internet research agency
Face-swapping app Reface pulls out of Russia after users reject anti-war campaign
While mainstream social networks like Facebook and Instagram have had their services blocked by state authorities in Russia in recent days, as the Kremlin seeks total control of the narrative…
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Russia’s war hits Yandex, the ‘Google of Russia’
Putin’s regime continues to tighten its grip on how information on the war in Ukraine is shared in Russia, and in the wake of that, tech giants in the country — which, like Facebook, Google and Twitter, are also major players in the media sphere — are starting to restructure their media assets. Yesterday Russian…
As EU says it’ll ban Russia’s ‘toxic media machine’, social media firms face pressure to act
Late yesterday the European Union announced an “unprecedented” step against Russian disinformation, saying it would ban Kremlin-based media outlets, Russia Today (aka RT) and Sputnik — extending measures targeting the…
Reface, a viral face-swap app from Ukraine, adds anti-war push notifications
Reface, an a16z-backed synthetic media app that’s developed out of Ukraine, has added push notifications informing its ~200 million-strong global user-base about Russia’s invasion of the country — urging people…
Russian trolls are outsourcing to Africa to stoke US racial tensions
With tech companies wise to many of the tactics that Russia’s now-infamous troll farms used to seed disinformation during the 2016 election, those campaigns are getting creative. According to a…
British parliament presses Facebook on letting politicians lie in ads
In yet another letter seeking to pry accountability from Facebook, the chair of a British parliamentary committee has pressed the company over its decision to adopt a policy on political…
US sanctions two Russians for cyber-related election interference
The U.S. Treasury has imposed sanctions against two Russian nationals accused of working for a notorious disinformation unit. In a statement, the Treasury said Igor Nesterov, 34, and Denis Kuzmin,…
Mueller report details the evolution of Russia’s troll farm as it began targeting US politics
On Thursday, Attorney General William Barr released the long-anticipated Mueller report. With it comes a useful overview of how Russia leveraged U.S.-based social media platforms to achieve its political ends.…
Facebook finds and kills another 512 Kremlin-linked fake accounts
Two years on from the U.S. presidential election, Facebook continues to have a major problem with Russian disinformation being megaphoned via its social tools. In a blog post today the company reveals…
Facebook connects Russia to 100+ accounts it removed ahead of mid-terms
The 115 accounts Facebook took down yesterday for inauthentic behavior ahead of the mid-term elections may indeed have been linked to the Russia-based Internet Research Agency, according to a new…
Bots distorted the 2016 Election. Will the midterms be a sequel?
The fact that Russian-linked bots penetrated social media to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election has been well documented, and the details of the deception are still trickling out.
Highlights from the Senate Intelligence hearing with Facebook and Twitter
Another day, another political grilling for social media platform giants. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s fourth hearing took place this morning, with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey…
Facebook shuts down a Unite the Right counter-protest event linked to fake accounts
According to COO Sheryl Sandberg, getting ahead of an event called “No Unite the Right 2, DC” is the reason behind Facebook’s decision to disclose new platform behavior that closely…
Facebook, AggregateIQ now being jointly probed by Canada, B.C. data watchdogs
Privacy watchdogs in Canada and British Columbia are combining existing investigations into Facebook and AggregateIQ. The latter being a Victoria-based ad targeting tech company that has been linked to Cambridge…
Facebook reveals Russian troll content, shuts down 135 IRA accounts
Facebook is showing an unprecedented level of transparency around its latest effort to suspend Russian trolls trying to influence elections and mislead the public as it tries to regain the…
U.S. issues broad Russian sanctions citing NotPetya attack and Internet Research Agency meddling
In a surprisingly robust reprimand for the Trump administration, the U.S. Treasury Department issued a set of sanctions Thursday citing interference in the 2016 election as part of a broader…
Facebook’s wider Kremlin Brexit ad sweep draws a blank
Facebook has claimed to have found no further evidence of co-ordinated Russian-backed ad purchases on its platform targeting the 2016 Brexit vote in addition to the ad buys it previously…
Tumblr also lousy with Russia-backed US election trolls: Report
The meme-laden Tumblr platform is the latest social media and blogging outlet to be unmasked as a distribution channel for Russian agents to rip at America’s societal fault lines and…
Twitter now says 1.4 million people interacted with Russian trolls during 2016 presidential campaign
Twitter has now updated the number of people engaging with Russian trolls during the 2016 presidential campaign to 1.4 million. That’s more than double the initial 677,775 Twitter originally said…
