The workweek is beginning with a new warning that Russian hackers continued to support President Trump and sow division in the United States well after the 2016 election.
In fact, TWO reports about Russian interference are due to be released by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday. Per CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, « the reports are based on data provided by the social media companies to the committee, much of which has not yet been made public. »
O’Sullivan says « the reports don’t appear to contain any bombshells, but they do shed light on the totality of the effort — and it is vast. Read O’Sullivan and Kate Sullivan’s story here…
Russia’s aid to Trump « intensified » after election day
On Sunday night the Washington Post’s Craig Timberg and Tony Romm wrote about a draft of the first report, which was completed by Oxford. The report documents how Russian operatives « used every major social media platform to deliver words, images and videos tailored to voters’ interests to help elect President Trump — and worked even harder to support him while in office. »
Timberg, speaking on Ana Cabrera’s CNN show Sunday night, said the Internet Research Agency’s efforts « actually intensified after election day, » particularly on YouTube. He added: « There’s no reason to think the Russians stopped. Why would they? »
Big Tech’s role…
Thanks to O’Sullivan, CNN has some inside info about the second report, which was produced for the Senate by New Knowledge, an online intel firm. According to his source, the firm told the intel committee that social media companies might have provided the « bare minimum » amount of data for the probe. The firm also « advised lawmakers that there are likely more Russian accounts that the social media companies failed to identify, according to the person familiar with the report. »
Big Tech has repeatedly said that it fell short in recognizing what was going on…
The IRA’s media strategy
Donie O’Sullivan emails: My source says there’s a whole section in the New Knowledge report devoted to examining the Internet Research Agency’s « media impersonation and diminishment strategy. »
NEWS IMPERSONATORS: The researchers found there was 44 Twitter accounts posing as US-related news organizations that had amassed more than 600,000 followers. The report notes that many of the phony news organizations posed as local outlets, and may have been based on studies that show Americans trust local media over national outlets. As CNN and other outlets have previously reported, the group also set up a bunch of phony sites targeting specific groups, such as « Black Matters US » that posed as a black activist group and actually conducted real interviews with Americans (always online or over phone)…
ERODING TRUST: The researchers found the Russians consistently « attempted to erode trust in mainstream media, » I am told, and regularly portrayed WikiLeaks in a positive light.
