Russian Troll Farm Just the Tip of a Misinformation Iceberg

The activity of the Internet Enquiry Agency (IRA) is just the "tip of the iceberg" when information technology comes to Russia's hacking and disinformation efforts, security and social media experts told the Senate Intelligence Commission on Wednesday.

"We've looked at a number of known disinformation campaigns, and we recollect the IRA folks are involved in a minority of them," said John Kelly, founder and CEO of social media intelligence firm Graphika.

The GRU, Russia's intelligence bureau, is "probably better at hiding their tracks than the IRA is, and I think that [suggests] this is probably just one tip of the iceberg of what we're looking at," said Laura Rosenberger, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, who pointed to IRA efforts on Reddit and Tumblr, in addition to Facebook and Twitter.

Senate Holds Hearing On Foreign Influence On Social Media Platforms (Getty)

"This is across the unabridged ecosystem [and] picked up and amplified across mainstream media outlets," she said.

Kelly and Rosenberger were on hand for a hearing that examined how strange influence operations use social media platforms. It comes ahead of Sept. 5 Senate Intel hearing where representatives from Facebook, Twitter, and Google are expected to appear, Sen. Mark Warner, ranking member, said today—and fewer than 100 days out from the US mid-term elections.

Senators quizzed the witnesses—who besides included Dr. Todd Helmus, a senior behavioral scientist at RAND, and Dr. Philip Howard, director of the Oxford Internet Establish—on whether the US is doing plenty to combat foreign hacking and influence efforts, which countries besides Russian federation might be targeting the Usa, and what the US should do to those constitute attacking us.

Dictators Larn From Each Other

Dr. Howard said his research has "found prove of formally organized social media manipulation campaigns in 48 countries, up from 28 countries" in 2022.

Of note are the efforts of Turkey, China, Hungary, and Iran, merely seven authoritarian regimes have budgets for misinformation campaigns, many of which are targeted at democracies like the Usa, U.k., Canada, and Federal republic of germany, according to Dr. Howard. "Dictators learn from each other," he said.

Laura Rosenberger, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy (Getty) Afterwards Russia, Cathay has the "next all-time chapters" for hacking and misinformation campaigns, but has not yet "set American voters in their sites," Dr. Howard said. People's republic of china'due south more focused on Taiwan and the Chinese diaspora.

Still, the threat of Russian federation is real, and action is needed "urgently," Rosenberger told the commission. She argued that the United states of america should follow the money. "Putin cares well-nigh about ability and his ability rests on his coin," and so the U.s.a. should be "looking at means we tin dry out upward sources of funding."

That includes an exam of the Western financial system "used to hibernate the money [Putin's government has] stolen from the Russian people," Rosenberger continued.

Tackling the problem, though, requires "consistent letters" from leadership "that this beliefs will non exist tolerated and that there will be consequences for it," she said. The US cannot transport Putin mixed letters.

When asked if whatsoever countries accept been able to effectively gainsay Russian hackers, Rosenberger pointed to Germany and France. Kelly agreed, arguing the 2022 French election, which also featured the release of hacked emails, was the "perfect instance" of awareness and quick action. As Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr noted, however, the French practise things a piddling differently when information technology comes to elections, including a pre-vote media blackout, which wouldn't fly in the US.

Ultimately, social media users need to pay attention. During the 2022 campaign, "there was a one-to-ane ratio of junk news to professional news shared by voters over Twitter," co-ordinate to Dr. Howard's research. "In other words, for every one link to a story produced by a professional news organization, there was i link to content that was extremist, sensationalist, conspiratorial, or [another] form of junk news."

Bot detectors can find some types of content, simply "information technology is an arm'south race as developers develop means to detect [these] bots," Dr. Helmus said. Until and so, this consequence will "require constant research and evaluation to develop and update new techniques."

About Chloe Albanesius

Chloe Albanesius

Chloe has led PCMag's news coverage for more than 10 years, editing and writing stories about the innovations that have shaped the last decade and the companies backside them. She too oversees the site's how-to coverage. Before joining PCMag.com, Chloe was a reporter covering tech policy on Capitol Hill for The National Journal's Technology Daily and fiscal It for Incisive Media in NYC. She's held internships at NBC's Encounter the Printing, washingtonpost.com, the Tate Gallery press role in London, Roll Call, and Congressional Quarterly. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism from American University in Washington, D.C.