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United States News Politics

Russian Influence Campaign Sought To Exploit Americans' Trust In Local News (npr.org) 287

Posted by BeauHD from the trust-the-process dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: The information operatives who worked out of the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg did not stop at posing as American social media users or spreading false information from purported news sources, according to new details. They also created a number of Twitter accounts that posed as sources for Americans' hometown headlines. NPR has reviewed information connected with the investigation and found 48 such accounts. They have names such as @ElPasoTopNews, @MilwaukeeVoice, @CamdenCityNews and @Seattle_Post. "A not-insignificant amount of those had some sort of variation on what appeared to be a homegrown local news site," said Bret Schafer, a social media analyst for the Alliance for Securing Democracy, which tracks Russian influence operations and first noticed this trend. Another example: The Internet Research Agency created an account that looks like it is the Chicago Daily News. That newspaper shuttered in 1978. The Internet Research Agency-linked account was created in May 2014, and for years, it just posted local headlines, accumulating some 19,000 followers by July 2016.

Another twist: These accounts apparently never spread misinformation. In fact, they posted real local news, serving as sleeper accounts building trust and readership for some future, unforeseen effort. "They set them up for a reason. And if at any given moment, they wanted to operationalize this network of what seemed to be local American news handles, they can significantly influence the narrative on a breaking news story," Schafer told NPR. "But now instead of just showing up online and flooding it with news sites, they have these accounts with two years of credible history."
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Russian Influence Campaign Sought To Exploit Americans' Trust In Local News More

Russian Influence Campaign Sought To Exploit Americans' Trust In Local News

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  • Sinclair Broadcast Group (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Smidge204 ( 605297 ) on Thursday July 12, 2018 @05:07PM (#56937230) Journal

    Good thing there isn't a major, national media group that controls a whole bunch of local news channels and can force them to run pre-written stories to push a political narrative. That would be awful!

    =Smidge=

    • Re:Sinclair Broadcast Group (Score:5, Informative)

      by eaglesrule ( 4607947 ) <eaglesrule@nospam.pm.me> on Thursday July 12, 2018 @06:38PM (#56937712)

      Obligatory. [youtube.com]

      This is extremely dangerous to our democracy!

  • Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 12, 2018 @05:09PM (#56937238)

    Why? To erode U.S. politics and disrupt NATO.

    Russia's biggest restriction on expanding their influence has always been NATO. NATO's balls have been cut off without reliable American participation.

    Someone ought to swing for this. As a cynic I know that powerful people often don't bear the consequences of their actions. But make no mistake, this is as much of an attack on America as 9/11 was.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      So people only get their news from a select short list of news sites social media approves of.
      No showing most nations in NATO are not paying for mi budgetsl.
      No showing how much energy Germany imports and from what nations.
      Who Germany exports mil products to.

      • So people only get their news from a select short list of news sites social media approves of.

        Ideally you should get your news from vetted sources. How you determine what has been vetted is complicated because clearly you cannot trust an authority like the government to tell the whole truth all the time. Each person should be responsible to double-confirm information, and be prepared to change their own position as stories get debunked.

        At least that's how a rational person would operate. An irrational one would attach themselves to a particular ideology (left, right, up, down, in, out). And once the

  • Not just the Russians (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 12, 2018 @05:14PM (#56937270)

    Sinclair broadcast group owns many "local" stations, often multiple in a city. They force the "local" news shows to run their stories, commentators, and have the local hosts read corporate produced statements. They also force stations to run their national produced "news" shows like Full Measure.

    They even run commercials about how independent and reliable local new is. It's funny to see these same ones on multiple stations.

  • This is not going away. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RyanFenton ( 230700 ) on Thursday July 12, 2018 @05:22PM (#56937304)

    I see every time this comes up that political process hacking is somehow not seen as a big deal, because injustice in the name of conservatism is somehow sacred and above such considerations.

    Well, the digging won't stop. This isn't some 'Bengazi' investigation - this is about the heart of our election process, about how much influence foreign interference had.

    I know that conservatives have power over the mechanisms of power now - and plenty of folks like that idea, and want it to continue at all costs. But if it comes at a cost of ignoring damage to our democracy, it won't be remembered well at all.

    This is not going away.

    None of these issues are going away.

    Ryan Fenton

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It will after the midterm when Dem post huge losses instead of riding the fabled "Blue Wave", lol. Nobody is buying it.

      Putin 202.. er, Trump 2020!!

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by ole_timer ( 4293573 )
      yawn

    • this is about the heart of our election process

      Exactly, this is precisely the problem. People spreading lies and getting away with it has been at the heart of the election process in many democracies for far too long. The only change is that now foreign governments are getting involved - including the US government which got involved in the Brexit debate. It's going to be hard to elicit a big response from people about a torrent of lies from foreign agents when they are already used to listening to a torrent of lies from their local politicians.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Obfuscant ( 592200 )

        this is about the heart of our election process

        Exactly, this is precisely the problem.

        Yes, it is. People who think Twitter is the heart of our election process are a big problem.

        Folks, Twitter is a social media thing. There is no validation of who posts what. It is DESIGNED for anyone to be able to say whatever they want. Just because someone calls themselves "OrlandoOfficialRealNewspaper" doesn't make them a newspaper, and it never has. Anyone who does not understand that shouldn't be allowed to view tweets from anyone.

        Now it is a big deal that people are saying whatever they want, and it

      • Re:Apathy to be Expected (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Straif ( 172656 ) on Thursday July 12, 2018 @07:29PM (#56938044) Homepage

        Foreign governments HAVE ALWAYS been involved in the democratic process. The only time they aren't is if your country has absolutely nothing of advantage for them which is rare.

        It may be as little as a nasty word or two about a particular politician or it could be an outright assassination but you'd be hard pressed to find any election in the past 200 years in which some foreign power wasn't involved either behind the curtain or outright on the streets.

        The 'Russian' thing is just sour grapes. China probably had more of an impact on the last election in the US.

    • Too much innuendo and grandstanding like we saw with the Congressional hearings over Peter Strzok. Democrats are children. Republicans are outraged. And Strzok is a disgrace and a POS person.

      At least there is evidence for outrage toward the disgracful POS that is Peter Strzok. There is no excuse to act like a child. Ever.

      Democracy necessitates that voters can make their own opinion. If a few memes and the airing of dirty laundry is enough to subvert that premise then democracy is a failed form of government

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by eaglesrule ( 4607947 )

      "The campaign pays the DNC, DNC pays Democracy partners, Democracy Partners pays the Foval group, Foval Group goes and executes the shit on the ground.” -- Scott Foval

      Good, the digging shouldn't stop because there's plenty to clutch our pearls about. When you can cut a check and get a political rally shut down [nytimes.com], it's only a matter of time before geopolitical adversaries start trying it themselves.

      "So the Chicago protest when they shut all that, that was us.” -- Aaron Minter, Foval Group deputy rapid response director

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The good news is that the investigations are working. This attack was stopped in its tracks before it could be used to interfere with US democracy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Raenex ( 947668 )

      this is about the heart of our election process, about how much influence foreign interference had

      Huh, you mean like a foreign agent [theamerica...vative.com] hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign to conduct a smear campaign against the opposition candidate?

      "Steele, who is British, did far more than simply provide opposition research to the Democratic National Committee. He was able to make sure it reached the most influential people possible in politics, media and government to shape and influence the growing narrative of the 2016 presidential election. In other words, as a skilled professional intelligence officer, Steele

  • This is the weirdest shit (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Yes, Jesus Christ, we know the Russians are spying and up to no good. Thank you.

    They have been doing this for nearly a century now. Running this story every other day, OTOH, is destroying what little credibility the media has left. No, I'm going to automatically feel outrage and vote for whatever cunt piece of shit you favour. Please shut the fuck up about it. It's like being amazed that blue looks blue.

    Yes they are/have been/willcontinueto etc etc etc.

    Please. Shut the fuck up about it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      How about we let Mueller do his job and see what the results are.

      Until then, take your own advice, mmm-k.

  • "The information operatives who worked out of the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg did not stop at posing as American social media users or spreading false information from purported news sources"

    This feeds into the MSN narrative as to how Putin influenced the US election through Facebook and Twitter posts. The truth being that across the board the media was totally opposed to Trump and fully positive for 'Hillary'. The American decided to not believe the MSM message and voted in Trump. This BS

    • Re:Russians exploited Americans' trust In local ne (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PseudoAnon ( 5437498 ) on Thursday July 12, 2018 @06:27PM (#56937648)
      So you're claiming that additional evidence that Russia has an extensive framework set up to interfere with US democracy through manipulating citizens' knowledge and views somehow doesn't support the narrative that Putin influenced the 2016 US election through Facebook and Twitter posts? Sounds like you're too far gone to see the issue objectively.

      Side note: The media hardly ever talked about Hillary. They spent most of their time feeding into an underdog story for (privileged self-professed billionaire) Trump. And, sadly, this country values naive "thinking from the gut" over well-thought-out plans from people with experience and a proven record. The difference in detail (how goals could be accomplished) of plans for the country listed on their campaign pages was laughable as if Donald didn't want to win from the start.

      The lobbying system is absolutely a problem though. And people desperately wanted change. But hiring a rich grifter is not a very logical way to change that compared to electing a moderate liberal judge who could help overturn Citizens' United.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The media hardly ever talked about Hillary.

        They spent decades attacking her and her husband and gave massive amounts of coverage to the FBI investigations right before the election that ultimately went nowhere.

        Not saying they were necessarily nicer to Trump, they certainly called out a lot of his bullshit, but Hilary didn't get an easy ride by any stretch of the imagination.

      • PseudoAnon [slashdot.org]: "So you're claiming that additional evidence that Russia has an extensive framework"

        What 'evidence', that story concocted by some front organization being funded by the neocons, follow the money :]

    • Wrong (Score:2, Interesting)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
      the media gave Trump massive amount of coverage, much more than Hilary. What matters in an election as close as this is coverage, not the quality of the coverage. But even if we're talking quality Hilary stories were non-stop negative. How many hours were devoted to your emails? So many that it's become a meme ("But her emails...").

      The media didn't really care who got elected as long as it wasn't Bernie (they were caught doing a Bernie Blackout when the guy who runs the youtube Channel "The Young Turks"

  • Curious.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Vegan Cyclist ( 1650427 ) on Thursday July 12, 2018 @05:37PM (#56937376) Homepage

    Curious how deeply researchers dug into these accounts. Another possibility would be for them to have also posted 'fake news', allow it to get shared while relevant, and then delete those posts to continue the appearance of a semi-legit news source...? Very troubling either way. What would be really helpful now is news sources documenting how to detect these questionable sites....the willingness of people to trust what they see on Twitter and elsewhere is another side of the problem that needs attention.

    • the willingness of people to trust what they see on Twitter and elsewhere is another side of the problem that needs attention

      What?!? You expect people to think for themselves? But we've trained them from school to only regurgitate facts and just expect that the internet (Google, Bing) can always accurately answer their questions. The computer is always right, [computerworld.com] and has been ever since green-bar paper.

  • Given that a single right wing media outlet (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday July 12, 2018 @05:59PM (#56937492)
    called Sinclair news [google.com] just bought virtually all local stations (and were allowed to do it by our current FCC) that's not really an issue.

    I keep saying this, but when it comes to economics the media has a distinct right wing, pro-corporate bias.

  • Beyond fake news (Score:4, Insightful)

    by manu0601 ( 2221348 ) on Thursday July 12, 2018 @06:17PM (#56937608)

    These accounts apparently never spread misinformation

    There is no need for fake news or misinformation. Very good results are obtained by just choosing what subjects are covered or not. This is what mainstream media do andit works very well.

  • Sinclair Media has already done a pretty good job of making local news more distrustworthy than Fox News.

  • The links could provide facts from deep within the USA?
    Only a short list of trusted news sites that party political social media staff approve of?

  • The article says these accounts never actually posted misinformation:

    Another twist: These accounts apparently never spread misinformation. In fact, they posted real local news, serving as sleeper accounts building trust and readership for some future, unforeseen effort.

    It's strange that Tim Mak opens the article with this:

    Russia's information attack against the United States during the 2016 election cycle sought to take advantage of the greater trust that Americans tend to place in local news..

    You can't h

  • There is a case to be made that anonymity online is not desirable. I don't necessarily agree, but things like this point out the drawbacks of allowing anonymity. Usually opponents of anonymity say something like 'we don't allow people to anonymously drive cars, so..'
    • it will not help. Anybody can crack another system and post from there.
      However, vetted certificates would help, and at the least, make it hard for foreigners to take over ppl's IDs.
  • Seriously, I have to think that a number of the trolls here are coming from places like Russia and China.
    The problem is that many of them are manipulators and ppl need to read in-between the lines.
    • No one needs to read between any lines to spot your continuing lies about China. Surely you are the troll aren't you?

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