How Russian & Alt-Right Twitter Accounts Worked Together to Skew the Narrative About Berkeley

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: September 2, 2017 at 2:53:05 AM EDT
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] How Russian & Alt-Right Twitter Accounts Worked Together to Skew the Narrative About Berkeley
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> How Russian & Alt-Right Twitter Accounts Worked Together to Skew the Narrative About Berkeley
> #Antifa and #Berkeley were hot topics last weekend in America — and in Russia.
> By Caroline O.
> Sep 1 2017
> <https://medium.com/@RVAwonk/how-russian-alt-right-twitter-accounts-worked-together-to-skew-the-narrative-about-berkeley-f03a3d04ac5d>
>
> Social media has an important role in shaping perceptions of current events, as well as influencing mainstream news 
> coverage of those events. Platforms like Twitter provide real-time access to events going on around the world, 
> allowing anyone to get a front-row seat for breaking news. But as much as it has opened up new channels of 
> information, social media has also opened up new avenues for manipulating perceptions of reality. Misinformation and 
> disinformation often spread faster than the truth, and by the time the narrative is corrected, social media has 
> already moved on to the next “big thing.”
>
> The narrative surrounding last weekend’s protests in Berkeley took shape on social media and was picked up, at least 
> in part, by mainstream news outlets. The result was a skewed presentation of events that was almost entirely devoid 
> of the context in which they took place. Even more troubling: that narrative was influenced by pro-Russian social 
> media networks, including state-sponsored propaganda outlets, botnets, cyborgs, and individual users.
>
> In the case study below, I describe how the narrative surrounding Berkeley was picked up and shaped by Russian-linked 
> influence networks, which saw a chance to drive a wedge in American society and ran with it. Next, I look at the 
> individual accounts and users that were identified as top influencers on Twitter, and explore what they were posting, 
> how they worked together to craft a narrative, and the methods they used to amplify their message. Finally, I look at 
> how news coverage of the events in Berkeley was shaped by the skewed narrative that emerged on social media.
>
> This is just a single case study in a larger story, but it serves as an important reminder that Russia is still 
> exploiting social media to harm U.S. interests — and that plenty of Americans are willing to join in on the effort.
>
> The Russian Connection
>
> Russian-linked influence networks and propaganda arms quickly took interest in the Berkeley protests last weekend. On 
> Sunday afternoon, the top story on the front page of Russian propaganda outlet RT was about the events in Berkeley. 
> (Note that this was the main landing page — not the “America” section).
>
> RT tweeted stories about the protests throughout the day Sunday (and some on Saturday), posting dramatic images and 
> using trending hashtags to maximize their reach. Many of these tweets were retweeted by the semi-automated 
> pro-Kremlin account @TeamTrumpRussia (aka Дepлorabлe Рuссian), which spent much of the day amplifying the hashtags 
> #Berkeley and #Antifa.
>
> On Twitter, the hashtag #Berkeley was amplified by Russian-linked influence networks, as evidenced by the output of 
> the Hamilton 68 dashboard, a project of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, which tracks the activity of 600 Twitter 
> accounts linked to Russian influence operations. These include state-sponsored propaganda outlets like Sputnik and 
> RT, as well as individual users, automated accounts (“bots”), and cyborgs (accounts that produce automated content 
> some of the time, but are human-controlled at other times) that actively and frequently amplify Kremlin propaganda 
> (knowingly, and in some cases, potentially unknowingly).
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp



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