User:Ms1220a/sandbox

Article Evaluation
The article Leo Burnett is a decent article that provides a solid overview of the life and contributions of celebrated 20th century advertising executive Leo Burnett. However, there are also some problems with this article that should be fixed. For example, a general complain I would have for this article is the section on the company he created should have a more comprehensive overview of the company's history. More specific issues with this article are the fact that in the fourth line of the biography section there is no citation when claiming that he received a bachelor's degree in 1914. In the first sentence when the claim is made that the Leo Burnett Company "started with working capital of $50,000, eight employees and three clients" there is no citation to back up this claim. Overall, this is article provides a good overview on the life and career of Leo Burnett, however it could be vastly improved by adding these revisions. Ms1220a (talk) 03:24, 2 February 2018 (UTC)Marc Shapiro

Potential Topics
The Times of Israel: Could add information about the website's blog section. There is nothing mentioning the international reach of ToI.

Propaganda in post-Soviet Russia: The article currently provides a general overview on the role of propaganda in modern Russian society, however there are many additional instances that could be added, and there are also too many direct quotes as of now. There is definitely information to be added concerning the presence of Russian propaganda on social media.

Nielsen Corporation: This article gives some information as to the functions of Nielsen Corporation, however fails to go into very specific details of company operations. Additionally, much of the information that is given in the article is somewhat jumbled and the article could be formatted much more clearly. The section describing the international operations of the Nielsen Corporation lacks any sources.

Adding to My Topic (Propaganda in post-Soviet Russia)
I will add information concerning Russia's use of social media in propaganda efforts. I also will use my sources to cover Twitter and Facebook's effort to fight back against Russian propaganda. Additionally, I will add photos of Russian propaganda for reference. Use reliable sources to add information about "Russia Today." I will mention NATO's accusation of Russia increasing propaganda in the wake of the Crimea Offensive. Will look at adding information about Russia's effort to sway public opinion in Syria through propaganda. I will also try to provide background knowledge concerning the "scene" of major Russian media outlets, as that is not currently included in the article

Sources: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-russia-media/nato-says-it-sees-sharp-rise-in-russian-disinformation-since-crimea-seizure-idUSKBN15Q0MG

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/16/us/politics/russia-propaganda-election-2016.html

https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/company/2018/2016-election-update.html

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1hj9wjf.10?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=russian&searchText=propaganda&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Fgroup%3Dnone%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3BQuery%3Drussian%2Bpropaganda%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff&refreqid=search%3A09228e3fc5d390f0ba2fc14a426012e9&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/2016/11/24/793903b6-8a40-4ca9-b712-716af66098fe_story.html?utm_term=.d8eaca595683

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/25/facebook-tells-senate-its-software-recommended-russian-propaganda.html

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20180117IPR91901/eu-needs-to-increase-its-resilience-to-russian-propaganda-say-meps

http://www.euronews.com/2018/01/17/european-parliament-debates-problem-of-russian-propaganda

https://www.rferl.org/a/european-commission-russia-disinformation-propaganda-call-to-action/28981394.html

http://www.europeanvalues.net/data/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/25/eu-anti-propaganda-unit-gets-1m-a-year-to-counter-russian-fake-news

https://archives.cjr.org/feature/what_is_russia_today.php?page=all

Rough Draft
Russia has been accused by U.S. government officials of organizing a sophisticated propaganda campaign during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election in an attempt to help Republican nominee Donald Trump win the election by spreading fake news through fraudulent social media accounts, paid online advertisements and organization of political rallies. In January of 2018, Twitter claimed to have exposed roughly 700,000 people to Russian propaganda, which was distributed through 50,000 automated accounts or "bots" and notified users who had interacted with automated Russian-linked accounts. On October 31, 2017 Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch revealed that the social media platform had recommended Russian propaganda to certain users.

In the midst of the 2017 German Federal Election, Russia was accused of purposely portraying German life as "dangerous, depraved and undemocratic" under prime minister Angela Merkel while portraying German's far right AfD in a favorable light. Members of European parliament have argued that Europe needs to strengthen its defense against Russian propaganda citing Russian meddling in French, German and Spanish elections as well as Brexit. In March 2015, The East Stratcom Task Force was created with the backing of the European Union in order to counter Russian efforts to spread misinformation and fake news.

Following Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, a significant increase in Russian propaganda was noted. In February 2017, a fabricated audio recording of NATO secretary Jens Stoltenberg supposedly interacting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Petro Poroshenko was published by Russian news website Life.ru. The supposed voice of Poroshenko was revealed to be Russian pranksters. Russia has been accused of comparing Ukrainian Nationalist fighters in Donbass to members of ISIS. In July of 2017, Sputnik, RT, and various other Russian news outlets reported a fire at a NATO base in Izmir, stating it was a response to the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt. NATO acknowledged a forest fire had occurred somewhat near the base but had no connection to NATO itself. Political scholar Nikolay Kozhanov has claimed that Russia has used propaganda to convey nationalistic as well as pro-Assad messages during the Syrian Civil War. Kozhanov claims that Russia has made an effort through propaganda to paint Russia and Syria as a stable force "in the struggle against instability caused by the Americans and terrorism supported by the US regional partners."

[Not quite clear where this will be added in the article Erickaakcire (talk) 18:30, 6 March 2018 (UTC) ]

Peer review:

Hey! I this this is a really solid draft. You have a great selection of sources and establish credibility through them. Something I would recommend looking into is the third paragraph. Your wording is a bit confusing, and I think you could go more in depth into the events that transpired to make it clearer what exactly occured and make your article more reader-friendly. Your citations are good, and are put in the appropriate places. I would add links to articles for Colin Stretch and the East Stratcom Task Force. Nicely done! -Caroline

Responding to Feedback
The feedback I received on my article mainly addresses issues of clarification. To address issues of clarification in my third paragraph, I will be reviewing the paragraph in detail, while adding details that provide context and eliminating unnecessary words. Additionally, I received feedback that it is unclear where each of my sections will ultimately go in the article, so I will clarify this as well. I will also be adding a citation for my source on Colin Stretch and the East Stratcom Task Force in my first paragraph, as that was recommended.

Use of Social Media
In recent years, Russia has frequently used social media platforms to spread messages of propaganda to a global audience. By spreading fake news as well as putting out advertisements and creating pseudo-activist movements, Russian propaganda often strives to create strong divisions among social media users.

Russia was heavily criticized by U.S. authorities for its efforts to spread fake news and propaganda in an attempt to meddle in the 2016 US Presidential Election. Russia used tactics such as fraudulent social media accounts, organization of political rallies and online political advertisements in an effort to help Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump win the election. Leaders of various social media platforms made an effort to counter Russian propaganda by deleting automated accounts and alerting users of the presence of Russian based misinformation on their platforms and interactions users may have had with it. In January of 2017, Twitter estimated that approximately 677,000 users had "interacted with Russian propaganda or bots during the 2016 campaign." However, less than three weeks later Twitter officials would claim that it is likely more than 1.4 million users were exposed to content stemming from Russian propaganda accounts. In 2018, Twitter deleted approximately 200,00 tweets that were found to have stemmed from accounts linked to Russia. On October 31, 2017, executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter testified on Russia's use of social media in the 2016 election, before the House Intelligence Committee. In an effort to combat fake news, much of which coming from sources of Russian Propaganda, Facebook announced a plan in January 2018 to attempt to highlight "reliable" sources of news.

On May 17, 2017 Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to serve as special counsel to the US Justice Department in an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. On February 16, 2018 The US Justice Department indicted thirteen Russian nationals and three Russian companies on charges of attempting to influence the 2016 election in support of the Trump Campaign. Among the organizations indicted was the Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg based, Kremlin-backed operation that uses social media to spread fake news promoting Russian interests. The indictment claims that employees of the IRA were urged to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump—we support them.)”