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Corporations said the FBI had warned them that the Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency had established a network of user accounts and a website.
By Sheera Frenkel and Julian E. Barnes
The Russian organization that interfered in the 2016 presidential election is there again, a network of fake accounts and an online page set up to look like a left-wing news site, Facebook and Twitter announced Tuesday.
The Kremlin-backed group disinformation campaign, known as the Internet Research Agency, is the first public evidence that the firm is seeking to repeat its efforts four years ago and defend itself from the electorate since Democratic presidential candidate Joseph R.Biden Jr. to the president. Triumph.
Intelligence agencies have warned for months that Russia and other countries are actively seeking to disrupt the November election, and that Russian intelligence agencies are fueling conspiracy theories designed to alienate Americans by covering up marginal sites and social media.
Today, Facebook and Twitter are offering evidence of this interference, even as the White House has in recent weeks sought to more vigorously control data on foreign threats to the November election and minimize Russian interference.to recommend that China is a more serious threat than Moscow.
Facebook and Twitter, who have been slow to respond to large-scale disinformation campaigns about their in 2016 and continue to face complaints, even from their own workers, that they are not doing enough to deal with the problem, said they have been warned through the federal government.Bureau of Investigation on the Russian Effort.
Some US officials are involved in a major effort through Russian intelligence agencies to use fringe websites, spread conspiracy theories and the US sow department, and some of the activities known Tuesday through Facebook and Twitter. they were just data laundering.
The bogus and bogus webs were unsuccessful with an audience as wide as the group’s efforts in 2016, yet the crusade came with a new wrinkle: Russians hired genuine Americans to write for the web. computer-generated photographs to create what appeared to be a valid press organization.
The Internet Research Agency was very active in the 2016 presidential election, and a recent report through the Senate’s bipartisan intelligence committee detailed Russian interference in Trump’s election.
The organization has played a smaller role in Russia’s operations this year, according to two U.S. intelligence officials, who spoke under anonymity.The organization’s recently discovered activities on Twitter and Facebook were almost obvious, designed to be detected, authorities said.
But Peace Data’s online page turns out to be a more disturbing example of “information laundering,” a more secretive and potentially harmful effort across Moscow.Russian intelligence agencies have used allies and agents to place articles, adding misinformation, on marginal pages online.
“The Russians are looking to hide; are putting more and more layers of obscuration,” said Ben Nimmo, whose company, Graphika, worked with Facebook to publish a report on the fake site.”But they’re still getting caught.”
The I.R.A. advertised for writers on a task site, according to an American freelancer who wrote for Peace Data.
He asked to remain anonymous because he did not need his professional career to be affected through his subconscious cooperation in a Russian operation.He said he had responded to the task he was offering with links to his recent paintings and that he promptly won an email.asking you to submit new articles on any topic of your choice.
In his previous work, the editor had questioned whether Biden represented the progressive values of the Democratic Party and whether he deserved the vote of left-wing Americans.
He claimed that his articles for the online page were published slightly and he was glad, he added, to get paid for his work, even though his new bosses presented him with only $75 according to the story.Payment.
The I.R.A. being in the early stages of creating an audience for the fake news site on Facebook.The organization had created thirteen fake accounts and two pages committed to the sale of Peace Data, according to Facebook.The pages were followed by 14,000 people.
The goal, said Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security, is to take others to the Peace Data site, which is presented as a “global press organization.”
The site’s first activity dates back to October 2019, when it began sharing articles published through other media.In March 2020, the site began publishing its own articles in English.Three publishers have been indexed on the site. But when his images were studied closely., it has become transparent that they were computer-generated images, Nimmo said.
“In terms of exhibition, they had obviously stayed particularly away from the Biden-Harris campaign,” Nimmo.Il said, topics ranged from racism in the United States to the surrounding area and capitalism.Several articles argued that Biden would move the Democratic Party also to the right.
Bill Russo, a spokesman for Biden’s campaign, said Russian activity “tests two immutable facts: Russia seeks to interfere in our elections on behalf of Donald Trump, and the Facebook platform is a key vehicle for those efforts.”
“President Trump’s refusal to denounce Russian interference makes it even more vital for Facebook to do more with its regulations and ensure that its platform cannot be used to corrode the foundations of our democracy,” Russo said.
Facebook used the F.B.I.Suggestion to identify Peace Data accounts and pages on its own platform and paintings with Twitter and other sites to remove network paintings controlled through I.R.A.The company said it had contacted nearly two hundred other people who had gained a message from the net paints.
The F.B.I. showed the involvement of the group and said in a statement that it “provides data on this issue in order to give greater shield to the country’s security threats and our democratic processes.”
Two other people close to the case said the influence operation was first detected through U.S. intelligence agencies, adding the National Security Agency.
NSAet Cyber Command officials declined to comment, but in an article published last month in Foreign Affairs, General Paul M.Nakasone, who heads both organizations, said that in the mid-term elections of 2018, threats detected through the two agencies had been shared with the FBI
Twitter said Tuesday that it had suspended Peace Data-related accounts for “platform manipulation that we can reliably characterize Russian state actors,” said a spokesman.
The accounts were of poor quality and involved in spam activities, Twitter said, so they didn’t get a giant audience or get much attention.Still, Twitter said it would block any long-term attempts to percentage Peace Data links.
Facebook has supported a dozen A.R.A.affiliated operations since the last presidential election. In October last year, Facebook announced that it had disposed of Russian-backed networks of influence targeting African countries, adding Mozambique, Cameroon, Sudan and Libya.
The company said the networks were connected to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian oligarch accused across the United States and accused of meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
And in April, Facebook got rid of a Russia-backed operation in Ghana and Nigeria targeting Americans with content that it divided.
Last month, William R.Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, announced extensive efforts across Russia, China and Iran to verify and influence the vote in the upcoming elections, but management officials argue that Democrats are betting on Russian risk.harm Mr. Trump.
At a Fox News Channel appearance on Sunday, John Ratcliffe, who settled in May as director of national intelligence, said China, not Russia, is the ultimate serious threat.
While intelligence briefs admit that China needs to increase its influence in the United States, they said there is no direct evidence that Beijing has taken direct steps to influence this year’s presidential vote.
Researchers are also involved in local disinformation campaigns, and the latest Russian effort has come to give the impression that it was made in the United States.In addition to hiring American journalists and encouraging them to write with their own voices, Peace Data has combined pop culture, politics and activism to attract a young audience.
“This shows that they are persistent and adaptable,” Nimmo said, “but it also shows that they have a lot more difficulty locating one than before.”
Kate Conger contributed to the report.
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