Tuesday, September 1, 2020
Russians Again Targeting Americans With Disinformation, Facebook and Twitter Say
The companies said the F.B.I. had warned them that the Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency set up a network of fake user accounts and a website.
The Russian group that interfered in the 2016 presidential election is at it again, using a network of fake accounts and a website set up to look like a left-wing news site, Facebook and Twitter said on Tuesday.
The disinformation campaign by the Kremlin-backed group, known as the Internet Research Agency, is the first public evidence that the agency is trying to repeat its efforts from four years ago and push voters away from the Democratic presidential candidate, Joseph R. Biden Jr., to help President Trump.
Intelligence agencies have warned for months that Russia and other countries were actively trying to disrupt the November election, and that Russian intelligence agencies were feeding conspiracy theories designed to alienate Americans by laundering them through fringe sites and social media.
Now Facebook and Twitter are offering evidence of this meddling, even as the White House in recent weeks has sought to more tightly control the flow of information about foreign threats to November’s election and downplay Russian interference. The Trump administration’s top intelligence official as recently as Sunday has tried to suggest that China is a graver risk than Moscow.
Facebook and Twitter, which were slow to react to wide-ranging disinformation campaigns on their services in 2016 and continue to face criticism — even from their own employees — that they are not doing enough to confront the issue, said they were warned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation about the Russian effort.
ImageAn example of a Facebook post by the fake news site Peace Data. The Russian group Internet Research Agency hired Americans to write for the site.
An example of a Facebook post by the fake news site Peace Data. The Russian group Internet Research Agency hired Americans to write for the site.Credit...Facebook
Some American officials are worried about a broad effort by Russian intelligence to use fringe websites, spread conspiracy theories and sow division in the United States. And some of the activity Facebook and Twitter identified Tuesday was just that kind of information laundering.
The fake network and site did not reach as big an audience as the group’s efforts in 2016, but the campaign came with a new wrinkle: The Russians hired real Americans to write for the website. The site, called Peace Data, also used personas with computer-generated images to create what looked like a legitimate news organization.
The Internet Research Agency was very active in the 2016 presidential election, and a recent bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report detailed Russian interference in support of Mr. Trump’s election.
The group has been a less important part of Russia’s operations this year, according to two American intelligence officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The group’s recently discovered activities on Twitter and Facebook were almost overt, designed to be detected, the officials said.
But the Peace Data site appeared to be a more worrying example of “information laundering,” a more covert and potentially dangerous effort by Moscow. Russian intelligence agencies have used allies and operatives to place articles, including disinformation, into various fringe websites.
“The Russians are trying harder to hide; they are increasingly putting up more and more layers of obfuscation,” said Ben Nimmo, whose firm, Graphika, worked with Facebook to release a report on the fake site. “But they are still getting caught.”
The I.R.A. advertised for writers on an online job board, according to one American freelancer who wrote for Peace Data.
The writer asked to remain anonymous because he did not want his professional career affected by his unknowing cooperation in a Russian operation. He said he answered the job ad with some links to his recent work, and received an email response immediately asking him to submit new articles on any theme of his choosing.
In his earlier work, the writer had frequently challenged whether Mr. Biden represented the progressive values of the Democratic Party and whether he deserved the vote of left-wing Americans.
He said his articles for the website were barely edited. He was happy, he added, to be receiving payment for his work, even though his new bosses were offering him only $75 per story. The money, he added, was sent through an electronic payment.
The I.R.A. appeared to be in the earliest stages of building an audience for the fake news site on Facebook. The group had created 13 fake accounts and two pages dedicated to promoting Peace Data, according to Facebook. The pages were followed by 14,000 people.
The goal, said Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security, appeared to be to drive people to the Peace Data site, which billed itself as a “global news organization.”
The site’s first activity was in October 2019, when it began sharing articles published by other outlets. In March 2020, the site started publishing its own articles in English. Three editors were listed on the site. But when their photos were studied closely, it became apparent they were computer-generated images, said Mr. Nimmo.
“In terms of posting, they were clearly significantly left of the Biden-Harris campaign,” Mr. Nimmo said. He said topics ranged from racism in the United States to the environment and capitalism. Several articles argued that Mr. Biden would move the Democratic Party too far to the right.
Bill Russo, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, said the Russian activity was “proof of two immutable facts: Russia is attempting to interfere in our elections on behalf of Donald Trump, and Facebook’s platform is a key vector for these efforts.”
“President Trump’s refusal to speak out against Russian interference makes it all the more important that Facebook does more to enforce their rules and ensure their platform cannot be used to corrode the foundation of our democracy,” Mr. Russo said.
Facebook used the F.B.I. tip to identify the Peace Data accounts and pages on its own platform, and to work with Twitter and other sites to remove the I.R.A.-run network. The company said it contacted nearly 200 people who had been messaged by the network.
The F.B.I. confirmed the group’s involvement and said in a statement that it “provided information in this matter to better protect against threats to the nation’s security and our democratic processes.”
Two people familiar with the matter said the influence operation was first detected by American intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency.
Officials with the N.S.A. and Cyber Command declined to comment. But in an article last month in Foreign Affairs, Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, who leads both organizations, said that in the 2018 midterm elections, threats detected by the two agencies were shared with the F.B.I.
Twitter said on Tuesday that it had suspended five accounts associated with Peace Data for “platform manipulation that we can reliably attribute to Russian state actors,” a spokesman said.
The accounts were low-quality and engaged in spamming activity, Twitter said, so they did not gain a widespread following or attract much attention. Even so, Twitter said it would block any future attempts to share links from Peace Data.
Facebook has taken on roughly a dozen I.R.A.-affiliated operations since the last presidential election. In October of last year, Facebook announced that it had removed Russian-backed influence networks aimed at African countries including Mozambique, Cameroon, Sudan and Libya.
The company said the online networks were linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian oligarch who was indicted by the United States and accused of interfering in the 2016 presidential election.
And in April, Facebook removed a Russian-backed operation in Ghana and Nigeria that was targeting Americans with divisive content.
Last month, William R. Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, announced broad efforts by Russia, China and Iran to try to influence voting in the forthcoming election. But administration officials argue that Democrats are playing up the Russian threat to hurt Mr. Trump.
In an appearance on Fox News Channel on Sunday, John Ratcliffe, who was installed in May as director of national intelligence, asserted that China, not Russia, is the graver threat.
While people briefed on the intelligence concede that China wants to increase its influence in the United States, they said there was no direct evidence that Beijing had taken direct action to influence the presidential vote this year.
Researchers are also concerned about homegrown disinformation campaigns, and the latest Russian effort went to some lengths to appear like it was made in the United States. In addition to hiring American journalists and encouraging them to write in their own voices, the Peace Data website mixed pop culture, politics and activism to appeal to a young audience.
“It shows they are persistent and they are adaptive,” said Mr. Nimmo. “But it also shows they are having a much harder time than they used to in finding an audience.”
Kate Conger contributed reporting.
The constitutional amendment America really needs
America is in the homestretch of our fight to save what's left of our imperfect democracy. With a little over two months to a crucial election -- one that guarantees future fights between a progressive vision and ascendant authoritarianism -- we're out of time to plan for what's next. We are already living what's next. And we need to be working hard.
K. Sabeel Rahman
The Movement for Black Lives, one of the largest social movements in American history, has put the spotlight squarely on the epidemic of anti-Black police violence, and the deeper systemic violence wrought by a political system that continues to suppress the votes and voice of Black Americans in particular. Make no mistake: this is our generation's Reconstruction moment, where we must pick up the baton and continue the fight for the kind of inclusive democracy envisioned not only by civil rights icons like the late Rev. C.T. Vivian and Georgia Rep. John Lewis, but also earlier generations of unsung liberation movement activists dating back at least 150 years.
The first place to start is with major legislation aimed at remaking our democratic institutions to secure voting rights, fight voter suppression, limit partisan and racialized gerrymandering and tamp down the role of money in politics. This means a new Congress and administration should immediately pass flagship democracy reform legislation: H.R. 1, the omnibus "For the People" Act to strengthen voting rights and reform how elections operate; H.R. 4, an act restoring the full strength of the 1965 Voting Rights Act after its evisceration by the John Roberts Court in 2013; and the BREATHE Act calling for a plan to close federal prisons and immigration detention centers and reallocating funds from incarceration to social infrastructure, proposed by the Movement for Black Lives. This also means that progressive organizations and think tanks, like Demos, can and will propose robust voting rights policies for our congressional leaders to adopt.
But we know all too well the kinds of backlash that is sure to follow. GOP officials, from governors like Brian Kemp of Georgia to operatives following the ruthless example of the late gerrymandering mastermind Thomas Hofeller, will continue to develop new tactics for voter suppression and gerrymandering to gain political advantage. A federal judiciary stacked more than ever before with ideological extremists and sycophants of President Donald Trump is likely to continue to look for ways to run interference for these efforts.
What Benjamin Franklin warned us about
Opinion by Joseph J. Ellis Joseph J. Ellis is an American historian who won the Pulitzer Prize for "Founding Brothers." He is the author of "American Dialogue: The Founding Fathers and Us." The views expressed here are the author's. View more opinion on CNN.
(CNN)A group of husky prisoners from the Philadelphia jail were carrying Benjamin Franklin on a stretcher back to his quarters after attending the last session of the Constitutional Convention in early September of 1787. The grandfather among the founding fathers was afflicted with a serious case of gout, but he had attended every session during that steamy hot summer. A well-dressed Philadelphia matron spied America's elder statesman and asked, "Mr. Franklin, what have you done?" "Given you a republic," Franklin replied, "if you can keep it."
Joseph J. Ellis
Thus far, 233 years later, we have kept it. In fact, the United States is the oldest nation-sized republic in modern history. Between then and now, our republican framework has replaced the monarchical dynasties of Europe in the 19th century, then defeated the totalitarian despotisms of Germany, Japan, Italy and the Soviet Union in the 20th. What began as a bold experiment has become the global formula for national success in the western world.
There have been two occasions in American history when the fate of the republic was placed at risk. The first was the Civil War, when President Abraham Lincoln famously described the sectional conflict over slavery as "testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure?" The second was the Great Depression, which we survived under the leadership of FDR and his revised contract between democracy and capitalism called The New Deal.
We are currently on the cusp of a third serious challenge to our republican roots, which has emerged in the person of the first full-scale demagogue who was elected president. In truth, the founders would actually be surprised that it has taken this long to produce such a political creature. For they knew from their study of the Greek and Roman classics that republics were uniquely vulnerable to demagogues, because they were dependent on popular opinion, which was easily manipulated by fear-mongers brandishing conspiracy theories with potent appeal to the uneducated. During the founding era, Alexander Hamilton regarded Aaron Burr as just such a threat, and was challenged to a duel by Burr for making that accusation.
More recently, over the past four years, we have witnessed a demagogue challenge the republican principles in five areas of governance: Congress, led by the Republican Senate, has abdicated its constitutional obligation to check executive power; the Justice Department has shirked its responsibility to enforce the law fairly; misinformation and lies have become an acceptable norm for all members of the executive branch; a full generation of unqualified sycophants have been appointed to the federal judiciary; and the occupant of the White House has consistently maintained that he is above the law.
We can safely assume that Franklin is trembling in his grave, for these are all major deviations from republican principles. But they only become fatal changes if and when all these dictatorial improvisations seem institutionalized. And that can only occur if the current president is reelected in November, an election the results of which he refuses to say he will accept if it goes the other way. Then the American republic begins to die.
If, on the other hand, he departs as a one-term president, the damage he has inflicted, while considerable, is also repairable. In fact, we will be able to go forward with a clearer grasp of the reforms necessary to avert the election of future demagogues.
This is the chief reason why the looming election is the most important political event of our lifetime. This is not an election about personalities, the pandemic, the economy, or Black Lives Matter, though they are all on the ballot. This is an election to decide whether we wish to remain the American republic. Though the founders are busy being dead, their voices still linger in the atmosphere with a resoundingly clear answer to that question.
Don’t Let The Liars Win
Don’t let them define what you are. A social media post I saw yesterday, author unknown
Just a note for my right leaning family and friends from my left leaning self as we near voting day:
They say we want to disband police departments (and that we hate the police): we don’t, that’s a lie. We want to weed out racism and unnecessary police brutality and for those who abuse their power to be held accountable.
They say we want to release all prisoners: we don’t, that’s a lie. We want to weed out racism and ensure the punishments match the crimes and to deprivatize prisons.
They say we want open borders: we don’t, that’s a lie. We want asylum seekers to be given their chance to seek asylum. We want to help people who are coming from unimaginable terror and poverty help to give them the chances we have. We want to ensure children aren’t separated from their parents and that nobody is kept in cages. But we do want proper vetting.
They say we want to take away your guns: we don’t, that’s a lie. We want logical gun control to help prevent mass shootings.
They say we want to wage a war on Christianity and Christian values: we don’t, that’s a lie. We want people of all religions to be able to practice and worship freely.
They say we want to get everything for free: we don’t, that’s a lie. We want to work hard and make sure that healthcare and education are affordable for all.
They say we want a war against traditional marriage: we don’t, that’s a lie. We want people of all sexual orientations to be able to love freely, no matter who you love.
They say we want to destroy or rewrite history: we don’t, that’s a lie. We want to recognize the ugly parts of our past and do everything we can to say “that’s not okay, let’s not honor those aggressors, let’s not let those things happen again”.
They say we want to take away your constitutional rights: we don’t, that’s a lie. We choose to believe science and wear masks and try to prevent the spread of this disease.
They say we hate America: we don’t, that’s a lie. We just recognize our faults and want us to do better, be better.
Stop with the us vs. them. Stop with the straw man arguments. Stop with the fake news. Stop with fox news. Our position is one of empathy, compassion and logic. Stop believing the hype. Stop with the division. Just because we want equality for all doesn’t mean we want to take anything away from you.
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