Russia-Linked Twitter Accounts 'Tried To Divide UK' After Terrorist Attacks (theguardian.com)

AmiMoJo shares a report from The Guardian: Fake social media accounts linked to Russia were used to influence and interfere with public debate in the aftermath of four terrorist attacks in the UK this year, researchers have found. At least 47 Russian Twitter accounts posted material after attacks at Westminster Bridge, Manchester Arena, London Bridge and Finsbury Park, according to researchers at the Cardiff University Crime and Security Research Institute (CSRI). Of the 47 accounts, eight were especially active, posting at least 475 tweets about the four attacks, which were reposted more than 153,000 times. The accounts intervened on both sides of polarized debates to ramp up the level of discord online, the research found.

Comments

Only 47?

[HornWumpus]

Seriously 47? I call bullshit, there have to be more Russian trolls on twitter at any given second. And Americans, and Germans, and Australians, and Indians. Trolling is a world wide passtime.

Re:Only 47?

[AHuxley]

Think of the debate within NATO on that number.

Contractors wanting more over time prove 4700000 accounts are spreading news about what the Religion of War is doing.
The NSA and GCHQ are sure its 47000000 accounts and want more funding to examine 5 hops from every account.
MI5 and the FBI don't have 42300000 trusted contractors to watch 4700000 accounts in 24h shifts of 3 contractors.
Some NATO nations are sure they cannot fund the over time for 3 investigators on weekends.

After much internal debate the number 47 is selected from a list of bigger numbers.
Its not a scary big number and can be presented like the Western security services have total control of the Religion of War issue.
500 contractors watch over 47 accounts in shifts. A number NATO spending can cover.

Trusted US and European news and social media dutifully push out the 47 number.

Re:Only 47?

[blackomegax]

Nice try, Russian divisive bullshit bot

Reposted about 300 times each

[SlaveToTheGrind]

And created some sort of ill-defined "discord" -- maybe.

Meanwhile, U.S. "journalist" Brian Ross's fake news about Michael Flynn was retweeted over 25,000 times in less than half a day and caused the stock market to tank.

So yes, let's definitely keep the focus where it belongs -- on a handful of posts from Rooshun nobodies. Because that's clearly what's dividing everyone.

Re: Reposted about 300 times each

[cyber-vandal]

The newspapers in the UK are far more effective at sowing discord than a few trolls on a platform that the majority of the country doesn't use.

Has the world gone mad?

[William Baric]

Between the alt-right who thinks the Jews are controlling the world and the left who thinks it's Putin who is controlling the world, I'm beginning to think that flat-Earthers are not that bad after all.

Am I the only person on this planet who is still sane?

Re:Has the world gone mad?

[AmiMoJo]

The rational thing to do is look at the evidence. There is evidence that Russia is influencing people in the West.

Is it really surprising that Russia continues to use propaganda, especially now that we build these effective tools to disseminate it?

Re:Has the world gone mad?

[William Baric]

Yes, the rational thing to do is look at the evidence. So can we look at it? Because up to now, the only "evidence" is that there are people who say there is evidence, but we don't see any actual evidence. For example, can we look at those ads that RT America bought on Facebook to judge if the conspiracy theory can possibly be true? I'm asking this because I did see a few ads from RT in the past (not on Facebook since I don't use it), and they looked to me like all ads from any news media. It looked to me the goal of those ads were to attract viewers, nothing more.

Anyway, do you realize the alt-right is also saying the evidence shows the Jews are controlling the world and trying to destroy white people? For example, they use the "Frankfurt School" and the "Kalergi plan" as evidence. They use the fact that owners of American media are disproportionately Jewish as evidence. They use an awful lot of facts to "prove" their conspiracy theory. Of course, none of the facts presented by the alt-right are logically valid arguments to support their conspiracy theory, but don't you see the people who claim that Russia was behind a propaganda effort to make sure Trump got elected are doing the exact same thing as the alt-right? Don't you see their conspiracy theory is as crazy as the conspiracy theory of the alt-right?

Color me purple and pink!

[phantomfive]

Russians were trying to divide the country? That's awful! It could be worse, imagine if our own politicians were trying to divide the country! Oh, wait.