New Web tool tracks Russian ?influence ops? on Twitter
 

This is a snip, read the full detailed story here.. The Putin dezinformatsiya campaign is continuing pro Russia propganda online, even stronger on YouTube.


The Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan project backed by the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), has launched a Web tool to keep tabs on Russia's ongoing efforts to influence public opinion in the United States and abroad.

The tools results are located here and updated real time.

The three most common primary issues out of the 91 stories analyzed involved US partisan politics, the conflict in Syria, and the investigation of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller.

Digging deeper, the 54 stories related to partisan politics include 30 hostile to the Democratic Party, 14 supportive of President Trump, two hostile to the Republican Party establishment, and two targeting the US Intelligence Community. Of 18 stories related to Syria, 14 attacked US actions, while four lauded the actions of Russia and its allies. The nine articles targeting Robert Mueller and his investigation were uniformly hostile.

First, accounts that promoted disinformation campaigns spread through overt outlets (such as RT and Sputnik) were identified, and accounts that were determined to be more than casual re-tweeters of dezinformatsiya were tagged for tracking.

The second group was derived from analysis of the social networks of users who openly professed their pro-Russian stance and tweeted primarily messages in line with Russian policies and themes. Followers of those accounts who posted similar content were identified as being part of the influence operation.

Finally, the team identified "bot" and semi-automated accounts (referred to as "cyborgs") used to "boost the signal" of the other accounts they had identified.