https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2017-12-05/how-the-kremlin-tried-to-pose-as-american-news-sites-on-twitter
How the Kremlin Tried to Pose as American News Sites on Twitter
Twitter has suspended dozens of accounts masquerading as U.S. news sources that had more than 500,000 followers.
By Selina Wang
December 5, 2017
The Kremlin-backed Russian Internet Research Agency operated dozens of Twitter accounts masquerading as local American news sources that collectively garnered more than half-a-million followers.
More than 100 news outlets also published stories containing those handles in the run-up to the election, and some of them were even tweeted by a top presidential aide.
These news imposter accounts, which are part of the 2,752 now-suspended accounts that Twitter Inc. has publicly disclosed to be tied to the IRA, show how the Russian group sought to build local communities of followers to disseminate messages.
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Twitter has deactivated all of those accounts and removed any data on the accounts from third-party sources.
Information on the details of the accounts was gathered from Meltwater, a data intelligence firm that monitors social media.
Details on the contents of the tweets are from
Facebook posts that were synced with the users’ Twitter accounts.
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Lawmakers berated social media companies for taking too long to recognize the seriousness of manipulation.
People tied to the Russian government used Facebook, Google and Twitter to spread content crafted to sow social discord in America. By operating fake news accounts targeted toward certain regions, the IRA was able to amass followers in specific populations and push messages to them.
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There were both left-leaning and right-leaning accounts.
One of them, @redlanews, which had almost 10,000 followers, said its author was “Red Louisiana News”, with a biography that read: “
Conservative; Right and proud; Christian. Love my country and will stand against liberals and socialists.”
The account tweeted news from outlets like Breitbart and wrote incendiary posts before the election.
One of them read: “Hillary Clinton believes in white supremacy.
The only racist here it's her Corrupt lying politician #HillarysEmails.”
Another tweet from the account in early 2016 tagged Trump in the post: "@realDonaldTrump Ted Cruz will destroy our economy and military might with his plans. The only way to fight islamists is Trump way!”
The @MissouriNewsUS account, which had almost 6,000 followers, had a description of one hashtag: #NeverHilary. Another handle, @NewYorkDem, said it was for “New York, uniting Liberals since 1624!"
Researchers have concluded that many of the IRA-linked
accounts were created to sow social discord, by trying to "put left-wing people further to the left and right-wing people further to the right," said Ben Nimmo, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Research Lab.
"It's that attempt to amplify the differences in society."
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A U.S. intelligence report concluded that the
Russian government was expecting Hilary Clinton to win the election and were prepared to call into question the validity of the results. Pro-Kremlin bloggers had prepared a Twitter campaign, #DemocracyRIP on election night in anticipation of her victory, according to the report.
These news imposter accounts could have aided those efforts to undermine the election results by promoting certain hashtags and topics like “voter fraud” or “rigged election."
By having a network of local news accounts across the country, the Kremlin would be able to distribute propaganda at scale that could galvanize local populations to protest, according to Nimmo.
A Russian-linked Facebook group attempted to organize anti-immigrant and anti-Hilary Clinton protests in Texas shortly before the November elections.
The majority of the imposter news accounts were created more than a year before the 2016 U.S. elections.
MORE at LINk..
From their imposter Twitter accts to their imposter Facebook accts and through Google.
Explains why anything about Hillary & her policy platform was silenced & banned from larger websites, into their own private corners of the internet.
The Kremlin drove the media message.
The shock to me is how many people believed the unprovable lies.
Shame on them all.
Edit:
Twitter has now included a blue "verified" checkmark following the name of all valid Twitter accts.
