User:Clarkefox/sandbox

Purpose of Russian Operations on Twitter

The explicit motive of Russian actors on social media is unclear, but the dissemination of biased and falsified information on these platforms is decidedly antagonistic. In early October of 2016, the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of the National Intelligence released a joint statement on the hacked DNC to receive sensitive emails that were soon distributed by WikiLeaks. Since then, the United States Intelligence Community has worked to identify the covert online media presence and operation of Russians.

In September of 2017, an investigation of Russian-bought Facebook Ads revealed that operatives promoted ads supporting African American political organizations like Black Lives Matter and other more left-leaning organizations. This discovery disproved the idea that Russian operatives sought to promote conservative values only, and the discussion moves closer to the possibility of these actors instead seeking to exploit high demographic segmentation, negative political discourse, and higher polarization.

Russian propaganda on Twitter provides some insight to the aim of these operatives in their social media engagement. Tracked by websites like Hamilton68, the subject of these tweets are very socially and culturally sensitive. Journalistic credibility from the organizations writing articles shared by these accounts range from entirely factual to heavily-biased (i.e., “cherry-picked”) to conspiracy. The disposition of these tweets are notably right-leaning, and often regard controversial cultural subject matter altogether like TV, music, and commercials. In regards to recent discoveries of operatives funding left-leaning ads on platforms like Facebook, it may not be unwise to assume that left-leaning propaganda is also pushed on Twitter in order to polarize the American political discussion further.

Russian President Vladimir Putin rejects that the Russian government is involved with these efforts – and discounts the existence of these operatives in any capacity. Therefore, with such an unclear motive, the nature of these actions is largely speculative and unconfirmed.