The New York Times reported that Democrats created fake Russian Twitter bots in a disinformation campaign, also known as fake news, in order to influence voters to influence the Senate election in Alabama.
The campaign was reportedly funded by liberal billionaire Reid Hoffman and included the creation of more than a thousand Russian-language accounts that followed Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore’s Twitter account. This was picked up by major media outlets in order to fool the public into thinking the Russians supported Moore.
Robert Siciliano, security expert and CEO of Safr.me, recently discussed the Democrat’s Russian disinformation campaign on Fox Business:
Democrats Created Fake Russian Twitter Profiles
What it seems like is a number of Twitter profiles were created looking like they were of Russian descent and they were following Roy Moore. Some in the media picked it up at the time. I believe it was USA Today and The Alabamian. They pointed it out and it made news designed to make Roy Moore look bad.
It seems with the political climate that we are in right now that any relation with Russia is a bad one and if you are supported by the Russians you must be bad as well.
Disinformation Campaign Via Fake Russian Twitter Bots
Creating a Twitter bot is not too difficult to do. Anyone with a computer can make it happen. You can do a quick Google search of ‘how to create a Twitter bot’ and anyone can engage in that process.
This methodology of thwarting a potential election can and will be used again in the future simply as a disinformation campaign. The disinformation that social media allows makes it very easy for this type of information to soil someone’s reputation.
There is an All-Out Assault Online Today
There is an all-out assault online today. Anyone connected to the web and with a presence needs to monitor their online reputation and how it’s being manipulated in a number of different ways.
