Engaging with Others: How the IRA Coordinated Information Operation Made Friends

Abstract

We analyzed the Internet Research Agency's (IRA) 2015-2017 English-language information operation on Twitter to understand the special role that engagement with outsiders (i.e., non-IRA affiliated accounts) played in their campaign. By analyzing the timing and type of engagement of IRA accounts with non-IRA affiliated accounts, and the characteristics of the latter, we identified a three-phases life cycle of such engagement, which was central to how this IRA network operated. Engagement with external accounts was key to introducing new troll accounts, to increasing their prominence, and, finally, to amplifying the messages these external accounts produced.

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“…After Russia's social media influence operations targeting American politics from 2015-2018, a body of research outlined how Internet Research Agency propagandists created fake personas to infiltrate target communities (DiResta et al, 2019;Howard et al, 2018;Linvill & Warren, 2020a;Linvill & Warren, 2020b). Research has shown that people are more receptive to information from in-group members and from sources they deem credible and trustworthy (Pornpitakpan, 2004).…”

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“…Peaks in account creation times on Twitter and Reddit corresponded to the lead-up to the announcement of the Republican nomination (Zannettou et al, 2019). To avoid detection, profile descriptions of pseudo-accounts were integrated into the target community by posing as news outlets or journalists and US persons affiliated with political parties (Linvill & Warren, 2020;Mueller, 2019).…”

“…In Stage 2, the Internet Research Agency's pseudo-accounts used a network-based selection of audiences to identify influential accounts (Linvill & Warren, 2020). They selected audiences through topics of interest, by filtering for hashtags, and by users' self-reported countries (Zannettou et al, 2019).…”

“…Following this, when the influence network has grown large enough, agents jump to Stage 4 and perform information dissemination. This is usually the campaign's final information push, where pseudo-accounts amplified their content through retweets on Twitter (Linvill & Warren, 2020) and post questionable content to generate discussion on Reddit (Zannettou et al, 2019).…”

“…Interacting with user posts through likes, retweets/shares, replies/comments is done to develop the pseudo‐account's character and to increase the prominence of the pseudo‐account. The Internet Research Agency generally uses replies/comments, rather than retweets/shares earlier on in their campaigns, to build the character of the pseudo‐account and to place themselves in the network (Linvill & Warren, 2020). Direct messages to targeted users get the actor's account noticed by other user‐accounts (Chamberlain, 2010).…”