Thoughts from CNN takedown of a Russian troll farm operating out of Ghana and Nigeria.
1) Alarming that a group of 24 kids working on Samsung Galaxy’s (no laptops) at a big table were able to reach more than a quarter of a million people, mostly Americans, in just a few months
1) Alarming that a group of 24 kids working on Samsung Galaxy’s (no laptops) at a big table were able to reach more than a quarter of a million people, mostly Americans, in just a few months
2) Also scary, that even after the fake NGO EBLA was raided by Ghanaian security forces, employees simply changed handle names, kept posting and held secret meetings on park benches to go over their social media “impressions” and targets
3) The trolls were paid roughly $300 a month with the opportunity to make more if they opened more accounts. Entry level employees managed an average of three. They were initially paid by cash and then by mobile payment which some said they found odd.
4) Tactics almost identical to Prigozhin IRA troll factory. Employees were each given a different beat/ topic to focus on. They had to send screen grabs of their reach/ retweets to boss every day. Bonuses were promised based on number of followers and reach of a post.
5) All 16 Ghanaian employees we spoke to claimed they had no idea they were working for a Russian troll factory and no idea that they were targeting African Americans.
6) This rings true and yet so many of them implied they were Americans, or had twitter accounts saying they were in the US and posted almost exclusively about the US that some must have realised their activity didn’t match the purported profile of the NGO.
7) Many of them have reached out to me since FB/IG/Twitter took down their accounts, scared and trying to understand what they did wrong. They were heavily brainwashed by their boss, Seth Wiredu, who told them they were warriors against discrimination.
8) Outsourcing networks to African countries is just one step Russia’s trolls have taken to improve their operational security after last election (admittedly the bar was low). Previously they were opening pages using Russian cell phone numbers.
9) The trolls were careful not to break the rules of Twitter. The goal was to slowly build credibility and grow an audience and plant stories with legitimate actors with big followings.
10) Using a fake NGO to give a fig leaf of credibility is another classic Russian tactic. See recent articles on AFRIC- an NGO believed to be funded by Yevgeny Prigozhin.
11) CNN did reach out to Prigozhin for comment but, unsurprisingly, did not hear back from him.
12) One other interesting tidbit- some of the employees did hear Wiredu talking about using Bitcoin. Crypto currencies are basic at impossible to track making them popular with those involved in scurrilous activity.
13) Wiredu’s brother, who lives in Russia too, works for a crypto currency company and hosted a big event in Accra that many of the EBLA employees attended. CNN was not able to verify if there was a connection in terms of funding.
14) One thing we spent a lot of time pondering was why EBLA would post a job on LinkedIn in Charleston, South Carolina, just as the IRA did in 2016
15) One possibility is that they needed an American employee to enable them to buy advertising on Facebook. But it was definitely risky and elevated their profile.
16) FB/ IG/ Twitter see this as an important success story for them- they were able to take down the network before it reached its peak. But also highlights the mammoth task they have ahead of them this year.
17) Anyone who is interested should definitely read the amazingly detailed @benimmo report in Graphika graphika.com/doubledeceit
