Report prepared for the Senate analyzes Russian disinformation that supported Trump across millions of posts on YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and more
For years, Russia has leveraged … Wired : How Russian Trolls Used Meme Warfare to Divide America New York Times : Russian 2016 Influence Operation Targeted African-Americans on Social Media Sara Fischer / Axios : The Russian social media disease spread beyond Facebook and Google Sean Gallagher / Ars Technica : Massive scale of Russian election trolling revealed in draft Senate report Joshua Geltzer / Just Security : The Most Extraordinary Lesson of Two New Reports on Russian Disinformation: What They Reveal About White House Paralysis Philip Elmer-DeWitt : Forbes: iPhone XR sales have ‘crashed’ Aaron Pressman / Fortune : Data Sheet—Are the First Customers of 5G the Winners or Losers? Scott Shane / New York Times : Five Takeaways From New Reports on Russia's Social Media Operations Paris Martineau / Wired : How Instagram Became the Russian IRA's Go-To Social Network Luana Pascu / Security Boulevard : Russian Trolls Manipulated Top Social Networks to Influence Election BuzzFeed News : Russia's “Propaganda War” On US Social Media Is Ongoing, New Reports Say April Glaser / Slate : Congress Now Has a Very Full, Very Ugly Picture of How Russia Targeted Black Americans Donie O'Sullivan / CNN : Russians sought to recruit ‘assets’ through social media, Senate told Henry Foy / Financial Times : Kremlin says allegations of interference in US election ‘unfounded’ NBC News : Russia favored Trump, targeted African-Americans with election meddling, reports say Mary Clare Jalonick / Associated Press : Report: Russia still using social media to roil US politics Derek B. Johnson / Federal Computer Week : Reports reveal massive scale of Russian disinformation ops Olivia Rudgard / Telegraph : Facebook faces ‘log out’ boycott on Tuesday over black voter suppression Max de Haldevang / Nextgov : Tech Giants Didn't Spot Russia Paying For 2016 Disinformation With Rubles Kris Holt / Engadget : NAACP encourages people to #LogOutFacebook after Senate report P.R. Lockhart / Vox : How Russia exploited racial tensions in America during the 2016 elections Brett Samuels / The Hill : NAACP urges Facebook users to protest after report finds Russian influence campaign targeted African-Americans Rhett Jones / Gizmodo : Here's How Russian Trolls Turned Social Media Into a Weapon While Tech Giants Played Dumb Lauren Feiner / CNBC : Instagram was the ‘most effective’ platform for Russian actors spreading misinformation, says Senate-commissioned report Mark Sullivan / Fast Company : Instagram, not Facebook, was Russia's best weapon for getting Trump elected Matt Binder / Mashable : Instagram played a significant role in Russian disinformation campaigns: report Ben Lovejoy / 9to5Google : Google made it harder to analyze Russian interference in US presidential election, says Senate report Tristan Greene / The Next Web : Senate report: Moscow directed ‘troll farm’ in efforts to elect Trump Xeni Jardin / Boing Boing : Robert Mueller was target of Russian infowar, Senate report reveals Adi Robertson / The Verge : Russian election meddlers started an anti-masturbation hotline, report claims Bloomberg : Russia's Bid to Aid Trump Revealed as Much Wider Than Once Known Rob Quinn / Newser : Report Exposes Vast Scale of Russia's Pro-Trump Election Interference Tweets: Renee DiResta / @noupside : For the last 6 mo, we led an investigation into Russian interference on behalf of the Senate Intelligence Committee (SSCI). That report examined the data sets provided by FB, Twitter, and Google. Our work is here: http://disinformationreport.com - slides, infographics, whitepaper. pic.twitter.com/v51R3NHS7d Jake Tapper / @jaketapper : NYT: “The voter suppression effort was focused particularly on Sanders supporters and African-Americans, urging them to shun Mrs. Clinton in the general election and either vote for Ms. Stein or stay home.” http://www.nytimes.com/... Josh Constine / @joshconstine : Facebook obviously failed to protect us, but my big question about the Russian election interference report is 'Where was the US gov?" I'm surprised how little blame has fallen on Homeland Security for neglect. Tristan Harris / @tristanharris : This is what happens when you let your platform be used by Russia to stoke racism and violence against African Americans and run mass voter suppression campaigns. See Senate Intel Committee's new report w/ never-before seen analysis of 175k Russian memes: http://www.newknowledge.com/ ... http://twitter.com/... Phil Libin / @plibin : What pisses me off is that I always thought social media was the most boring part of “tech”. Assumed the real end-of-civilization threats would come from more legit sci-fi areas: nuclear, AI, gene editing, robotics, quantum physics. Now it's death by marketing. Lame way to go. http://twitter.com/... Richard Blumenthal / @senblumenthal : These reports powerfully confirm some old news: Russia attacked America in 2016. It used every social media trick & platform, & then some, to sabotage our elections & democracy. http://www.wired.com/... Shira Ovide / @shiraovide : The discouraging takeaways of today's Senate research reports: 1) Russian propaganda spread widely because the Russians used/abused social media better than any “influencer” 2) It spread widely because propaganda hit right on major US divisions on racial/political lines. Alex Stamos / @alexstamos : We now know a great deal about the GRU and troll infowar campaigns and the direct attacks against election infrastructure 2016. It's Dec 2018. The question to answer: “How can we have equivalent insight into foreign interference in early 2020 when we can still react?” Peter Baker / @peterbakernyt : Russia's influence campaign made an extraordinary effort to target African-Americans in 2016, using an array of tactics to suppress turnout, according to a report produced for the Senate Intelligence Committee. @ScottShaneNYT @sheerafrenkel http://www.nytimes.com/... Hillary Clinton / @hillaryclinton : A Russian disinformation campaign “used every major social media platform to deliver words, images and videos tailored to voters' interests to help elect President Trump—and worked even harder to support him while in office.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Kevin Poulsen / @kpoulsen : The IRA's tee-shirt business always struck me as a funny sideline, so I was intrigued by the claim in the @NewKnowledgeAI Senate report that trolls harvested shipping addresses “and potentially credit card information.” But it appears wrong. The shirt vendors don't share that. pic.twitter.com/GAgoZYW8Bo Justin Hendrix / @justinhendrix : If I had to sum up an initial scan of this @NewKnowledgeAI report for the Senate Intel Committee on Russian disinfo, it's 3 things: 1) The scale is bigger than the public understands 2) The tech companies have failed to respond 3) It's still going strong http://www.newknowledge.com/ ... Molly Jong-Fast / @mollyjongfast : Anyone on twitter during 2015/2016 knows this first hand. http://www.wired.com/... Kamala Harris / @kamalaharris : Russia and other adversarial countries will continue in their attempts to attack our democracy and engage in voter suppression just like this until our federal government starts taking the threat seriously. http://www.nytimes.com/... @buzzfeednews : Instagram “was perhaps the most effective platform for the Internet Research Agency” and is “likely to be a key battleground on an ongoing basis,” a report about Russian efforts to influence American politics says http://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... Dr. Melissa Bird / @birdgirl1001 : I said this over and over during the election...something doesn't feel right. “The voter suppression effort was focused particularly on Sanders supporters and African-Americans, urging them to shun Mrs. Clinton in the general election and either vote for Ms. Stein or stay home.” http://twitter.com/... Nicholas Thompson / @nxthompson : Here are some of the memes spread by the Russian propaganda artists trying to turn Americans against the press. http://www.wired.com/... http://twitter.com/... Nicholas Thompson / @nxthompson : Another key point from new Senate report. We've long talked about the Russians using Ads to manipulate us on Twitter + FB. This shows once and for all that that was a TINY part of their strategy. Organic posts and memes mattered much more. http://www.wired.com/... Nicholas Thompson / @nxthompson : One thing that struck me in the new report on IRA manipulation: Russian propaganda artists making up fake quotes from Orwell about the media manipulating people. #irony http://www.wired.com/... Shira Ovide / @shiraovide : I eagerly await Google's response to the critique from a different set of Senate researchers: “Google submitted information in an especially difficult way for the researchers to handle.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Jim Sciutto / @jimsciutto : “A major goal was to support Donald Trump, first against his Republican rivals in the presidential race, then in the general election, and as president since his inauguration” - NYT http://www.nytimes.com/... Femme Malheureuse / @femme_mal : Bugs me we wouldn't see this if not leaked when it involves theft of our democracy by way of our personal communications and data. http://twitter.com/... Philip Rucker / @philiprucker : WaPo obtained a report prepared for the Senate that found Russia's disinformation campaign used every major social media platform to deliver words, images and videos to targeted voters to help elect Donald Trump — and to support him once in office http://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Soraya Chemaly / @schemaly : Messaging sought to benefit the GOP — and specifically Donald Trump," the report says..."The main groups that could challenge Trump were then provided messaging that sought to confuse, distract and ultimately discourage members from voting." https://twitter.com/... Mike Elgan / @mikeelgan : Russian agents targeted almost every major social media platform, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, to influence online discourse both in support of Trump's candidacy and “to confuse, distract and ultimately discourage (opponents) from voting.” http://www.axios.com/... Donie O'Sullivan / @donie : NEW: A company the Senate Intelligence Committee hired to review data provided by tech giants about Russian meddling in 2016 has told lawmakers that Silicon Valley may have done the “bare minimum possible” to meet the committee's requests. http://www.cnn.com/... Neal Katyal / @neal_katyal : This report needs to be read&understood in its devastating implications for our natl security+future of democracy. Don't read it politically. Just read it, and figure out what we as Americans and our most innovative/important companies should do about it. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Waldo Jaquith / @waldojaquith : Google is undermining the Senate investigation into Russian election interference, presumably because they well know that YouTube is a hotbed of extremist recruitment, and that would have come out. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... pic.twitter.com/QefK62oY6U EJ Dionne / @ejdionne : Russia went all-in for #Trump: New report for Senate Intel Committee. “What is clear is that all of the messaging clearly sought to benefit the Republican Party—and specifically Donald Trump.” Russia also tried to “confuse, distract and ultimately discourage” anti-Trump voters. http://twitter.com/... Mary Dixon / @maryldixon : ‘The Russians aimed particular energy at activating conservatives on issues such as gun rights and immigration, while sapping the political clout of left-leaning African Americans by undermining their faith in elections and spreading misleading information about how to vote.’ http://twitter.com/... Brian Stelter / @brianstelter : Quoting from a new report prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee: “Social media have gone from being the natural infrastructure for sharing collective grievances and coordinating civic engagement to being a computational tool for social control...” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Chris Vannini / @chrisvannini : I refuse to believe someone actually used Google Plus. http://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer