How Twitter Bots and Trump Fans Made #ReleaseTheMemo Go Viral

Source: Politico | February 4, 2018 | Molly K. McKew

Russian bots and their American allies gamed social media to put a flawed intelligence document atop the political agenda. That should alarm us.

n Tuesday morning — the day after the House Intelligence Committee voted along partisan lines to send Rep. Devin Nunes’ memo, alleging abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, to President Trump for declassification — presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway was confronted with the idea that Russian trolls were promoting the #releasethememo hashtag online. She was offended. Russian trolls, she told a television interviewer, “have nothing to do with releasing the memo — that was a vote of the intelligence committee.” But her assertion is incorrect. The vote marked the culmination of a targeted, 11-day information operation that was amplified by computational propaganda techniques and aimed to change both public perceptions and the behavior of American lawmakers.

And it worked. By the time the memo got to the president, its release was a forgone conclusion — even before he had read it.

This bears repeating: Computational propaganda — defined as “the use of information and communication technologies to manipulate perceptions, affect cognition, and influence behavior” — has been used, successfully, to manipulate the perceptions of the American public and the actions of elected officials.

The analysis below, conducted by our team from the social media intelligence group New Media Frontier, shows that the #releasethememo campaign was fueled by, and likely originated from, computational propaganda. It is critical that we understand how this was done and what it means for the future of American democracy.

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In the space of a few hours on January 18, #releasethememo exploded on Twitter, evolving over the next few days from being a marker for discussion on Nunes’ memo through multiple iterations of an expanding conspiracy theory about missing FBI text messages and imaginary secret societies plotting internal coups against the president. #releasethememo provided an organizational framework for this comprehensive conspiracy theory, which, in its underpinnings, is meant to minimize and muddle concerns about Russian interference in American politics.

The rapid appearance and amplification of this messaging campaign, flagged by the German Marshall Fund’s Hamilton68 dashboard as being promoted by accounts previously linked to Russian disinformation efforts, sparked the leading Democrats on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees to write a letter to Twitter and Facebook asking for information on whether or not this campaign was driven by Russian accounts. Another report, sourced to analysis said to be from Twitter itself, identified the hashtag as an “organic” “American” campaign linked to “Republican” accounts. Promoters of #releasethememo rapidly began mocking the idea that they are Russian bots. (There are even entirely new accounts set up to tweet that they are not Russian bots promoting #releasethememo, even though their only content is about releasing the supposed memo.)

But this back and forth masks the real point. Whether it is Republican or Russian or “Macedonian teenagers” — it doesn’t really matter. It is computational propaganda — meaning artificially amplified and targeted for a specific purpose — and it dominated political discussions in the United States for days. The #releasethememo campaign came out of nowhere. Its movement from social media to fringe/far-right media to mainstream media so swift that both the speed and the story itself became impossible to ignore. The frenzy of activity spurred lawmakers and the White House to release the Nunes memo, which critics say is a purposeful misrepresentation of classified intelligence meant to discredit the Russia probe and protect the president.

And this, ultimately, is what everyone has been missing in the past 14 months about the use of social media to spread disinformation. Information and psychological operations being conducted on social media — often mischaracterized by the dismissive label “fake news” — are not just about information, but about changing behavior. And they can be surprisingly effective.

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  • Consistent #21398

    Consistent #21399

    Woodcutter #21421

    This is really amazing — truly mind-boggling. Trying to take in and understand all this is overwhelming.

    Regardless how much of the campaign was “American” and how much was “Russian”, it’s clear there was a massive effort to game social media and put the Nunes memo squarely on the national agenda—and it worked to an astonishing degree.

    We need to understand how computational propaganda & coercive information operations are changing face of US politics. Because they are.

    And this, ultimately, is what everyone has been missing in the past 14 months about the use of social media to spread disinformation. Information and psychological operations being conducted on social media — often mischaracterized by the dismissive label “fake news” — are not just about information, but about changing behavior. And they can be surprisingly effective.

    “Surprisingly effective,” “changing the face of politics,” “worked to an astonishing degree” — This is ominous…

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