"Russian troll army tweeted more than 65,000 times over MH17 in two days"

[Software]

"Russian troll army tweeted more than 65,000 times over MH17 in two days"

The reconstructed cockpit of the crashed aircraft of flight MH17


Employees of a Russian troll army have blamed Ukraine in more than 65,000 tweets in 2014 in the two days after taking down flight MH17 in 2014. After analyzing 9 million tweets, De Groene Amsterdammer writes that the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg was much more active than previously reported.

The international investigation by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) revealed that on 17 July 2014 the Boeing 777 of Malaysia Airlines was shot down over a Ukrainian village by a Buk rocket from a brigade of the Russian army in Kursk. All 298 passengers were killed.

Campaign

After knocking down a centrally coordinated, aggressive disinformation campaign started, de Groene writes. Various theories were launched in pro-Russian media that had to clear Russia. The agency in St Petersburg was also deployed, specializing in influencing discussions on social media.

At first the trolls didn't seem to know exactly what was going on. For example, they wrote that the pro-Russian separatists had brought down a Ukrainian plane.

Three hashtags

Only the next morning did the message become unambiguous that the Ukrainian army had shot down the Malaysian plane. "Around eleven o'clock in the morning the trolls launched three hashtags: #KievheeftBoeingneer Shot, #KievProvocation and #Kievspreekdewheidheid", writes De Groene.

That day, July 18, the agency sent out 40,931 tweets with one of these hashtags. The following day another 24,844 followed. July 18, 2014 was also the busiest day ever in the agency's existence, according to De Groene.

Trolls are often fake accounts on social media that are used to sow unrest and disrupt discussions with misleading messages. The accounts can be automated and can be used with many at the same time. This can create the illusion that a large number of people get excited about social issues on social media.

After July 19, it stopped abruptly. Flight MH17 was still written, but not nearly as many and not with the same hashtags. De Groene does not have an explanation for this.

It is also striking that the trolls wrote their messages themselves, the vast majority of which were in Russian. In previous campaigns they forwarded tweets with extreme views or copied them to send from their own account.

More than 65,000 tweets is considerably more than the 1,400 tweets that were previously written about. That study looked at how often the term 'MH17' was used in the tweets of more than 3800 troll accounts from St Petersburg.




Twitter activity of Russian trolls from January 2013 to June 2018. The most tweeted was after the crash of flight MH17. More than during the US presidential election.





The Dutch journalist and Russia expert Hubert Smeets quotes a tweet from the Attorney General of Crimea annexed by Russia. She tweets two weeks before the MH17 disaster that a BUK rocket installation is on its way to the rebels. The tweet was deleted shortly thereafter.

Those responsible are being tracked and put before justice or they will be hunted down for the rest of their lives.

[Azadina]

Everyone and their mother knows that Russians were at fault for it. But absolutely nothing can be done as long as they keep denying it, and even if they admitted and said "so what?" We're back to the same thing. Can't really do anything about it.

[Azadina]

You mean "won't do anything about it because we don't want to deal with the financial collateral damage"

Same thing really. That's just specifying one reason why we can't do anything about it. I'm sure there are more reasons one can think of.

[Independent voter]

EU put sanctions on Russia over Crimea annexation on March 2014.

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/p...kraine-crisis/

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17)[a] was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down on 17 July 2014

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malays...ines_Flight_17


Obviously the Russians shot down MH17 killing over 200 EU citizens in retaliation for sanctions on Crimea annexation.

[Software]

Obviously the Russians shot down MH17 killing over 200 EU citizens in retaliation for sanctions on Crimea annexation.

298 Passengers and crew, from:

Netherlands 193
Malaysia 43
Australia 27
Indonesia 12
United Kingdom 10
Belgium 4
Germany 4
Philippines 3
Canada 1
New Zealand 1

Pffffhahahaha by whom?

https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2018/07/284171.htm

[Thereturn]

How many did the american troll army tweet?

[Yadryonych]

How did I miss that major rally call. Haven't tweeted a thing on that matter, Putin spare me

[Software]

How did I miss that major rally call. Haven't tweeted a thing on that matter, Putin spare me

Probably bc also the Kremlin recognises you as a useless troll.

- - - Updated - - -

How many did the american troll army tweet?

American trolls tweeting about MH17? Where, when, who? Provide us with some proof even it is RT propaganda Boris.

[Mayia]

LOOK! its finally russian trolls doing something stop the press.. so the press can report on it non-stop in hopes of ignoring the trump russia lies they published!

Problem of course is, America uses the exact same cyber warefare as other countries (including the EU and UK) but we in the west are only upset when China and Russia do it.
Its retarded, unless it all stops there is no reason to complain and i have no doubt some ill trained Russian officer shot the plane down while pretending to be in another countries military these kinds of things happen sadly if anyone has a real suggestion on ending the war rather than "noo mistakes are bad when they cause lives we care about!" people dying in a country you don't care about will keep happening and you wont speak up unless national lives are lost.

[Software]

Its retarded, unless it all stops there is no reason to complain and i have no doubt some ill trained Russian officer shot the plane down while pretending to be in another countries military these kinds of things happen sadly if anyone has a real suggestion on ending the war rather than "noo mistakes are bad when they cause lives we care about!" people dying in a country you don't care about will keep happening and you wont speak up unless national lives are lost.

You are right. But when you stop talking about killing inocent people then the purpretrators of (and the people who try to hide) these acts of violance won. And that is not going to happen in the case of the downing of flight MH17 i can asure everyone.

[Mayia]

You are right. But when you stop talking about killing inocent people then the purpretrators of (and the people who try to hide) these acts of violance won. And that is not going to happen in the case of the downing of flight MH17 i can asure everyone.

Nothing will come from it, if you were the dude who fired you would've likely taken your own life unless you hated "outsiders" in which case you'd never share because you'd be proud.

Its kind of everyone's (Us/Russia) fault for allowing this proxy war to keep going because they can't just get along.

[Software]

Nothing will come from it, ...

There are a couple of people identified who seem te be involved. It's believed Interpol Red Notices are issued for a hand full of them. All those involved most likely won't be crossing borders anymore to avoid arrest.

This is the start. The G7 won't let this go.

[Trbn]

There are a couple of people identified who seem te be involved. It's believed Interpol Red Notices are issued for a hand full of them. All those involved most likely won't be crossing borders anymore to avoid arrest.

This is the start. The G7 won't let this go.

lol

I wonder what G7 is able to do at all

[fjoois]

lol, it is impossible country)

[Beazy]

Only 65,000 times?

Twitter gets like 100 million tweets a day, and we're supposed to care about 65k?

I'm shocked that's all the trolls could muster to be honest, during the 2016 elections, over 1.5 million tweets from Russian trolls were identified, and god knows how many went out that were unidentified.

[Easo]

lol

I wonder what G7 is able to do at all

Sanctions are a thing.

[namecraft]

so were people actually trolled? or was it spam?

[vipers]

"Russian troll army tweeted more than 65,000 times over MH17 in two days"

Those responsible are being tracked and put before justice or they will be hunted down for the rest of their lives.

So Putin is going to jail ?

[Gaaz]

It is almost like in a 150 million country a 0.0004% of population has access to internet and uses Twitter once every couple of days... Color me surprised if among 500,000,000 daily tweets there were 65,000 about MH-17. A shocker I tell you!

[Software]

So Putin is going to jail ?

You think he personally ordered to shoot down flight MH17 killing 300 civilians?