Hopefully there will be more like these [attacks] here [in Germany] too because Merkel and the elites have to go and I'd like to see the AfD rule."

[Extremity]

"A contingent of the Trump campaign supporters we believe to be 'bots' and accounts from Russia have shifted to Germany,” Watts said. "If I had to estimate, about one-third of previous Trump supporter accounts are now trying to influence the German election."

Is he saying hat 1/3 of the fake accounts used to support Trump are now attempting to influence the German election, or (as I'm assuming) that 1/3 of ALL of Trump-supporting accounts consists of bots/fake accounts that are now pushing an agenda in Germany? Because if it's the latter... that's just crazy. Totally, completely insane.

[Mormolyce]

Well of course, if a strategy works you keep using it.

"Fake news is fake news!"
-Aficionados of fake news

[Zoibert the Bear]

If all of this is ultimately true and not a conspiracy theory, Putin deserves all the pride. He took the battle to the mass brainwash platform of the 21st century: social media, and won. And that's pride worthy, he's managed to beat everyone at their own game.

P.S.: No, I'm not a Russian payroll troll, I'm just acknowledging an amazingly smart strategy.

[Deleted]

If all of this is ultimately true and not a conspiracy theory, Putin deserves all the pride. He took the battle to the mass brainwash platform of the 21st century: social media, and won. And that's pride worthy, he's managed to beat everyone at their own game.

P.S.: No, I'm not a Russian payroll troll, I'm just acknowledging an amazingly smart strategy.

Any respectable educated person stays away from sites like failbook, 4chan etc.

[Zoibert the Bear]

Any respectable educated person stays away from sites like failbook, 4chan etc.

You just carpet branded a few billion people. For starters, you'd be surprised about Facebook, as it's an extremely effective way of marketing yourself, be it via a product or service.

If you're talking about people who use these platforms to actually get information about what's happening in the world or have religious/political brawls online, I tend to agree with you though. But be it educated or respectable, their vote does still count as much as you average John "Fuck Climate Change" Doe's.

[Deleted]

If all of this is ultimately true and not a conspiracy theory, Putin deserves all the pride. He took the battle to the mass brainwash platform of the 21st century: social media, and won. And that's pride worthy, he's managed to beat everyone at their own game.

P.S.: No, I'm not a Russian payroll troll, I'm just acknowledging an amazingly smart strategy.

But... He's failing miserably, both le pen and fillon have had a well reported financial scandal, while macron, who had similar issue, was totally ignored.
That's what people don't get. If Russia is attempting to influence elections they're doing a piss poor job. 90% of the media is regurgitating our NATO stance.

[Ryme]

Russia pulling the most 'covered and reported' on global political conspiracy in history, impressive.

[Blur4stuff]

There's millions upon millions of fake accounts used just for marketing. Every corner of the world has firms, small groups and individuals doing it on a daily basis to sell you something or get you to enter personal information for leads. So of course the tactic is used for politics. If they didn't it would be like choosing to use muskets over tanks.

[Independent voter]

Russia pulling the most 'covered and reported' on global political conspiracy in history, impressive.

At the very least it casts doubt on the democratic process, that alone would be worth it for the Russians.

Also Reuters is an excellent news source with a lot of integrity.

[Shalcker]

At the very least it casts doubt on the democratic process, that alone would be worth it for the Russians.

Also Reuters is an excellent news source with a lot of integrity.

Isn't it Western media undermining trust in democratic process though currently, not Russians?

After all, process which supposedly can be so easily undermined by Russians can be undermined by anyone else... and it's not like bot networks and Twitter tag promotions are Russian-exclusive technique...

Exposed "vulnerabilities" are not going to disappear by blaming Russians, and there doesn't seem to be much in terms of actual solutions for "defending democracy" (and those that do appear don't seem to get any traction).

[beyelynn]

I think it's that for each elections of each countries. They use fake profil, fake infos, bots...