Russia Info-Warfare Attacks via US Social Media

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Russia didn’t begin targeting Americans on social media until 2013. That’s when they began tweeting in English. This followed a very extensive and successful twitter campaign within Russia to sway support for the invasion into parts of Ukraine.

By 2014, Russia Twitter activity in the US started ramping up rapidly, and activity on other social media platforms began, starting with YouTube, Instagram and then Facebook. Activities on these platforms took the form of coordinated campaigns. Russia leveraged these different platforms to lend support for ideas or activities initiated on another platform. For example, they might send a flurry of tweets to promote a news story posted on a Russian Facebook page taken from American based websites that they could strategically exploit.  

One such campaign was an attempt to raise fears and suspicion within African-American communities, part of an overall strategy to intensify racial animus within the U.S. They created what looked like an American based organization called Black Matters US. They opened a twitter account, a Black Matters Facebook page, an Instagram account etc.  They then used their platforms to promote and amplify the most radical or polarizing content they could find on domestic websites.  They added radical commentary or made statements like, “We are in danger!” or “Cops kill black kids. Are you sure that your son won’t be the next?”  

Influence campaigns such as this increase in number and volume. Most were designed to polarize Americans and turn us against each other. During the 2016 election season, additional campaigns were conducted to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances to become President. Vladimir Putin personally disliked Hillary, but also because she would maintain or increase US sanctions imposed on Russia for its aggression in Ukraine. The idea that the Russian campaign was primarily to harm Hillary Clinton isn’t accurate either. Interfering in our election was just one focus out of many. In fact, following the election of Donald Trump, Russian propaganda operations in the US continued to grow dramatically. The overall goal of Russia’s massive cyber operations in the United States and around the world is to degrade the ability of countries to function as democracies. Russia is attacking the West using sophisticated information warfare technology.

 https://www.axios.com/senate-reports-russian-interference-2016-election-9d0daca6-1e2d-4617-9295-f8eec61c1719.html

The above graph shows the growth of Russia’s social media activity across several platforms. It represents the pace of the attacks on our democracy. Here below is an overview of the Internet Research Agency (IRA) in Russia that is spearheading the attacks.