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DFRLab
@DFRLab
, 5 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
BREAKING: Facebook just took down a major network of fake pages run y Sputnik employees in the former USSR.

Read our analysis here: medium.com/dfrlab/faceboo…
The pages covered over a dozen countries, from Estonia to Tajikistan.

They mainly posed as news and special-interest sites, on themes such as food and tourism.

But Facebook found Sputnik employees behind them.

newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/01/r…
These pages regularly cross-posted Sputnik videos. Cross-posting is only possible if both users agree to it.

For the full analysis, see here: medium.com/dfrlab/faceboo…
This was a substantial network. Over 360 pages and accounts, with almost 800,000 accounts following at least one of them. That's significantly more than Sputnik itself has in the countries the network covered.
When @lsmlv interviewed the chief editor of Sputnik Latvia, he said that this was "normal content promotion" on social media.

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DFRLab
@DFRLab
🚨BREAKING: @Twitter just released "full, comprehensive archives" of tweets from Russian and Iranian troll farms.

@DFRlab had a brief advance opportunity to analyze the nearly complete archive. Here's what we know: medium.com/dfrlab/trolltr…
@Twitter In Part Two of our series, @DFRLab took a deep dive into the content from the IRA with a specific focus on its second wave of accounts, which were active after 2017.

medium.com/dfrlab/trolltr…
@Twitter In Part Three of our series, @DFRLab took a deep dive into the content from the Iranian🇮🇷 troll farm with a focus on its purpose, behavior, and impact.

medium.com/dfrlab/trolltr…
Read 4 tweets

Related threads

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Ben Nimmo
@benimmo
BREAKING: Facebook just took down 364 pages and accounts for coordinated inauthentic behaviour in the former USSR.

Who was running them?

Sputnik employees, that's who.

newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/01/r…
The great @nikaaleksejeva found the first part of this network in Latvia. @DFRLab has been looking at the whole network since then.

Top takeaways here: medium.com/dfrlab/faceboo…
The network was cross-border, large-scale, and amplified Rossiya Segodnya content - mostly Sputnik, but also the TOK video service.

Fake amplification, on an industrial scale.

Detailed analysis here: medium.com/dfrlab/faceboo…
Read 19 tweets
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Ben Nimmo
@benimmo
BREAKING: Facebook just announced that it's taken down 82 pages, groups and accounts, originating in Iran, that targeted the US (and UK).

@DFRLab had a look at some of them just before the takedown. Thread coming on what we found.

newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/10/c…
Top line: this looked like an Iranian operation which learned from the Russian troll operations.

Divisive content and political agitation, especially against Trump and GOP, but attacks on Saudi Arabia and Israel thrown into the mix.
Analysis of the top takeaways from the @DFRLab team here:

medium.com/dfrlab/trolltr…
Read 31 tweets
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Don Quixote's Horse
@QuixotesHorse
Why is EmbassyofRussia including MauriceSchleepe in it’s Tweets. Hoaxy thinks it’s a bot simple Re-Tweeting Russian Disinfomation.

But it wasn’t always that way. Let’s take a look.
MauriceSchleepe Tweets metronomically spreading Russian Disinformation. Hoaxy was right to call it a BOT
Back in 2014, before MauriceSchleepe became a BOT spreading Russian Disinformation it was just a regular bloke from the Netherlands who questioned the MSM in a pro-Russian way.

They are doing this stuff in plain sight!
Read 10 tweets
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Ben Nimmo
@benimmo
Thread: more analysis on the accounts Facebook took down two weeks ago, including their origins, how they interacted with Americans, and how they tried to cover their tracks.

Three posts. First one here: medium.com/dfrlab/trolltr…
We don't have 100% attribution. They hid their tracks better than the original Russian troll farm (more on that later).

Various pieces of evidence point to the probability this was the troll farm / Internet Research Agency again.

newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/07/r…
First point, and the most concrete link: FB confirmed that one of the pages, "Resisters," had an admin which was a known Russian troll farm account, for just 7 minutes.

Not conclusive on its own, but an important point.
Read 26 tweets
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Ben Nimmo
@benimmo
Thread: If you want to know how fake likes, loves and follows get industrialised on #Facebook, here's a good example from #Brazil.

The fakes boosted hyper-partisan posts in Mexico ahead of the election.

Fake engagement's an international business.

medium.com/dfrlab/electio…
Here are the reactions to two hyper-partisan Mexican posts, on different pages.

Note the number of accounts in common. Looks like an organised brigade.
Following the traces of the brigade led back to this account. Note the letters PCSD, which are diagnostic for this particular network.
Read 15 tweets
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Ben Nimmo
@benimmo
Thread: Mark Hirst, @DocuMark, who works for Sputnik, asks @Channel4News for evidence of Russian interference in Western democracy.
Here's Russia's RBK exposing, thanks to a whistleblower, the St Petersburg troll factory accounts which posed as Americans during the 2016 election: rbc.ru/technology_and…
Here's the list from Twitter of the 2,752 pretend American accounts, including TEN_GOP and Pamela_Moore13, which it traced to the troll factory. recode.net/2017/11/2/1659…
Read 17 tweets

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