Senate report finds millions of social media posts by Russians aimed at helping Trump, GOP
WASHINGTON – The Senate released Monday a pair of reports that found Russia engaged in an all-out social media campaign on Donald Trump's behalf during the 2016 election and continued to support him after he took office.
One report, compiled by Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project and a social media analysis firm called Graphika, looked at millions of posts on every popular social media platform from Facebook to Pinterest that were provided to the Senate and House Intelligence Committees.
The second report – written by New Knowledge, a cybersecurity firm specializing in protection from "social media disinformation attacks" – found that in addition to a "sweeping and sustained social influence operation," the Russians also tried to hack online voting systems and stole Clinton campaign emails, "which led to a controlled leak via Wikileaks."
According to the Oxford report, Russia's Internet Research Agency "launched an extended attack on the United States by using computational propaganda." More than 30 million people shared content from the Internet Research Agency on Facebook and Instagram between 2015 and 2017.
The report said those posts used text, videos, memes and pictures in a targeted effort to boost Trump at important moments in the campaign like the debates, conventions and Election Day. The Russian social media influence first focused on Twitter in 2013, but "quickly evolved into a but quickly evolved into a multi-platform strategy involving Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube amongst other platforms."
In February, special counsel Robert Mueller – who is leading the Justice Department investigation into Russian election meddling – indicted 13 Russian nationals and the Internet Research Agency in an alleged conspiracy to influence the 2016 election.
The Internet Research Agency operated a "troll farm" based in Russian President Vladimir Putin's hometown that employed hundreds of English speakers with "a strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political system, including... supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaging Hillary Clinton," according to the indictment.
The Oxford report said the Russian trolls' efforts focused on a few main objectives: pushing African-American voters to boycott the election and giving them misinformation about how to vote; getting Latino voters to distrust the U.S. government; "encouraging extreme right-wing voters to be more confrontational"; and spreading false stories and conspiracy theories.
The campaign had two strategies, the report said. One was to post "clickbait" content "appealing to the narratives common within a specific group" in order to drive traffic. "Then the pages posted content that intended to elicit outrage from these groups."
Efforts targeting African-Americans, Latinos, liberals and members of the LGBTQ community used different approaches with each group but the overall aim was get voters "to boycott the election, abstain from voting for Clinton, or to spread cynicism about participating in the election in general."
In contrast, conservatives "were actively encouraged to get behind Trump’s campaign."
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"Differential messaging to each of these target groups was designed to push and pull them in different ways. What is clear is that all of the messaging clearly sought to benefit the Republican Party – and specifically, Donald Trump," the report said.
The Russian campaign used a range of platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest and even Google+.
"This newly released data demonstrates how aggressively Russia sought to divide Americans by race, religion and ideology, and how the IRA actively worked to erode trust in our democratic institutions," Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., said in a statement Monday. "Most troublingly, it shows that these activities have not stopped."
"These attacks against our country were much more comprehensive, calculating and widespread than previously revealed. This should stand as a wake up call to us all that none of us are immune from this threat, and it is time to get serious in addressing this challenge," said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee.
Warner said it was time for "much-needed and long-overdue guardrails when it comes to social media" and that he hopes the reports spur legislative action."
Social media companies have taken steps to address the issue of Russia and other foreign powers using their platforms to spread misinformation for political purposes after sharp criticism from lawmakers and consumers in the wake of the 2016 election. But critics have wondered if those steps go far enough as evidence shows the efforts at manipulation continue.
Contributing: Jessica Durando, Oren Dorell and Steve Reilly
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Senate report finds millions of social media posts by Russians aimed at helping Trump, GOP
