The Mueller report reveals that some U. S. citizens helped Russian government agents organize real-life events, aiding Russia’s propaganda campaign. Don’t be like them.
Getty
Vladimir Putin during his state of the nation address.
American citizens are unwittingly becoming Russian agents. That’s an unavoidable conclusion of Robert Mueller’s report on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U. S. presidential election, and an important problem that requires a change in thinking about how people interact on social media. Old adages like “Don’t talk to strangers” don’t really apply in a hyperconnected world. A more accurate replacement is perhaps even more worrying, though: “If you talk to strangers online, assume they are spies until proven otherwise.”
Facebook estimated that 126 million Americans saw one of more than 3,500 Russian-purchased ads on its site. Twitter identified nearly 40,000 Russia-linked accounts that issued 1.5 million tweets, which were viewed a total of 288 million times. As a social media researcher and educator, this shows the scale of people’s exposure to state propaganda and the potential to influence public opinion. But that’s not the really bad news.
According to the Mueller report, some U. S. citizens even helped Russian government agents organize real-life events, aiding the propaganda campaign, possibly without knowing that’s what they were doing. There’s a whole section of the report called “Targeting and Recruitment of U. S. Persons,” detailing how Russian agents approached people through direct messages on social media, as part of their efforts to sow discord and division in order to influence the 2016 U. S. presidential election.
Mueller doesn’t say why these people let themselves be manipulated into participating. But this Russian victory, the co-opting of Americans against their own democratic processes, happened because the Russian government used old-school influence techniques on new social media platforms. Online predators with harmful agendas often use the same tricks, so learn to protect yourself.
Mainly, the Russians exploited what is called the drive to cooperate, an ingrained part of human nature that encourages people to work with others.
