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By\u00a0Patrick Warren<\/b> and Darren Linvill<\/b> Here\u2019s what Russia\u2019s 2020 disinformation operations look like, according to two Clemson experts on social media and propaganda<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Darren Linvill (left) and Patrick Warren (right)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div> Internet trolls don\u2019t troll.\u00a0Not the professionals at least. Professional trolls don\u2019t go on social media to antagonize liberals or belittle conservatives. They are not narrow minded, drunk or angry. They don\u2019t lack basic English language skills. They certainly aren\u2019t \u201csomebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds,\u201d as the president once put it. Your stereotypical trolls do exist on social media, but the amateurs aren\u2019t a threat to Western democracy. Tweets are framed to serve Russia\u2019s interests in undermining Americans\u2019 trust in our institutions.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Professional trolls are good at their job. They have studied us. They understand how to harness our biases (and hashtags) for their own purposes. They know what pressure points to push and how best to drive us to distrust our neighbors. The professionals know you catch more flies with honey. They don\u2019t go to social media looking for a fight; they go looking for new best friends. And they have found them. These accounts also harness the goodwill they\u2019ve built by engaging in these communities for specific political ends. Consistent with past Russian activity, they attacked moderate politicians as a method of bolstering more polarizing candidates. Recently, Vice President Biden has been the most frequent target of this strategy, as seen in dozens of tweets such as, \u201cJoe Biden is damaging Obama\u2019s legacy with his racism and stupidity!\u201d and \u201cJoe Biden doesn\u2019t deserve our votes!\u201d They know what pressure points to push and how best to drive us to distrust our neighbors.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Russian disinformation is not just about President Trump or the 2016 presidential election. Did they work to get Trump elected? Yes, diligently. Our research has shown how Russia strategically employed social media to build support on the right for Trump and lower voter turnout on the left for Clinton. But the IRA was not created to collude with the Trump campaign. They existed well before Trump rode down that escalator and announced his candidacy, and we assume they will exist in some form well after he is gone. Russia\u2019s goals are to further widen existing divisions in the American public and decrease our faith and trust in institutions that help maintain a strong democracy. If we focus only on the past or future, we will not be prepared for the present. It\u2019s not about election 2016 or 2020. Tips for Avoiding\u00a0Online Disinformation<\/strong><\/p>\n 1<\/span> \u00a0 Be careful whose content you share.<\/strong><\/p>\n Remember, bad actors aren\u2019t always the account you disagree with. All too often, online trolls pretend to be your friend. Just because someone says they share your beliefs doesn’t necessarily mean it is true.<\/p>\n 2<\/span> \u00a0 Be wary of anonymous strangers.<\/strong><\/p>\n The rules in the digital world are the same as the real world. In the real world, strangers who hide their identity are probably less likely to have your best interest at heart. The same is true online.<\/p>\n 3<\/span> \u00a0 Double check information before\u00a0you share it.<\/strong><\/p>\n There are many nonpartisan fact-checking websites you can visit, including snopes.com<\/i> and politifact.com.<\/i> Misinformation can’t spread if we all take a breath and check our sources. Also, photo sourcing tools, such as tineye.com,<\/i> can help you track the URL of an image\u00a0to see if it has appeared anywhere else online.<\/p>\n 4<\/span> \u00a0 Don\u2019t rely on social media for your news.<\/strong><\/p>\n Most Americans now get their news from social media, and this often means they are getting their news in a bubble (and bad actors rely on this!). Try visiting news aggregators, like Google News, that offer users a range of sources on every story.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div> Story Extras<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Learn more about the Media Forensics Hub<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Want to find out how good you are at spotting disinformation online?\u00a0Take Linvill and Warren\u2019s \u201cSpot the Troll\u201d quiz.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Warren and Linvill have been published and quoted extensively in national media; explore some of those stories in the links below:<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
\nIllustrations by\u00a0Chris Koelle<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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\nProfessional trolls, on the other hand, are the tip of the spear in the new digital, ideological battleground. To combat the threat they pose, we must first understand them \u2014 and take them seriously.
\nOn August 22, 2019, @IamTyraJackson received almost 290,000 likes on Twitter for a single tweet. Put in perspective, the typical tweet President Trump sends to his 67 million followers gets about 100,000 likes. That viral tweet by\u00a0<\/span>@IamTyraJackson was innocent: an uplifting pair of images of former pro football player Warrick Dunn and a description of his inspiring charity work building houses for single mothers. For an anonymous account that had only existed for only a few months, \u201cTyra\u201d knew her audience well. Warrick\u2019s former coach, Tony Dungy, retweeted it, as did the rapper and producer Chuck D. Hundreds of thousands of real users viewed Tyra\u2019s tweet and connected with its message. For \u201cTyra,\u201d however, inspiring messages like this were a tool for a very different purpose.
\nThe purpose of the Tyra account, we believe, was not to spread heartwarming messages to Americans. Rather, the tweet about Warrick Dunn was really a Trojan horse to gain followers in a larger plan by a foreign adversary. We think this because we believe @IamTyraJackson was an account operated by the successors to Russia\u2019s Internet Research Agency (IRA). Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted the IRA for waging a massive information war during the 2016 U.S. election. Since then, the IRA seems to have been subsumed into Russia\u2019s Federal News Agency, but its work continues. In the case of @IamTyraJackson, the IRA\u2019s goal was two-fold: Grow an audience in part through heartwarming, inspiring messages, and use that following to spread messages promoting division, distrust and doubt.
\nWe\u2019ve spent the past two years studying online disinformation and building a deep understanding of Russia\u2019s strategy, tactics and impact. Working from data Twitter has publicly released, we\u2019ve read Russian tweets until our eyes bled. Looking at a range of behavioral signals, we have begun to develop procedures to identify disinformation campaigns and have worked with Twitter to suspend accounts. In the process we\u2019ve shared what we\u2019ve learned with people making a difference, both in and out of government. We have experienced a range of emotions studying what the IRA has produced, from disgust at their overt racism to amusement at their sometimes self-reflective humor. Mostly, however, we\u2019ve been impressed.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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\nDisinformation operations aren\u2019t typically fake news or outright lies. Disinformation is most often simply spin. Spin is hard to spot and easy to believe, especially if you are already inclined to do so. While the rest of the world learned how to conduct a modern disinformation campaign from the Russians, it is from the world of public relations and advertising that the IRA learned their craft. To appreciate the influence and potential of Russian disinformation, we need to view them less as Boris and Natasha and more like Don Draper.
\nAs good marketers, professional trolls manipulate our emotions subtly. In fall 2018, for example, a Russian account we identified called @PoliteMelanie re-crafted an old urban legend, tweeting: \u201cMy cousin is studying sociology in university. Last week she and her classmates polled over 1,000 conservative Christians. \u2018What would you do if you discovered that your child was a homo sapiens?\u2019 55% said they would disown them and force them to leave their home.\u201d This tweet, which suggested conservative Christians are not only homophobic but also ignorant, was subtle enough to not feel overtly hateful, but was also aimed directly at multiple cultural stress points, driving a wedge at the point where religiosity and ideology meet. The tweet was also wildly successful, receiving more than 90,000 retweets and nearly 300,000 likes.
\nThis tweet didn\u2019t seek to anger conservative Christians or to provoke Trump supporters. She wasn\u2019t even talking to them. Melanie\u2019s 20,000 followers, painstakingly built, weren\u2019t from #MAGA America (Russia has other accounts targeting them). Rather, Melanie\u2019s audience was made up of educated, urban, left-wing Americans harboring a touch of self-righteousness. She wasn\u2019t selling her audience a candidate or a position \u2014 she was selling an emotion. Melanie was selling disgust. The Russians know that, in political warfare, disgust is a more powerful tool than anger. Anger drives people to the polls; disgust drives countries apart.
\nAccounts like @IamTyraJackson have continued @PoliteMelanie\u2019s work. Professional disinformation isn\u2019t spread by the account you disagree with \u2014 quite the opposite. Effective disinformation is embedded in an account you agree with. The professionals don\u2019t push you away, they pull you toward them. While tweeting uplifting messages about Warrick Dunn\u2019s real-life charity work, Tyra, and several accounts we associated with her, also distributed messages consistent with past Russian disinformation. Importantly, they highlighted issues of race and gender inequality. A tweet about Brock Turner\u2019s Stanford rape case received 15,000 likes. Another about police targeting black citizens in Las Vegas was liked more than 100,000 times. Here is what makes disinformation so difficult to discuss: while these tweets point to valid issues of concern \u2014 issues that have been central to important social movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo \u2014 they are framed to serve Russia\u2019s interests in undermining Americans\u2019 trust in our institutions.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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\nThe quality of Russia\u2019s work has been honed over several years and millions of social media posts. They have appeared on Instagram, Stitcher, Reddit, Google+, Tumblr, Medium, Vine, Meetup and even Pok\u00e9mon Go, demonstrating not only a nihilistic creativity, but also a ruthless efficiency in volume of production. The IRA has been called a \u201ctroll farm,\u201d but they are undoubtedly a factory.
\nWhile personas like Melanie and Tyra were important to Russian efforts, they were ultimately just tools, interchangeable parts constructed for a specific audience. When shut down, they were quickly replaced by other free-to-create, anonymous accounts. The factory doesn\u2019t stop. They attack issues from both sides, attempting to drive mainstream viewpoints in polar and extreme directions.
\nIn a free society, we must accept that bad actors will try to take advantage of our openness. But we need to learn to question our own and others\u2019 biases on social media. We need to teach \u2014 to individuals of all ages \u2014 that we shouldn\u2019t simply believe or repost anonymous users because they used the same hashtag we did, and neither should we accuse them of being a Russian bot simply because we disagree with their perspective. We need to teach digital civility. It will not only weaken foreign efforts, but it will also help us better engage online with our neighbors, especially the ones we disagree with.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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\nThe IRA generated more social media content in the year following the 2016 election than the year before it. They also moved their office into a bigger building with room to expand. Their work was never just about elections. Rather, the IRA encourages us to vilify our neighbor and amplify our differences because, if we grow incapable of compromising, there can be no meaningful democracy. Russia has dug in for a long campaign. So far, we\u2019re helping them win.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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