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…
Here's Facebook confirming that troll-factory accounts masquerading as Americans staged a face-off in Texas: motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/…
Here's Facebook's assessment that 29 million people were served content directly from the troll factory, and millions more saw it: money.cnn.com/2017/10/30/med…
In the UK, here's the Russian observer claiming that Scotland's independence referendum in 2014 didn't meet international standards:
Pro-Kremlin trolls - anonymous, active, repeatedly spreading Kremlin lines on issues like Ukraine, MH17 and Turkey - spread that message too. Some clearly weren't native speakers.
More evidence here. medium.com/dfrlab/electio…
Trolls have been targeting UK MPs, too. Including this one, which stole its avatar picture and poses as an English racist, but can't use "a" and "the":
Other trolls did the same, and were part of a community with known troll-factory accounts TEN_GOP and Pamela_Moore13:
More evidence on that here. medium.com/dfrlab/russian…
It's correct that I worked at NATO (2011-14). It's also true that I no longer work at NATO, and instead work on exposing propaganda, including from Russian state outlets, such as this. medium.com/dfrlab/russias…
I also expose disinfo and online manipulation in other areas, such as the US, Europe and South Africa: medium.com/dfrlab/electio…
None of this equates to an "anti-Russian agenda". RT and Sputnik are not Russia. Trolls are not Russia. Putin is not Russia. Russia is a country.
I call Sputnik propaganda because its parent company's official task, per presidential decree, is to "report the state policy of the Russian Federation abroad". That's propaganda. static.kremlin.ru/media/events/f…
Sputnik's founding charter adds another task: "securing the national interests of the Russian Federation in the information sphere". (Source: fapmc.ru/mobile/rospech…) That's propaganda too.
Interference? Yes. Propaganda? Yes. Evidence? Yes. / Thread ends.
