Analysis of Strategy and Spread of Russia-sponsored Content in the US in 2017

Abstract: The Russia-based Internet Research Agency (IRA) carried out a broad information campaign in the U.S. before and after the 2016 presidential election. The organization created an expansive set of internet properties: web domains, Facebook pages, and Twitter bots, which received traffic via purchased Facebook ads, tweets, and search engines indexing their domains. We investigate the scope of IRA activities in 2017, joining data from Facebook and Twitter with logs from the Internet Explorer 11 and Edge browsers and the Bing.com search engine. The studies demonstrate both the ease with which malicious actors can harness social media and search engines for propaganda campaigns, and the ability to track and understand such activities by fusing content and activity resources from multiple internet services. We show how cross-platform analyses can provide an unprecedented lens on attempts to manipulate opinions and elections in democracies.