Thread by @MollyMcKew

The "# releasethememo" campaign shows how computational propaganda & information warfare are used to promote a destructive narrative against the American mind -- and change the face of US politics. My analysis today in @POLITICOMag /1

politico.com/magazine/story…

Adding a thread on some of the supporting research for this analysis on releasethememo, conducted by @New_M_Frontier (follow the acct, we will post original research there in the future)

First, there were two big questions we wanted to explore with this analysis /2

1) lots of arguments over whether releasethememo was bots or humans, Russians or Americans, etc. So what was it?

It's a fusion of elements -- Russian, American, people, bots -- heavily overlaid with automation designed to artificially "trend" topics.

/3

2) What happens when lawmakers, conditioned to calibrate actions against popular support, are swayed by these manufactured ‘perceptions’?

We need to understand how computational propaganda & coercive information operations are changing face of US politics. Because they are. /4

So let's dig in to releasethememo a little.

# releasethememo amplified very rapidly. This chart shows the speed & lists the earliest adopters, first verified accounts that engaged the hashtag, & the first Republican congressman/candidates that promoted it

/5

"@ underthemoraine" was the first account to use the hashtag releasethememo at 3:52pmET on Jan18. The account is currently restricted by Twitter for unusual activity. We believe we have confirmed his identity; he is a guy in Michigan (Trump supporter, right-media consumer)
/6

A bot (likely a Russian bot) that follows "Moraine" quickly flagged the hashtag.
/7

Why would a bot follow a guy in Michigan? Bots both send & gather information — this intelligence gathering aspect is really important and rarely discussed.

Think of “Moraine” as a virtual “guy in a diner” — a way to keep an eye on what Trump’s base is talking about.

/8

And before we go any further -- there are bots that do this on the left, as well. While this research looks at this architecture relating to the American right, there is a less developed but no less significant architecture doing same things on the left.
/9

This right/left automation stuff is not disconnected. The narrative that underlies it is the same. It is a narrative the Russians also love. Don't trust the government; the system is rigged; burn it all down. /10

Back to releasethememo. As the amplification begins, the hashtag is tagged to right-influencers/media and Republican congressman, plus POTUS. /11

A group of accounts -- including real American Trump supporters who use software and lists that automate how they promote information in order to game the algorithms on social media -- start to push the hashtag /12

What's clear from this is they are knowingly coordinating in order to "trend" topics. Linked to the automation and other factors, this may be humans, but it is computational propaganda.

That "Queen Covfefe" account is essentially a willing human bot slaved to info ops.

/13

The next layer is right "influencers" and media personalities who start to use and retweet the hashtag.
/14

Around this time, Congressmen who have been targeted with the hashtag start to use it.

All of this is in first 8 hrs or so of the hashtag. When it explodes, being used 250k times/hour, this is still mostly without the huge right influencers engaged. They catch up on 19th

/15

That point to automation and amplification that are not organic or whatever term you want to use. More on this in article.

/16

Article also shows that Republican members of House Intelligence Committee + hardline congressional influencers were targeted w/ hashtag hundreds of thousands of times before they voted to "release the memo." They pointed to "public pressure" as reason for releasing the memo

/17

Regardless how much of the campaign was "American" and how much was "Russian", it’s clear there was a massive effort to game social media and put the Nunes memo squarely on the national agenda—and it worked to an astonishing degree.

/18

The vote to “release the memo” marked the culmination of a targeted, 11-day information operation that was amplified on Twitter by computational propaganda techniques; it aimed to change both public perceptions and the behavior of American lawmakers. It worked.

/19

Origin is not crucial thing. What matters is that someone is trying to manipulate us; tech companies allow bad actors to manipulate their platforms; politicians are either don't know what to do about computational propaganda -- or are using it to achieve their goals.

/20

Read the piece.

I'm going to spend the rest of the day dealing with a botswarm. Yay.

(Ps whoever keeps trying to hack my phone, stop. You don't need all those cat photos. I promise)

/21

politico.com/magazine/story…

Here's a bonus cat photo. At least this cat is not an info op /22