Inside Israeli private intelligence company Psy-Group, which provided clients influence campaigns on social media using avatars, before shuttering in Feb. 2018
Inside a plot to influence American elections, starting with one small-town race. — One evening in 2016 … Tweets: @ronanfarrow , @anneapplebaum , @carolecadwalla , @kylegriffin1 , and @aaschapiro Tweets: Ronan Farrow / @ronanfarrow : Private spy firms selling election manipulation services are a booming business. Here's the stranger-than-fiction story of one that pitched the Trump campaign in 2016 and its quest to rig a small-town race as a proof of concept, from @adamentous and me: http://www.newyorker.com/... Anne Applebaum / @anneapplebaum : like I said: It's not just the Russians. They pioneered election interference - but it's all about to get a lot more sophisticated http://www.newyorker.com/... Carole Cadwalladr / @carolecadwalla : Fascinating piece that I've been itching for someone to write. Note: Brits, you will think this has nothing to do with you: Mueller, Mossad, Trump. Think again.Not mentioned here are crucial links to Cambridge Analytica, London & its ex-biggest shareholderhttps://t.co/dPmOl0gkxN Kyle Griffin / @kylegriffin1 : New Yorker unravels disturbing details about the work of Psy Group—the notorious Israeli intel firm known for its alleged social media manipulation ahead of Trump's election—including an attack on a local election in an obscure part of central California. http://www.newyorker.com/... Avi Asher-Schapiro / @aaschapiro : The Israeli private intelligence firm Psy-Group wanted to operate in the US, so they went to Eric Holder's law firm, Covington & Burling, which gave them a “green light.” Then, the firm manipulated a local election & smeared Palestinian rights activists http://www.newyorker.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The New Yorker's account lands after a year of partial disclosures: reporting had already established that Rick Gates sought proposals from Psy-Group for fake online accounts during the 2016 campaign, but this piece fills in the firm itself — avatar-driven influence operations sold as a service, tested on a small-town California race as proof of concept, and blessed for U.S. work by counsel at Covington & Burling.
It also reframes the Cambridge Analytica arc. The leaked documents showing that operation spanned 68 countries with government and intelligence ties, and BuzzFeed's survey of PR firms openly selling fake accounts and pseudo news sites worldwide, suggest Psy-Group was one node in a commercial market rather than an outlier.
First-order effects
- Psy-Group's February 2018 shutdown leaves its client roster exposed mid-engagement, and puts the Trump campaign's 2016 pitch back under scrutiny now that the firm's internal workings are public.
- Covington & Burling faces reputational exposure as the law firm whose legal sign-off is described as the green light for Psy-Group's U.S. operations.
Second-order effects
- Rival influence-for-hire shops documented by BuzzFeed News inherit demand from a shuttered competitor while absorbing the lesson that press exposure, not regulators, is what kills these firms.
- Facebook's ad-integrity problem widens beyond the IRA-linked accounts identified in the divisive-ads study, since Psy-Group-style avatars were homegrown Western operations indistinguishable from organic users.
Third-order effects
- If election manipulation keeps being sold as a professional service, accountability shifts toward the enablers — law firms providing cover and platforms supplying the distribution — rather than the disposable firms themselves.
- The pattern across Psy-Group, Cambridge Analytica, and the broader PR-firm market points toward a structural question for democracies: whether covert influence becomes regulated like lobbying or persists as deniable outsourcing.
The trend: Election influence is consolidating into a global commercial market of private intelligence and marketing firms, where individual operators shutter under exposure but the service category endures.