Two of Russia's goals are to weaken NATO and the EU, and Spain is a member of both. It's good target because of the Catalonian (and to a lesser degree the Basque) struggle for independence. Many...
many of those accounts are in Spanish
Two of Russia's goals are to weaken NATO and the EU, and Spain is a member of both. It's good target because of the Catalonian (and to a lesser degree the Basque) struggle for independence. Many of these accounts are 2 years old, which lines up nicely with the 2017 Catalonian independence referendum.
how old a lot of them are
That's the most worrying part for me. Most of these have posted very few submissions and comments, which probably means they were primarily used for vote manipulation. That a vote manipulation operation can continue for more than 2 years before being uncovered and stopped is pretty bad. Who knows how many of these operations are currently ongoing on Reddit?
I wonder how many of those two year old inauthentic accounts still exist? Clicking through to a few of the banned accounts I found this rambling post about how the US was planning to attack North...
That a vote manipulation operation can continue for more than 2 years before being uncovered and stopped is pretty bad.
I wonder how many of those two year old inauthentic accounts still exist? Clicking through to a few of the banned accounts I found this rambling post about how the US was planning to attack North Korea (or something, I only skimmed it) and all three non-deleted replies are from accounts that 1. seem to be agreeing with or taking seriously the message in the OP, 2. are two years old, 3. have only posted that one thing, and 4. are still active and haven't been banned by Reddit.
Yup, all those accounts were created within 4 days of each other, and their only account activity is replying to that post. Reddit has been historically really bad at identifying stuff like this....
Yup, all those accounts were created within 4 days of each other, and their only account activity is replying to that post. Reddit has been historically really bad at identifying stuff like this. I've uncovered a few spam rings there, some of them with hundreds of accounts all parroting the same message, created the same day, only replying to each other's posts. I've been told by admins at the time there wasn't enough evidence to ban them, even though it was blatantly obvious if you look at it.
What's kinda interesting though is that post was created Nov 10th, but the replies were from the 13th through the 16th, which implies these guys don't understand how reddit works, thinking they can reply to something a week later and anyone will see it.
Who knows, maybe they thought it would bump the post, or maybe it just took them a few days to get around to the "reply to this post" ticket. But yeah, Reddit seems pretty terrible about this sort...
Who knows, maybe they thought it would bump the post, or maybe it just took them a few days to get around to the "reply to this post" ticket.
But yeah, Reddit seems pretty terrible about this sort of thing. And how many other countries, corporations, political groups, or even individuals are using it to manipulate public opinion with impunity? e.g. One of the few articles I've seen specifically about foreign governments manipulating Reddit (as opposed to all the articles about Facebook, Twitter, etc.) raised a lot of questions about PRC interference but I don't remember the Reddit staff ever addressing anything about that.
These "articles" tend to be posted on multiple forums and social media sites. I found three hits for this one: Reddit, Quora, and some sort of military discussion forum. Interestingly Reddit is...
implies these guys don't understand how reddit works
These "articles" tend to be posted on multiple forums and social media sites. I found three hits for this one: Reddit, Quora, and some sort of military discussion forum. Interestingly Reddit is the only one where they appear to have commented on their own post, while the forum is probably the only place that would have worked.
I first noticed this pattern a few years back when I was active on Empeopled. Occasionally we would get these "articles" posted in the politics board, by a newly created member that was never heard from again. The topics varied a bit, but they were always subtly critical of something or someone opposed to Russia. Ukraine, NATO, and the EU were the most common targets. Searching part of the text would always reveal hits on at least one other forum or social media site, often Reddit. Interestingly the "articles" would never get any upvotes, indicating no presence of vote manipulation on Empeopled, even though that would have been fairly easy to do, and a general lack of understanding of how the site functioned.
That ain't gonna happen. I'll try. This is what is known as a "disinformation campaign." Specifically, this one is likely targeting the upcoming UK elections, and can do some splash damage to the...
That ain't gonna happen. I'll try.
This is what is known as a "disinformation campaign." Specifically, this one is likely targeting the upcoming UK elections, and can do some splash damage to the coming US election.
A "disinformation campaign" operates when a foreign intelligence agency, or somebody working on their behalf in any sort of capacity, spreads false information and lies in an effort to affect the global and local political landscape. Sites like Reddit and Facebook are particularly useful for this because you can very easily have a large reach with any bit of information you want to put up.
The Russian intelligence agency has attempted (and is most likely currently attempting) to use social media to weaken their political adversaries, namely the EU, NATO und the US. They achieve this...
The Russian intelligence agency has attempted (and is most likely currently attempting) to use social media to weaken their political adversaries, namely the EU, NATO und the US. They achieve this by spreading false information with the intent to drive wedges into the civil population of a country and thus weaken it, as a country currently dealing with internal strife is less of a danger to them (aka the US under Trump)
If you're not already familiar with it, the best place to start is the US intelligence community's unclassified report of the 2016 election: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf...
If you're not already familiar with it, the best place to start is the US intelligence community's unclassified report of the 2016 election:
Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order, but these activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations.
We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process,
denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess
Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.
This announcement from reddit is rather unsurprising, it just confirms that what Russia did in 2016, they are continuing to do in 2020.
I was surprised how many of those accounts are in Spanish, and how old a lot of them are.
Two of Russia's goals are to weaken NATO and the EU, and Spain is a member of both. It's good target because of the Catalonian (and to a lesser degree the Basque) struggle for independence. Many of these accounts are 2 years old, which lines up nicely with the 2017 Catalonian independence referendum.
That's the most worrying part for me. Most of these have posted very few submissions and comments, which probably means they were primarily used for vote manipulation. That a vote manipulation operation can continue for more than 2 years before being uncovered and stopped is pretty bad. Who knows how many of these operations are currently ongoing on Reddit?
I wonder how many of those two year old inauthentic accounts still exist? Clicking through to a few of the banned accounts I found this rambling post about how the US was planning to attack North Korea (or something, I only skimmed it) and all three non-deleted replies are from accounts that 1. seem to be agreeing with or taking seriously the message in the OP, 2. are two years old, 3. have only posted that one thing, and 4. are still active and haven't been banned by Reddit.
Yup, all those accounts were created within 4 days of each other, and their only account activity is replying to that post. Reddit has been historically really bad at identifying stuff like this. I've uncovered a few spam rings there, some of them with hundreds of accounts all parroting the same message, created the same day, only replying to each other's posts. I've been told by admins at the time there wasn't enough evidence to ban them, even though it was blatantly obvious if you look at it.
What's kinda interesting though is that post was created Nov 10th, but the replies were from the 13th through the 16th, which implies these guys don't understand how reddit works, thinking they can reply to something a week later and anyone will see it.
Who knows, maybe they thought it would bump the post, or maybe it just took them a few days to get around to the "reply to this post" ticket.
But yeah, Reddit seems pretty terrible about this sort of thing. And how many other countries, corporations, political groups, or even individuals are using it to manipulate public opinion with impunity? e.g. One of the few articles I've seen specifically about foreign governments manipulating Reddit (as opposed to all the articles about Facebook, Twitter, etc.) raised a lot of questions about PRC interference but I don't remember the Reddit staff ever addressing anything about that.
These "articles" tend to be posted on multiple forums and social media sites. I found three hits for this one: Reddit, Quora, and some sort of military discussion forum. Interestingly Reddit is the only one where they appear to have commented on their own post, while the forum is probably the only place that would have worked.
I first noticed this pattern a few years back when I was active on Empeopled. Occasionally we would get these "articles" posted in the politics board, by a newly created member that was never heard from again. The topics varied a bit, but they were always subtly critical of something or someone opposed to Russia. Ukraine, NATO, and the EU were the most common targets. Searching part of the text would always reveal hits on at least one other forum or social media site, often Reddit. Interestingly the "articles" would never get any upvotes, indicating no presence of vote manipulation on Empeopled, even though that would have been fairly easy to do, and a general lack of understanding of how the site functioned.
I hate to do this, but could someone explain this to me like I'm a kid please...
That ain't gonna happen. I'll try.
This is what is known as a "disinformation campaign." Specifically, this one is likely targeting the upcoming UK elections, and can do some splash damage to the coming US election.
A "disinformation campaign" operates when a foreign intelligence agency, or somebody working on their behalf in any sort of capacity, spreads false information and lies in an effort to affect the global and local political landscape. Sites like Reddit and Facebook are particularly useful for this because you can very easily have a large reach with any bit of information you want to put up.
I really appreciate you trying 💜
The Russian intelligence agency has attempted (and is most likely currently attempting) to use social media to weaken their political adversaries, namely the EU, NATO und the US. They achieve this by spreading false information with the intent to drive wedges into the civil population of a country and thus weaken it, as a country currently dealing with internal strife is less of a danger to them (aka the US under Trump)
If you're not already familiar with it, the best place to start is the US intelligence community's unclassified report of the 2016 election:
https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf
From that document's executive summary:
This announcement from reddit is rather unsurprising, it just confirms that what Russia did in 2016, they are continuing to do in 2020.