So much news about Trump, Russia and the social media world, so little time to keep track. To help, I’ve created an reading list catch you up fast, which I’ll be updating as new stories break [Note: Updated 11/9/2017 w/articles marked as “new”].
The list breaks down into four basic categories: how the Trump campaign used social media, big-picture stories about Russia’s election interference, platforms other than Facebook and Twitter, and finally, the Big Kahuna: Facebook and Twitter. Note that I first saw at least a third of these links on PoliticalWire — an essential resource.
If you see a good story I missed, please send it my way! My own stories are marked with asterisks** — editor’s privilege.
Trump Campaign Social Media
- To Help Elect Trump, Brad Parscale Automated Facebook Best Practices on a Vast Scale. [10/10/2017] **
- What Consultants Need To Know About Trump and Facebook. [10/10/2017] **
- How Facebook, Google and Twitter ’embeds’ helped Trump in 2016 [10/26/2017]. C.f. Technology Firms Shape Political Communication: The Work of Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, and Google With Campaigns During the 2016 U.S. Presidential Cycle [10/26/2017].
- Parscale talks to 60 Minutes about how the campaign used Facebook. [10/8/2017]
- Trump digital director says Facebook helped win the White House. [10/8/2017]
- Trump campaign’s embrace of Facebook shows company’s growing reach in elections. [10/8/2017]
- Did ‘Dark’ Facebook Posts Win Trump the White House? [11/17/2016] **
Russian Interference: Big Picture
- New: The Russian Hacking Scandal Is Way Bigger than Donald Trump. [11/5/2017]
- New: A Lesson in Russian Strategic Deception. [11/3/2017]
- New: Senators to Facebook, Google, Twitter: Wake up to Russian threat. [11/1/2017]
- New: Are Facebook, Twitter and Google American Companies?. They might have to decide, and soon. [11/1/2017]
- New: Four takeaways from the Senate Intelligence hearing with Facebook, Twitter and Google. [11/1/2017]
- New: Russia Loves a Shunned U.S. Soldier: How Putin’s election-meddling campaign exploited America’s resentful, misunderstood veterans. [11/3/2017]
- New: Russia’s Election Meddling Targeted Activists and People of Color, Too. [11/3/2017]
- New: Russia hackers had targets worldwide, beyond US election. [11/2/2017]
- New: Putin’s Pro-Trump Operation May Have Been Far Bigger Than We Yet Know. [9/20/2017]
- The making of a Russian disinformation campaign: What it takes. A look through history.
- How Russia Harvested American Rage to Reshape U.S. Politics. Many posts repackaged content that had already been published elsewhere, but often spun it to make it more inflammatory. [10/9/2017]
- We’re learning more about how Russia weaponized Facebook, Twitter, and Google — and it was remarkably easy. [10/4/2017]
- When Facebook and Google are Weaponized, The Victim is Reality. [10/4/2017]
- What Facebook Did to American Democracy, and why it was so hard to see it coming. [10/12/2017]
- Inside Russia’s Social Media War on America. [5/18/2017]
- What Was Russia Up To?. “Here’s what we know about how Russia tried to use Facebook, Google, and Twitter to sway the 2016 election.” [10/11/2017]
- Will America finally wise up to the Russian media war on our democracy? [9/13/2017]
- Russia Has Invented Social Media Blitzkrieg, and it’s time that America learns to defend itself. [10/13/2017]
- The case for Trump-Russia collusion: We’re getting very, very close. [9/8/2017]
- Mueller Probe Has ‘Red-Hot’ Focus on Social Media, Officials Say. [9/13/2017]
- How Did the Russians Know to Target Michigan & Wisconsin on Facebook?. [10/4/2017] **
- Why Digital Consultants Should Pay Close Attention to Trump-Russia Probe. [8/17/2017] **
- A tool to track Russian disinformation campaigns on Twitter.
- Invasion of the troll armies: from Russian Trump supporters to Turkish state stooges. [11/6/2017]
- Russian operatives used Facebook ads to exploit America’s racial and religious divisions. Quotes: “Their aim was to sow chaos,” based on the 3000 ads Facebook turned over to Senate investigators…The company said it has identified at least $100,000 in ads purchased through 470 phony Facebook pages and accounts…The Trump campaign used these tools to great effect, while Clinton’s campaign preferred to rely on its own social media experts, according to people familiar with the campaigns…”They were designed around hitting these fracture points, so they could see how they resonate and assess their effectiveness,” Watts said. “I call it reconnaissance by social media.” [9/17/2017]
Russian Interference: Platforms Other Than Facebook & Twitter
- New: The Russia ad story isn’t just about Facebook. It’s about Google, too. [10/31/2017]
- New: How Russia Used Instagram to Influence the 2016 Election. “Facebook says 120,000 posts reached 20 million Americans. Here’s what they looked like.” [11/1/2017]
- New: Inside story: How Russians hacked the Democrats’ emails. [11/3/2017]
- New: PayPal Didn’t Take Down a Russian Troll’s Donation Page Until We Asked About It. Blackmatters.us had 223,000 Facebook followers, also sold t-shirts. [11/3/2017]
- Exclusive: Even Pokémon Go used by extensive Russian-linked meddling effort. Attempting to hijack activism around police shootings. [10/12/2017]
- Russia Probe Now Investigating Cambridge Analytica, Trump’s ‘Psychographic’ Data Gurus. [10/11/2017]
- Google uncovers Russian-bought ads on YouTube, Gmail and other platforms. [10/9/2017]
- How Russian content ended up on Pinterest. [10/11/2017]
- Facebook: 150 Russia-linked political ads showed up on Instagram. [10/9/2017]
- Twitter’s Russia investigation should look at Trump’s historic interactions with bots. [10/1/2017]
- Did Russia Hack the 2016 Vote Tally? This Senator Says We Don’t Know for Sure. [10/6/2017]
- U.S. moves to ban Kaspersky software in federal agencies amid concerns of Russian espionage. [9/13/2017]
Russian Interference: Facebook & Twitter
- New: Facebook Now Says Russian Disinfo Reached 150 Million Americans. [11/1/2017]
- New: Russian content on Facebook, Google and Twitter reached far more users than companies first disclosed, congressional testimony says. [10/30/2017]
- New: Russian ads, now publicly released, show sophistication of influence campaign. [11/1/2017]
- New: Anatomy of a Russian Facebook Ad. A nice visual breakdown. [11/1/2017]
- New: Here Are Some of the Social Media Posts That Russia Used to Meddle in the 2016 Election. [11/1/2017]
- New: Why Russia’s Facebook ad campaign wasn’t such a success. I always value Patrick’s opinion, but I think this piece misses the forest for the trees. [11/3/2017]
- New: Russia funded Facebook and Twitter investments through Kushner associate. [11/5/2017]
- New: Did ‘bots’ inflame online anger over controversial ad in Va governor’s race?. [11/4/2017]
- New: At least five people close to Trump engaged with Russian Twitter trolls from 2015 to 2017. [11/2/2017]
- New: Thousands attended protest organized by Russians on Facebook. [10/31/2017]
- New: A Russian Facebook page organized a protest in Texas. A different Russian page launched the counter-protest.. [11/1/2017]
- New: Russian Trolls Are Still Co-Opting Black Organizers’ Events. [11/7/2017]
- New: Jenna Abrams, Russia’s Clown Troll Princess, Duped the Mainstream Media and the World. Fake Twitter account “got very real attention from almost any national news outlet you can think of, according to a Daily Beast analysis of her online footprint.” [11/2/2017]
- New: Senators troll Facebook with fake ad campaign. [11/2/2017]
- New: ‘Kill them all’ — Russian-linked Facebook accounts called for violence. [10/31/2017]
- Facebook’s 2016 Election Team Gave Advertisers A Blueprint To A Divided US. Demographic breakdowns, for amateur politicos. [10/30/2017]
- No More ‘Dark Posts’: Facebook To Reveal All Ads [10/27/2017]. C.f. Facebook Is Finally Fixing the Ad System That Let Russia Secretly Influence Elections [10/27/2017].
- Twitter will now label political ads, including who bought them and how much they are spending. [10/24/2017]
- Twitter Says “Trust Us.” That’s Not Possible. “The idea of Twitter, or any social media company, doing any kind of self-policing when it comes to ensuring the health of our democratic processes isn’t a comforting one.” [10/25/2017]
- Twitter Has Banned Advertising From RT and Sputnik. This Will Backfire. [10/26/2017]
- Google, Facebook may have to reveal deepest secrets: The algorithms that helped the companies make their fortunes are of growing interest to investigators probing interference in the 2016 election. [10/1/2017]
- Twitter Was Warned Repeatedly About This Fake Account Run By A Russian Troll Farm And Refused To Take It Down. “The account was one of hundreds created by Russia’s Internet Research Agency and drew 136,000 followers by tweeting divisive messages in the name of the Tennessee Republican Party.” [10/18/2017]
- Google & Facebook Helped Campaigns Confuse Voters, Stoke Bigotry Before the Election. Groups promoting divisive content worked directly with staff at the platforms. [10/20/2017]
- How People Inside Facebook Are Reacting To The Company’s Election Crisis, and why it matters. [10/20/2017]
- Social media firms summoned to U.S. Congressional hearings on Russia on November 1. [10/13/2017]
- Investigators Chase Missing Pieces Of Facebook, Twitter Role In Russian Meddling. [10/12/2017]
- Sheryl Sandberg: Facebook owes US an apology over Russian meddling. [10/12/2017]
- But, Facebook is feeling the pressure over its misinformation problem. It seems to want to do as little cleanup as possible. I.e., lying ads are cool as long as a human creates them. [10/12/2017]
- Twitter deleted data potentially crucial to Russia probes. [10/13/2017]
- Facebook takes down data and thousands of posts, obscuring reach of Russian disinformation. [10/12/2017]
- People are hyperventilating over a study of Russian propaganda on Facebook. Just breathe deeply. [10/12/2017]
- What Russian trolls could have bought for $100,000 on Facebook. The upshot: a lot more than Facebook claims. [9/7/2017]
- Facebook still doesn’t know the extent of Russian ad buys in election. [9/14/2017]
- Facebook handed Russia-linked ads over to Mueller under search warrant. [9/15/2017]
- Warner: Facebook’s Russia disclosure ‘tip of the iceberg’. [9/7/2017]
- House Intelligence Committee to release Russian-backed Facebook ads. [10/11/2017]. Supercedes: Russia’s Facebook Ads Will Remain Secret for Now. [10/4/2017]
- RT [formerly known as Russia Today] paid for $274,100 of ads on Twitter in 2016.. [9/28/2017]
- Twitter, With Accounts Linked to Russia, to Face Congress Over Role in Election. [9/27/2017]
- Fake black activist accounts linked to Russian government. [9/28/2017]
- Study: Twitter users shared more ‘junk news’ than real stories during the 2016 election. [9/28/2017]
- Russian operatives used Twitter and Facebook to target veterans and military personnel, study says. [10/9/2017]
- Russians took a page from corporate America by using Facebook tool to ID and influence voters. Created custom audiences based on clickthroughs to articles on sites they ran. [10/2/2017]
- Russian Facebook Account Reportedly Organized Florida Trump Rallies During Election, and people went to them. [9/20/2017]
- Did Facebook ads traced to a Russian company violate U.S. election law?. [9/7/2017]
- The Fake Americans Russia Created to Influence the Election. [9/7/2017]
- “Can’t overstate how many of the swing-state voters I spoke with who had the wildest anti-Hillary notions relied on Facebook for their news.”. [9/7/2017]
- The curious case of ‘Nicole Mincey,’ the Trump fan who may actually be a bot. [8/7/2017]
- How to turn Facebook into a weaponised AI propaganda machine. In which researchers have fun with psychographic targeting. [7/28/2017]
– cpd