Russian hackers attempted to influence the US presidential election.
A meddling campaign carried out by the Russians, authorized at the highest levels.
Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election is now pretty well-documented.
From hacking voter registration rolls...
Russia is behind a cyber attack on a contractor for Florida's election system...
To leaking stolen DNC emails...
The Russians were responsible for hacking the DNC.
But perhaps their most ingenious tool is this:
it's a video of a guy watching news coverage
of ISIS taking credit for an explosion at a chemical plant in Louisiana.
If you're having trouble remembering this horrifying chemical plant explosion, well
that's because it never happened.
Oh man, this is f***ed up.
So if this totally legit American accent didn't already tip you off,
this video is a fake.
It's the handiwork (and I'm using that term loosely here), of a shadowy Russian organization
with ties to the Kremlin called the Internet Research Agency.
The agency does a lot more than video.
Fake Russian accounts posing as Americans have released a barrage of social media posts.
The topics of these posts vary, but the goal is always the same: to spread fear and drive
Americans opinions to the extremes.
Russia wants to destabilize Western democracies.
The Russian effort stands out just in terms of the financing behind it and the level of
organization that we saw in this campaign.
Thanks to a recent federal inditement, we now know more than ever about how exactly
Russia has been shaping the opinions of the American public.
Russians employed by people with ties to the Kremlin are asked to create convincing social
media accounts that can pass as real Americans.
Every so often, they're instructed to incorporate a Kremlin-approved message into their posts.
Then, other professional internet trolls at the agency, sometimes with the aid of bots,
comment on and share that original post.
If the trolls are successful, the messages promoted in these fake posts will leave the
circle of fake accounts and be shared by actual Americans.
These operations employ VPNs, that's Virtual Private Networks, that can mask their computer's
IP address to create the appearance that their posts originate in the US.
And they even make sure to post during US daytime hours to make their posts appear more
plausible.
There's ample proof that this scheme occurred during the election and even as recently as
the Parkland shooting in Florida.
It's not that the Russian government cares specifically about American gun rights or
ISIS activity in the US.
The point is to create division and fear.
They figure, anything that destabilizes Europe or the United States redounds to their benefit,
so they understand that our society is very divided now.
There are divisions based on race, economic interest as well as political persuasion.
It's actually very easy to pit groups against one another.
The Russian government originally deployed internet trolls within Russia.
In 2011, the country was roiled by protests in response to the election that year, which
was criticized for being fraudulent.
The government reacted by cracking down on the internet, but also employed internet trolls
to counter the protestors by spreading pro-Kremlin propaganda.
While Russian trolls were proven to have spread misinformation during the 2016 election, the
actual effect they had on the election is very difficult, if not impossible, to prove.
But the idea of a foreign government trying to drive a wedge between the American public
is extremely worrying.
Twitter has removed nearly 4,000 accounts found to be operated by Russian trolls.
And Facebook has promised changes to its algorithm for how it serves up content in your newsfeed,
to help combat the problem.
But these social media companies don't acknowledge the divisiveness that's homegrown.
It's easy to suspend inauthentic and foreign social media accounts, but what about when
real Americans are posting about virtually the same thing?
Too many Americans are getting all their information from one source, whether it's a liberal, moderate,
or conservative site.
That's dangerous just in and of itself, but especially dangerous during an era of false
or misleading information.
The most important thing the average news consumer can do is to rely on a diversity
of sources of information.
So if you're looking for content that shows off the lighter side of social media, our
sister site Eater has this amazing series about what it takes to make food go viral.
In general, if you're looking for really cool food content, Eater has you covered so go
check them out.