Russian Troll farm sought to undermine US government, energy, climate

The Washington Post reports on the Russian Troll Farm in St Petersburg known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA):

Russian trolls used Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to inflame U.S. political debate over energy policy and climate change…

The committee’s report found that between 2015 and 2017, more than 9,000 posts and tweets dealt with U.S. energy policy produced by 4,334 Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts controlled by the Internet Research Agency.

Twitter told the committee that more than 4 percent of tweets produced by the Russians dealt with energy and climate issues.

…

Keep your eye on the numbers – 96% of their effort was not about energy and climate, and presumably we’re talking about 400 posts and tweets? Drop in the ocean…

But for those who havent read about the Russian Troll Farm known at the IRA — it’s worth catching up. I found this account from an insider, last October, interesting:

Max says that IRA staff were tasked with monitoring tens of thousands of comments on major U.S. media outlets, in order to grasp the general trends of American Internet users. Once employees got a sense of what Americans […]