Analysis of Strategy and Spread of Russia-sponsored Content in the US in 2017

• Main Authors: Spangher, Alexander, Ranade, Gireeja, Nushi, Besmira, Fourney, Adam, Horvitz, Eric
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 23-10-2018
• Subjects: Computer Science - Social and Information Networks
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1810.10033

The Russia-based Internet Research Agency (IRA) carried out a broad
information campaign in the U.S. before and after the 2016 presidential
election. The organization created an expansive set of internet properties: web
domains, Facebook pages, and Twitter bots, which received traffic via purchased
Facebook ads, tweets, and search engines indexing their domains. We investigate
the scope of IRA activities in 2017, joining data from Facebook and Twitter
with logs from the Internet Explorer 11 and Edge browsers and the Bing.com
search engine. The studies demonstrate both the ease with which malicious
actors can harness social media and search engines for propaganda campaigns,
and the ability to track and understand such activities by fusing content and
activity resources from multiple internet services. We show how cross-platform
analyses can provide an unprecedented lens on attempts to manipulate opinions
and elections in democracies.