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Internet Research Agency

February 16, 2024

The Internet Research Agency (IRA; Russian: Агентство интернет-исследований, romanized: Agentstvo internet-issledovaniy), also known as Glavset (Russian: Главсеть),[1] and known in Russian Internet slang as the Trolls from Olgino (Russian: ольгинские тролли) or Kremlinbots (Russian: кремлеботы[2]), was a Russian company which was engaged in online propaganda and influence operations on behalf of Russian business and political interests.[3] It was linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former Russian oligarch who was leader of the Wagner Group, and based in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Internet Research Agency
Агентство интернет-исследований
Formation26 July 2013 (2013-07-26)
FounderYevgeny Prigozhin
Dissolved1 July 2023 (2023-07-01)
PurposeInternet manipulation, spreading disinformation
HeadquartersOlgino
Location

The agency was first mentioned in 2016, when Russian journalist Andrey Zakharov published his investigation into Prigozhin’s "troll factory".[4] The January 2017 report issued by the United States Intelligence Community – Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections – described the agency as a troll farm: "The likely financier of the so-called Internet Research Agency of professional trolls located in Saint Petersburg is a close ally of [Vladimir] Putin with ties to Russian intelligence," commenting that "they previously were devoted to supporting Russian actions in Ukraine—[and] started to advocate for candidate Trump as early as December 2015."

The agency employed fake accounts registered on major social networking sites,[5] discussion boards, online newspaper sites, and video hosting services to promote the Kremlin's interests in domestic and foreign policy including Ukraine and the Middle East as well as attempting to influence the 2016 United States presidential election. More than 1,000 employees reportedly worked in a single building of the agency in 2015.

The extent to which the agency tried to influence public opinion using social media became better known after a June 2014 BuzzFeed News article greatly expanded on government documents published by hackers earlier that year.[6] The Internet Research Agency gained more attention by June 2015, when one of its offices was reported as having data from fake accounts used for biased Internet trolling. Subsequently, there were news reports of individuals receiving monetary compensation for performing these tasks.[7]

On 16 February 2018, a United States grand jury indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities, including the Internet Research Agency, on charges of violating criminal laws with the intent to interfere "with U.S. elections and political processes", according to the Justice Department.[8] On 1 July 2023, it was announced that the Internet Research Agency would be shut down following the aftermath of the Wagner Group rebellion.[9][10]

Origin edit

See also: Web brigades

In Leningrad Oblast in the late 1970s, Vladimir Putin's first KGB post was with the 5th Department, which countered dissidents with disinformation using active measures, and was strongly supported by Filipp Bobkov and the head of the KGB Yuri Andropov, who believed in "stamping out dissent".[11][12][13]

Revealed on 16 August 2012 in an article by the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, the website for the company Medialogia[b] offered a system known as Prisma terminals (Russian: Терминалы «Призма») which, according to Farit Khusnoyarov,[c] Prism could track for the Kremlin in near real time the stand-alone blog platforms and social networks of nearly 60 million sites and could analyze the tone of the statements of each of these sources with a lag of several minutes or given as an estimated error of 2-3% almost in real time. The article called the terminals Volodin's Prism (Russian: Призма Володина) for Vyacheslav Volodin.[d] After the Snow revolution following the 4 December 2011 Russian legislative elections, Volodin actively used his Prism terminal, which he received on the eve of the elections, to counter dissidents in Russia. Others using Prisma include Sergei Naryshkin's office in the State Duma, senior officials at the Main Center for Communications and Information Security (Russian: Главный центр связи и информационной безопасности) in the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD)[e] senior officials at Moscow City Hall[f] and employees close to the head of Rosneft Igor Sechin.[18][19][20][g]

The Internet Research Agency was founded in mid-2013.[21] In 2013, Novaya Gazeta newspaper reported that Internet Research Agency Ltd's office was in Olgino, a historic district of Saint Petersburg.[22]

The terms "Trolls from Olgino" and "Olgino's trolls" (Russian: "Тролли из Ольгино", "Ольгинские тролли") have become general terms denoting trolls who spread pro-Russian propaganda, not only necessarily those based at the office in Olgino.[23][24][25]

Information of the work being conducted at the Agency comes in part from interviews with former employees.[26]

In February 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the private military company Wagner Group, stated that he founded the IRA: "I’ve never just been the financier of the Internet Research Agency. I invented it, I created it, I managed it for a long time."[27] The admission came months after Prigozhin had admitted to Russian interference in U.S. elections.[27]

Organizers edit

Strategic edit

Russian newspaper Vedomosti links the approved-by-Russian-authorities strategy of public consciousness manipulation through new media to Vyacheslav Volodin, first deputy of the Vladimir Putin Presidential Administration of Russia.[21][28]

Tactical edit

External videos
  Why are Russian trolls spreading online hoaxes in the U.S.?, PBS News Hour (PBS is funded by member station dues, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, corporate contributions, pledge drives, foundations and individual citizens.), 8 June 2015[29]

Journalists have written that Alexey Soskovets, who had participated in the Russian youth political community, was directly connected to the office in Olgino, and that his company, North-Western Service Agency, won 17 or 18 (according to different sources) contracts for organizing celebrations, forums and sport competitions for authorities of Saint Petersburg and that Soskovets' company was the only participant in half of those bids. In mid-2013 the agency won a tender for providing freight services for participants of Seliger camp.[22][30]

In 2014, according to Russian media, Internet Research Ltd. (Russian: «Интернет исследования») was founded in March 2014, and joined IRA's activity. The newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported that this company is a successor of Internet Research Agency Ltd.[31] Internet Research Ltd. is considered to be linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the holding company Concord Management and Consulting. The "Trolls of Olgino" are considered to be his project. As of October 2014, the company belonged to Mikhail Bystrov, who had been the head of the police station at Moscow district of Saint Petersburg.[32]

Russian media point out that according to documents, published by hackers from Anonymous International, Concord Management is directly involved with trolling administration through the agency. Researchers cite e-mail correspondence, in which Concord Management gives instructions to trolls and receives reports on accomplished work.[24] According to journalists, Concord Management organized banquets in the Kremlin and also cooperated with Voentorg and the Russian Ministry of Defence.[33]

Despite links to Alexei Soskovets, Nadejda Orlova, deputy head of the Committee for Youth Policy in Saint Petersburg, disputed a connection between her institution and the trolling offices.[22]

Finnish journalist Jessikka Aro, who reported extensively on the pro-Russian trolling activities in Finland, was targeted by an organized campaign of hate, disinformation and harassment.[34][35][36]

Offices edit

Saint Petersburg edit

2013: 131 Primorskoye Shosse, Olgino, Saint Petersburg edit

59°59′42.7″N 30°07′49.7″E / 59.995194°N 30.130472°E / 59.995194; 30.130472

 
One of the offices at 55 Savushkina Street in Saint Petersburg, Russia

As reported by Novaya Gazeta, in the end of August 2013, the following message appeared in social networks: "Internet operators wanted! Job at chic office in Olgino!!! (st. Staraya Derevnia), salary 25960 per month (USD$780 as of 2013). Task: posting comments at profile sites in the Internet, writing thematic posts, blogs, social networks. Reports via screenshots. Individual schedule [...] Payment every week, 1180 per shift (from 8.00 to 16.00, from 10.30 to 18.30, from 14.00 to 22.00). PAYMENTS EVERY WEEK AND FREE MEALS!!! Official job placement or according to contract (at will). Tuition possible."[22]

As reported by media and former employees, the office in Olgino, Primorskiy district, St. Peterburg had existed and had been functioning since September 2013. It was situated in a white cottage,[23] 15 minutes by an underground railway from Staraya Derevnia station, opposite Olgino railway station.[22] Workplaces for troll-employees were placed in basement rooms.[30][37][38][39][40][41][42]

2014: 55 Ulitsa Savushkina (Street), Saint Petersburg edit

59°59′03.5″N 30°16′19.1″E / 59.984306°N 30.271972°E / 59.984306; 30.271972

According to Russian online newspaper DP.ru, several months before October 2014 the office moved from Olgino to a four-story building at 55 Savushkina Street, Primorskiy district, St. Peterburg.[32][43] As reported by journalists, the building is officially an uncompleted construction and stayed as such as of March 2015.[31][44][45]

A New York Times investigative reporter was told that the Internet Research Agency had shortened its name to "Internet Research," and as of June 2015 had been asked to leave the 55 Savushkina Street location "a couple of months ago" because "it was giving the entire building a bad reputation." A possibly related organization, FAN or Federal News Agency, was located in the building. The New York Times article describes various experiences reported by former employees of the Internet Research Agency at the Savushkina Street location. It also describes several disruptive hoaxes in the US and Europe, such as the Columbian Chemicals Plant explosion hoax, that may be attributable to the Internet Research Agency or similar Russian-based organizations.[46]

1 February 2018: Optikov street, 4, building 3, Lakhta-2 business center, Lakhta, Saint Petersburg edit

59°59′41.5068″N 30°14′44.4588″E / 59.994863000°N 30.245683000°E / 59.994863000; 30.245683000

Reported by the Russian online newspaper DP.ru in December 2017, the office moved from the four-story building at 55 Savushkina Street to Lakhta on four floors at Optikov street [ru], 4 building 3 (Russian: Санкт-Петербург: улица Оптикова, 4 корпус 3) near Staroderevenskaya street [ru] (Russian: Стародеревенская улица) in the Lakhta-2 business center (Russian: «Лахта-2») on 1 February 2018.[47][48][49] Beginning in February 2018, they were also known as the "Lakhta Trolls" (Russian: Лахта Тролли).[47]

Other cities edit

Novaya Gazeta reported that, according to Alexey Soskovets, head of the office in Olgino, North-Western Service Agency was hiring employees for similar projects in Moscow and other cities in 2013.[22]

Work organization edit

More than 1,000 paid bloggers and commenters reportedly worked only in a single building at Savushkina Street in 2015.[50] Many other employees work remotely. According to BuzzFeed News, more than 600 people were generally employed in the trolls' office earlier, in June 2014.[6] Each commentator has a daily quota of 100 comments.[22][51]

Trolls took shifts writing mainly in blogs on LiveJournal and Vkontakte, about subjects along the propaganda lines assigned. Included among the employees are artists who draw political cartoons.[31] They work for 12 hours every other two days. A blogger's quota is ten posts per shift, each post at least 750 characters. A commenter's norm is 126 comments and two posts per account. Each blogger is in charge of three accounts.[32][43]

Employees at the Olgino office earned 25,000 Russian rubles per month (at the time roughly US$651.41); those at the Savushkina Street office earned approximately 40,000 Russian rubles.[32][43] In May 2014, Fontanka.ru described schemes for plundering the federal budget, intended to go toward the trolling organization.[24][21] In 2017 another whistleblower said that with bonuses and long working hours the salary can reach 80,000 rubles.[52]

An employee interviewed by The Washington Post described the work:

I immediately felt like a character in the book 1984 by George Orwell — a place where you have to write that white is black and black is white. Your first feeling, when you ended up there, was that you were in some kind of factory that turned lying, telling untruths, into an industrial assembly line.[53]

According to a 2018 Kommersant article, Yaroslov Ignatovsky (Russian: Ярослав Ринатович Игнатовский; born 1983, Leningrad) heads Politgen (Russian: "Политген") and is a political strategist that has coordinated the trolls' efforts for Prigozhin.[54][55][56]

Trolling themes edit

According to the testimonies of the investigative journalists and former employees of the offices, the main topics for posts included:[22][25][32][43]

The IRA has also leveraged trolls to erode trust in American political and media institutions and showcase certain politicians as incompetent.[3] Journalists have written that themes of trolling were consistent with those of other Russian propaganda outlets in topics and timing. Technical points used by trolls were taken mainly from content disseminated by RT (formerly Russia Today).[31][43]

A 2015 BBC News investigation identified the Olgino factory as the most likely producer of a September 2015 "Saiga 410K review"[58] video where an actor posing as a U.S. soldier shoots at a book that turns out to be a Quran, which sparked outrage. BBC News found among other irregularities that the soldier's uniform is not used by the U.S. military and is easily purchased in Russia, and that the actor filmed was most likely a bartender from Saint Petersburg related to a troll factory employee.[59][60]

The citizen-journalism site Bellingcat identified the team from Olgino as the real authors of a video attributed to the Azov Battalion in which masked soldiers threaten the Netherlands for organizing the referendum on the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement.[61]

Organized anti-Ukrainian campaign edit

See also: Media portrayal of the Ukrainian crisis and Russian information war against Ukraine

In the beginning of April 2014 there began an organized online campaign to shift public opinion in the Western world in a way that would be useful for Russian authorities regarding the Russian military intervention in Ukraine in 2014. Hacked and leaked documents from that time contain instructions for commenters posting at the websites of Fox News, The Huffington Post, TheBlaze, Politico, and WorldNetDaily. The requirement for the working hours for the trolls is also mentioned: 50 comments under news articles per day. Each blogger had to manage six accounts on Facebook, post at least three posts every day, and participate twice in the group discussions. Other employees had to manage 10 accounts on Twitter, publishing 50 tweets every day. Journalists concluded that Igor Osadchiy was a probable leader of the project, and the campaign itself was run by Internet Research Agency Ltd. Osadchiy denied his connection to the agency.[6]

The company was also one of the main sponsors of an anti-Western exhibition Material Evidence.[62]

In the beginning of 2016, Ukraine's state-owned news agency Ukrinform claimed to expose a system of bots in social networks, which called for violence against the Ukrainian government and for starting "The Third Maidan".[h] They reported that the organizer of this system is the former anti-Ukrainian combatant Sergiy Zhuk from Donbas. He allegedly performed his Internet activity from Vnukovo District in Moscow.[63]

Reactions edit

Foreign edit

 
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Internet Research Agency Indictment

In March 2014, the Polish edition of Newsweek expressed suspicion that Russia was employing people to "bombard" its website with pro-Russian comments on Ukraine-related articles.[64] Poland's governmental computer emergency response team later confirmed that pro-Russia commentary had flooded Polish Internet portals at the start of the Ukrainian crisis.[65][66] German-language media websites were also flooded with pro-Russia comments in the spring of 2014.[67][68][69][70][71]

In late May 2014, the hacker group Anonymous International began publishing documents received from hacked emails of Internet Research Agency managers.[21][25]

In May–June 2014, Internet trolls invaded news media sites and massively posted pro-Russian comments in broken English.[72][21][73]

In March 2015 a service enabling censorship of sources of anti-Ukrainian propaganda in social networks inside Ukraine was launched.[74][75]

The United States Justice Department announced the indictment on 16 February 2018, of the Internet Research Agency while also naming more than a dozen individual suspects who allegedly worked there as part of the special counsel's investigation into criminal interference with the 2016 election.[76]

Assessments edit

Russian bloggers Anton Nosik, Rustem Adagamov, and Dmitriy Aleshkovskiy have said that paid Internet-trolls don't change public opinion. Their usage is just a way to steal budget money.[24][21][25]

Leonid Volkov, a politician working for Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, suggests that the point of sponsoring paid Internet trolling is to make the Internet so distasteful that ordinary people are not willing to participate.[46] The Columbian Chemicals Plant explosion hoax on 11 September 2014, was the work of Internet Research Agency.[46]

According to a 2019 report by Oxford researchers including sociologist Philip N. Howard, social media played a major role in political polarization in the United States, due to computational propaganda – "the use of automation, algorithms, and big-data analytics to manipulate public life"—such as the spread of fake news and conspiracy theories. The researchers highlighted the role of the Russian Internet Research Agency in attempts to undermine democracy in the US and exacerbate existing political divisions. The most prominent methods of misinformation were "organic posting, not advertisements", and influence operation activity increased after the 2016 and was not limited to the 2016 election.[77][78] Examples of efforts included "campaigning for African American voters to boycott elections or follow the wrong voting procedures in 2016", "encouraging extreme right-wing voters to be more confrontational", and "spreading sensationalist, conspiratorial, and other forms of junk political news and misinformation to voters across the political spectrum."[77]

The political scientist Thomas Rid has said that the IRA was the least effective of all Russia's interference campaigns in the 2016 U.S. election, despite its outsized press coverage, and that it made no measurable impact on American voters.[79]

A study published in Nature in 2023 found "no evidence of a meaningful relationship between exposure to the Russian foreign influence campaign and changes in attitudes, polarization, or voting behavior".[80]

Additional activities of organizers edit

Main article: Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections

Based on the documents published by Anonymous International, Concord Management and Consulting was linked to the funding of several media outlets in Ukraine and Russia, including Kharkiv News Agency,[25] News of Neva, Newspaper About Newspapers, Business Dialog, and Journalist Truth.[24]

The Columbian Chemicals Plant explosion hoax of 11 September 2014, which claimed an explosion had taken place at a chemical plant in Centerville, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, has been attributed in June 2015, by The New York Times Magazine, as "a highly coordinated disinformation campaign" and that the "virtual assault" was the work of the Internet Research Agency.[81]

Three months later, the same accounts posted false messages on Twitter about an Ebola outbreak in Atlanta under the keyword #EbolaInAtlanta, quickly relayed and picked up by users living in the city. A video was then posted on YouTube, showing a medical team treating an alleged Ebola victim at Atlanta Airport. On the same day, a different group launched a rumor on Twitter under the keyword #shockingmurderinatlanta, reporting the death of a disarmed black woman shot by police. Again, a blurry and poorly filmed video is broadcast to support the rumor.[82]

Between July 2014 and September 2017, the IRA used bots and trolls on Twitter to sow discord about the safety of vaccines.[83][84] The campaign used sophisticated Twitter bots to amplify highly polarizing pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine messages containing the hashtag #VaccinateUS.[83] In November 2017, The Guardian cited a University of Edinburgh study which found that hundreds of IRA accounts were also trying to influence UK politics by tweeting about Brexit.[85]

In September 2017 Facebook said that ads had been "geographically targeted".[86][87] Facebook revealed that during the 2016 United States presidential election, IRA had purchased advertisements on the website for US$100,000, 25% of which were geographically targeted to the U.S.[88] Facebook's chief security officer said that the ads "appeared to focus on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum".[86][87]

In reviewing the ads buys, we have found approximately $100,000 in ad spending from June of 2015 to May of 2017 – associated with roughly 3,000 ads – that was connected to about 470 inauthentic accounts and Pages in violation of our policies. Our analysis suggests these accounts and Pages were affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia.

— Facebook's chief security officer Alex Stamos, September 6, 2017, [89]

According to a 17 October 2017 BuzzFeed News report, IRA recruited four African-American activists into taking real action via protests and self-defense training in what would seem to be a further attempt to exploit racial grievances.[90] According to reporting by Vanity Fair, up until that point, most known efforts had been aimed at "weaponizing the far-right".[91]

A December 2018 report by The New York Times based on U.S. Senate data noted that the Internet Research Agency had created 81 Facebook pages around the time of the 2016 election. Of these, 30 pages specifically targeted African-Americans, attracting a total of 1.2 million followers. During the same time period, it had created 25 pages targeting right-wing audiences, and these had attracted a total of 1.4 million followers.[92] According to The New York Times,[92]

While the right-wing pages promoted Mr. Trump’s candidacy, the left-wing pages scorned Mrs. Clinton while promoting Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. The voter suppression effort was focused particularly on Sanders supporters and African-Americans, urging them to shun Mrs. Clinton in the general election and either vote for Ms. Stein or stay home.

Once the election was concluded, the IRA posted messages mocking accusations of Russian interference, with one post reading: “You’ve lost and don’t know what to do? Just blame it on Russian hackers.”[92]

On 16 February 2018, the Internet Research Agency, along with 13 Russian individuals and two other Russian organizations, was indicted following an investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller with charges stemming from "impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of government."[93]

On 23 March 2018, The Daily Beast revealed new details about IRA gathered from leaked internal documents,[94] which showed that IRA used Reddit and Tumblr as part of its influence campaign.[95] On the same day, Tumblr announced that they had banned 84 accounts linked to IRA, saying that they had spread misinformation through conventional postings rather than advertisements.[96][97]

In October 2018 the US Justice Department filed charges against Russian accountant Elena Khusyaynova for working with the IRA to influence not only the 2016 elections but also the upcoming 2018 midterm elections[98] As of February 2024, Khusyaynova has not been apprehended, according to the Rewards for Justice Program.[99]

Rallies and protests organized by IRA in the United States edit

Further information: Russia and Black Lives Matter
 
Michael Moore at the anti-Trump rally in New York City, 12 November 2016, which was allegedly organized by a Russian group.[100]

On 4 April 2016, a rally in Buffalo, New York protested the death of India Cummings, a black woman who had recently died in police custody. IRA's "Blacktivist" Facebook account actively promoted the event and reached out directly to local activists on Facebook Messenger asking them to circulate petitions and print. "Blacktivist" supplied the petitions and poster artwork.[94]

On 16 April 2016, a rally protesting the death of Freddie Gray attracted large crowds in Baltimore. IRA's "Blacktivist" Facebook group promoted and organized the event, including reaching out to local activists.[101]

On 23 April 2016, a small group of white-power demonstrators held a rally they called "Rock Stone Mountain" at Stone Mountain Park near Stone Mountain, Georgia. They were confronted by a large group of anti-racist counterprotestors, and some violent clashes ensued. The protest was heavily promoted by IRA accounts on Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook, and the IRA website blackmatters.com. The IRA used its Blacktivist Facebook account to reach out, to no avail, to activist and academic Barbara Williams Emerson, the daughter of Hosea Williams, to help promote the protests. Afterward, RT blamed anti-racists for violence and promoted two videos shot at the event.[94]

On 2 May 2016, a second rally was held in Buffalo, New York, protesting the death of India Cummings. Like the 4 April rally, the event was heavily promoted by IRA's "Blacktivist" Facebook account, including attempted outreach to local activists.[94]

On 21 May 2016, two competing rallies were held in Houston to alternately protest against and defend the recently opened Library of Islamic Knowledge at the Islamic Da'wah Center. The "Stop Islamization of Texas" rally was organized by the Facebook group "Heart of Texas". The posting for the event encouraged participants to bring guns. A spokesman for the group conversed with the Houston Press via email but declined to give a name. The other rally, "Save Islamic Knowledge", was organized by another Facebook group called "United Muslims of America" for the same time and location. Both Facebook groups were later revealed to be IRA accounts.[102][103]

On 25 May 2016, the Westboro Baptist Church held its annual protest of Lawrence High School graduation ceremonies in Lawrence, Kansas. The "LGBT United" Facebook group organized a counter protest to confront the Westboro Baptist Church protest, including by placing an ad on Facebook and contacting local people. About a dozen counter showed up. Lawrence High School students did not participate in the counter protest because they were skeptical of the counter protest organizers. "LGBT United" was an IRA account that appears to have been created specifically for this event.[104]

"LGBT United" organized a candlelight vigil on 25 June 2016, for the Pulse nightclub shooting victims in Orlando, Florida.[105][106]

 
A protest in response to the Philando Castile shooting in July 2016

IRA's "Don't Shoot" Facebook group and affiliated "Don't Shoot Us" website tried to organize a protest outside St. Paul, Minnesota police headquarters on 10 July 2016, in response to the 6 July fatal police shooting of Philando Castile. Some local activists became suspicious of the motives behind the event because St. Paul police were not involved in the shooting. Castille had been shot by a St. Anthony police officer in nearby Falcon Heights. Local activists contacted "Don't Shoot." After being pressed on who they were and who supported them, "Don't Shoot" agreed to move the protest to St. Anthony police headquarters. The concerned local activists investigated further and urged not to participate after deciding "Don't Shoot" was a "total troll job." "Don't Shoot" organizers eventually relinquished control of the event to local organizers, who subsequently declined to accept any money offered by "Don't Shoot" to cover expenses.[107][108]

A Black Lives Matter protest rally was held in Dallas on 10 July 2016. A "Blue Lives Matter" counter protest was held across the street. The "Blue Lives Matter" protest was organized by the "Heart of Texas" Facebook group controlled by the IRA.[109][105]

The Blacktivist Facebook group organized a rally in Chicago to honor Sandra Bland on 16 July 2016, the first anniversary of her death. The rally was held in front of the Chicago Police Department's Homan Square facility. They passed around petitions calling for a Civilian Police Accountability Council ordinance.[110][111]

17 "Florida Goes Trump" rallies were held across Florida on 25 August 2016. The rallies were organized by IRA using their "Being Patriotic" Facebook group and "march_for_trump" Twitter account.[112]

The "SecuredBorders" Facebook group organized the "Citizens before refugees" protest rally on 27 August 2016, at the City Council Chambers in Twin Falls, Idaho. Only a small number of people showed up for the three-hour event, most likely because it was Saturday and the Chambers were closed. "SecureBorders" was an IRA account.[113]

The "Safe Space for Muslim Neighborhood" rally was held outside the White House on 3 September 2016. At least 57 people attended the event organized by the IRA's "United Muslims of America" Facebook group.[114]

"BlackMattersUS", an IRA website, recruited activists to participate in protests on the days immediately following 20 September 2016, police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina. The IRA paid for expenses such as microphones and speakers.[115]

The "Miners for Trump" rallies held in Pennsylvania on 2 October 2016, were organized by IRA's "Being Patriotic" Facebook group.[112]

The IRA ran its most popular ad on Facebook on 19 October 2016. The ad was for the IRA's Back the Badge Facebook group and showed a badge with the words "Back the Badge" in front of police lights under the caption "Community of people who support our brave Police Officers."[116]

A large rally was held in Charlotte, North Carolina, on 22 October 2016, protesting the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott. BlackMattersUS recruited unwitting local activists to organize the rally.[117] BlackMattersUS provided one activist with a bank card to pay for rally expenses.[115]

Anti-Hillary Clinton "Texit" rallies were held across Texas on 5 November 2016. The "Heart of Texas" Facebook group organized the rallies around the theme of Texas seceding from the United States if Hillary Clinton is elected. The group contacted the Texas Nationalist Movement, a secessionist organization, to help with organizing efforts, but they declined to help. Small rallies were held in Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, and other cities. No one attended the Lubbock rally.[118][119][120]

A Trump protest called "Trump is NOT my President" attracted 5,000 to 10,000 in Manhattan on 12 November 2016. Marched from Union Square to Trump Tower. The protest was organized by BlackMattersUS.[121]

The IRA's "United Muslims of America" Facebook group organized the "Make peace, not war!" protest on 3 June 2017, outside Trump Tower in New York City. It is unclear whether anyone attended this protest or instead attended the "March for Truth" affiliated protest held on the same day.[114][122][123]

Lawsuit edit

In May 2015, a trolling company employee Lyudmila Savchuk in Saint Petersburg sued her employer for labor violations,[124] seeking to disclose its activities. Ivan Pavlov from human rights defending initiative Team 29 represented Savchuk, and the defendant "troll-factory" agreed to pay Savchuk her withheld salaries and to restore her job.[125]

Savchuk later described extreme psychological pressure at the work place, with jokes circulating among employees that "one can remain sane in the factory for two months maximum", as result of constant switching between different personalities that the workers are expected to design and maintain during work time.[126]

The realization that you can invent any fact, then watch it absolutely synchronized with the media outlets as one massive information outflow and spread worldwide – that absolutely breaks your psyche

— Lyudmila Savchuk, Polygraph, "Working in Russian Troll Factory Pushed Reporter to ‘Edge of Insanity'", 2018

Indictments edit

Main article: Mueller special counsel investigation § Criminal charges
 
Indictment for interfering in the 2016 U.S. elections

On 16 February 2018, 13 individuals were indicted by the Washington, D.C. grand jury for alleged illegal interference in the 2016 presidential elections, during which they strongly supported the candidacy of Donald Trump, according to special counsel Robert Mueller's office. IRA, Concord Management and Concord Catering were also indicted. It was alleged that IRA was controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a wealthy associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin.[127][128]

The indicted individuals are Dzheykhun Nasimi Ogly Aslanov, Anna Vladislavovna Bogacheva, Maria Anatolyevna Bovda, Robert Sergeyevich Bovda, Mikhail Leonidovich Burchik, Mikhail Ivanovich Bystrov, Irina Viktorovna Kaverzina, Aleksandra Yuryevna Krylova, Vadim Vladimirovich Podkopaev, Sergey Pavlovich Polozov, Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin, Gleb Igorevitch Vasilchenko, and Vladimir Venkov.[128] All of the defendants are charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, 3 are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and 5 defendants are charged with aggravated identity theft. None of the defendants are in custody.[129][i]

On 15 March, President Trump imposed financial sanctions under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act on the 13 Russian and organizations indicted by Mueller,[133] preventing them from entering the United States to answer the charges should they wish to.

In October 2018 Russian accountant Elena Khusyaynova was charged with interferеnce in the 2016 and 2018 US elections. She is alleged to have been working with the IRA. She was said to have managed a $16 million budget.[134]

Timeline of the Internet Research Agency interference in United States elections edit

2014 edit

Further information: Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
  • April: The IRA creates a department called the "translator project". The department's focus is on interfering in the U.S. election.[135][136]
  • May: The IRA begins its election interference campaign of "spread[ing] distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general."[135][136]
  • 4–26 June: Aleksandra Krylova and Anna Bogacheva, two IRA employees, travel to the U.S. to collect intelligence. Maria Bovda, a third employee, is denied a visa.[135] All three are indicted in February 2018 for their work on election interference.[136]
  • 11 September: The IRA spreads a hoax they created about a fictitious chemical plant fire in Centerville, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, purportedly started by ISIS. The hoax includes tweets and YouTube videos showing a chemical plant fire. Centerville is home to many chemical plants, but the plant named in the tweets does not exist. Initial tweets are sent directly to politicians, journalists, and Centerville residents.[137]
  • 21 September – 11 October: The Material Evidence art exhibition is displayed at the Art Beam gallery in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. It portrays the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine in a pro-Russian light. It is promoted by Twitter accounts that also spread the 11 September chemical plant fire hoax.[137] The exhibition is partly funded by the IRA.[138]
  • 13 December:
    • The IRA uses Twitter to spread a hoax about an Ebola outbreak in Atlanta. Many of the Twitter accounts used in the 11 September chemical plant fire hoax also spread this hoax. The hoax includes a YouTube video of medical workers wearing hazmat suits.[137]
    • Using a different set of Twitter accounts, the IRA spreads a hoax about a purported police shooting of an unarmed black woman in Atlanta. The hoax includes a blurry video of the purported event.[137]

2015 edit

  • July onward: Thousands of fake Twitter accounts run by the IRA begin to praise Trump over his political opponents by a wide margin, according to a later analysis by The Wall Street Journal.[139][140]
  • 3 November:The IRA Instagram account "Stand For Freedom" attempts to organize a confederate rally in Houston, Texas, on 14 November. It is unclear if anyone showed up. The Mueller Report identifies this as the IRA's first attempt to organize a U.S. rally.[141][142]: 29 
  • 19 November: The IRA creates first Twitter account. Purporting to be the "Unofficial Twitter account of Tennessee Republicans," it peaks at over 100,000 followers.[143]

2016 edit

Further information: Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections (July 2016 – election day) and Timeline of post-election transition following Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
  • 10 February: IRA instructs workers to "use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump—we support them)."[144]
  • April: The IRA starts buying online ads on social media and other sites. The ads support Trump and attack Clinton.[135][136]
  • 4 April: A rally is held in Buffalo, New York, protesting the death of India Cummings. Cummings was a black woman who had recently died in police custody. The IRA's "Blacktivist" account on Facebook actively promotes the event, reaching out directly to local activists on Facebook Messenger asking them to circulate petitions and print posters for the event. Blacktivist supplies the petitions and poster artwork.[94]
  • 16 April: A rally protesting the death of Freddie Gray attracts large crowds in Baltimore. The IRA's Blacktivist Facebook group promotes and organizes the event, including reaching out to local activists.[101]
  • 19 April: The IRA purchases its first pro-Trump ad through its "Tea Party News" Instagram account. The Instagram ad asks users to upload photos with the hashtag #KIDS4TRU to "make a patriotic team of young Trump supporters."[145]
  • 23 April: A small group of white-power demonstrators hold a rally they call "Rock Stone Mountain" at Stone Mountain Park near Stone Mountain, Georgia. They are confronted by a large group of protesters, and some violent clashes ensue. The counterprotest was heavily promoted by IRA accounts on Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook, and the IRA website blackmatters.com. The IRA uses its Blacktivist account on Facebook to reach out, to no avail, to activist and academic Barbara Williams Emerson, the daughter of Hosea Williams, to help promote the protests. Afterward, RT blames anti-racist protesters for violence and promotes two videos shot at the event.[94]
  • 2 May: A second rally is held in Buffalo, New York, protesting the death of India Cummings. Like the 4 April rally, the event is heavily promoted by the IRA's Blacktivist Facebook account, including attempted outreach to local activists.[94]
  • 21 May: Two competing rallies are held in Houston to alternately protest against and defend the recently opened Library of Islamic Knowledge at the Islamic Da'wah Center. The "Stop Islamization of Texas" rally is organized by the Facebook group "Heart of Texas". The Facebook posting for the event encourages participants to bring guns. A spokesman for the group converses with the Houston Press via email but declines to give a name. The other rally, "Save Islamic Knowledge", is organized by the Facebook group "United Muslims of America" for the same time and location. Both Facebook groups are later revealed to be IRA accounts.[102][103]
  • 29 May: The IRA hires an American to pose in front of the White House holding a sign that says, "Happy 55th Birthday, Dear Boss." "Boss" is a reference to Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin.[135][136]
  • 1 June: The IRA plans a Manhattan rally called "March for Trump" and buys Facebook ads promoting the event.[135][136]
  • 4 June: The IRA email account sends news releases about the "March for Trump" rally to New York City media outlets.[135][136]
  • 5 June: The IRA contacts a Trump campaign volunteer to provide signs for the "March for Trump" rally.[135][136]
  • 23 June: The IRA persona "Matt Skiber" contacts an American to recruit for the "March for Trump" rally.[135][136]
  • 24 June: The IRA group "United Muslims of America" buys Facebook ads for the "Support Hillary, Save American Muslims" rally.[135][136]
  • 25 June:
    • The IRA's "March for Trump" rally occurs.[135][136]
    • The IRA Facebook group LGBT United organizes a candlelight vigil for the Pulse nightclub shooting victims in Orlando, Florida.[105][106]
  • July: The IRA's translator project grows to over 80 employees.[135][136]
  • Summer: IRA employees use the stolen identities of four Americans to open PayPal and bank accounts to act as conduits for funding their activities in the United States.[135][136]
  • '5 July: "United Muslims of America", an IRA group, orders posters with fake Clinton quotes promoting Sharia Law. The posters are ordered for the "Support Hillary, Save American Muslims" rally they are organizing.[135][136]
  • 6–10 July: The IRA's "Don't Shoot" Facebook group and affiliated "Don't Shoot Us" website try to organize a protest outside the St. Paul, Minnesota, police headquarters on 10 July in response to the 6 July fatal police shooting of Philando Castile. Some local activists become suspicious of the event because St. Paul police were not involved in the shooting: Castile was shot by a St. Anthony police officer in nearby Falcon Heights. Local activists contact Don't Shoot. After being pressed on who they are and who supports them, Don't Shoot agrees to move the protest to the St. Anthony police headquarters. The concerned local activists investigate further and urge protesters not to participate after deciding Don't Shoot is a "total troll job." Don't Shoot organizers eventually relinquish control of the event to local organizers, who subsequently decline to accept any money from Don't Shoot.[146][147]
  • 9 July: The "Support Hillary, Save American Muslims" rally occurs in Washington, D.C. The rally is organized by the IRA group "United Muslims of America."[135][136]
  • 10 July: A Black Lives Matter protest rally is held in Dallas. A "Blue Lives Matter" counterprotest is held across the street. The Blue Lives Matter protest is organized by the "Heart of Texas" Facebook group, controlled by the IRA.[109][105][103]
  • 12 July: An IRA group buys ads on Facebook for the "Down with Hillary" rally in New York City.[135][136]
  • 16 July: The IRA's Blacktivist group organizes a rally in Chicago to honor Sandra Bland on the first anniversary of her death. The rally is held in front of the Chicago Police Department's Homan Square building. Participants pass around petitions calling for a Civilian Police Accountability Council ordinance.[148][149]
  • 23 July: The IRA-organized "Down with Hillary" rally is held in New York City. The agency sends 30 news releases to media outlets using email.[135][136]
  • 2–3 August: The IRA's "Matt Skiber" persona contacts the real "Florida for Trump" Facebook account. The "T.W." persona contacts other grassroots groups.[135][136]
  • 4 August:
    • The IRA's Facebook account "Stop AI" accuses Clinton of voter fraud during the Iowa Caucuses. They buy ads promoting the post.[135][136]
    • IRA groups buy ads for the "Florida Goes Trump" rallies. The 8,300 people who click on the ads are sent to the Agency's "Being Patriotic" Facebook page.[135][136]
  • 5 August: The IRA Twitter second account hires an actress to play Hillary Clinton in prison garb and someone to build a cage to hold the actress. The actress and cage are to appear at the "Florida Goes Trump" rally in West Palm Beach, Florida on 20 August.[135][136]
  • 11 August: The IRA Twitter first account claims that voter fraud is being investigated in North Carolina.[135][136]
  • 12–18 August: The IRA's persona "Josh Milton" communicates with Trump Campaign officials via email to request Trump/Pence signs and the phone numbers of campaign affiliates as part of an effort to organize pro-Trump campaign rallies in Florida.[150][142]: 35 
  • 15 August: A Trump campaign county chair contacts the IRA through their phony email accounts to suggest locations for rallies.[135][136]
  • 16 August: The IRA buys ads on Instagram for the "Florida Goes Trump" rallies.[135][136]
  • 18 August:
    • The IRA uses its email account to contact a Trump campaign official in Florida. The email requests campaign support at the forthcoming "Florida Goes Trump" rallies. It is unknown whether the campaign official responded.[135][136]
    • The IRA pays the person they hired to build a cage for a "Florida Goes Trump" rally in West Palm Beach, Florida.[135][136]
  • 19 August:
    • A Trump supporter suggests to the IRA Twitter account "March for Trump" that it contact a Trump campaign official. The official is emailed by the agency.[135]
    • The IRA's "Matt Skiber" persona contacts another Trump campaign official on Facebook.[135][136]
  • 20 August: 17 "Florida Goes Trump" rallies are held across Florida. The rallies are organized by Russian trolls from the IRA.[136][112]
  • 27 August: The IRA Facebook group "SecuredBorders" organizes a "Citizens before refugees" protest rally at the City Council Chambers in Twin Falls, Idaho. Only a small number of people show up for the three-hour event, most likely because it is Saturday and the Chambers are closed.[151]
  • 31 August:
    • An American contacts the IRA's "Being Patriotic" account about a possible 11 September event in Miami.[135][136]
    • The IRA buys ads for a 11 September rally in New York City.[135][136]
  • 3 September: The IRA Facebook group "United Muslims of America" organizes a "Safe Space for Muslim Neighborhood" rally outside the White House, attracting at least 57 people.[114]
  • 9 September: The IRA sends money to its American groups to fund the 11 September rally in Miami, and to pay the actress who portrayed Clinton at the West Palm Beach, Florida, rally.[135][136]
  • 20–26 September: BlackMattersUS, an IRA website, recruits activists to participate in protests over the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina. The IRA pays for expenses such as microphones and speakers.[115]
  • 22 September: The IRA buys ads on Facebook for "Miners for Trump" rallies in Pennsylvania.[135][136]
  • 2 October: "Miners for Trump" rallies are held across Pennsylvania. The IRA uses the same techniques to organize the rallies as they used for the "Florida Goes Trump" rallies, including hiring a person to wear a Clinton mask and a prison uniform.[135][136]
  • 16 October: The IRA's Instagram account "Woke Blacks" makes a post aimed at suppressing black voter turnout.[135][136]
  • 19 October The IRA runs its most popular ad on Facebook. The ad is for the IRA's Back the Badge Facebook group and shows a badge with the words "Back the Badge" in front of police lights under the caption "Community of people who support our brave Police Officers."[152]
  • 22 October: A large rally is held in Charlotte, North Carolina, protesting the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott. The IRA website BlackMattersUS recruits unwitting local activists to organize the rally.[153] BlackMattersUS provides an activist with a bank card to pay for rally expenses.[115]
  • 2 November: The IRA Twitter first account alleges "#VoterFraud by counting tens of thousands of ineligible mail in Hillary votes being reported in Broward County, Florida." Trump Jr. retweets it.[135][136]
  • 3 November: The IRA Instagram account "Blacktivist" suggests people vote for Stein instead of Clinton.[135][136]
  • 5 November: Anti-Clinton "Texit" rallies are held across Texas. The IRA's "Heart of Texas" Facebook group organizes the rallies around the theme of Texas seceding from the United States if Clinton is elected. The group contacts the Texas Nationalist Movement, a secessionist organization, to help with organizing efforts, but they decline to help. Small rallies are held in Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, and other cities. No one attends the Lubbock rally.[118][119][154]
  • 8 November: Hours after the polls close, the hashtag #Calexit is retweeted by thousands of IRA accounts.[154]
  • 11 November: A large banner is hung from the Arlington Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C., showing a photo of Obama with the words "Goodbye Murderer" at the bottom. The IRA Twitter third account takes credit and is an early promoter of the banner.[155][156]
  • 12 November: A Trump protest called "Trump is NOT my President" attracts 5,000–10,000 protestors in Manhattan who march from Union Square to Trump Tower. The protest is organized by the IRA using their BlackMattersUS Facebook account.[135][136]
  • 19 November: The IRA organizes the "Charlotte Against Trump" rally in Charlotte, North Carolina.[135][136]
  • 8 December: The IRA runs an ad on Craigslist to hire someone to walk around New York City dressed as Santa Claus while wearing a Trump mask.[145][142]: 32 

2017 edit

Further information: Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (January–June 2017) and Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (July–December 2017)
  • 9 April: The Internet Research Agency (IRA)'s "United Muslims of America" Facebook group posts a meme complaining about the cost of the 6 April missile strike on Syria by the United States. The strike had been made in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government. The meme asserts the $93 million cost of the strike "could have founded [sic] Meals on Wheels until 2029."[114]
  • 3 June: The IRA's "United Muslims of America" Facebook group organizes the "Make peace, not war!" protest outside Trump Tower in New York City. It is unclear whether anyone attends this protest or instead attends the "March for Truth" affiliated protest held on the same day.[114][122][157]
    • Thousands of people participate in the "Protest Trump and ideology of hate at Trump Tower!" protest outside Trump Tower in New York City. The protest was organized by the "Resisters" group on Facebook, one of the "bad actor" groups identified by Facebook in July 2018 as possibly belonging to the IRA.[158][159]
  • 23 August: The Internet Research Agency's first Twitter account is closed.[143]
  • 6 September: Facebook admits selling advertisements to Russian companies seeking to reach U.S. voters.[160] Hundreds of accounts were reportedly tied to the Internet Research Agency.[161][137] Facebook pledges full cooperation with Mueller's investigation, and begins to provide details on purchases from Russia, including identities of the people involved.[162]
  • 9 September: Thousand of people participate in the "We Stand with DREAMers! Support DACA!" rally in New York City.[163] The rally was organized by the "Resisters" group on Facebook, one of the "bad actor" groups identified by Facebook in July 2018 as possibly belonging to the IRA.[159]
  • 9 September: Trump responds to a tweet, containing "we love you Mr. President." from IRA fourth Twitter account - a "backup" of now-closed IRA first one - saying, "THANK YOU for your support Miami! My team just shared photos from your TRUMP SIGN WAVING DAY, yesterday! I love you- and there is no question – TOGETHER, WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!".[150][142]: 34 
  • 28 September:
    • Twitter announces that it identified 201 non-bot accounts tied to the IRA.[164]
    • Democrats rebuke Twitter for its "frankly inadequate" response to Russian meddling.[165]
    • Mother Jones writes that "fake news on Twitter flooded swing states that helped Trump win."[166]
  • 23 October: The Daily Beast reports that Greenfloid LLC, a tiny web hosting company registered to Sergey Kashyrin and two others, hosted IRA propaganda websites DoNotShoot.Us, BlackMattersUS.com and others on servers in a Staten Island neighborhood. Greenfloid is listed as the North American subsidiary of ITL, a hosting company based in Kharkiv, Ukraine, registered to Dmitry Deineka. Deineka gave conflicting answers when questioned by The Daily Beast about the IRA websites.[167]
  • 1 November: Twitter tells the Senate Intelligence Committee that it has found 2,752 IRA accounts and 36,746 Russia-linked bot accounts involved in election-related retweets.[164]

2018 edit

Further information: Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (January–June 2018) and Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (July–December 2018)
  • 16 February: Mueller indicts 13 Russian citizens, IRA/Glavset and two other Russian entities in a 37-page indictment returned by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia.[136]
  • A 15 July Business Insider article revealed a new Russian intelligence-linked "news" site, USAReally,[168] which follows in the footsteps of previous Russian IRA-backed troll farms, and appears to be an attempt to "test the waters" ahead of the mid-terms.[169]
  • 31 July: Facebook announces they have shut down eight pages, 17 profiles, and seven Instagram accounts related to "bad actors" identified recently with activity profiles similar to the IRA. The company says it doesn't have enough information to attribute the accounts, groups, and events to the IRA, but that a known IRA account was briefly an administrator of the "Resisters" group.[170] The "Resisters" group was the first organizer on Facebook of the upcoming "No Unite The Right 2 – DC" protest scheduled in Washington, D.C., for 10 August. Some of the event's other organizers insist they started organizing before "Resisters" created the event's Facebook page.[171]
  • 25 September: The New York Times reports that the Moscow-based news website "USAReally.com" appears to be a continuation of the IRA's fake news propaganda efforts targeting Americans. The site, launched in May, has been banned from Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. A new Facebook page created by the site is being monitored by Facebook.[172]
  • 12 September: The Wall Street Journal reports that nearly 600 IRA Twitter accounts posted nearly 10,000 mostly conservative-targeted messages about health policy and Obamacare from 2014 through May 2018. Pro-ObamaCare messages peaked around the spring of 2016 when Senator Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were fighting for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. Anti-Obamacare messages peaked during the debates leading up to the attempted repeal of the Affordable Care Act in the spring of 2017.[173]
  • On 19 October, The US Justice Department charges 44-year-old Russian accountant Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova of Saint Petersburg with conspiracy to defraud the United States by managing the finances of the social media troll operation, including the IRA, that attempted to interfere with the 2016 and 2018 US elections.[174][175]
  • 20 November: The Federal Agency of News (FAN) sues Facebook in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California for violating its free speech rights by closing its account in April. The FAN is a sister organization to the IRA that operates from the same building in St. Petersburg. The FAN claims in its filing that it has no knowledge of the IRA, even though some current FAN employees were indicted by Mueller for their work with the IRA.[176]

2019 edit

Further information: Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (2019–2020)
  • 2 February: Twitter removed accounts suspected of being connected to the Russian Internet Research Agency that had disseminated a high volume of tweets related to QAnon that also used the #WWG1WGA slogan.[177]
  • 12 April: The Washington Post reports that researchers at Clemson University found the IRA sent thousands of tweets during the 2016 election campaign in an attempt to drive Bernie Sanders supporters away from Hillary Clinton and towards Donald Trump.[178]

2020 edit

  • 12 March: CNN's Clarissa Ward reveals that Russia and the IRA have been running "troll factories" based in Nigeria and Ghana, with the aim to disrupt the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign.[179]

Notes edit

  1. ^ In 2014, software systems for monitoring social media networks purchased by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) from Medialogia include the Prizma information and analytical systems, the GLASS News Terminal, Medialogy and the Medialogy-Government Procurement system (Russian: «Призма», «Новостного терминала ГЛАСС», «Медиалогии» и системы «Медиалогия-госзакупки»). "Prism" targets main "news events, trends, information attacks, and anomalous activity" in blogs and social networks in real time and identifies the primary sources of information dissemination. Senior officials and the Russian presidential administration monitor social networks using Prisma. "Prism" identifies sites on the network which are intended to organize information attacks including fake sites that can be used to misinform users and information attacks organized by botnets and predicts information attacks, threats, etc. The GLASS News Terminal system aggregates data from main events of the day, negative and positive materials about the MVD and its leadership, criticism of MVD employees, authorities, opposition protests, etc. The Main Center for Communications and Information Security (Russian: Главный центр связи и информационной безопасности) in the MVD stated that the users of these products are the Minister of Internal Affairs, his deputies, heads of main directorates, directorates and departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as employees of the Department of Internal Affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and employees of other divisions of the central apparatus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.[16][17]
  2. ^ Medialogia (Russian: «Медиалогия» was a project began in 2003 of the software development company IBS but, later, was an independent business separate from IBS.[14][15][a]
  3. ^ Farit Khusnoyarov (Russian: Фарит Хуснояров) was the development director of Medialogia in 2012 and was the Deputy Minister of Public Administration, Information Technology and Communications of the Moscow Region in 2015.[18]
  4. ^ From 21 October 2010 to 2012, Vyacheslav Volodin was the Deputy Chairman of Government as the Deputy Prime Minister to Dmitry Medvedev replacing Sergey Sobyanin who had been Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office under Vladimir Putin. Volodin was the First deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia under Medvedev from 2012 to 2016.
  5. ^ The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) was headed by Rashid Nurgaliyev under Putin until 21 May 2012 when Vladimir Kolokoltsev assumed the post.
  6. ^ Senior officials at the Moscow City Hall include Vladimir Kolokoltsev who headed the MVD for the Moscow region from 7 September 2009 to 21 May 2012. From October 2012, the Moscow City Hall was under leadership of the Mayor of Moscow Sergey Sobyanin.
  7. ^ In 2012, other monitoring systems for social media in Russia included Kribrum (Russian: «Крибрум») from the Natalya Kaspersky company InfoWatch and the Igor Ashmanov firm Ashmanov & Partners (Russian: Infowatch и «Ашманов и партнеры») and Wobot from former employees of Medialogia, the Public Opinion Foundation and VimpelCom (Russian: бывшие сотрудники «Медиалогии», фонда «Общественное мнение» и «Вымпелкома»).[16][17]
  8. ^ "Maidan" refers to Independence Square in Kyiv, which became synonymous with mass political protests following the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2013 Euromaidan, i.e. the two Maidans.
  9. ^ The American Department was headed by Jeykhun Aslanov, an Azerbaijani who, in October 2017, was 27. Maria Bovda was the previous head of the American Department.[130][131][132]

See also edit

References edit

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  2. ^ Волчек, Дмитрий (30 January 2021). ""Наша норма – 120 комментов в день". Жизнь кремлевского тролля". Радио Свобода.
  3. ^ a b Prier, Jarred (2017). "Commanding the Trend: Social Media as Information Warfare". Strategic Studies Quarterly. 11 (4): 50–85. ISSN 1936-1815. JSTOR 26271634.
  4. ^ "Журналист BBC Андрей Захаров, написавший о любовнице и дочери Путина, уехал из России" (in Russian). severreal.org. 27 December 2021. Retrieved 19 February 2023.
  5. ^ By early 2018, Facebook suspended 70 accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency: Adi Robertson (3 April 2018). "Facebook suspends 273 accounts and pages linked to Russian misinformation agency". The Verge. Retrieved 30 August 2018.
  6. ^ a b c Seddon, Max (2 June 2014). "Documents Show How Russia's Troll Army Hit America". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 12 June 2016. Russian reprint: Документы показали, как армия российских 'троллей' атакует Америку (InoPressa).
  7. ^ "Everything you wanted to know about trolls but were afraid to ask". ShareAmerica. U.S. State Dept. Bureau of International Information Programs. 4 November 2015. Retrieved 6 November 2015.
  8. ^ Mangan, Dan; Calia, Mike (16 February 2018). "Special counsel Mueller: Russians conducted 'information warfare' against US to help Trump win". CNBC. Retrieved 16 February 2018.
  9. ^ "Prigozhin-controlled Russian media group shuts after mutiny". Reuters. 2 July 2023. Retrieved 6 September 2023.
  10. ^ Panella, Chris. "Russian 'troll factory' accused of interfering in US elections shuts down after exile of Wagner boss". Business Insider. Retrieved 11 July 2023.
  11. ^ Short, Philip (26 July 2022). Putin. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 978-1627793667.
  12. ^ Short, Philip (25 June 2022). "The extraordinary story of Putin's early life: He was a cosseted child from a nondescript neighbourhood who approached the KGB at 16 to offer his services. Philip Short traces his origins". The Times. Archived from the original on 6 October 2022. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  13. ^ szfreiberger (24 August 2022). . DOC'S BOOKS: A window into Doc Freiberger's library (docs-books.com). Archived from the original on 26 October 2023. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
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  17. ^ a b Голицына, Анастасия (29 September 2014). [The Ministry of Internal Affairs will purchase monitoring systems for social networks and the blogosphere]. Ведомости (in Russian). Archived from the original on 26 October 2023. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  18. ^ a b Бурибаев, Айдар (Buribaev, Aidar); Баданин, Роман (Badanin, Roman) (15 August 2012). [How authorities read your blogs: Forbes investigation]. Forbes (in Russian). Archived from the original on 20 August 2021. Retrieved 26 October 2023.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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  20. ^ "Forbes рассказал о системе анализа блогов для чиновников" [Forbes spoke about a blog analysis system for officials] (in Russian). 16 August 2012. Archived from the original on 26 October 2023. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  21. ^ a b c d e f В США начали охоту на проплаченных интернет-троллей из России [The hunt for Russian internet trolls started in the U.S.]. Criminal Ukraine (in Russian). NEWSru.com. 5 June 2014. Retrieved 12 June 2016. Ukrainian reprint: Американці розпочали полювання на проплачених Кремлем інтернет-тролів 5 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine (zik.ua).
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  23. ^ a b СМИ: Под Петербургом за умеренную плату ругали Навального [Near St. Petersburg there are those being paid a modest fee to abuse Navalny]. Lentizdat (in Russian). 4 September 2013. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  24. ^ a b c d e Denis Korotkov (29 May 2014). Сотни троллей за миллионы [Hundreds of millions of trolls]. Fontanka.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  25. ^ a b c d e Andrew Soshnikov (30 May 2014). Интернет-тролли из Ольгино заговорили на английском и украинском [Internet trolls from Olgino start talking in English and Ukrainian]. Moy Rayon (in Russian). Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  26. ^ Dawson, Andrew; Innes, Martin (June 2019). "How Russia's Internet Research Agency Built its Disinformation Campaign" (PDF). The Political Quarterly. 90 (2): 245–256. doi:10.1111/1467-923X.12690. S2CID 165035949.
  27. ^ a b "Wagner chief admits to founding Russian troll farm sanctioned for meddling in US elections". CNN. 14 February 2023. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
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  32. ^ a b c d e Sofia Korzova (28 October 2014). СМИ: "Ольгинские тролли" стали "савушкинскими" ['Trolls from Olgino' have become 'savushkinskimi']. Lentizdat (in Russian). Retrieved 12 June 2016.
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Further reading edit

  • Olga Khazan (9 October 2013). "Russia's Online-Comment Propaganda Army". The Atlantic.
  • Chen, Adrian (2 June 2015). "The Agency". The New York Times Magazine.
  • Doctrow, Cory (2 June 2015). "Russia's troll factory". Boing Boing.
  • Karoun Demirjian (4 June 2015). "A whistleblower is trying to bring down Russia's secret Internet troll army". The Washington Post.
  • Trolls for hire: Why are Russians being paid to wreak havoc online?. Q (radio show podcast). Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 10 June 2015.
  • Dickerson, Caitlin (26 September 2017). "How Fake News Turned a Small Town Upside Down". The New York Times Magazine.
  • Entous, Adam; Nakashima, Ellen; Jaffe, Greg (26 December 2017). "Kremlin trolls burned across the Internet as Washington debated options". The Washington Post. Retrieved 24 April 2021.
  • Boucher, Tim. (24 November 2017). "Internet Research Agency". timboucher.ca. Retrieved 8 August 2018.
  • Howard, Philip N.; Ganesh, Bharath; Liotsiou, Dimitra; Kelly, John; François, Camille (17 December 2018). "The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012–2018" (PDF). Computational Propaganda Research Project – via Wikimedia Commons.
  • DiResta, Renee; Shaffer, Kris; Ruppel, Becky; Sullivan, David; Matney, Robert; Fox, Ryan; Albright, Jonathan; Johnson, Ben (17 December 2018). "The Tactics & Tropes of the Internet Research Agency" (PDF). New Knowledge – via Wikimedia Commons.
  • Linvill, Darren; Warren, Patrick (25 November 2019). "That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent It". Rolling Stone.
  • Alba, Davey (29 March 2020). "How Russia's Troll Farm Is Changing Tactics Before the Fall Election". The New York Times. The Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency, which interfered in the 2016 election, is using different methods to hide itself better.
  • Bail, Christopher A.; Guay, Brian; Maloney, Emily; Combs, Aidan; Hillygus, D. Sunshine; Merhout, Friedolin; Freelon, Deen; Volfovsky, Alexander (7 January 2020). "Assessing the Russian Internet Research Agency's impact on the political attitudes and behaviors of American Twitter users in late 2017". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 117 (1): 243–250. Bibcode:2020PNAS..117..243B. doi:10.1073/pnas.1906420116. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 6955293. PMID 31767743. S2CID 208298030.
  • Dawson, Andrew; Innes, Martin (2019). "How Russia's Internet Research Agency Built its Disinformation Campaign" (PDF). The Political Quarterly. 90 (2): 245–256. doi:10.1111/1467-923X.12690. ISSN 1467-923X. S2CID 165035949. Retrieved 24 April 2021.

External links edit

  • Iuliia Subbotovska (29 May 2015). "Russia Steps up Propaganda Push with Online 'Kremlin Trolls'". NBC News. Associated Press. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  • [All the trolls. Trolls – Who are they?] (in Russian). 2014. Archived from the original on 1 February 2016. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  • В Сети действительно работает банда кремлевских троллей. Имена, адреса, документы [In web forums work the Kremlin's gang of trolls. Names, addresses, documents]. UAINFO (in Russian). 31 May 2014. Retrieved 12 June 2016 – via reddit.

February 16, 2024
internet, research, agency, russian, Агентство, интернет, исследований, romanized, agentstvo, internet, issledovaniy, also, known, glavset, russian, Главсеть, known, russian, internet, slang, trolls, from, olgino, russian, ольгинские, тролли, kremlinbots, russ. The Internet Research Agency IRA Russian Agentstvo internet issledovanij romanized Agentstvo internet issledovaniy also known as Glavset Russian Glavset 1 and known in Russian Internet slang as the Trolls from Olgino Russian olginskie trolli or Kremlinbots Russian kremleboty 2 was a Russian company which was engaged in online propaganda and influence operations on behalf of Russian business and political interests 3 It was linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin a former Russian oligarch who was leader of the Wagner Group and based in Saint Petersburg Russia Internet Research AgencyAgentstvo internet issledovanijFormation26 July 2013 2013 07 26 FounderYevgeny PrigozhinDissolved1 July 2023 2023 07 01 PurposeInternet manipulation spreading disinformationHeadquartersOlginoLocationSaint Petersburg RussiaThe agency was first mentioned in 2016 when Russian journalist Andrey Zakharov published his investigation into Prigozhin s troll factory 4 The January 2017 report issued by the United States Intelligence Community Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections described the agency as a troll farm The likely financier of the so called Internet Research Agency of professional trolls located in Saint Petersburg is a close ally of Vladimir Putin with ties to Russian intelligence commenting that they previously were devoted to supporting Russian actions in Ukraine and started to advocate for candidate Trump as early as December 2015 The agency employed fake accounts registered on major social networking sites 5 discussion boards online newspaper sites and video hosting services to promote the Kremlin s interests in domestic and foreign policy including Ukraine and the Middle East as well as attempting to influence the 2016 United States presidential election More than 1 000 employees reportedly worked in a single building of the agency in 2015 The extent to which the agency tried to influence public opinion using social media became better known after a June 2014 BuzzFeed News article greatly expanded on government documents published by hackers earlier that year 6 The Internet Research Agency gained more attention by June 2015 when one of its offices was reported as having data from fake accounts used for biased Internet trolling Subsequently there were news reports of individuals receiving monetary compensation for performing these tasks 7 On 16 February 2018 a United States grand jury indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities including the Internet Research Agency on charges of violating criminal laws with the intent to interfere with U S elections and political processes according to the Justice Department 8 On 1 July 2023 it was announced that the Internet Research Agency would be shut down following the aftermath of the Wagner Group rebellion 9 10 Contents 1 Origin 2 Organizers 2 1 Strategic 2 2 Tactical 3 Offices 3 1 Saint Petersburg 3 1 1 2013 131 Primorskoye Shosse Olgino Saint Petersburg 3 1 2 2014 55 Ulitsa Savushkina Street Saint Petersburg 3 1 3 1 February 2018 Optikov street 4 building 3 Lakhta 2 business center Lakhta Saint Petersburg 3 2 Other cities 4 Work organization 5 Trolling themes 6 Organized anti Ukrainian campaign 7 Reactions 7 1 Foreign 8 Assessments 9 Additional activities of organizers 9 1 Rallies and protests organized by IRA in the United States 10 Lawsuit 11 Indictments 12 Timeline of the Internet Research Agency interference in United States elections 12 1 2014 12 2 2015 12 3 2016 12 4 2017 12 5 2018 12 6 2019 12 7 2020 13 Notes 14 See also 15 References 16 Further reading 17 External linksOrigin editSee also Web brigades In Leningrad Oblast in the late 1970s Vladimir Putin s first KGB post was with the 5th Department which countered dissidents with disinformation using active measures and was strongly supported by Filipp Bobkov and the head of the KGB Yuri Andropov who believed in stamping out dissent 11 12 13 Revealed on 16 August 2012 in an article by the Russian edition of Forbes magazine the website for the company Medialogia b offered a system known as Prisma terminals Russian Terminaly Prizma which according to Farit Khusnoyarov c Prism could track for the Kremlin in near real time the stand alone blog platforms and social networks of nearly 60 million sites and could analyze the tone of the statements of each of these sources with a lag of several minutes or given as an estimated error of 2 3 almost in real time The article called the terminals Volodin s Prism Russian Prizma Volodina for Vyacheslav Volodin d After the Snow revolution following the 4 December 2011 Russian legislative elections Volodin actively used his Prism terminal which he received on the eve of the elections to counter dissidents in Russia Others using Prisma include Sergei Naryshkin s office in the State Duma senior officials at the Main Center for Communications and Information Security Russian Glavnyj centr svyazi i informacionnoj bezopasnosti in the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs MVD e senior officials at Moscow City Hall f and employees close to the head of Rosneft Igor Sechin 18 19 20 g The Internet Research Agency was founded in mid 2013 21 In 2013 Novaya Gazeta newspaper reported that Internet Research Agency Ltd s office was in Olgino a historic district of Saint Petersburg 22 The terms Trolls from Olgino and Olgino s trolls Russian Trolli iz Olgino Olginskie trolli have become general terms denoting trolls who spread pro Russian propaganda not only necessarily those based at the office in Olgino 23 24 25 Information of the work being conducted at the Agency comes in part from interviews with former employees 26 In February 2023 Yevgeny Prigozhin the head of the private military company Wagner Group stated that he founded the IRA I ve never just been the financier of the Internet Research Agency I invented it I created it I managed it for a long time 27 The admission came months after Prigozhin had admitted to Russian interference in U S elections 27 Organizers editStrategic edit Russian newspaper Vedomosti links the approved by Russian authorities strategy of public consciousness manipulation through new media to Vyacheslav Volodin first deputy of the Vladimir Putin Presidential Administration of Russia 21 28 Tactical edit External videos nbsp Why are Russian trolls spreading online hoaxes in the U S PBS News Hour PBS is funded by member station dues the Corporation for Public Broadcasting corporate contributions pledge drives foundations and individual citizens 8 June 2015 29 Journalists have written that Alexey Soskovets who had participated in the Russian youth political community was directly connected to the office in Olgino and that his company North Western Service Agency won 17 or 18 according to different sources contracts for organizing celebrations forums and sport competitions for authorities of Saint Petersburg and that Soskovets company was the only participant in half of those bids In mid 2013 the agency won a tender for providing freight services for participants of Seliger camp 22 30 In 2014 according to Russian media Internet Research Ltd Russian Internet issledovaniya was founded in March 2014 and joined IRA s activity The newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported that this company is a successor of Internet Research Agency Ltd 31 Internet Research Ltd is considered to be linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin head of the holding company Concord Management and Consulting The Trolls of Olgino are considered to be his project As of October 2014 the company belonged to Mikhail Bystrov who had been the head of the police station at Moscow district of Saint Petersburg 32 Russian media point out that according to documents published by hackers from Anonymous International Concord Management is directly involved with trolling administration through the agency Researchers cite e mail correspondence in which Concord Management gives instructions to trolls and receives reports on accomplished work 24 According to journalists Concord Management organized banquets in the Kremlin and also cooperated with Voentorg and the Russian Ministry of Defence 33 Despite links to Alexei Soskovets Nadejda Orlova deputy head of the Committee for Youth Policy in Saint Petersburg disputed a connection between her institution and the trolling offices 22 Finnish journalist Jessikka Aro who reported extensively on the pro Russian trolling activities in Finland was targeted by an organized campaign of hate disinformation and harassment 34 35 36 Offices editSaint Petersburg edit 2013 131 Primorskoye Shosse Olgino Saint Petersburg edit 59 59 42 7 N 30 07 49 7 E 59 995194 N 30 130472 E 59 995194 30 130472 nbsp One of the offices at 55 Savushkina Street in Saint Petersburg RussiaAs reported by Novaya Gazeta in the end of August 2013 the following message appeared in social networks Internet operators wanted Job at chic office in Olgino st Staraya Derevnia salary 25960 per month USD 780 as of 2013 Task posting comments at profile sites in the Internet writing thematic posts blogs social networks Reports via screenshots Individual schedule Payment every week 1180 per shift from 8 00 to 16 00 from 10 30 to 18 30 from 14 00 to 22 00 PAYMENTS EVERY WEEK AND FREE MEALS Official job placement or according to contract at will Tuition possible 22 As reported by media and former employees the office in Olgino Primorskiy district St Peterburg had existed and had been functioning since September 2013 It was situated in a white cottage 23 15 minutes by an underground railway from Staraya Derevnia station opposite Olgino railway station 22 Workplaces for troll employees were placed in basement rooms 30 37 38 39 40 41 42 2014 55 Ulitsa Savushkina Street Saint Petersburg edit 59 59 03 5 N 30 16 19 1 E 59 984306 N 30 271972 E 59 984306 30 271972According to Russian online newspaper DP ru several months before October 2014 the office moved from Olgino to a four story building at 55 Savushkina Street Primorskiy district St Peterburg 32 43 As reported by journalists the building is officially an uncompleted construction and stayed as such as of March 2015 31 44 45 A New York Times investigative reporter was told that the Internet Research Agency had shortened its name to Internet Research and as of June 2015 had been asked to leave the 55 Savushkina Street location a couple of months ago because it was giving the entire building a bad reputation A possibly related organization FAN or Federal News Agency was located in the building The New York Times article describes various experiences reported by former employees of the Internet Research Agency at the Savushkina Street location It also describes several disruptive hoaxes in the US and Europe such as the Columbian Chemicals Plant explosion hoax that may be attributable to the Internet Research Agency or similar Russian based organizations 46 1 February 2018 Optikov street 4 building 3 Lakhta 2 business center Lakhta Saint Petersburg edit 59 59 41 5068 N 30 14 44 4588 E 59 994863000 N 30 245683000 E 59 994863000 30 245683000Reported by the Russian online newspaper DP ru in December 2017 the office moved from the four story building at 55 Savushkina Street to Lakhta on four floors at Optikov street ru 4 building 3 Russian Sankt Peterburg ulica Optikova 4 korpus 3 near Staroderevenskaya street ru Russian Staroderevenskaya ulica in the Lakhta 2 business center Russian Lahta 2 on 1 February 2018 47 48 49 Beginning in February 2018 they were also known as the Lakhta Trolls Russian Lahta Trolli 47 Other cities edit Novaya Gazeta reported that according to Alexey Soskovets head of the office in Olgino North Western Service Agency was hiring employees for similar projects in Moscow and other cities in 2013 22 Work organization editMore than 1 000 paid bloggers and commenters reportedly worked only in a single building at Savushkina Street in 2015 50 Many other employees work remotely According to BuzzFeed News more than 600 people were generally employed in the trolls office earlier in June 2014 6 Each commentator has a daily quota of 100 comments 22 51 Trolls took shifts writing mainly in blogs on LiveJournal and Vkontakte about subjects along the propaganda lines assigned Included among the employees are artists who draw political cartoons 31 They work for 12 hours every other two days A blogger s quota is ten posts per shift each post at least 750 characters A commenter s norm is 126 comments and two posts per account Each blogger is in charge of three accounts 32 43 Employees at the Olgino office earned 25 000 Russian rubles per month at the time roughly US 651 41 those at the Savushkina Street office earned approximately 40 000 Russian rubles 32 43 In May 2014 Fontanka ru described schemes for plundering the federal budget intended to go toward the trolling organization 24 21 In 2017 another whistleblower said that with bonuses and long working hours the salary can reach 80 000 rubles 52 An employee interviewed by The Washington Post described the work I immediately felt like a character in the book 1984 by George Orwell a place where you have to write that white is black and black is white Your first feeling when you ended up there was that you were in some kind of factory that turned lying telling untruths into an industrial assembly line 53 According to a 2018 Kommersant article Yaroslov Ignatovsky Russian Yaroslav Rinatovich Ignatovskij born 1983 Leningrad heads Politgen Russian Politgen and is a political strategist that has coordinated the trolls efforts for Prigozhin 54 55 56 Trolling themes editAccording to the testimonies of the investigative journalists and former employees of the offices the main topics for posts included 22 25 32 43 Criticism of Alexei Navalny his sponsors and Russian opposition in general 31 Criticism of Ukraine s and the United States foreign policies and of the top politicians of these states Praise for Vladimir Putin and the policy of the Russian Federation Praise for and defense of Bashar al Assad 57 The IRA has also leveraged trolls to erode trust in American political and media institutions and showcase certain politicians as incompetent 3 Journalists have written that themes of trolling were consistent with those of other Russian propaganda outlets in topics and timing Technical points used by trolls were taken mainly from content disseminated by RT formerly Russia Today 31 43 A 2015 BBC News investigation identified the Olgino factory as the most likely producer of a September 2015 Saiga 410K review 58 video where an actor posing as a U S soldier shoots at a book that turns out to be a Quran which sparked outrage BBC News found among other irregularities that the soldier s uniform is not used by the U S military and is easily purchased in Russia and that the actor filmed was most likely a bartender from Saint Petersburg related to a troll factory employee 59 60 The citizen journalism site Bellingcat identified the team from Olgino as the real authors of a video attributed to the Azov Battalion in which masked soldiers threaten the Netherlands for organizing the referendum on the Ukraine European Union Association Agreement 61 Organized anti Ukrainian campaign editSee also Media portrayal of the Ukrainian crisis and Russian information war against Ukraine In the beginning of April 2014 there began an organized online campaign to shift public opinion in the Western world in a way that would be useful for Russian authorities regarding the Russian military intervention in Ukraine in 2014 Hacked and leaked documents from that time contain instructions for commenters posting at the websites of Fox News The Huffington Post TheBlaze Politico and WorldNetDaily The requirement for the working hours for the trolls is also mentioned 50 comments under news articles per day Each blogger had to manage six accounts on Facebook post at least three posts every day and participate twice in the group discussions Other employees had to manage 10 accounts on Twitter publishing 50 tweets every day Journalists concluded that Igor Osadchiy was a probable leader of the project and the campaign itself was run by Internet Research Agency Ltd Osadchiy denied his connection to the agency 6 The company was also one of the main sponsors of an anti Western exhibition Material Evidence 62 In the beginning of 2016 Ukraine s state owned news agency Ukrinform claimed to expose a system of bots in social networks which called for violence against the Ukrainian government and for starting The Third Maidan h They reported that the organizer of this system is the former anti Ukrainian combatant Sergiy Zhuk from Donbas He allegedly performed his Internet activity from Vnukovo District in Moscow 63 Reactions editForeign edit nbsp Wikisource has original text related to this article Internet Research Agency Indictment In March 2014 the Polish edition of Newsweek expressed suspicion that Russia was employing people to bombard its website with pro Russian comments on Ukraine related articles 64 Poland s governmental computer emergency response team later confirmed that pro Russia commentary had flooded Polish Internet portals at the start of the Ukrainian crisis 65 66 German language media websites were also flooded with pro Russia comments in the spring of 2014 67 68 69 70 71 In late May 2014 the hacker group Anonymous International began publishing documents received from hacked emails of Internet Research Agency managers 21 25 In May June 2014 Internet trolls invaded news media sites and massively posted pro Russian comments in broken English 72 21 73 In March 2015 a service enabling censorship of sources of anti Ukrainian propaganda in social networks inside Ukraine was launched 74 75 The United States Justice Department announced the indictment on 16 February 2018 of the Internet Research Agency while also naming more than a dozen individual suspects who allegedly worked there as part of the special counsel s investigation into criminal interference with the 2016 election 76 Assessments editRussian bloggers Anton Nosik Rustem Adagamov and Dmitriy Aleshkovskiy have said that paid Internet trolls don t change public opinion Their usage is just a way to steal budget money 24 21 25 Leonid Volkov a politician working for Alexei Navalny s Anti Corruption Foundation suggests that the point of sponsoring paid Internet trolling is to make the Internet so distasteful that ordinary people are not willing to participate 46 The Columbian Chemicals Plant explosion hoax on 11 September 2014 was the work of Internet Research Agency 46 According to a 2019 report by Oxford researchers including sociologist Philip N Howard social media played a major role in political polarization in the United States due to computational propaganda the use of automation algorithms and big data analytics to manipulate public life such as the spread of fake news and conspiracy theories The researchers highlighted the role of the Russian Internet Research Agency in attempts to undermine democracy in the US and exacerbate existing political divisions The most prominent methods of misinformation were organic posting not advertisements and influence operation activity increased after the 2016 and was not limited to the 2016 election 77 78 Examples of efforts included campaigning for African American voters to boycott elections or follow the wrong voting procedures in 2016 encouraging extreme right wing voters to be more confrontational and spreading sensationalist conspiratorial and other forms of junk political news and misinformation to voters across the political spectrum 77 The political scientist Thomas Rid has said that the IRA was the least effective of all Russia s interference campaigns in the 2016 U S election despite its outsized press coverage and that it made no measurable impact on American voters 79 A study published in Nature in 2023 found no evidence of a meaningful relationship between exposure to the Russian foreign influence campaign and changes in attitudes polarization or voting behavior 80 Additional activities of organizers editMain article Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections Based on the documents published by Anonymous International Concord Management and Consulting was linked to the funding of several media outlets in Ukraine and Russia including Kharkiv News Agency 25 News of Neva Newspaper About Newspapers Business Dialog and Journalist Truth 24 The Columbian Chemicals Plant explosion hoax of 11 September 2014 which claimed an explosion had taken place at a chemical plant in Centerville St Mary Parish Louisiana has been attributed in June 2015 by The New York Times Magazine as a highly coordinated disinformation campaign and that the virtual assault was the work of the Internet Research Agency 81 Three months later the same accounts posted false messages on Twitter about an Ebola outbreak in Atlanta under the keyword EbolaInAtlanta quickly relayed and picked up by users living in the city A video was then posted on YouTube showing a medical team treating an alleged Ebola victim at Atlanta Airport On the same day a different group launched a rumor on Twitter under the keyword shockingmurderinatlanta reporting the death of a disarmed black woman shot by police Again a blurry and poorly filmed video is broadcast to support the rumor 82 Between July 2014 and September 2017 the IRA used bots and trolls on Twitter to sow discord about the safety of vaccines 83 84 The campaign used sophisticated Twitter bots to amplify highly polarizing pro vaccine and anti vaccine messages containing the hashtag VaccinateUS 83 In November 2017 The Guardian cited a University of Edinburgh study which found that hundreds of IRA accounts were also trying to influence UK politics by tweeting about Brexit 85 In September 2017 Facebook said that ads had been geographically targeted 86 87 Facebook revealed that during the 2016 United States presidential election IRA had purchased advertisements on the website for US 100 000 25 of which were geographically targeted to the U S 88 Facebook s chief security officer said that the ads appeared to focus on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum 86 87 In reviewing the ads buys we have found approximately 100 000 in ad spending from June of 2015 to May of 2017 associated with roughly 3 000 ads that was connected to about 470 inauthentic accounts and Pages in violation of our policies Our analysis suggests these accounts and Pages were affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia Facebook s chief security officer Alex Stamos September 6 2017 89 According to a 17 October 2017 BuzzFeed News report IRA recruited four African American activists into taking real action via protests and self defense training in what would seem to be a further attempt to exploit racial grievances 90 According to reporting by Vanity Fair up until that point most known efforts had been aimed at weaponizing the far right 91 A December 2018 report by The New York Times based on U S Senate data noted that the Internet Research Agency had created 81 Facebook pages around the time of the 2016 election Of these 30 pages specifically targeted African Americans attracting a total of 1 2 million followers During the same time period it had created 25 pages targeting right wing audiences and these had attracted a total of 1 4 million followers 92 According to The New York Times 92 While the right wing pages promoted Mr Trump s candidacy the left wing pages scorned Mrs Clinton while promoting Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Jill Stein the Green Party candidate The voter suppression effort was focused particularly on Sanders supporters and African Americans urging them to shun Mrs Clinton in the general election and either vote for Ms Stein or stay home Once the election was concluded the IRA posted messages mocking accusations of Russian interference with one post reading You ve lost and don t know what to do Just blame it on Russian hackers 92 On 16 February 2018 the Internet Research Agency along with 13 Russian individuals and two other Russian organizations was indicted following an investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller with charges stemming from impairing obstructing and defeating the lawful functions of government 93 On 23 March 2018 The Daily Beast revealed new details about IRA gathered from leaked internal documents 94 which showed that IRA used Reddit and Tumblr as part of its influence campaign 95 On the same day Tumblr announced that they had banned 84 accounts linked to IRA saying that they had spread misinformation through conventional postings rather than advertisements 96 97 In October 2018 the US Justice Department filed charges against Russian accountant Elena Khusyaynova for working with the IRA to influence not only the 2016 elections but also the upcoming 2018 midterm elections 98 As of February 2024 Khusyaynova has not been apprehended according to the Rewards for Justice Program 99 Rallies and protests organized by IRA in the United States edit Further information Russia and Black Lives Matter nbsp Michael Moore at the anti Trump rally in New York City 12 November 2016 which was allegedly organized by a Russian group 100 On 4 April 2016 a rally in Buffalo New York protested the death of India Cummings a black woman who had recently died in police custody IRA s Blacktivist Facebook account actively promoted the event and reached out directly to local activists on Facebook Messenger asking them to circulate petitions and print Blacktivist supplied the petitions and poster artwork 94 On 16 April 2016 a rally protesting the death of Freddie Gray attracted large crowds in Baltimore IRA s Blacktivist Facebook group promoted and organized the event including reaching out to local activists 101 On 23 April 2016 a small group of white power demonstrators held a rally they called Rock Stone Mountain at Stone Mountain Park near Stone Mountain Georgia They were confronted by a large group of anti racist counterprotestors and some violent clashes ensued The protest was heavily promoted by IRA accounts on Tumblr Twitter and Facebook and the IRA website blackmatters com The IRA used its Blacktivist Facebook account to reach out to no avail to activist and academic Barbara Williams Emerson the daughter of Hosea Williams to help promote the protests Afterward RT blamed anti racists for violence and promoted two videos shot at the event 94 On 2 May 2016 a second rally was held in Buffalo New York protesting the death of India Cummings Like the 4 April rally the event was heavily promoted by IRA s Blacktivist Facebook account including attempted outreach to local activists 94 On 21 May 2016 two competing rallies were held in Houston to alternately protest against and defend the recently opened Library of Islamic Knowledge at the Islamic Da wah Center The Stop Islamization of Texas rally was organized by the Facebook group Heart of Texas The posting for the event encouraged participants to bring guns A spokesman for the group conversed with the Houston Press via email but declined to give a name The other rally Save Islamic Knowledge was organized by another Facebook group called United Muslims of America for the same time and location Both Facebook groups were later revealed to be IRA accounts 102 103 On 25 May 2016 the Westboro Baptist Church held its annual protest of Lawrence High School graduation ceremonies in Lawrence Kansas The LGBT United Facebook group organized a counter protest to confront the Westboro Baptist Church protest including by placing an ad on Facebook and contacting local people About a dozen counter showed up Lawrence High School students did not participate in the counter protest because they were skeptical of the counter protest organizers LGBT United was an IRA account that appears to have been created specifically for this event 104 LGBT United organized a candlelight vigil on 25 June 2016 for the Pulse nightclub shooting victims in Orlando Florida 105 106 nbsp A protest in response to the Philando Castile shooting in July 2016IRA s Don t Shoot Facebook group and affiliated Don t Shoot Us website tried to organize a protest outside St Paul Minnesota police headquarters on 10 July 2016 in response to the 6 July fatal police shooting of Philando Castile Some local activists became suspicious of the motives behind the event because St Paul police were not involved in the shooting Castille had been shot by a St Anthony police officer in nearby Falcon Heights Local activists contacted Don t Shoot After being pressed on who they were and who supported them Don t Shoot agreed to move the protest to St Anthony police headquarters The concerned local activists investigated further and urged not to participate after deciding Don t Shoot was a total troll job Don t Shoot organizers eventually relinquished control of the event to local organizers who subsequently declined to accept any money offered by Don t Shoot to cover expenses 107 108 A Black Lives Matter protest rally was held in Dallas on 10 July 2016 A Blue Lives Matter counter protest was held across the street The Blue Lives Matter protest was organized by the Heart of Texas Facebook group controlled by the IRA 109 105 The Blacktivist Facebook group organized a rally in Chicago to honor Sandra Bland on 16 July 2016 the first anniversary of her death The rally was held in front of the Chicago Police Department s Homan Square facility They passed around petitions calling for a Civilian Police Accountability Council ordinance 110 111 17 Florida Goes Trump rallies were held across Florida on 25 August 2016 The rallies were organized by IRA using their Being Patriotic Facebook group and march for trump Twitter account 112 The SecuredBorders Facebook group organized the Citizens before refugees protest rally on 27 August 2016 at the City Council Chambers in Twin Falls Idaho Only a small number of people showed up for the three hour event most likely because it was Saturday and the Chambers were closed SecureBorders was an IRA account 113 The Safe Space for Muslim Neighborhood rally was held outside the White House on 3 September 2016 At least 57 people attended the event organized by the IRA s United Muslims of America Facebook group 114 BlackMattersUS an IRA website recruited activists to participate in protests on the days immediately following 20 September 2016 police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte North Carolina The IRA paid for expenses such as microphones and speakers 115 The Miners for Trump rallies held in Pennsylvania on 2 October 2016 were organized by IRA s Being Patriotic Facebook group 112 The IRA ran its most popular ad on Facebook on 19 October 2016 The ad was for the IRA s Back the Badge Facebook group and showed a badge with the words Back the Badge in front of police lights under the caption Community of people who support our brave Police Officers 116 A large rally was held in Charlotte North Carolina on 22 October 2016 protesting the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott BlackMattersUS recruited unwitting local activists to organize the rally 117 BlackMattersUS provided one activist with a bank card to pay for rally expenses 115 Anti Hillary Clinton Texit rallies were held across Texas on 5 November 2016 The Heart of Texas Facebook group organized the rallies around the theme of Texas seceding from the United States if Hillary Clinton is elected The group contacted the Texas Nationalist Movement a secessionist organization to help with organizing efforts but they declined to help Small rallies were held in Dallas Fort Worth Austin and other cities No one attended the Lubbock rally 118 119 120 A Trump protest called Trump is NOT my President attracted 5 000 to 10 000 in Manhattan on 12 November 2016 Marched from Union Square to Trump Tower The protest was organized by BlackMattersUS 121 The IRA s United Muslims of America Facebook group organized the Make peace not war protest on 3 June 2017 outside Trump Tower in New York City It is unclear whether anyone attended this protest or instead attended the March for Truth affiliated protest held on the same day 114 122 123 Lawsuit editIn May 2015 a trolling company employee Lyudmila Savchuk in Saint Petersburg sued her employer for labor violations 124 seeking to disclose its activities Ivan Pavlov from human rights defending initiative Team 29 represented Savchuk and the defendant troll factory agreed to pay Savchuk her withheld salaries and to restore her job 125 Savchuk later described extreme psychological pressure at the work place with jokes circulating among employees that one can remain sane in the factory for two months maximum as result of constant switching between different personalities that the workers are expected to design and maintain during work time 126 The realization that you can invent any fact then watch it absolutely synchronized with the media outlets as one massive information outflow and spread worldwide that absolutely breaks your psyche Lyudmila Savchuk Polygraph Working in Russian Troll Factory Pushed Reporter to Edge of Insanity 2018Indictments editMain article Mueller special counsel investigation Criminal charges nbsp Indictment for interfering in the 2016 U S electionsOn 16 February 2018 13 individuals were indicted by the Washington D C grand jury for alleged illegal interference in the 2016 presidential elections during which they strongly supported the candidacy of Donald Trump according to special counsel Robert Mueller s office IRA Concord Management and Concord Catering were also indicted It was alleged that IRA was controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin a wealthy associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin 127 128 The indicted individuals are Dzheykhun Nasimi Ogly Aslanov Anna Vladislavovna Bogacheva Maria Anatolyevna Bovda Robert Sergeyevich Bovda Mikhail Leonidovich Burchik Mikhail Ivanovich Bystrov Irina Viktorovna Kaverzina Aleksandra Yuryevna Krylova Vadim Vladimirovich Podkopaev Sergey Pavlovich Polozov Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin Gleb Igorevitch Vasilchenko and Vladimir Venkov 128 All of the defendants are charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States 3 are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud and 5 defendants are charged with aggravated identity theft None of the defendants are in custody 129 i On 15 March President Trump imposed financial sanctions under the Countering America s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act on the 13 Russian and organizations indicted by Mueller 133 preventing them from entering the United States to answer the charges should they wish to In October 2018 Russian accountant Elena Khusyaynova was charged with interference in the 2016 and 2018 US elections She is alleged to have been working with the IRA She was said to have managed a 16 million budget 134 Timeline of the Internet Research Agency interference in United States elections edit2014 edit Further information Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections April The IRA creates a department called the translator project The department s focus is on interfering in the U S election 135 136 May The IRA begins its election interference campaign of spread ing distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general 135 136 4 26 June Aleksandra Krylova and Anna Bogacheva two IRA employees travel to the U S to collect intelligence Maria Bovda a third employee is denied a visa 135 All three are indicted in February 2018 for their work on election interference 136 11 September The IRA spreads a hoax they created about a fictitious chemical plant fire in Centerville St Mary Parish Louisiana purportedly started by ISIS The hoax includes tweets and YouTube videos showing a chemical plant fire Centerville is home to many chemical plants but the plant named in the tweets does not exist Initial tweets are sent directly to politicians journalists and Centerville residents 137 21 September 11 October The Material Evidence art exhibition is displayed at the Art Beam gallery in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City It portrays the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine in a pro Russian light It is promoted by Twitter accounts that also spread the 11 September chemical plant fire hoax 137 The exhibition is partly funded by the IRA 138 13 December The IRA uses Twitter to spread a hoax about an Ebola outbreak in Atlanta Many of the Twitter accounts used in the 11 September chemical plant fire hoax also spread this hoax The hoax includes a YouTube video of medical workers wearing hazmat suits 137 Using a different set of Twitter accounts the IRA spreads a hoax about a purported police shooting of an unarmed black woman in Atlanta The hoax includes a blurry video of the purported event 137 2015 edit July onward Thousands of fake Twitter accounts run by the IRA begin to praise Trump over his political opponents by a wide margin according to a later analysis by The Wall Street Journal 139 140 3 November The IRA Instagram account Stand For Freedom attempts to organize a confederate rally in Houston Texas on 14 November It is unclear if anyone showed up The Mueller Report identifies this as the IRA s first attempt to organize a U S rally 141 142 29 19 November The IRA creates first Twitter account Purporting to be the Unofficial Twitter account of Tennessee Republicans it peaks at over 100 000 followers 143 2016 edit Further information Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections July 2016 election day and Timeline of post election transition following Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections 10 February IRA instructs workers to use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest except Sanders and Trump we support them 144 April The IRA starts buying online ads on social media and other sites The ads support Trump and attack Clinton 135 136 4 April A rally is held in Buffalo New York protesting the death of India Cummings Cummings was a black woman who had recently died in police custody The IRA s Blacktivist account on Facebook actively promotes the event reaching out directly to local activists on Facebook Messenger asking them to circulate petitions and print posters for the event Blacktivist supplies the petitions and poster artwork 94 16 April A rally protesting the death of Freddie Gray attracts large crowds in Baltimore The IRA s Blacktivist Facebook group promotes and organizes the event including reaching out to local activists 101 19 April The IRA purchases its first pro Trump ad through its Tea Party News Instagram account The Instagram ad asks users to upload photos with the hashtag KIDS4TRU to make a patriotic team of young Trump supporters 145 23 April A small group of white power demonstrators hold a rally they call Rock Stone Mountain at Stone Mountain Park near Stone Mountain Georgia They are confronted by a large group of protesters and some violent clashes ensue The counterprotest was heavily promoted by IRA accounts on Tumblr Twitter and Facebook and the IRA website blackmatters com The IRA uses its Blacktivist account on Facebook to reach out to no avail to activist and academic Barbara Williams Emerson the daughter of Hosea Williams to help promote the protests Afterward RT blames anti racist protesters for violence and promotes two videos shot at the event 94 2 May A second rally is held in Buffalo New York protesting the death of India Cummings Like the 4 April rally the event is heavily promoted by the IRA s Blacktivist Facebook account including attempted outreach to local activists 94 21 May Two competing rallies are held in Houston to alternately protest against and defend the recently opened Library of Islamic Knowledge at the Islamic Da wah Center The Stop Islamization of Texas rally is organized by the Facebook group Heart of Texas The Facebook posting for the event encourages participants to bring guns A spokesman for the group converses with the Houston Press via email but declines to give a name The other rally Save Islamic Knowledge is organized by the Facebook group United Muslims of America for the same time and location Both Facebook groups are later revealed to be IRA accounts 102 103 29 May The IRA hires an American to pose in front of the White House holding a sign that says Happy 55th Birthday Dear Boss Boss is a reference to Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin 135 136 1 June The IRA plans a Manhattan rally called March for Trump and buys Facebook ads promoting the event 135 136 4 June The IRA email account sends news releases about the March for Trump rally to New York City media outlets 135 136 5 June The IRA contacts a Trump campaign volunteer to provide signs for the March for Trump rally 135 136 23 June The IRA persona Matt Skiber contacts an American to recruit for the March for Trump rally 135 136 24 June The IRA group United Muslims of America buys Facebook ads for the Support Hillary Save American Muslims rally 135 136 25 June The IRA s March for Trump rally occurs 135 136 The IRA Facebook group LGBT United organizes a candlelight vigil for the Pulse nightclub shooting victims in Orlando Florida 105 106 July The IRA s translator project grows to over 80 employees 135 136 Summer IRA employees use the stolen identities of four Americans to open PayPal and bank accounts to act as conduits for funding their activities in the United States 135 136 5 July United Muslims of America an IRA group orders posters with fake Clinton quotes promoting Sharia Law The posters are ordered for the Support Hillary Save American Muslims rally they are organizing 135 136 6 10 July The IRA s Don t Shoot Facebook group and affiliated Don t Shoot Us website try to organize a protest outside the St Paul Minnesota police headquarters on 10 July in response to the 6 July fatal police shooting of Philando Castile Some local activists become suspicious of the event because St Paul police were not involved in the shooting Castile was shot by a St Anthony police officer in nearby Falcon Heights Local activists contact Don t Shoot After being pressed on who they are and who supports them Don t Shoot agrees to move the protest to the St Anthony police headquarters The concerned local activists investigate further and urge protesters not to participate after deciding Don t Shoot is a total troll job Don t Shoot organizers eventually relinquish control of the event to local organizers who subsequently decline to accept any money from Don t Shoot 146 147 9 July The Support Hillary Save American Muslims rally occurs in Washington D C The rally is organized by the IRA group United Muslims of America 135 136 10 July A Black Lives Matter protest rally is held in Dallas A Blue Lives Matter counterprotest is held across the street The Blue Lives Matter protest is organized by the Heart of Texas Facebook group controlled by the IRA 109 105 103 12 July An IRA group buys ads on Facebook for the Down with Hillary rally in New York City 135 136 16 July The IRA s Blacktivist group organizes a rally in Chicago to honor Sandra Bland on the first anniversary of her death The rally is held in front of the Chicago Police Department s Homan Square building Participants pass around petitions calling for a Civilian Police Accountability Council ordinance 148 149 23 July The IRA organized Down with Hillary rally is held in New York City The agency sends 30 news releases to media outlets using email 135 136 2 3 August The IRA s Matt Skiber persona contacts the real Florida for Trump Facebook account The T W persona contacts other grassroots groups 135 136 4 August The IRA s Facebook account Stop AI accuses Clinton of voter fraud during the Iowa Caucuses They buy ads promoting the post 135 136 IRA groups buy ads for the Florida Goes Trump rallies The 8 300 people who click on the ads are sent to the Agency s Being Patriotic Facebook page 135 136 5 August The IRA Twitter second account hires an actress to play Hillary Clinton in prison garb and someone to build a cage to hold the actress The actress and cage are to appear at the Florida Goes Trump rally in West Palm Beach Florida on 20 August 135 136 11 August The IRA Twitter first account claims that voter fraud is being investigated in North Carolina 135 136 12 18 August The IRA s persona Josh Milton communicates with Trump Campaign officials via email to request Trump Pence signs and the phone numbers of campaign affiliates as part of an effort to organize pro Trump campaign rallies in Florida 150 142 35 15 August A Trump campaign county chair contacts the IRA through their phony email accounts to suggest locations for rallies 135 136 16 August The IRA buys ads on Instagram for the Florida Goes Trump rallies 135 136 18 August The IRA uses its email account to contact a Trump campaign official in Florida The email requests campaign support at the forthcoming Florida Goes Trump rallies It is unknown whether the campaign official responded 135 136 The IRA pays the person they hired to build a cage for a Florida Goes Trump rally in West Palm Beach Florida 135 136 19 August A Trump supporter suggests to the IRA Twitter account March for Trump that it contact a Trump campaign official The official is emailed by the agency 135 The IRA s Matt Skiber persona contacts another Trump campaign official on Facebook 135 136 20 August 17 Florida Goes Trump rallies are held across Florida The rallies are organized by Russian trolls from the IRA 136 112 27 August The IRA Facebook group SecuredBorders organizes a Citizens before refugees protest rally at the City Council Chambers in Twin Falls Idaho Only a small number of people show up for the three hour event most likely because it is Saturday and the Chambers are closed 151 31 August An American contacts the IRA s Being Patriotic account about a possible 11 September event in Miami 135 136 The IRA buys ads for a 11 September rally in New York City 135 136 3 September The IRA Facebook group United Muslims of America organizes a Safe Space for Muslim Neighborhood rally outside the White House attracting at least 57 people 114 9 September The IRA sends money to its American groups to fund the 11 September rally in Miami and to pay the actress who portrayed Clinton at the West Palm Beach Florida rally 135 136 20 26 September BlackMattersUS an IRA website recruits activists to participate in protests over the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte North Carolina The IRA pays for expenses such as microphones and speakers 115 22 September The IRA buys ads on Facebook for Miners for Trump rallies in Pennsylvania 135 136 2 October Miners for Trump rallies are held across Pennsylvania The IRA uses the same techniques to organize the rallies as they used for the Florida Goes Trump rallies including hiring a person to wear a Clinton mask and a prison uniform 135 136 16 October The IRA s Instagram account Woke Blacks makes a post aimed at suppressing black voter turnout 135 136 19 October The IRA runs its most popular ad on Facebook The ad is for the IRA s Back the Badge Facebook group and shows a badge with the words Back the Badge in front of police lights under the caption Community of people who support our brave Police Officers 152 22 October A large rally is held in Charlotte North Carolina protesting the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott The IRA website BlackMattersUS recruits unwitting local activists to organize the rally 153 BlackMattersUS provides an activist with a bank card to pay for rally expenses 115 2 November The IRA Twitter first account alleges VoterFraud by counting tens of thousands of ineligible mail in Hillary votes being reported in Broward County Florida Trump Jr retweets it 135 136 3 November The IRA Instagram account Blacktivist suggests people vote for Stein instead of Clinton 135 136 5 November Anti Clinton Texit rallies are held across Texas The IRA s Heart of Texas Facebook group organizes the rallies around the theme of Texas seceding from the United States if Clinton is elected The group contacts the Texas Nationalist Movement a secessionist organization to help with organizing efforts but they decline to help Small rallies are held in Dallas Fort Worth Austin and other cities No one attends the Lubbock rally 118 119 154 8 November Hours after the polls close the hashtag Calexit is retweeted by thousands of IRA accounts 154 11 November A large banner is hung from the Arlington Memorial Bridge in Washington D C showing a photo of Obama with the words Goodbye Murderer at the bottom The IRA Twitter third account takes credit and is an early promoter of the banner 155 156 12 November A Trump protest called Trump is NOT my President attracts 5 000 10 000 protestors in Manhattan who march from Union Square to Trump Tower The protest is organized by the IRA using their BlackMattersUS Facebook account 135 136 19 November The IRA organizes the Charlotte Against Trump rally in Charlotte North Carolina 135 136 8 December The IRA runs an ad on Craigslist to hire someone to walk around New York City dressed as Santa Claus while wearing a Trump mask 145 142 32 2017 edit Further information Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia January June 2017 and Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia July December 2017 9 April The Internet Research Agency IRA s United Muslims of America Facebook group posts a meme complaining about the cost of the 6 April missile strike on Syria by the United States The strike had been made in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government The meme asserts the 93 million cost of the strike could have founded sic Meals on Wheels until 2029 114 3 June The IRA s United Muslims of America Facebook group organizes the Make peace not war protest outside Trump Tower in New York City It is unclear whether anyone attends this protest or instead attends the March for Truth affiliated protest held on the same day 114 122 157 Thousands of people participate in the Protest Trump and ideology of hate at Trump Tower protest outside Trump Tower in New York City The protest was organized by the Resisters group on Facebook one of the bad actor groups identified by Facebook in July 2018 as possibly belonging to the IRA 158 159 23 August The Internet Research Agency s first Twitter account is closed 143 6 September Facebook admits selling advertisements to Russian companies seeking to reach U S voters 160 Hundreds of accounts were reportedly tied to the Internet Research Agency 161 137 Facebook pledges full cooperation with Mueller s investigation and begins to provide details on purchases from Russia including identities of the people involved 162 9 September Thousand of people participate in the We Stand with DREAMers Support DACA rally in New York City 163 The rally was organized by the Resisters group on Facebook one of the bad actor groups identified by Facebook in July 2018 as possibly belonging to the IRA 159 9 September Trump responds to a tweet containing we love you Mr President from IRA fourth Twitter account a backup of now closed IRA first one saying THANK YOU for your support Miami My team just shared photos from your TRUMP SIGN WAVING DAY yesterday I love you and there is no question TOGETHER WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN 150 142 34 28 September Twitter announces that it identified 201 non bot accounts tied to the IRA 164 Democrats rebuke Twitter for its frankly inadequate response to Russian meddling 165 Mother Jones writes that fake news on Twitter flooded swing states that helped Trump win 166 23 October The Daily Beast reports that Greenfloid LLC a tiny web hosting company registered to Sergey Kashyrin and two others hosted IRA propaganda websites DoNotShoot Us BlackMattersUS com and others on servers in a Staten Island neighborhood Greenfloid is listed as the North American subsidiary of ITL a hosting company based in Kharkiv Ukraine registered to Dmitry Deineka Deineka gave conflicting answers when questioned by The Daily Beast about the IRA websites 167 1 November Twitter tells the Senate Intelligence Committee that it has found 2 752 IRA accounts and 36 746 Russia linked bot accounts involved in election related retweets 164 2018 edit Further information Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia January June 2018 and Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia July December 2018 16 February Mueller indicts 13 Russian citizens IRA Glavset and two other Russian entities in a 37 page indictment returned by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia 136 A 15 July Business Insider article revealed a new Russian intelligence linked news site USAReally 168 which follows in the footsteps of previous Russian IRA backed troll farms and appears to be an attempt to test the waters ahead of the mid terms 169 31 July Facebook announces they have shut down eight pages 17 profiles and seven Instagram accounts related to bad actors identified recently with activity profiles similar to the IRA The company says it doesn t have enough information to attribute the accounts groups and events to the IRA but that a known IRA account was briefly an administrator of the Resisters group 170 The Resisters group was the first organizer on Facebook of the upcoming No Unite The Right 2 DC protest scheduled in Washington D C for 10 August Some of the event s other organizers insist they started organizing before Resisters created the event s Facebook page 171 25 September The New York Times reports that the Moscow based news website USAReally com appears to be a continuation of the IRA s fake news propaganda efforts targeting Americans The site launched in May has been banned from Facebook Twitter and Reddit A new Facebook page created by the site is being monitored by Facebook 172 12 September The Wall Street Journal reports that nearly 600 IRA Twitter accounts posted nearly 10 000 mostly conservative targeted messages about health policy and Obamacare from 2014 through May 2018 Pro ObamaCare messages peaked around the spring of 2016 when Senator Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were fighting for the Democratic Party presidential nomination Anti Obamacare messages peaked during the debates leading up to the attempted repeal of the Affordable Care Act in the spring of 2017 173 On 19 October The US Justice Department charges 44 year old Russian accountant Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova of Saint Petersburg with conspiracy to defraud the United States by managing the finances of the social media troll operation including the IRA that attempted to interfere with the 2016 and 2018 US elections 174 175 20 November The Federal Agency of News FAN sues Facebook in the U S District Court for the Northern District of California for violating its free speech rights by closing its account in April The FAN is a sister organization to the IRA that operates from the same building in St Petersburg The FAN claims in its filing that it has no knowledge of the IRA even though some current FAN employees were indicted by Mueller for their work with the IRA 176 2019 edit Further information Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia 2019 2020 2 February Twitter removed accounts suspected of being connected to the Russian Internet Research Agency that had disseminated a high volume of tweets related to QAnon that also used the WWG1WGA slogan 177 12 April The Washington Post reports that researchers at Clemson University found the IRA sent thousands of tweets during the 2016 election campaign in an attempt to drive Bernie Sanders supporters away from Hillary Clinton and towards Donald Trump 178 2020 edit 12 March CNN s Clarissa Ward reveals that Russia and the IRA have been running troll factories based in Nigeria and Ghana with the aim to disrupt the 2020 U S presidential campaign 179 Notes edit In 2014 software systems for monitoring social media networks purchased by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs MVD from Medialogia include the Prizma information and analytical systems the GLASS News Terminal Medialogy and the Medialogy Government Procurement system Russian Prizma Novostnogo terminala GLASS Medialogii i sistemy Medialogiya goszakupki Prism targets main news events trends information attacks and anomalous activity in blogs and social networks in real time and identifies the primary sources of information dissemination Senior officials and the Russian presidential administration monitor social networks using Prisma Prism identifies sites on the network which are intended to organize information attacks including fake sites that can be used to misinform users and information attacks organized by botnets and predicts information attacks threats etc The GLASS News Terminal system aggregates data from main events of the day negative and positive materials about the MVD and its leadership criticism of MVD employees authorities opposition protests etc The Main Center for Communications and Information Security Russian Glavnyj centr svyazi i informacionnoj bezopasnosti in the MVD stated that the users of these products are the Minister of Internal Affairs his deputies heads of main directorates directorates and departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs as well as employees of the Department of Internal Affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and employees of other divisions of the central apparatus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs 16 17 Medialogia Russian Medialogiya was a project began in 2003 of the software development company IBS but later was an independent business separate from IBS 14 15 a Farit Khusnoyarov Russian Farit Husnoyarov was the development director of Medialogia in 2012 and was the Deputy Minister of Public Administration Information Technology and Communications of the Moscow Region in 2015 18 From 21 October 2010 to 2012 Vyacheslav Volodin was the Deputy Chairman of Government as the Deputy Prime Minister to Dmitry Medvedev replacing Sergey Sobyanin who had been Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office under Vladimir Putin Volodin was the First deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia under Medvedev from 2012 to 2016 The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs MVD was headed by Rashid Nurgaliyev under Putin until 21 May 2012 when Vladimir Kolokoltsev assumed the post Senior officials at the Moscow City Hall include Vladimir Kolokoltsev who headed the MVD for the Moscow region from 7 September 2009 to 21 May 2012 From October 2012 the Moscow City Hall was under leadership of the Mayor of Moscow Sergey Sobyanin In 2012 other monitoring systems for social media in Russia included Kribrum Russian Kribrum from the Natalya Kaspersky company InfoWatch and the Igor Ashmanov firm Ashmanov amp Partners Russian Infowatch i Ashmanov i partnery and Wobot from former employees of Medialogia the Public Opinion Foundation and VimpelCom Russian byvshie sotrudniki Medialogii fonda Obshestvennoe mnenie i Vympelkoma 16 17 Maidan refers to Independence Square in Kyiv which became synonymous with mass political protests following the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2013 Euromaidan i e the two Maidans The American Department was headed by Jeykhun Aslanov an Azerbaijani who in October 2017 was 27 Maria Bovda was the previous head of the American Department 130 131 132 See also edit nbsp Internet portal nbsp Russia portal50 Cent Party Active measures AK Trolls Astroturfing CyberBerkut Fake news website Foreign exploitation of American race relations Internet manipulation Internet Water Army Team Jorge Operation Earnest Voice Public opinion brigades Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections Vulkan files leak Web brigadesReferences edit Lapowsky Issie 8 September 2017 Facebook May Have More Russian Troll Farms to Worry About Wired Retrieved 24 January 2020 Volchek Dmitrij 30 January 2021 Nasha norma 120 kommentov v den Zhizn kremlevskogo trollya Radio Svoboda a b Prier Jarred 2017 Commanding the Trend Social Media as Information Warfare Strategic Studies Quarterly 11 4 50 85 ISSN 1936 1815 JSTOR 26271634 Zhurnalist BBC Andrej Zaharov napisavshij o lyubovnice i docheri Putina uehal iz Rossii in Russian severreal org 27 December 2021 Retrieved 19 February 2023 By early 2018 Facebook suspended 70 accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency Adi Robertson 3 April 2018 Facebook suspends 273 accounts and pages linked to Russian misinformation agency The Verge Retrieved 30 August 2018 a b c Seddon Max 2 June 2014 Documents Show How Russia s Troll Army Hit America BuzzFeed Retrieved 12 June 2016 Russian reprint Dokumenty pokazali kak armiya rossijskih trollej atakuet Ameriku InoPressa Everything you wanted to know about trolls but were afraid to ask ShareAmerica U S State Dept Bureau of International Information Programs 4 November 2015 Retrieved 6 November 2015 Mangan Dan Calia Mike 16 February 2018 Special counsel Mueller Russians conducted information warfare against US to help Trump win CNBC Retrieved 16 February 2018 Prigozhin controlled Russian media group shuts after mutiny Reuters 2 July 2023 Retrieved 6 September 2023 Panella Chris Russian troll factory accused of interfering in US elections shuts down after exile of Wagner boss Business Insider Retrieved 11 July 2023 Short Philip 26 July 2022 Putin Henry Holt and Company ISBN 978 1627793667 Short Philip 25 June 2022 The extraordinary story of Putin s early life He was a cosseted child from a nondescript neighbourhood who approached the KGB at 16 to offer his services Philip Short traces his origins The Times Archived from the original on 6 October 2022 Retrieved 26 October 2023 szfreiberger 24 August 2022 Review for PUTIN HIS LIFE AND TIMES by Philip Short DOC S BOOKS A window into Doc Freiberger s library docs books com Archived from the original on 26 October 2023 Retrieved 26 October 2023 IBS 30 shagov v budushee Cozdaem tehnologii kotorymi polzuyutsya milliony Nasha istoriya IBS 30 Steps to the Future Creating Technologies That Are Used by Millions Our History IBS in Russian 26 October 2023 Archived from the original on 26 October 2023 Retrieved 26 October 2023 Medialogiya Medialogia in Russian 26 October 2023 Archived from the original on 26 October 2023 Retrieved 26 October 2023 a b Golicyna Anastasiya 26 September 2014 MVD budet monitorit socseti i SMI za 24 mln rublej The Ministry of Internal Affairs will monitor social networks and the media for 24 million rubles Vedomosti in Russian Archived from the original on 26 October 2023 Retrieved 26 October 2023 a b Golicyna Anastasiya 29 September 2014 MVD zakupit sistemy monitoringa socsetej i blogosfery The Ministry of Internal Affairs will purchase monitoring systems for social networks and the blogosphere Vedomosti in Russian Archived from the original on 26 October 2023 Retrieved 26 October 2023 a b Buribaev Ajdar Buribaev Aidar Badanin Roman Badanin Roman 15 August 2012 Kak vlasti chitayut vashi blogi rassledovanie Forbes How authorities read your blogs Forbes investigation Forbes in Russian Archived from the original on 20 August 2021 Retrieved 26 October 2023 a href Template Cite news html title Template Cite news cite news a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Chen Adrian 2 June 2015 The Agency From a nondescript office building in St Petersburg Russia an army of well paid trolls has tried to wreak havoc all around the Internet and in real life American communities New York Times Archived from the original on 19 December 2019 Retrieved 26 October 2023 Forbes rasskazal o sisteme analiza blogov dlya chinovnikov Forbes spoke about a blog analysis system for officials in Russian 16 August 2012 Archived from the original on 26 October 2023 Retrieved 26 October 2023 a b c d e f V SShA nachali ohotu na proplachennyh internet trollej iz Rossii The hunt for Russian internet trolls started in the U S Criminal Ukraine in Russian NEWSru com 5 June 2014 Retrieved 12 June 2016 Ukrainian reprint Amerikanci rozpochali polyuvannya na proplachenih Kremlem internet troliv Archived 5 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine zik ua a b c d e f g h Alexandra Garmazhapova 9 September 2013 Gde zhivut trolli Kak rabotayut internet provokatory v Sankt Peterburge i kto imi zapravlyaet Where are the trolls The internet provocateurs in St Petersburg and who funds them Novaya Gazeta in Russian Archived from the original on 2 February 2015 Retrieved 12 June 2016 Ukrainian reprint De zhivut troli u RF yak pracyuyut internet provokatori v Sankt Peterburzi i hto nimi zapravlyaye Archived 5 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine finance ua a b SMI Pod Peterburgom za umerennuyu platu rugali Navalnogo Near St Petersburg there are those being paid a modest fee to abuse Navalny Lentizdat in Russian 4 September 2013 Retrieved 12 June 2016 a b c d e Denis Korotkov 29 May 2014 Sotni trollej za milliony Hundreds of millions of trolls Fontanka ru in Russian Retrieved 12 June 2016 a b c d e Andrew Soshnikov 30 May 2014 Internet trolli iz Olgino zagovorili na anglijskom i ukrainskom Internet trolls from Olgino start talking in English and Ukrainian Moy Rayon in Russian Retrieved 12 June 2016 Dawson Andrew Innes Martin June 2019 How Russia s Internet Research Agency Built its Disinformation Campaign PDF The Political Quarterly 90 2 245 256 doi 10 1111 1467 923X 12690 S2CID 165035949 a b Wagner chief admits to founding Russian troll farm sanctioned for meddling in US elections CNN 14 February 2023 Retrieved 14 February 2023 Ilya Klishin 21 May 2014 Maksimalnyj retvit Lajki na Zapad Maximum retweet Laika West Vedomosti in Russian Retrieved 12 June 2016 Why are Russian trolls spreading online hoaxes in the U S PBS News Hour PBS PBS is a publicly funded American broadcaster 8 June 2015 Retrieved 17 February 2018 a b Andrew Soshnikov 4 September 2013 Pod Peterburgom obnaruzheno logovo trollej kotorye klejmyat Navalnogo i hvalyat russkoe kino Near St Petersburg lies the lair of trolls that brand and praise Russian cinema Moy Rayon in Russian Retrieved 12 June 2016 a b c d e Diana Khachatryan 11 March 2015 Kak stat trollhanterom How to become a troll breaker Novaya Gazeta in Russian Vol 24 Retrieved 12 June 2016 a b c d e Sofia Korzova 28 October 2014 SMI Olginskie trolli stali savushkinskimi Trolls from Olgino have become savushkinskimi Lentizdat in Russian Retrieved 12 June 2016 Layne Nathan 15 June 2018 U S judge rejects firm s bid to see grand jury material in Russia troll case Reuters Retrieved 24 May 2021 Aro Jessikka 9 November 2015 My Year as a Pro Russia Troll Magnet International Shaming Campaign and an SMS from Dead Father Yle Kioski Archived from the original on 26 February 2017 Retrieved 10 November 2015 Aro Jessikka 24 June 2015 This is What Pro Russia Internet Propaganda Feels Like Finns Have Been Tricked into Believing in Lies Yle Kioski Retrieved 31 May 2016 Higgins Andrew 30 May 2016 Effort to Expose Russia s Troll Army Draws Vicious Retaliation The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 31 May 2016 Troll iz Olgino Nad Lukashenko otryvalis kak mogli Troll from Olgino After Lukashenko came out as best as they could Khartyia 97 in Russian 9 September 2014 Retrieved 12 June 2016 De zhivut troli u RF yak pracyuyut internet provokatori v Sankt Peterburzi i hto nimi zapravlyaye Archived 5 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine in Ukrainian Where do trolls live in the Russian Federation how do Internet provocateurs work in St Petersburg and who feeds them finance ua 5 March 2014 Gde zhivut trolli Kak rabotayut internet provokatory i kto imi zapravlyaet in Russian zapravlyaet Where trolls live How internet provocateurs work and who runs them TsenzorNet 10 September 2013 Gde zhivut trolli Kak rabotayut internet provokatory v Sankt Peterburge i kto imi zapravlyaet Archived 2 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine in Russian Where do trolls live How Internet provocateurs work in St Petersburg and who runs them Novaya Gazeta 9 September 2013 Amerikanci rozpochali polyuvannya na proplachenih Kremlem internet troliv Archived 5 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine in Ukrainian The Americans have launched a hunt for Internet trolls paid by the Kremlin zik ua 5 June 2014 De ar Putins soldater pa natet in Swedish They are Putin s online soldiers DN se 5 February 2015 a b c d e Trolli iz Olgino pereehali v novyj chetyrehetazhnyj ofis na Savushkina Trolls from Olgino moved to a new four story office on Savushkina DP Ru in Russian 28 October 2014 Retrieved 12 June 2016 Trolli iz Olgino pereehali v novyj chetyrehetazhnyj ofis na Savushkina in Russian Media Olginsky trolls became Savushkin Trolls from Olgino moved to a new four story office on Savushkina dp ru 28 October 2014 SMI Olginskie trolli stali savushkinskimi in Russian Media Olginsky trolls became Savushkinsky Lentizdat ru 28 October 2014 a b c Chen Adrian 2 June 2015 The Agency From a nondescript office building in St Petersburg Russia an army of well paid trolls has tried to wreak havoc all around the Internet and in real life American communities The New York Times Magazine ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 3 June 2015 a b Pankratova Irina Pankratova Irina 29 December 2017 Novogodnij pereezd Fabrika trollej perebiraetsya iz zdaniya na ulice Savushkina v BC byvshih zhertvovatelej izbiratelnoj kampanii Putina Trolli s ulicy Savushkina stali lahtinskimi trollyami Fabrika trollej pereezzhaet iz legendarnogo ofisa v nedavno postroennyj BC Lahta 2 Sudya po vsemu fabrika rasshiryaetsya novoe zdanie ne tolko sovremennee i statusnee no i bolshe po ploshadi New Year moving Troll Factory moves from the building on Savushkina Street to the BC of former Putin campaign supporters Trolls from Savushkina Street became Lakhta trolls The Troll Factory moves from the legendary office to the newly built Lakhta 2 business center Apparently the factory is expanding the new building is not only more modern and status but also larger in area DP Ru in Russian Archived from the original on 3 January 2018 Retrieved 3 February 2020 a href Template Cite news html title Template Cite news cite news a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Fabrika trollej pereehala v Lahtu 2 Fabrika trollej reshila zanyat biznes centr bolshej ploshadi v Sankt Peterburge Iz ofisov na ulice Savushkina uzhe sehala chast sotrudnikov oni osvobodili dva etazha a eshe dva dolzhny osvobodit do 1 fevralya 2018 goda Troll Factory moved to Lakhta 2 The Troll Factory decided to occupy a larger business center in St Petersburg Some of the employees have already moved out of the offices on Savushkina Street they have vacated two floors and two more must be vacated before 1 February 2018 RBC in Russian 30 December 2017 Archived from the original on 30 December 2017 Retrieved 3 February 2020 Volchek Dmitrij Bolchek Dmitry 6 March 2018 Kremlebotami rabotayut neudachniki Grustnye budni fabriki trollej The losers are working with Kremlin workers Sad weekdays of the troll factory Radio Svoboda in Russian Archived from the original on 6 March 2018 Retrieved 3 February 2020 a href Template Cite news html title Template Cite news cite news a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Tim Lister Jim Sciutto Mary Ilyushina 17 October 2017 Putin s chef the man behind the troll factory CNN Francisco Shaun Nichols in San When it comes to hacking societies Russia remains the master at sowing discord and disinformation online The Register Confessions of a pro Kremlin troll EU vs Disinformation euvsdisinfo eu 26 April 2017 Archived from the original on 18 June 2020 Retrieved 3 May 2017 Troianovski Anton 17 February 2018 A former Russian troll speaks It was like being in Orwell s world The Washington Post Retrieved 19 February 2018 Rossijskie polittehnologi izvedayut Afriku Evgenij Prigozhin organizuet socissledovaniya na kontinente Russian political technologists will explore Africa Yevgeny Prigozhin organizes social studies on the continent Chleny RAPK Yaroslav Ignatovskij Members of the RAPC Yaroslav Ignatovsky rapc pro Archived from the original on 30 September 2022 Retrieved 10 June 2021 Yaroslav Ignatovskij PolitGen Yaroslav Ignatovsky PolitGen 28 January 2021 Archived from the original on 28 January 2021 Video My life as a pro Putin propagandist in Russia s secret troll factory The Daily Telegraph Archived from the original on 6 June 2015 Retrieved 31 July 2018 BBC Says Russia s Troll Factory Faked a Video Showing a US Soldier Shooting at a Quran 23 March 2016 Retrieved 13 November 2023 Andrew Soshnikov 23 March 2016 Fejkovyj rasstrel kto stoit za rolikom ob unichtozhenii Korana Fake shot Who is behind the filming of the destruction of the Quran BBC Russian Service in Russian Retrieved 24 March 2016 Ross Logan 30 March 2016 Video of US soldier shooting Qur an is a fake made in Russia Daily Mirror Retrieved 12 June 2016 Behind the Dutch Terror Threat Video The St Petersburg Troll Factory Connection Bellingcat 3 April 2016 Retrieved 3 April 2016 Andy Cush 20 August 2015 Emails Link Kremlin Troll Farm to Bizarre New York Photography Exhibit Gawker Archived from the original on 20 September 2015 Retrieved 13 September 2015 Lana Samokhvalova 21 January 2016 Moskovskij slid koloradskogo Zhuka abo Hto i yak gotuye Majdan 3 Moscow s cyber roaches or who s calling for Maidan 3 in Ukrainian Ukrinform Retrieved 21 January 2016 Wachnicki Michal Olwert Pawel 4 March 2014 Wynajeci Rosjanie cyber bombarduja polski internet Hired Russians cyber bombarding the Polish internet Newsweek Polish version in Polish Archived from the original on 7 March 2016 Retrieved 12 June 2016 Czekaj Matthew 29 April 2015 Russia s Hybrid War Against Poland Eurasia Daily Monitor The Jamestown Foundation 12 80 Retrieved 12 June 2016 Raport o stanie bezpieczenstwa cyberprzestrzeni RP w roku 2014 Report on the state of Poland s internet security in 2014 in Polish Rzadowy Zespol Reagowania na Incydenty Komputerowe CERT GOV PL March 2015 Archived from the original PDF on 20 December 2019 Retrieved 12 June 2016 Gathmann Moritz Neef Christian Schepp Matthias Stark Holger 30 May 2014 The Opinion Makers How Russia Is Winning the Propaganda War Der Spiegel Retrieved 12 June 2016 Hans Julian 13 June 2014 Putins Trolle Putin s trolls Suddeutsche Zeitung in German Retrieved 12 June 2016 Bracher Katharina 29 June 2014 Prorussische Propaganda aus der Schweiz Twittern fur den Kreml Pro Russian propaganda from Switzerland Twittering for the Kremlin Neue Zurcher Zeitung in German Retrieved 12 June 2016 Barkin Noah Rinke Andreas 25 November 2014 Merkel hits diplomatic dead end with Putin Reuters Retrieved 12 June 2016 German media have been complaining for months about their news sites being bombarded with pro Russian comments German security sources say they are part of an organized offensive steered from the Kremlin Dapkus Liudas 28 December 2016 Lithuanian elves battle with pro Russian trolls on social media Toronto Star Associated Press Dewey Caitlin 4 June 2016 Hunting for paid Russian trolls in the Washington Post comments section The Washington Post Retrieved 12 June 2016 Elliott Chris 4 May 2014 The readers editor on pro Russia trolling below the line on Ukraine stories The Guardian Retrieved 23 December 2014 Olga Minchenko 25 March 2015 V Ukrayini zapustili servis blokuvannya antiukrayinskoyi propagandi TrolleyBust Ukraine has launched a service to block anti Ukrainian propaganda source TrolleyBust Watcher in Ukrainian Retrieved 12 June 2016 TrolleyBust service in Ukrainian and Russian Horwitz Sari Barrett Devlin Timberg Craig 16 February 2018 Russian troll farm 13 suspects indicted for interference in U S election The Washington Post ISSN 0190 8286 Retrieved 16 February 2018 a b Howard Philip Ganesh Bharath Liotsiou Dimitra Kelly John Francois Camille 1 October 2019 The IRA Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States 2012 2018 U S Senate Documents Report Russia still using social media to roil US politics AP NEWS 18 December 2018 Rid Thomas 2020 Active Measures The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare New York Farrar Straus and Giroux p 409 Eady Gregory Paskhalis Tom Zilinsky Jan Bonneau Richard Nagler Jonathan Tucker Joshua A 9 January 2023 Exposure to the Russian Internet Research Agency foreign influence campaign on Twitter in the 2016 US election and its relationship to attitudes and voting behavior Nature Communications 14 1 62 doi 10 1038 s41467 022 35576 9 ISSN 2041 1723 PMC 9829855 Retrieved 29 December 2023 Chen Adrian 21 June 2015 Composed 2015 06 02 first published in English 7 June 2015 The agency The New York Times Sunday Magazine New York published 7 June 2015 ISSN 0028 7822 Archived from the original on 23 June 2015 Retrieved 2 February 2016 Cop shooting Ebola scare in Atlanta invented by Russians Report The Atlanta Journal Constitution a b Broniatowski David A Jamison Amelia M Qi SiHua AlKulaib Lulwah Chen Tao Benton Adrian Quinn Sandra C Dredze Mark 23 August 2018 Weaponized Health Communication Twitter Bots and Russian Trolls Amplify the Vaccine Debate American Journal of Public Health 108 10 1378 1384 doi 10 2105 AJPH 2018 304567 ISSN 1541 0048 PMC 6137759 PMID 30138075 Glenza Jessica 23 August 2018 Russian trolls spreading discord over vaccine safety online The Guardian Retrieved 23 August 2018 Russia used hundreds of fake accounts to tweet about Brexit data shows The Guardian 14 November 2017 Retrieved 9 March 2022 a b Russian firm tied to pro Kremlin propaganda advertised on Facebook during election The Washington Post Retrieved 7 September 2017 a b Synovitz Ron Facebook Manipulation Echoes Accounts From Russian Troll Factory RadioFreeEurope RadioLiberty Retrieved 7 September 2017 Cloud David S Pierson David 21 September 2017 Facebook will provide ads bought by Russian company to congressional committees investigating Trump ties Los Angeles Times Facebook Says Russian Accounts Bought 100 000 in Ads During the 2016 Election Time 6 September 2017 Adams Rosalind Brown Hayes 17 October 2017 These Americans Were Tricked Into Working For Russia They Say They Had No Idea BuzzFeed News Kosoff Maya 17 October 2017 The Russian Troll Farm That Weaponized Facebook Had American Boots on the Ground The shadowy Internet Research Agency duped American activists into holding protests and self defense classes Vanity Fair Retrieved 20 October 2017 a b c Shane Scott Frenkel Sheera 17 December 2018 Russian 2016 Influence Operation Targeted African Americans on Social Media The New York Times Swaine Jon 16 February 2018 Thirteen Russians criminally charged for interfering in US election Mueller announces The Guardian Retrieved 16 February 2018 a b c d e f g Ackerman Spencer Resnick Gideon Collins Ben 1 March 2018 Leaked Secret Documents From Russia s Election Trolls The Daily Beast Retrieved 29 March 2018 Collins Ben Russell Josh 1 March 2018 Russians Used Reddit and Tumblr to Troll the 2016 Election The Daily Beast Retrieved 29 March 2018 Vanian Jonathan 23 March 2018 Tumblr Confirms That Russian Trolls Spread Misinformation On Its Service Fortune Lomas Natasha 24 March 2018 Tumblr confirms 84 accounts linked to Kremlin trolls Tech Crunch Office of Public Affairs Russian National Charged with Interfering in U S Political System United States Department of Justice www justice gov 19 October 2018 Retrieved 15 February 2024 Elena Khusyaynova Rewards For Justice web archive org 12 February 2024 Retrieved 15 February 2024 Sommer Will 31 October 2017 Thousands attended protest organized by Russians on Facebook The Hill Retrieved 20 March 2019 a b Levin Sam 30 September 2017 Did Russia fake black activism on Facebook to sow division in the US The Guardian Retrieved 2 April 2018 a b Malisow Craig 11 May 2016 Hate Group Planning Islamic Library Protest Totally Doesn t Think They re a Hate Group Houston Press Retrieved 30 March 2018 a b c Timberg Craig Dwoskin Elizabeth 25 January 2018 Russians got tens of thousands of Americans to RSVP for their phony political events on Facebook The Washington Post Hlavacek Joanna 1 November 2017 Facebook ad promoting 2016 Lawrence protest among those paid for by Russian trolls Lawrence Journal World Retrieved 1 April 2018 a b c d Geraghty Jim 31 October 2017 What Russia Really Wants A Divided Paralyzed America National Review Retrieved 2 April 2018 a b Isaac Mike Shane Scott 2 October 2017 Facebook s Russia Linked Ads Came in Many Disguises The New York Times Retrieved 2 April 2018 Furst Randy 1 November 2017 Did Russian hackers organize Castile protest Activists say no SC Times Retrieved 2 April 2018 O Sullivan Donie Byers Dylan 13 October 2017 Exclusive Even Pokemon Go used by extensive Russian linked meddling effort CNN Money Retrieved 2 April 2018 a b Kosoff Maya 30 October 2017 How Russia Secretly Orchestrated Dozens of U S Protests Vanity Fair Retrieved 31 March 2018 Dahn Andy 16 July 2016 Demonstrators Remember Sandra Bland Demand Greater Police Accountability CBS Chicago Retrieved 3 April 2018 Josh Russell josh emerson 29 September 2017 Google cache of Rally in Memory of Sandra Bland www facebook com events 1751718638376338 Tweet Retrieved 3 April 2018 via Twitter a b c Collins Ben Resnick Gideon Poulsen Kevin Ackerman Spencer 20 September 2017 Exclusive Russians Appear to Use Facebook to Push Trump Rallies in 17 U S Cities The Daily Beast Retrieved 15 March 2018 Poulsen Kevin Collins Ben Ackerman Spencer 12 September 2017 Exclusive Russia Used Facebook Events to Organize Anti Immigrant Rallies on U S Soil The Daily Beast Retrieved 2 April 2018 a b c d e Collins Ben Poulsen Kevin Ackerman Spencer 27 September 2017 Exclusive Russians Impersonated Real American Muslims to Stir Chaos on Facebook and Instagram The Daily Beast Retrieved 28 September 2017 a b c d Adams Rosalind Brown Hayes 17 October 2017 These Americans Were Tricked Into Working For Russia They Say They Had No Idea BuzzFeed News Retrieved 2 April 2018 Ackerman Spencer 10 May 2018 Russians Biggest Facebook Ad Promoted Blue Lives Matter The Daily Beast Retrieved 5 January 2019 Henderson Bruce Harrison Steve 19 October 2018 Charlotte shooting protest had hidden help a Russian troll farm news site says The Charlotte Observer Retrieved 2 April 2018 a b Bertrand Natasha 14 September 2017 Texas secession movement Russia linked Facebook group asked us to participate in anti Clinton rallies Business Insider Retrieved 2 April 2018 a b Texit Rallies Kick Off Across the State Without Local Support everythinglubbock com video 5 November 2016 Retrieved 2 April 2018 Yates Will Wendling Mike 4 November 2017 Russian trolls promoted California independence BBC News Retrieved 2 April 2018 Breland Ali 31 October 2017 Thousands attended protest organized by Russians on Facebook The Hill Retrieved 25 March 2018 a b Make peace not war eventbu Archived from the original on 10 April 2018 Retrieved 9 April 2018 via Internet Archive Stein Peter Aratani Lori 3 June 2017 Crowds rally at March for Truth in Washington and dozens of cities Chicago Tribune Retrieved 9 April 2018 U Rosiyi kolishnya spivrobitnicya podala v sud na fabriku internet troliv Former employee sues Internet Troll Factory TSN Television production in Ukrainian Ukraine 1 1 29 May 2015 Retrieved 12 June 2016 Filipov David 8 October 2017 The notorious Kremlin linked troll farm and the Russians trying to take it down The Washington Post Tlis Fatima Disinfo News Working in Russian Troll Factory Pushed Reporter to Edge of Insanity POLYGRAPH info Retrieved 19 October 2018 Swaine Jon Bennetts Marc 16 February 2018 Thirteen Russians criminally charged with interfering in US election Mueller announces The Guardian Retrieved 16 February 2018 a b Indictment in Mueller investigation February 2018 Retrieved 31 July 2018 Special counsel Mueller Russians conducted information warfare against US during election to help Donald Trump win CNBC 16 February 2018 Retrieved 31 July 2018 Amerikanskoe blyudo fabriki Prigozhina American dish factory Prigogine Rospres in Russian 17 October 2017 Archived from the original on 20 December 2019 Retrieved 19 December 2019 Olginskij troll Agata Burdonova vovremya predala Evgeniya Prigozhina The Olginsky troll Agatha Burdonova betrayed Evgeny Prigozhin in time Rospres in Russian 26 February 2018 Archived from the original on 20 December 2019 Retrieved 19 December 2019 Kotlyar Evgeniya Kotlyar Evgenia 24 February 2018 Byvshij menedzher inostrannogo otdela fabriki trollej pereehala zhit v SShA Byvshij dezhurnyj menedzher inostrannogo otdela Agentstva internet issledovanij fabrika trollej Agata Burdonova pereehala v SShA Ob etom ona rasskazala na svoej stranice vo VKontakte Former manager of the foreign department of the troll factory moved to the USA Former duty manager of the foreign department of the Internet Research Agency troll factory Agata Burdonova moved to the United States She spoke about this on her page on VKontakte TV Rain in Russian Archived from the original on 20 December 2019 Retrieved 19 December 2019 a href Template Cite news html title Template Cite news cite news a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Sheth Sonam 15 March 2018 Trump administration announces new sanctions on Russians charged in the Mueller investigation Business Insider Retrieved 15 March 2018 Crimial Complaint against Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova PDF Eastern District of Virginia 28 September 2018 Archived from the original PDF on 25 March 2022 Retrieved 24 March 2022 via CNN a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al Bump Philip 16 February 2018 Timeline How Russian trolls allegedly tried to throw the 2016 election to Trump The Washington Post Retrieved 25 March 2018 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am United States of America vs Internet Research Agency LLC et al United States District Court for the District of Columbia 16 February 2018 Indictment Text a b c d e Chen Adrian 2 June 2015 The Agency The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 6 September 2017 Cush Andy 20 August 2015 Emails Link Kremlin Troll Farm to Bizarre New York Photography Exhibit Gawker Archived from the original on 18 February 2018 Retrieved 10 April 2018 via Internet Archive Maremont Mark Barry Rob 6 November 2017 Russian Twitter Support for Trump Began Right After He Started Campaign The Wall Street Journal Retrieved 6 November 2017 Kwong Jessica 6 November 2017 Russia Was Helping Trump Just Days After He Entered the 2016 Primary Newsweek Jordan Jay R 19 April 2019 Houston Confederate rally earliest evidence of Russian interference says Mueller report Houston Chronicle Retrieved 19 April 2019 a b c d Mueller Robert S March 2019 Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election PDF Justice gov Retrieved 19 April 2019 a b Collins Ben Poulsen Kevin Ackerman Spencer Woodruff Betsy 18 October 2017 Trump Campaign Staffers Pushed Russian Propaganda Days Before the Election The Daily Beast Retrieved 19 October 2017 Yourish Karen Buchanan Larry Watkins Derek 20 September 2018 A Timeline Showing the Full Scale of Russia s Unprecedented Interference in the 2016 Election and Its Aftermath The New York Times Retrieved 20 September 2018 a b Broderick Ryan 18 April 2019 Here s Everything The Mueller Report Says About How Russian Trolls Used Social Media BuzzFeed News Retrieved 19 April 2019 Furst Randy 1 November 2017 Did Russian hackers organize Castile protest Activists say no St Cloud Times Retrieved 2 April 2018 O Sullivan Donie Byers Dylan 13 October 2017 Exclusive Even Pokemon Go used by extensive Russian linked meddling effort CNN Retrieved 2 April 2018 Dahn Andy 16 July 2016 Demonstrators Remember Sandra Bland Demand Greater Police Accountability CBS Chicago Retrieved 3 April 2018 Russell Josh josh emerson 29 September 2017 Google cache of Rally in Memory of Sandra Bland www facebook com events 1751718638376338 Tweet Retrieved 3 April 2018 via Twitter a b Panetta Grace 18 April 2019 All the times Trump campaign figures shared false information sponsored by Russia that were included in the Mueller report Business Insider Retrieved 22 April 2019 Poulsen Kevin Collins Ben Ackerman Spencer 12 September 2017 Exclusive Russia Used Facebook Events to Organize Anti Immigrant Rallies on U S Soil The Daily Beast Retrieved 12 September 2017 Ackerman 10 May 2018 Russians Biggest Facebook Ad Promoted Blue Lives Matter The Daily Beast Retrieved 5 January 2019 Henderson Bruce Harrison Steve 19 October 2018 Charlotte shooting protest had hidden help a Russian troll farm news site says The Charlotte Observer Retrieved 2 April 2018 a b Yates Will Wendling Mike 4 November 2017 Russian trolls promoted California independence BBC News Retrieved 2 April 2018 Scott Shane Mark Mazzetti 20 September 2018 The Plot to Subvert an Election The New York Times Retrieved 20 September 2018 Leroy Barton LeroyLovesUSA 10 November 2016 We hung out a huge banner right on the Arlington Memorial Bridge Goodbye to murderer Tweet Archived from the original on 12 November 2016 Retrieved 27 September 2018 via Twitter Stein Peter Aratani Lori 3 June 2017 Crowds rally at March for Truth in Washington and dozens of cities Chicago Tribune Retrieved 9 April 2018 Fractenberg Ben Hobbs Allegra Fisher Janon 15 August 2017 President s Return to NYC DNAInfo Archived from the original on 3 August 2018 Retrieved 2 August 2018 a b Breland Ali 1 August 2018 Shadowy Facebook account led to real life Trump protests The Hill Retrieved 1 August 2018 Leonnig Carol D Hamburger Tom Helderman Rosalind S 6 September 2017 Russian firm tied to pro Kremlin propaganda advertised on Facebook during election The Washington Post ISSN 0190 8286 Retrieved 6 December 2017 Goel Vindu Shane Scott 6 September 2017 Fake Russian Facebook Accounts Bought 100 000 in Political Ads The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 6 September 2017 Castillo Michelle 6 September 2017 Facebook gave special counsel Robert Mueller data on Russian ads report says Retrieved 7 September 2017 Narizhnaya Khristina 9 September 2017 Thousands gather in Midtown to protest Trump s DACA decision New York Post Retrieved 1 August 2018 a b Ackerman Spencer Collins Ben Woodruff Betsy 20 November 2017 Twitter Has Turned Over Zero New Russian Troll Accounts to Congress The Daily Beast Retrieved 30 December 2018 Gambino Lauren 28 September 2017 Democrats rebuke Twitter for frankly inadequate response to Russian meddling The Guardian Retrieved 29 September 2017 Clifton Denise 28 September 2017 Fake news on Twitter including from Russia flooded swing states that helped Trump win Mother Jones Retrieved 29 September 2017 Millions of tweets were flying furiously in the final days leading up to the 2016 US presidential election Zavadski Katie Ackerman Spencer Collins Ben Poulsen Kevin 23 October 2017 Exclusive Russian Propaganda Traced Back to Staten Island New York The Daily Beast Retrieved 7 January 2019 Roose Kevin Is a New Russian Meddling Tactic Hiding in Plain Sight The New York Times 25 September 2018 Davlashyan Naira Charlton Angela 15 July 2018 Russian bots trolls test waters ahead of US midterms Business Insider Associated Press Archived from the original on 9 February 2021 Retrieved 13 August 2018 Gleicher Nathaniel Stamos Alex 31 July 2018 Removing Bad Actors on Facebook Retrieved 31 July 2018 via Facebook Fandos Nicholas Roose Kevin Savage Charlie Frenkel Sheera 31 July 2018 Facebook Identifies an Active Political Influence Campaign Using Fake Accounts The New York Times Retrieved 31 July 2018 Roose Kevin 25 September 2018 Is a New Russian Meddling Tactic Hiding in Plain Sight The New York Times Retrieved 25 September 2018 Weixel Nathaniel 12 September 2018 Nearly 600 Russian troll accounts tweeted about ObamaCare report The Hill Retrieved 19 September 2018 Sonam Sheth 19 October 2018 The DOJ has charged a Russian woman working for a close Putin ally with conspiring to interfere in the 2018 midterms Business Insider Retrieved 21 October 2018 Katelyn Polantz 19 October 2018 Russian national charged with attempting to interfere in 2018 midterms CNN Retrieved 21 October 2018 Ackerman Spencer Poulsen Kevin 20 November 2018 Russian Trolls Sue Facebook Their Old Propaganda Machine The Daily Beast Retrieved 4 January 2019 Collins Ben Murphy Joe 2 February 2019 Russian troll accounts purged by Twitter pushed Qanon and other conspiracy theories NBC News Kranish Michael 12 April 2019 Inside the Russian effort to target Sanders supporters and help elect Trump The Washington Post Retrieved 12 April 2019 Ward Clarissa 12 March 2020 Russian election meddling is back via Ghana and Nigeria and in your feeds CNN Retrieved 13 March 2020 Further reading editOlga Khazan 9 October 2013 Russia s Online Comment Propaganda Army The Atlantic Chen Adrian 2 June 2015 The Agency The New York Times Magazine Doctrow Cory 2 June 2015 Russia s troll factory Boing Boing Karoun Demirjian 4 June 2015 A whistleblower is trying to bring down Russia s secret Internet troll army The Washington Post Trolls for hire Why are Russians being paid to wreak havoc online Q radio show podcast Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 10 June 2015 Dickerson Caitlin 26 September 2017 How Fake News Turned a Small Town Upside Down The New York Times Magazine Entous Adam Nakashima Ellen Jaffe Greg 26 December 2017 Kremlin trolls burned across the Internet as Washington debated options The Washington Post Retrieved 24 April 2021 Boucher Tim 24 November 2017 Internet Research Agency timboucher ca Retrieved 8 August 2018 Howard Philip N Ganesh Bharath Liotsiou Dimitra Kelly John Francois Camille 17 December 2018 The IRA Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States 2012 2018 PDF Computational Propaganda Research Project via Wikimedia Commons DiResta Renee Shaffer Kris Ruppel Becky Sullivan David Matney Robert Fox Ryan Albright Jonathan Johnson Ben 17 December 2018 The Tactics amp Tropes of the Internet Research Agency PDF New Knowledge via Wikimedia Commons Linvill Darren Warren Patrick 25 November 2019 That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared A Russian Troll Sent It Rolling Stone Alba Davey 29 March 2020 How Russia s Troll Farm Is Changing Tactics Before the Fall Election The New York Times The Kremlin backed Internet Research Agency which interfered in the 2016 election is using different methods to hide itself better Bail Christopher A Guay Brian Maloney Emily Combs Aidan Hillygus D Sunshine Merhout Friedolin Freelon Deen Volfovsky Alexander 7 January 2020 Assessing the Russian Internet Research Agency s impact on the political attitudes and behaviors of American Twitter users in late 2017 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117 1 243 250 Bibcode 2020PNAS 117 243B doi 10 1073 pnas 1906420116 ISSN 0027 8424 PMC 6955293 PMID 31767743 S2CID 208298030 Dawson Andrew Innes Martin 2019 How Russia s Internet Research Agency Built its Disinformation Campaign PDF The Political Quarterly 90 2 245 256 doi 10 1111 1467 923X 12690 ISSN 1467 923X S2CID 165035949 Retrieved 24 April 2021 External links editIuliia Subbotovska 29 May 2015 Russia Steps up Propaganda Push with Online Kremlin Trolls NBC News Associated Press Retrieved 12 June 2016 Vse o trollyah Trolli kto oni All the trolls Trolls Who are they in Russian 2014 Archived from the original on 1 February 2016 Retrieved 12 June 2016 V Seti dejstvitelno rabotaet banda kremlevskih trollej Imena adresa dokumenty In web forums work the Kremlin s gang of trolls Names addresses documents UAINFO in Russian 31 May 2014 Retrieved 12 June 2016 via reddit Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Internet Research Agency amp oldid 1207864099, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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