Thread by @SMBWhitney

🚨 Anatomy of Russian IRA Propaganda Campaign just on Twitter alone was enormous!
"Internet Research Agency archive reveals a vast, coordinated campaign that was successful at pushing out & amplifying its [twisted false] messages."6/5/2019 H/T @ericgarland
symantec.com/blogs/threat-i…

"October 2018, Twitter released a massive dataset of content posted on its service by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian company responsible for the largest propaganda campaign directed against the U.S."

"The dataset consisted of 3,836 Twitter accounts and nearly 10 million tweets. These accounts had amassed almost 6.4 million followers and were following 3.2 million accounts. The sheer volume of data was enormous,💥 more than 275 GB."

One Key Finding⤵Of Russian ATTACK on U.S.
▶DIVIDE and CONQUER
"The campaign directed propaganda at both sides of the liberal/conservative political divide in the U.S., in particular the more disaffected elements of both camps."

"Thirty-five percent pretended to support conservative causes, while 30 percent pretended to back liberal causes. The remainder masqueraded as general or political news outlets."

Russian IRA's💥 Fake News on Fake News Accounts
"Not surprisingly, a majority (55%) of the most prolific accounts were fake news accounts. ▶However, a significant number of prolific accounts had their identities masked by Twitter because they had less than 5,000 followers."

"Most of these accounts acted as auxiliary accounts and were automated in the same manner as most of the fake news accounts. However, while fake news accounts were automated to publish original content, these other accounts were automated to retweet content."

Beware of the LINKS
LINKS were inserted in Russian IRA FAKE NEWS ACCOUNT TWEETS
"Some tweets within the dataset contained links to other content. The majority of links were shortened URLs, masking the final destination."⤵

"Aside from Twitter, other social media services such as YouTube, Instagram, & Facebook also figured highly in the list of websites being linked to."⤵

Get this🔴 RUs Mixed some Honest Reporting in w their Fake:
""The rest of the list was mostly filled out by LINKS to legitimate media outlets.This suggests that, along w delivering“fake news” IRA campaign also leveraged real news stories that supported messages it was pushing.""

(So we're some Reporters in on the CON? @maggieNYT ?)

"Besides its online activities, the campaign’s operators also organized rallies supporting positions on both sides of the political spectrum."

How to Spot a Twitter Bot🔥🔥🔥26 Oct 2018

symantec.com/blogs/election…

"Some typical characteristics of BOTS on Twitter include:

🔸Many Twitter bots have a relatively recent creation date.
🔸Many bot user names contain numbers, which can indicate automatic name generation.
🔸Bots primarily retweets content, rather than tweeting original content.

🔸The bot's tweet frequency is higher than a human user could feasibly achieve.
🔸The bot may have a high number of followers and also be following a lot of accounts; conversely, some bot accounts are identifiable because they send a lot of tweets but only have a few followers.

🔸Many bots tweet the same content as other users at roughly the same time. 
🔸Short replies to other tweets can also indicate automated behavior.
🔸There is often no biography, or indeed a photo, associated with bot Twitter accounts."