In its final, climactic push for Donald Trump, the Kremlin’s troll army enlisted new members: semi-dormant propaganda accounts created as far back as 2009.
……
The Kremlin employed hackers in Russia’s military intelligence arm, the GRU, to steal documents and emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee, which were leaked with strategic timing via WikiLeaks, as well as to members of the press and directly to the web.
Russian state-run media was enlisted to produce and promote narratives helpful to Trump, and full-time paid internet trolls at the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency worked long hours on social media to amplify criticism of Clinton, spread misinformation, and, as first reported by The Daily Beast, organize real-life demonstrations on American soil.
After months of work, Russia’s hard-fought campaign was drawing to a close in November 2016, and the trolls in St. Petersburg were priming their final push. On election eve an account called “World News Politics,” set up less than three weeks earlier, rolled out scheduled tweets attacking Clinton and the Democratic Party.
“Hillary’s Violent Paid Protesters Attack Trump Supporters in Chicago,” blared one election-eve headline a little after 11 p.m. Eastern. Two seconds later, another tweet hit Clinton on her health: “HILLARY STUMBLES AGAIN! Watch The 15-Second Video That Just Made Trump President.”
The morning of Election Day, another Russia-operated news feed, the Phoenix Daily News, tweeted a story from an Arizona ABC affiliate’s website, “Group to watch for voter fraud on Election Day.” The article was genuine, but the tweet was a glimpse at the theme Russia would develop throughout the day: The election was rigged for Hillary Clinton.
Evidently anticipating a Trump loss, as nearly everyone did, the trolls’ final election mission was to sow doubt about the legitimacy of the vote, “crippling [Clinton’s] presidency from its start,” according to U.S. intelligence findings. “Democrats BUSTED Breaking Election Law on VIDEO in Ohio,” read a tweet from World News Politics. Then, at 11 a.m. Eastern, “BREAKING : Mass Election Fraud, Voting Irregularities and Discrimination Against Trump Voters Reported #VoterFraud.”
……
In the hands of Russia’s propagandists, the Pennsylvania glitch was frothed into clear evidence of a conspiracy to steal the election from Trump.
At 1:14 p.m. the TEN_GOP account, which then had 51,690 followers, tweeted out an election fraud alert complete with a Drudge-style police car revolving light emoji: “BREAKING: Machine Refuses to Allow Vote For Trump in Pennsylvania!! RT [retweet] the hell out of it! #VoterFraud.”
The alert accumulated more than 14,000 retweets by the end of the day and helped make TEN_GOP the seventh most mentioned user on Election Day Twitter, according to data from the George Washington University.
From then on the Russian trolls pushed the election-rigging trope relentlessly.
…….
The account MarchForTrump took things a step further. In the months before the election, Russia successfully organized pro-Trump demonstrations behind the MarchForTrump front and its linked Facebook page, “Being Patriotic.”
Now it unveiled its own Voter Fraud hotline, promoted in a series of overheated tweets. “This election is being rigged! REPORT VOTER FRAUD: 888 486 8102 (Being Patriotic hotline) […]”
It’s unclear where the phone number went or who answered. Today it’s disconnected.
Second Wave
While the high-profile accounts occupied the front lines of Russia’s information war, at the rear a legion of low-key sleeper personas, with fewer than 5,000 followers each, pushed a steady stream of tweets and retweets praising Trump and condemning Clinton, voiced as the Election Day thoughts of ordinary American voters.
This astroturf portion of Russia’s campaign kicked into high gear just after noon Eastern time. “Only YOU can prevent a Hillary Victory. Get out and vote,” read a typical tweet from “Lara Pretty,” who purports to be an Air Force veteran, an NRA member, a Christian, and a Blue Star mother with a son or daughter on active duty in the military.
…….
The creation dates on those accounts show that Russia began quietly accumulating and maintaining them as early as 2009, with surges in account creation in August 2013 and late 2015.
They churned along largely unnoticed, averaging two or three tweets a day, then perked up on Election Day to contribute five to eight tweets each to America’s political discourse.
It’s a typical pattern for Russia’s trolling operation, which is known to retask long-standing accounts to different Kremlin causes or set up accounts for future use.
“They may have some sitting on the bench, just to let them mature,” said former FBI counterterrorism agent Clint Watts, who’s been studying Russia’s election interference. “Then when you ramp up, you have personas to match.”
The sleeper accounts joined in with the heavy hitters to hammer on the theme that the election was rigged in favor of Clinton.
…….
- Discussion
-
Full-time paid Russian propaganda trolls worked as far back as 2009 to spread lies about Hillary Clinton and to promote Donald Trump https://t.co/NAY58iK6Pr
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) November 8, 2017
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.