\tResearch presented to the US Senate yesterday (17 December) said Russia engaged in a widespread propaganda campaign over the past five years using major social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.<\/p>\n
A report by the University of Oxford\u2019s Computational Propaganda Project and social network analysis company Graphika stated Russia\u2019s Internet Research Agency had conducted an \u201cextended attack\u201d reaching \u201ctens of millions of users\u201d between 2013 and 2018. Some 30 million Instagram and Facebook users shared the Russian agency\u2019s posts from 2015 to 2017 alone.<\/p>\n
Activity began in 2013 on Twitter, \u201cbut quickly evolved into a multi-platform strategy\u201d which were not halted even after the department \u201cwas caught interfering in the 2016 election\u201d. The information was compiled using data from the social media companies involved.<\/p>\n
Twitter API
\nThe report was released as Twitter announced it could not rule out Chinese and Saudi Arabian state involvement in an attempt to reveal details of its users in November.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the company said it discovered \u201cunusual activity\u201d relating to the API of one of its customer support forms; specifically \u201ca large number of inquiries coming from individual IP addresses\u201d located in China and Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we cannot confirm intent or attribution for certain, it is possible that some of these IP addresses may have ties to state-sponsored actors.\u201d<\/p>\n
The attack threatened to expose the country code of users\u2019 phone numbers along with whether their account was currently locked by Twitter. The company\u2019s online help pages explain an account may be locked if it \u201cappears to be compromised or in violation\u201d of Twitter\u2019s terms of service.<\/p>\n
Twitter emphasised no user information was compromised, adding it revealed the details in the interests of \u201cfull transparency\u201d, and had informed law enforcement agencies and any users affected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Research presented to the US Senate yesterday (17 December) said Russia engaged in a widespread …<\/p>\n
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