Russia's manipulation of Twitter was far vaster than believed

[Independent voter]

Russia's infamous troll farm conducted a campaign on Twitter before the 2016 elections that was larger, more coordinated and more effective than previously known, research from cybersecurity firm Symantec out Wednesday concluded.

The Internet Research Agency campaign may not only have had more sway — reaching large numbers of real users — than previously thought, it also demonstrated ample patience and might have generated income for some of the phony accounts, Symantec found.

Their research analyzed a massive data set that Twitter released in October 2018 on nearly 3,900 suspended accounts and 10 million tweets. It discovered that the average lag between account creation and first tweet was 177 days and the most retweeted account garnered 6 million retweets, and less than 2,000 of those came from within the IRA-linked network of accounts.



https://www.politico.com/amp/story/2...witter-1353543

Yes, this is old news.

But my question is: overall, do you think Russia's massive trolling effort has been good for Russia? Or bad for Russia?

Did it defeat their enemies? Did it make them friends?

If you were the FSB/KGB guy in charge of internet trolling. Would you have regretted starting the project?

[Ghostpanther]

They understand social media has a ton of potential in human society. Since they basically do not care what the western world thinks about them, I would say they believe it can be good for them if they can have a impact using that tool to help their causes.

[Felya]

They understand social media has a ton of potential in human society. Since they basically do not care what the western world thinks about them, I would say they believe it can be good for them if they can have a impact using that tool to help their causes.

We are discussing the influence of their troll farms and you think they don’t care what the western world thinks? They are manipulating elections all over the western world, because they don’t care? What?

Yeah, it was good for Russia. They got rid of the candidate that they feared would punish their propoganda. They got a candidate that is willing to shit on US to defend them. Refuses to enforce sanctions that his own party voted unanimously for. They got Syria to be theirs. They got no repercussions for trying to kill a guy, US got back from Russia in a spy trade. They got no repercussions for taking part of Ukraine. They got a president that Putin makes look like a giant wet noodle, when ever they are together. While Russian media is pumping Trump supporters, that would rather be Russian, than American, while claiming to be nationalist and patriotic.

[Milchshake]

There is no "Good for Russia" at the moment.
There is mostly "Good for Putin" or "Not Good for Putin."

Putin's massive trolling effort is of great benefit to himself and his oligarch friends.
It distracts the population from the massive theft going on.
It disrupts the West, which might otherwise bear light on or help to prosecute his theft.

[rda]

The trolling effort was not massive.

The 10 million tweets figure n the quote is misleading, the number of tweets from the troll accounts that we are talking about here was ~800k (look into the article) and half of those were re-tweets, so in fact we are talking about ~400k. Is this a lot? Well, no, that's not a lot. If you take a look at, say, HuffPost, you'll see that just their official account has more than 500k tweets - that's for multiple years, but that's only their official account and that's just a single media outlet out of many.

The key findings in the piece are overstating the case:

"The operation was carefully planned, with accounts often registered months before they were used – and well in advance of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The average time between account creation and first tweet was 177 days." --- yeah, that's how troll factories operate. They register accounts in advance. They don't know what they will use the accounts for, just that they will use it for something. "The operation was carefully planned" is misleading.

All in all, this was small scale / low effort. If you want to see real cyberwarfare, look elsewhere.

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There is no "Good for Russia" at the moment.
There is mostly "Good for Putin" or "Not Good for Putin."

Agree with this.

[Shalcker]

There is no "Good for Russia" at the moment.
There is mostly "Good for Putin" or "Not Good for Putin."

Putin's massive trolling effort is of great benefit to himself and his oligarch friends.
It distracts the population from the massive theft going on.
It disrupts the West, which might otherwise bear light on or help to prosecute his theft.

You're assuming that oligarch running IRA knows precisely what Putin wants and then actually does it rather then what would benefit himself primarily.

And as far as Prigozhin's position goes, it absolutely was net plus. Western media painted him as some kind of evil social-media manipulating mastermind... not a thuggish guy with business in primarily catering and "troll factory" being largely sideshow used to promote his stuff and smear his competition that, while growing over time, never was his primary focus.

[Independent voter]

You're assuming that oligarch running IRA knows precisely what Putin wants and then actually does it rather then what would benefit himself primarily.

And as far as Prigozhin's position goes, it absolutely was net plus. Western media painted him as some kind of evil social-media manipulating mastermind... not a thuggish guy with business in primarily catering and "troll factory" being largely sideshow used to promote his stuff and smear his competition that, while growing over time, never was his primary focus.

It's convenient you can blame it all on one oligarch.

I can't believe the Russian administration would let one oligarch soil the good name of Russia; he must've had their consent. At least the administration could've stopped him with a phone call.

[Shalcker]

It's convenient you can blame it all on one oligarch.

Well, if you can point me out to different outlet that also got media attention i'm all ears.

I can't believe the Russian administration would let one oligarch soil the good name of Russia; he must've had their consent. At least the administration could've stopped him with a phone call.

Except IRA involvement was only revealed AFTER elections; how could they stop something they had no idea happened?

It's not like Prigozhin is making daily reports on his activity to Presidential Administration as far as i know.

US recently ran anti-Iran government-funded smear campaign, why wasn't it stopped?

Ultimately, Russia isn't about "Putin being behind everything" but more like " Oligarchs doing whatever they want until stopped".

[DevilTrigger1989]

Seeing the news, I thought of a pic one with Soviet KGB uniforms said to another in civilian clothes: Do you want to go to Lubyanka Hotel？Foods & Accommodation offered！Plus a pair of sliver handcuffs.

[PACOX]

Russian trolling is sanctioned by the president of the United States. Why should they feel bad about it?

[Kaleredar]

I think republicans need to stop and ask themselves why Russia is propping up Trump and pushing right-wing causes both in the US and around the globe.


Remember, Russia is only interested in Russia. They're not "doing a solid" for the US. They're not acting beneficently. They want the US and other countries to wane in power and influence so that they, then, can be more powerful and influential by default.


So ask yourselves, dear right-wingers that turn a blind eye to the Trump campaign's collusion by blinding yourself to all but your own temporary victory; why does Russia think that supporting President Trump and other right-wing movements around the globe make the US and other countries weaker?


I mean I know the answer; I just don't think they've ever asked that question themselves. Maybe it's easier for them if they don't.

[Shalcker]

I think republicans need to stop and ask themselves why Russia is propping up Trump and pushing right-wing causes both in the US and around the globe.

Remember, Russia is only interested in Russia. They're not "doing a solid" for the US. They're not acting beneficently. They want the US and other countries to wane in power and influence so that they, then, can be more powerful and influential by default.

No, antagonism comes primarily from US side, with constant attempts by US to cut Russian growth.

Everyone would be fine with US if it would stop trying to keep others down by any means necessary and stick to honest competition.

So ask yourselves, dear right-wingers that turn a blind eye to the Trump campaign's collusion by blinding yourself to all but your own temporary victory; why does Russia think that supporting President Trump and other right-wing movements around the globe make the US and other countries weaker?

I mean I know the answer; I just don't think they've ever asked that question themselves. Maybe it's easier for them if they don't.

Russia supports them because they are the ones saying "Maybe we should talk with Russia" (not that they necessarily do after getting elected though - and Trump is an example of that).

[Shalcker]

Well they got Trump elected and have been sowing discord in western civilization for years now and have managed to support far right groups that further sow that discord.

Only blind fools or people who are too proud to admit it still deny that the Russian trolling operation has been successful, at least in short term.

Yep, tree shaking creates wind, totally, not the other way around. /s

[PC2]

The solution is for Americans to use Twitter to make arguments to Russian people regarding politics. As long as it's a two-way thing where both sides can make arguments to the other side then it is fair. What I think is unfair is if a Chinese person is using our internet and then we can't even communicate with the average person in China.

[Shalcker]

The mere fact that you exist in this thread proves every allegation laid against Russia on this topic.

Yeah, i'm the cause of all Western problems, totally. /s

West is creating weakness by pursuing idiotic policies and then blames others for exploiting the situation.

Global means global, everyone can influence everyone - and give their opinions on everything.

[zorkuus]

The solution is for Americans to use Twitter to make arguments to Russian people regarding politics. As long as it's a two-way thing where both sides can make arguments to the other side then it is fair.

I'm not sure if you understand what trolling/bots is. Go ahead and have an argument with them if you like wasting your time.

[PC2]

I'm not sure if you understand what trolling/bots is. Go ahead and have an argument with them if you like wasting your time.

I'm talking about Tweeting to Russian people in order to persuade them. All I'm saying is we should make it a two-way battle.

[Shalcker]

No, you are a symptom. Western world has truly been pussified, and not in the sense that far right retards think, but in the sense that we have become too tolerable of our adversaries' shenanigans. If the western world was serious about staying the top dog, we would have cut Russia out from the internet already.

It's more like Western world can dish it out but cannot take it themselves.

Hoped to change the world and undermine regimes with "freedom of information" (all those "Arab Springs" where everyone supported openness of Twitter), got undermined themselves.

[PC2]

Global means global, everyone can influence everyone - and give their opinions on everything.

Exactly this. There are a lot of Europeans in my Twitter community, I try to persuade them all the time, even when the topic is politics. Yet nobody has ever accused me of interfering with European democracy.

[Kaleredar]

No, antagonism comes primarily from US side, with constant attempts by US to cut Russian growth.

Everyone would be fine with US if it would stop trying to keep others down by any means necessary and stick to honest competition.

Russia has absolutely no moral ground to stand on regarding "honest competition."

And Russia's morally repugnant behavior in quite modern history is more than enough reason to keep strangling them with sanctions, at least until they can decide they want to be act like a big-boy country again.

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Exactly this. There are a lot of Europeans in my Twitter community, I try to persuade them all the time, even when the topic is politics. Yet nobody has ever accused me of interfering with European democracy.

Do you actively spread lies and misinformation with millions of bots?

Because if you did, I'd say there's a case to.

It wasn't a handful of Russian nobodies posting their opinions that people are taking umbrage with. It's the lies and misinformation being malignantly and seditiously spread under false pretenses that's that's the issue.