Foreign governments can buy ads targeting Americans, as long as they register. CONSPIRACY
They can’t commit mass identity theft and use falsified social media accounts to command an army of imposters. FRAUD
They can’t commit mass identity theft and use falsified social media accounts to command an army of imposters. FRAUD
Such as how IRA Facebook information operation, especially Events feature, yielded false counter protests from fraudulent front groups. Statement on campaign coordination here is critical. justice.gov/file/1035477/d… 
Amazing that @d1gi has been all over this starting Nov 9, 2016 and more recently with his work on fraudulent BLM Instagram/Facebook forensics. medium.com/berkman-klein-… 
The section on identity theft and fraud is significant. Shows the extent and sophistication of the RU IRA effort to impersonate and evade anti-fraud mechanisms and policies by stealing the identities of REAL AMERICANS. SSNs, the works. 
Doesn’t really matter if the ads are effective or not. What matters more is that false and stolen personas were used to buy the ads. 
Destruction of Evidence: “We had a slight crisis here at work: the FBI busted our activity (not a joke). So, I got preoccupied with covering tracks together with the colleagues.” 
There are is much insane stuff like this. Goes on for pages. Unreal. 
Russian “bots” in Mueller’s charges involve elaborate identity theft and wire fraud operation that used identity theft to commit fraud and FARA, FECA violations, a cross-platform army of imposter accounts commanded by the agency and its agents on US soil.
Kremlin support of Jill Stein appears in IRA indictment and Steele Dossier 
Just yesterday @bpopken released an RU IRA Twitter dataset and today we’ve got new analysis that lines up with Mueller’s indictment: Kremlin targeted “purple” swing states with their information war army of online imposters and secret agents on the ground.
In case you haven’t seen any footage of an RU IRA agitated discord protest/counterprotest operation that involves both online impersonation for Facebook events but also secret operatives on the ground in the US, per Mueller’s indictment.
Example in the indictment of an RU IRA operative impersonating a US voter getting official Trump campaign to respond over Facebook to discuss campaign coordination. Wow. 
The scope, scale, and sophistication of the information operation is unprecedented, as revealed by Robert Mueller’s historic indictment, impressively detailed with Putin’s expansive efforts to manufacture political chaos to the benefit of Trump.
The RU IRA Mueller indictment charges are just tip of the iceberg. See @d1gi’s latest analysis of how imposter accounts build credible reputations with followers for tactical disinformation seeding in coordination with other accounts keyed to time/topics. washingtonpost.com/business/techn…
Note how frequency of news articles pushed by RU IRA imposter accounts shapes a particular blend of media, and injects just enough RT into a heavy cocktail of Breitbart and fringe sites with mainstream news, so it mixes in. Camouflaged.
2014: Troll factory opens
2015: @AdrianChen‘s article
2016: Information War
2017: Investigations
2018: Indictments
2015: @AdrianChen‘s article
2016: Information War
2017: Investigations
2018: Indictments
The phases of the operation:
2014: Capability Development
2015: Infiltrate Audiences
2016: Influence Audiences
2016 (June-Nov): Leak Kompromat & Power Narratives
twitter.com/selected wisdom/status/964678932514586624
2014: Capability Development
2015: Infiltrate Audiences
2016: Influence Audiences
2016 (June-Nov): Leak Kompromat & Power Narratives
twitter.com/selected wisdom/status/964678932514586624
[fixed link] “The Kremlin’s playbook is in the wild, and authoritarians around the world have begun adopting their techniques in pursuit of domestic and foreign audience manipulation.”
“Soviet concept [of] “reflexive control”—applying pressure in ways to elicit a specific, known response. The intention of these campaigns was to activate—or suppress—target groups. Not to change their views, but to change their behavior.” –@MollyMcKew wired.com/story/did-russ… 
The 2017 US Defense Intelligence Agency report on Russia covers now-indicted Internet Research Agency as a covert “CyberBerkut” paramilitary force. (Flynn served as Obama’s DIA Director and visited GRU HQ during an unprecedented visit in 2013.)
Prosecuting the new crimes of 21st century information warfare: conspiracy to commit wire/passport/identity fraud by mounting massive and unregistered foreign propaganda campaign on social media supported by imposter operatives hoaxing purple state voters.
politi.co/2FaPksC
politi.co/2FaPksC
Mueller‘s patient, systematic setup. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
“While they went to great pains to say they are not indicting any Americans today, if I was an American and I did cooperate with Russians I would be extremely frightened today,” -former Fed prosecutor reut.rs/2ocZZLl
Threaded annotations of Facebook ad exec’s response to #MuellerIndictments by @donie in which the “puppet” protests in Texas are specifically mentioned:
Covert team of 80 reached 126 million Americans, starting month after annexation of Crimea, coordinating with imposter operatives catfishing grassroots orgs and campaigns.
“Inside a 3-Year Campaign to Influence US Voters” by @ScottShaneNYT @MarkMazzettiNYT nyti.ms/2BwXs70
“Inside a 3-Year Campaign to Influence US Voters” by @ScottShaneNYT @MarkMazzettiNYT nyti.ms/2BwXs70
The exquisite shrewdness of Mueller. nyti.ms/2C6XKm6 
Indictment lays bare how a foreign intelligence operation turned to targeting capabilities across Facebook and Instagram to exploit susceptible cultural divisions as an insidiously covert subversion effort. nyti.ms/2BBBbET @ktbenner @sheeraf 
We’re getting closer to confronting how indicted information warfare criminals used retargeting techniques to capture trackers from IG profile links to upload Custom Audiences data to FB.
IG meme warfare > FB CustomAudiences > FB Ad/Post > FB Group/Event
IG meme warfare > FB CustomAudiences > FB Ad/Post > FB Group/Event
“Why did this get released before POTUS decides whether to take an interview with SC? All this is timed to build more public & private pressure…. I believe there should be no comfort…that this somehow absolves them from inquiry.” gu.com/p/858hg/stw 
“Goldman’s tweets not only contradict the indictment, they also indicate he doesn’t understand the true purpose of the ads.” Facebook execs are loathe to discuss how Custom Audiences & Lookalikes let Russians refine retargeting across platforms & devices. wired.com/story/what-tru…
Used our of free speech and anonymity against us says @normative. Op-ed doesn’t mention our lack of privacy/data-protection rules as another key vulnerability adversarially exploited. Let’s not censor—instead demand data privacy for cognitive security. nyti.ms/2C4mLOD
A “factory that turned lying, telling untruths, into an industrial assembly line. The volumes were colossal — there were huge numbers of people, 300 to 400, and they were all writing absolute untruths. It was like being in Orwell’s world.” wapo.st/2o9gTuY
The incredible story behind “Putin’s cook” Yevgeny Prigozhin, criminal behind the troll factory’s information warfare operation, “a key figure in the overlapping circles of oligarchs, spooks, and organized crime figures who run Russia under Vladimir Putin” wired.com/story/inside-t…
