Shelby Grossman Profile picture
Mar 12, 2020 11 tweets 5 min read Read on X
CNN is reporting that they uncovered a Russia-linked troll farm based out of Ghana & Nigeria, operating under the front of an NGO, EBLA (Eliminating Barriers for the Liberation of Africa): cnn.com/2020/03/12/wor… Here are some prelim thoughts, with focus on the Africa dimension. Image
First, this is further evidence of foreign disinformation actors franchising out their activities via funding and involvement of locals, which my team reported on in other African countries last year.
These were very low engagement accounts; most were created in 7/2019. Following/follower ratios were close to 1, max follower count 9,345. They retweeted each other, perhaps trying to increase those numbers. They also regularly tweeted at/retweeted influencers...most in the USA. Image
Several of the accounts appear to have changed their locations from spots in Africa to cities in the US; looking back at some of their history shows these location changes. Here is one that was in Accra that then “moved” to the US and talked about her tax dollars. ImageImage
Confusingly, for example, one account called @african_news_ was more interested in US news: Image
Another account @BlackBarriers, declared its location in Accra, and focused on topics like the following: Image
There were a few accounts that tweeted about African issues. The account @_Pawa_2_da_ppl_ tweeted about xenophobia toward Nigerians in South Africa and violence against women in South Africa. Though like the above accounts, she also couldn’t tear herself away from US politics: Image
Debora was a Sarkodie fan. Same. Let’s all pause and listen to my favorite Sarkodie song: youtube.com/watch?v=559MTq…
The older accounts that started in 2014-2016 had different purposes originally - maybe because they were affiliated with a digital marketing firm. They would retweet and engage with Jumia’s various Twitter accounts, along with VodafoneGhana.
Despite some accounts being based in Nigeria, there weren’t that many tweets about Nigeria. But here’s a taste from @blackresolution, who had the profile description “elevating black lives”: Image
Facebook says they "found links to [...] individuals associated with past activity by the Russian Internet Research Agency" about.fb.com/news/2020/03/r… Congrats to Clemson, CNN, Facebook, & Twitter for finding and stopping this operation!

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More from @shelbygrossman

Oct 4, 2021
1/ Excited to have a new paper, “In-House vs. Outsourced Trolls,” forthcoming in @polcommjournal with @noupside and @aasiegel drive.google.com/file/d/1CDSmkz…
2/ We theorize tradeoffs states face in running disinfo campaigns in-house v. outsourced. Outsourcing helps states tap digital marketing experts, saves $$ & provides plausible deniability. Running things in-house can have benefits from an op security perspective.
3/ We test implications of the theory by comparing two 2014-2018 disinfo campaigns on Syria that originated in Russia: the outsourced IRA campaign & the in-house GRU campaign. We look across Instagram, Facebook, & Twitter, leveraging data the platforms turned over to the Senate.
Read 13 tweets
Jul 29, 2021
Today my team and @jeffhancock are announcing a new journal: The Journal of Online Trust and Safety. cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/announ…
We hope this journal will become a home for cutting-edge research on how internet services are abused to cause harm, and how to address these harms. These will be our priority areas:
We have an incredible editorial board, with leading researchers from communication, computer science, criminology, law, political science, psychology, and more.
Read 6 tweets
Apr 13, 2021
CW: Suicide and self-harm
Last week we published a report on self-harm policies on internet platforms. We gave Reddit a low rating, as we could not find any policies that referenced self-harm or suicide. cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/self-harm-p…
Reddit reached out on this, sending us a link to a blog post outlining their approach to self-harm. It is very thoughtful:  redditblog.com/2020/03/04/red…
In our ratings, we only counted policies that appeared in the platforms' main policy documents. For example, we did not give Instagram credit for a similarly thoughtful policy outlined in a blog post, as we worried users might not come across it. about.instagram.com/blog/announcem…
Read 8 tweets
Nov 6, 2020
🇮🇷🇦🇫 Tonight Facebook announced that they suspended a network that originated in Afghanistan and Iran and targeted Farsi/Dari speakers in Afghanistan. My Stanford Internet Observatory team has a report on this network here: cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/novemb…
This network was suspended not due to the content of its posts, but rather for coordinated inauthentic behavior; fake profiles were central to the operation.
This operation was novel in that it was oriented toward women, including promoting women’s rights. 53% percent of the Instagram accounts had profile photos of women (compared to 11% with photos of men), and the network shared stories about the educational success of women.
Read 8 tweets
Nov 6, 2020
📑 Today Facebook announced the takedown of a Muslim Brotherhood-linked network. With so many disinfo ops linked to Saudi Arabia/UAE/Egypt, it’s interesting to have a network from the other side. Here is SIO’s report, co-authored with @maffsyy & @k_ramali cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/novemb…
This network was suspended not due to the content of its posts, but rather for coordinated inauthentic behavior; fake profiles were central to the operation.
This was a complex cross-platform operation with a substantial audience. The Facebook Pages we looked at had almost 1.5 million followers. There were Twitter accounts & YouTube & Telegram channels. Here are accounts linked to one anti-UAE Page:
Read 10 tweets
Oct 8, 2020
🇸🇦Today Twitter announced the takedown of 33 accounts linked to the government of Saudi Arabia. Buckle up for this one 🎢 it’s not your standard “Qatar is the worst” Saudi disinfo operation. Here’s our report: cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/news/twitter-t…
The network had “Royal Sockpuppets”, 👑🧦 fake accounts for real dissident Qatari Royals living in Saudi. The biggest account, pretending to be Fahad bin Abdullah Al-Thani, had >1mil followers. There were also accounts pretending to be an exiled Qatari interim govt. Image
How did these accounts get such big followings? It’s hard to say, for two reasons. First, many of the accounts engaged in handle switching. The now-suspended @QtrGov was not always @QtrGov - its mentions only go back a few months even though it has existed for years.
Read 9 tweets

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