Division Abroad, Cohesion at Home: How the Russian Troll Factory Works to Divide Societies Overseas but Spread Pro-Regime Messages at Home
Division Abroad, Cohesion at Home: How the Russian Troll Factory Works to Divide Societies Overseas but Spread Pro-Regime Messages at Home

Author(s): John D. Gallacher, Rolf E. Fredheim
Subject(s): Politics, Media studies, ICT Information and Communications Technologies
Published by: NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence
Keywords: Russian troll factory; Internet; social media; progressively provocative content; pro-regime messages;
Summary/Abstract: In the last 6 months increasing quantities of information have been released regarding exactly how attempts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election may have been carried out. In this study we use a combination of quantitative analysis, machine learning and natural language processing to map out the topics of conversation promoted by the Russian troll factory, the Internet Research Agency (IRA) between 2015 and 2018. We show how this activity involves coordinated messaging across multiple social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Instagram), and how this seeks to promote both sides of controversial debates with inflammatory material. Additionally, we demonstrate how real-world events are utilised to spread division in societies abroad with a common pattern of progressively provocative content. Finally, we show how this same agency uses these platforms for a very different purpose for domestic audiences, and spreads single pro-regime messages without attempts to intensify divisions at home. These results demonstrate how any successful solutions to counter this type of activity will need to tackle the problem from a multi-platform approach, and also must consider how alternative audiences may be targeted in different ways by hostile influence.

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