Thread by @daithaigilbert

Inside Russia's plan to sway the the US election for Trump:

— A 277-page indictment. unsealed this week, gives unprecedented insight into the goals, target audiences, tactics and resources the Kremlin is using.

This is "Project Good Old USA"

1/11

wired.com/story/project-…

The plan was written in late August 2023 by Moscow-based company Social Design Agency. The company founder Ilya Gambashidze shared his plans with high-ranking officials in the Kremlin, and notes obtained by the FBI show Putin was among those being briefed.

2/11

Central to the plan was not trying to convince Americans that Russia was great, but to expose America's darkest fears

"They are afraid of losing the American way of life and the ‘American dream.' It is these sentiments that should be exploited," Gambashidze wrote.

3/11

To do this, they established a "project office" which consisted of four different teams, including one dedicated to monitoring GOP lawmakers and one for creating memes

4/11

The messages produced south to push racist and conspiratorial narratives that have taken hold in right-wing communities online in recent years, including a reference to the great replacement theory.

5/11

As well as using platforms like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to push their narrative, Russian is now using Trump's own Truth Social, as well as Reddit which it calls the only platform that is “free from democratic censorship.”

6/11

The plan targets a very specific audience:

"The community of American gamers, users of Reddit and image boards, such as 4chan" described as "the backbone of the right-wing trends in the US segment of the Internet”

Something Trump is also doing

7/11

wired.com/story/trump-va…

Recruiting influencers is a major aspect of the plan. At one point, one Russian official said: "We need influencers! A lot of them and everywhere. We are ready to wine and dine them."

SDA keeps a list of 2800 global influencers and another list of 1900 anti-influencers

8/11

Hours before this campaign was unmasked, the DOJ indicted Tenet Media alleging that it was paid $10M by Russian state media to push pro-Russian narratives. The company worked with some of the biggest right-wing influencers in the US such as Tim Pool

9/11

wired.com/story/right-wi…

Despite the DOJ dual announcements this week, it is unliekly that this will be the end of Russia's efforts to impact the election

"Frankly, I believe it's whack-a-mole as long as EU providers keep doing business with SDA," @antibot4navalny told me.

10/11

While the plan has secondary goals like boosting support for the US to stop sending aid to Ukraine and making President Biden less popular, the main goal of Project Good Old USA is crystal clear:

"To secure victory for Donald Trump.”

11/11

wired.com/story/project-…