Leaked Documents Show Russians Boasted Just 1% of Fake Social Profiles are Detected (msn.com) 69
"The Russian government has become far more successful at manipulating social media and search engine rankings than previously known," reports the Washington Post, "boosting lies about Ukraine's military and the side effects of vaccines with hundreds of thousands of fake online accounts, according to documents recently leaked on the chat app Discord.
"The Russian operators of those accounts boast that they are detected by social networks only about 1 percent of the time, one document says." That claim, described here for the first time, drew alarm from former government officials and experts inside and outside social media companies contacted for this article. "Google and Meta and others are trying to stop this, and Russia is trying to get better. The figure that you are citing suggests that Russia is winning," said Thomas Rid, a disinformation scholar and professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. He added that the 1 percent claim was likely exaggerated or misleading.
The undated analysis of Russia's effectiveness at boosting propaganda on Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Telegram and other social media platforms cites activity in late 2022 and was apparently presented to U.S. military leaders in recent months. It is part of a trove of documents circulated in a Discord chatroom and obtained by The Washington Post. Air National Guard technician Jack Teixeira was charged Friday with taking and transmitting the classified papers, charges for which he faces 15 years in prison...
Many of the 10 current and former intelligence and tech safety specialists interviewed for this article cautioned that the Russian agency whose claims helped form the basis for the leaked document may have exaggerated its success rate.
The leaked document was apparently prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Cyber Command and Europe Command, which directs American military activities in Europe. "It refers to signals intelligence, which includes eavesdropping, but does not cite sources for its conclusions," the Post reports, describing the document as offering "a rare candid assessment by U.S. intelligence of Russian disinformation operations."
The assessment concludes that foreign bots "view, 'like,' subscribe and repost content and manipulate view counts to move content up in search results and recommendation lists." And the document says a Russian center's disinformation network — working directly for Russia's presidential administration — was still working on improvements as recently as late 2022 and expected to improve its ability to "promote pro-Russian narratives abroad." After Russia's 2016 efforts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, social media companies stepped up their attempts to verify users, including through phone numbers. Russia responded, in at least one case, by buying SIM cards in bulk, which worked until companies spotted the pattern, employees said. The Russians have now turned to front companies that can acquire less detectable phone numbers, the document says.
A separate top-secret document from the same Discord trove summarized six specific influence campaigns that were operational or planned for later this year by a new Russian organization, the Center for Special Operations in Cyberspace. The new group is mainly targeting Ukraine's regional allies, that document said. Those campaigns included one designed to spread the idea that U.S. officials were hiding vaccine side effects, intended to stoke divisions in the West.
"The Russian operators of those accounts boast that they are detected by social networks only about 1 percent of the time, one document says." That claim, described here for the first time, drew alarm from former government officials and experts inside and outside social media companies contacted for this article. "Google and Meta and others are trying to stop this, and Russia is trying to get better. The figure that you are citing suggests that Russia is winning," said Thomas Rid, a disinformation scholar and professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. He added that the 1 percent claim was likely exaggerated or misleading.
The undated analysis of Russia's effectiveness at boosting propaganda on Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Telegram and other social media platforms cites activity in late 2022 and was apparently presented to U.S. military leaders in recent months. It is part of a trove of documents circulated in a Discord chatroom and obtained by The Washington Post. Air National Guard technician Jack Teixeira was charged Friday with taking and transmitting the classified papers, charges for which he faces 15 years in prison...
Many of the 10 current and former intelligence and tech safety specialists interviewed for this article cautioned that the Russian agency whose claims helped form the basis for the leaked document may have exaggerated its success rate.
The leaked document was apparently prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Cyber Command and Europe Command, which directs American military activities in Europe. "It refers to signals intelligence, which includes eavesdropping, but does not cite sources for its conclusions," the Post reports, describing the document as offering "a rare candid assessment by U.S. intelligence of Russian disinformation operations."
The assessment concludes that foreign bots "view, 'like,' subscribe and repost content and manipulate view counts to move content up in search results and recommendation lists." And the document says a Russian center's disinformation network — working directly for Russia's presidential administration — was still working on improvements as recently as late 2022 and expected to improve its ability to "promote pro-Russian narratives abroad." After Russia's 2016 efforts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, social media companies stepped up their attempts to verify users, including through phone numbers. Russia responded, in at least one case, by buying SIM cards in bulk, which worked until companies spotted the pattern, employees said. The Russians have now turned to front companies that can acquire less detectable phone numbers, the document says.
A separate top-secret document from the same Discord trove summarized six specific influence campaigns that were operational or planned for later this year by a new Russian organization, the Center for Special Operations in Cyberspace. The new group is mainly targeting Ukraine's regional allies, that document said. Those campaigns included one designed to spread the idea that U.S. officials were hiding vaccine side effects, intended to stoke divisions in the West.
Social media companies (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that there isn't money to be made but when an advertiser leaves they're probably not coming back
Re:Social media companies (Score:4, Insightful)
And Russians with drone accounts on Social Media are spreading the message that it's all brainwashing and that they don't exist!
Re: Social media companies (Score:1)
Da comrade. Russka is myth. Like unicorn, leprechaun, and eskimo.
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Putin says Russia is not myth, is potato.
Re: (Score:3)
Posting to undo accidental troll mod.
This is true. Sometimes they make posts on both sides of an argument, to sow discord and inharmony.
If you're referring to rsiilvergun (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
And then we all find out rsilvergun and Train0987 are the same person.
I kid, but goddamn your original post was so spot-goddamn-on you deserve way better for it than this particular thread has to offer.
Re: (Score:3)
Or rsiiilvergun or even rsilvergum that's not me.
Its like you have tribute bands. How cool.
I'm on a Mission From God (Score:2)
Re: Social media companies (Score:1)
"It's an Open secret that online advertising on social media isn't all that effective for anything but politics."
Why would the Twitter purchase be idiotic then? It's mostly used for talking politics.
Re: (Score:2)
Because at this point, Twitter consists mostly of bot accounts and douchebags trying to sell their opinion. And a bunch of me-too-me-threes who want to be important or at least feel validated in their opinion by regurgitating what the bots and douchebags post.
Re: (Score:2)
Aren't going to go out of their way to find a bots that look like users. They're going to do just enough to appease advertisers.
Twitter, at least, is addressing bots by requiring payments to get “blue checked” and boosting such access.
This gives verified users higher precedence and makes effective malicious bots cost significant $$$ per fake user.
Ban Russia (Score:2)
Apply the Internet death penalty. They'll start going through proxies, of course, but you might as well cut off what you can.
That is assuming the value of the connection is asymmetric in Russia's favour, and I think that is an easily defended claim.
Okay, given what we know about current Russia (Score:4, Informative)
Why should we believe this number, even if it's a supposed internal document? We already know the toady-ocracy over there will lie, even to Putin, if it's a lie he wants to believe. That's partially how they got into their current predicament in Ukraine.
Re: (Score:3)
Fair point, in fact why should we not suspect that the "Leaked Classified Documents" contains at least some if not mostly miss-information or at least information the USG figured the Russians all ready had in hope of having a honeypot opportunity present itself?
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The Russian government lies about everything, no need to fact check them
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well, soldiers sign up voluntarily. even wagner's grunts. fuck them, honestly, all of them. i would be more worried about the mounting civilian casualties that nobody, not putin, not biden and not even zelensky gives a shit about beyond their use for motivating speeches. if they did the war would not really have just stopped, it wouldn't have even started in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
Not Russian soldiers, 300,000 were conscripted, and that isn't voluntary Boris,
it's a more complicated decision because they face 2 years in jail but it is still a voluntary decision. more than a few have refused or fled the country. you do have a point, though.
are you a liar or just a dumb cunt?
tsk, tsk, you seemed like an intelligent person! don't demean yourself!
Re: Overton window (Score:1, Insightful)
I generally agree. I wouldn't be surprised if Russia is running fake accounts, just as I'm sure ours does as well.
Unfortunately, our media's been caught lying too much about Russia, especially to distract from Dem loses.
Re: (Score:2)
I have deposited 50 rubles into your account, please collect them at your nearest recruiting station.
See, even this dumb cunt knows the US dollar is doomed and wants to use rubles.
Re: CSR Flowchart says: Both sides (Score:1)
Danke comrade. Vill use to buy many potato!
We know they infest Twitter (Score:5, Interesting)
Musk whined and moaned about the number of bot and fake accounts on Twiter before he bought it. Now, with him openly repeating Russian propaganda [cbsnews.com] and, having done away with the team [bbc.com] which removed Russian bot accounts, the number of Russian troll accounts has skyrocketed on Twitter.
So it's not surprising to hear only 1% have been detected. It's probably higher than that, but not by much. After all, as is repeatedly said on here, the more accounts on anti-soical media, the more money the companies get for their advertisements.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Twitter reports bot traffic is now far lower. Who to trust?
The people who suddenly have over 10,000 accounts subscribing to their Twitter feed in 24 hours [twitter.com]? The ones who will see their visibility plummet when those same accounts miraculously unsubscribe a day or so later? Or the guy sucking Musk's dick and completely ignoring the article which outlines how Musk got rid of the team of people tasked with getting rid of bots in favor of automation which allows those 10,000 accounts to suddenly appear and do d
Re: (Score:1)
the guy sucking Musk's dick The reason comments such as mine get upvoted is because there is cold, hard evidence to back up the statements.
That’s very mature. So I’m the troll?
Your response is simply scatological claptrap plus unimpressive “cold hard evidence” citing one single Russian bot attack against Ukrainian accounts that is a complete echo of pre-Musk attacks. Where’s your evidence this is different than past attacks, more frequent, or handled less quickly?
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
>Musk is obviously not pro-Russia as otherwise he wouldnâ(TM)t have greatly expanded Ukrainian satellite services [wikipedia.org], services that have been unquestionably key to its defense. ...Except for when he tried to cut them off October of last year, and then tried to lock out Ukrainian use of Starlink for potential military purposes this year.
Musk's a right-winger / fascist / hardcore capitalist and treats everyone with less power and wealth than him like shit. He's been very definitely on Mo
Re: (Score:2)
I think he is just on his own side - not on Russia's or Ukraine's or even the USA's side.
Do X(Ukraine Starlink access), get kudos, your priorities change(maybe he heard China was concerned about how Starlink can be weaponised, and he has Tesla depending a bunch on China), try to get out from doing X and get pissed that people are pissed off at you.
I don't think he is any-winger. He just does whatever he thinks gets him the best way of moving forward with whatever his own agenda is.
Most people do the same (I
Re: (Score:1)
I agree Musk is not particularly right or left wing from most perspectives.
Only the extreme left categorizes his personal agenda, which is essentially a humane preference for libertarianism that cross-cuts most of the west’s political spectrum in my opinion, as particularly “right wing” or even “fascist”.
I think he’s publicly pro-defense and anti-offense for good reason. He’s riding a fine line as a private actor, as China and Russian would otherwise feel far less r
Re: (Score:2)
Twitter is specifically addressing bots by requiring payments to get “blue checked” and significantly boosting the posts of those with such access. This gives verified users higher precedence and makes effective malicious bots expensive (cost significant $$$ per boosted fake user, plus requires extra vetting). In general, only far left partisans have objected to this sane strategy.
Wrong on several counts.
1) Blue checks were previously vetted to be identifiable notable people, virtually zero bots. Replacing with a fee obviously increased the number of blue checked bots.
2) It's true that the vast majority of bot makers wouldn't bother with the $8/month. But if you had an effective bot and a budget (ie, crypto scam or nation state) then $8/month for a bot that gets boosting is a good deal.
3) The vast majority of users don't have a blue check, and given Musk's gutting of Twitter staff t
Re: (Score:3)
I keep mixing up my media outlets owned by tech billionaires score card.
Is this the bought and paid for media outlet that can't be trusted because it is owned by a tech billionaire and no billionaire should control media. Or.
Is this the bought and paid for media outlet that can be trusted because it's owned by a tech billionaire even though no billionaire should control media?
Re:Doesn't add up (Score:4, Informative)
The Washington Post, which routinely lies, is reporting on the US military intel, which claims "Russians" told them only 1% of their fake accounts are detected?
Please try learning to read. I suggest some remedial lessons in comprehension. The Washington Post is reporting that the recently leaked documents include claims that Russians are making the 1% claim. I would assume other people have copies of the documents and could quickly show that the documents do not include the claims. Where are the denials? <crickets.wav>.
Re: Doesn't add up (Score:1)
Woah, you sure got me!
Projecting troll is projecting.
Read the documents yourself, did you? Of course not.
You're blindly believing what the Post writes, even though they've been caught lying tepeatedly. Lol
Challenge not accepted? (Score:2)
The US has become so lazy and moribund it doesn't even try to out-bullshit their enemies any more.
Implementing restrictions on AI research will put you even further behind, and soon nobody is going to listen to any of your bullshit.
Deaf to America!
Disinformation about disinformation? (Score:2)
So we have a report claiming the people who run the Russian astroturf disinformation campaigns claim that 99% of their fake accounts go undetected.
Why should believe there's ANY truth to it, rather than the report itself being disinformation or the claims being job performance puffery?
Re: Disinformation about disinformation? (Score:2)
Neocon cyber BS (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
..or "New Knowledge" - the ex-NSA staffers who hired a Russian PR firm that ran jesus lending you a hand to quit masturbation memes that they then 'detected' as 'russian election interference' in order to sell their social media monitoring tool to the federal government.
This was the SOLE source of Russian election interference claims. THE SINGLE SOURCE.
Facebook investigated and banned New Knowledge from their platform because of it.
Maybe more are detected but leveraged & not ou (Score:2)
I told you so. (Score:1)
More vindication. Now the only question is, will they mod me down in anger, or will they try to make light of it by modding me up ironically?
Re: (Score:1)
pfffffft. vindication. more like subsequent reinforcing disinformation for previously swallowed disinformation for dummies:D
I guess we need headlines to distract from the Pentagon Leaks right? RIGHT? :p
Funny thing about liars. (Score:2)
Literally no one admires, trusts, or even likes Russia, including Russians. Any misfortune that befalls that country is immediately and justly deemed karma.
Re: (Score:1)
sorry but you're wrong.
Maybe no-one in the US or UK trusts or even likes Russia.
The rest of the world that has become thoroughly sick and tired of US bullying, has started creating relationships - such as BRICS.
African countries have increased intellectual links with Russia.
Since the US lied to Russia regarding NATO not moving one inch closer (prompting the Soviets to focus on their economy rather than their military) the US and its friends have been on a war for regime change and resource exploitation arou
They are far more widespread than that too... (Score:2)
We (the west, US, Europe) have been in a disinformnation war with a country for about eight years and even now people deny it is happening.
It's far more widespread. Local newspapers, national newspapers, local groups, forums across the board, hell, slashdot, they all have them in scale. My local newspaper in a high unemployment midlands UK town reads like the letters page in the Munich Gazette in 1936.
And it might be at such local or niche levels they are so effective. The template of "I just saw a IMMIGRAN
And here's the kicker... (Score:2)
Is that leak even real?
RIIIIIIIIIGHT (Score:1)
anything that fits the narrative that's already been show to have been a load of bullshit is suspect.