The probe comes as senior U.S. officials are warning that Russia’s election interference in 2020 could be more brazen than in the 2016 presidential race or the 2018 midterm election.

…A signature trait of Russian President Vladimir Putin “is his ability to convince people of outright falsehoods,” said William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center.

…Russia’s campaign interference in 2016 resulted in a multiagency investigation that led to a highly classified intelligence assessment, part of which was made public in January 2017. Trump has questioned the finding of Russian meddling and has asserted that government agents biased against him conducted a “witch hunt” into whether his campaign conspired with Russia.

The potential for Russia to spread falsehoods — and to develop increasingly sophisticated techniques to do so — is one of the bigger concerns that U.S. officials have as the 2020 election approaches, Demers said.”It’s possible that you will see the creation of false documents,” Demers said. “They could be mixed in with real information, which would make it very difficult to discern the difference. I worry about that as the next evolution of some of their means.”

…Russia has been openly promoting the controversy over Biden and Ukraine, feeding information back into the U.S. where there is an audience that’s receptive to it, Watts said.

Russia has been using its state-run media RT and Sputnik News to selectively promote favorable and unfavorable information about presidential candidates, according to an analysis by the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Foreign Influence Election 2020.

…Russia has a history of staging cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns in Ukraine, where it annexed Crimea in 2014 and backs armed separatists in the eastern part of the country.

The Justice Department exposed Russia’s interference in the 2016 election through public indictments of operatives who hacked Democratic organizations, leaked information damaging Clinton and used social media to sow divisions.

U.S. Probes If Russia Is Targeting Biden in 2020 Election Meddling

hmmm

[The] goal was two-fold: Grow an audience in part through heartwarming, inspiring messages, and use that following to spread messages promoting division, distrust, and doubt.

…This tweet didn’t seek to anger conservative Christians or to provoke Trump supporters. She wasn’t even talking to them. Melanie’s 20,000 followers, painstakingly built, weren’t from #MAGA America (Russia has other accounts targeting them). Rather, Melanie’s audience was made up of educated, urban, left-wing Americans harboring a touch of self-righteousness. She wasn’t selling her audience a candidate or a position — she was selling an emotion. Melanie was selling disgust. The Russians know that, in political warfare, disgust is a more powerful tool than anger. Anger drives people to the polls; disgust drives countries apart.

…Professional disinformation isn’t spread by the account you disagree with — quite the opposite. Effective disinformation is embedded in an account you agree with. The professionals don’t push you away, they pull you toward them. While tweeting uplifting messages about Warrick Dunn’s real-life charity work, Tyra, and several accounts we associated with her, also distributed messages consistent with past Russian disinformation. Importantly, they highlighted issues of race and gender inequality. A tweet about Brock Turner’s Stanford rape case received 15,000 likes. Another about police targeting black citizens in Las Vegas was liked more than 100,000 times. Here is what makes disinformation so difficult to discuss: while these tweets point to valid issues of concern — issues that have been central to important social movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo — they are framed to serve Russia’s interests in undermining Americans’ trust in our institutions.

…They attacked moderate politicians as a method of bolstering more polarizing candidates.

…Russia strategically employed social media to build support on the right for Trump and lower voter turnout on the left for Clinton. …Russia’s goals are to further widen existing divisions in the American public and decrease our faith and trust in institutions that help maintain a strong democracy.

…Their work was never just about elections. Rather, the [Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA)] encourages us to vilify our neighbor and amplify our differences because, if we grow incapable of compromising, there can be no meaningful democracy. Russia has dug in for a long campaign. So far, we’re helping them win.

That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent It – Rolling Stone

Mmmhmmmn.

Russia’s Internet Research Agency operated a vast network of accounts on Instagram that sought to infiltrate American identity groups, harden ideological divides and sow distrust in the American political system.

Much of the group’s activity was concentrated among several dozen large accounts, …[two] of which had more than 200,000 followers. Many of the group’s accounts targeted specific identity groups, including African-Americans, gun-rights supporters and anti-immigration activists.

In total, posts from Instagram accounts linked to the I.R.A. received nearly 185 million likes during the two-year period reviewed by the researchers, and about four million comments, according to the researchers.

…One post, made by an Instagram account called @feminism_tag, accused Ms. Clinton of insulting women who had accused her husband, Bill Clinton, of sexual misconduct. Another post targeted at African-American voters showed a manipulated image of Ms. Clinton with braided hair, and was captioned “when you need the black vote.”

In all, roughly 7 percent of the more than 100,000 Instagram posts included in the data set mentioned Ms. Clinton, while 11 percent mentioned Mr. Trump. There were no instances of pro-Clinton content on Instagram, according to the New Knowledge report.

…Several of the Instagram posts traced to Russia offered merchandise for sale. 

…Researchers suggested, selling merchandise …allowed Russians to collect names, addresses and other personal information from users; second, it allowed them to identify strong supporters of a cause, who could then be targeted with advertisements.

Russian Trolls Came for Instagram, Too – The New York Times

hmmmm

The Russian propaganda machine that tried to influence the 2016 U.S. election is now promoting the presidential aspirations of a controversial Hawaii Democrat who earlier this month declared her intention to run for president in 2020.

…[Gabbard] has become a favorite of the sites Moscow used when it interfered in 2016.

…[From when] Gabbard announced her intention to run on Jan. 11 [through this article being published a month later], there [were] at least 20 Gabbard stories on three major Moscow-based English-language websites affiliated with or supportive of the Russian government: RT, the Russian-owned TV outlet; Sputnik News, a radio outlet; and Russia Insider, a blog that experts say closely follows the Kremlin line. The CIA has called RT and Sputnik part of “Russia’s state-run propaganda machine.”

…”Her promulgation of positions compatible with Russian geo strategic interests can help them mainstream such discussion in the [Democratic] party,” said Alex Stamos, former chief security officer at Facebook and now an NBC News analyst. Gabbard, said Stamos, helps them with all their “lines of attack.”

…RT began defending Gabbard as soon as she announced.

…Experts in Russian on-line propaganda say Gabbard appeals to pro-Russian sites because her positions —and her appeal as an outsider in her own party — can be used to create division among Democrats.

…The language used to laud Gabbard is reminiscent of Russian media promotion of Jill Stein, the U.S. Green Party candidate for president in 2012 and 2016. Stein received favorable coverage from the same outlets and also benefited from Russian troll accounts.

…Russians may be gravitating to Gabbard not because they think she can win, but because her positions, often in line with those of the Kremlin, will become part of the Democratic primary debates.

…”They want someone like Gabbard to voice a Russian position. They are not telling her what to say but they want her pro-Russian positions play into the debate.”

Stamos agrees that Gabbard could be used to inject pro-Russian positions into the Democratic Party’s discussions and debates during primary season.

“We should expect the Russian intel services and troll farms to be active in the Democratic primary process,” said Stamos, “as this provides them with the best opportunity to create the most division in American society in 2020.”

…In 2016, negative coverage and fabricated stories about Hillary Clinton were amplified by a huge network of fake social media accounts and bots.

Experts who track inauthentic social media accounts, however, have already found some extolling Gabbard’s positions since she declared.

Within a few days of Gabbard announcing her presidential bid, DisInfo 2018, part of the cybersecurity firm New Knowledge, found that three of the top 15 URLs shared by the 800 social media accounts affiliated with known and suspected Russian propaganda operations directed at U.S. citizens were about Gabbard.

“A few of our analysts saw some chatter on 8chan saying she was a good ‘divider’ candidate to amplify,” said Renee DiResta, director of research at New Knowledge.

Josh Russell, a researcher and “troll hunter” known for identifying fake accounts, similarly told NBC News he recently spotted a few clusters of suspicious accounts that retweeted the same exact text about Gabbard, mostly neutral or slightly positive headlines.

Russia’s propaganda machine discovers 2020 Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard

Again, whether or not she knows this, whether or not she is willingly cooperating with a foreign government in an effort to effect elections in the United States, Gabbard IS a Russian asset.