Some of Russia’s most infamous internet trolls have launched a news website that hired real-life journalism freelancers — including Americans — to contribute, Facebook said Tuesday.
The site, called Peace Data, launched this year with coverage focused largely on the environment and corporate and political corruption. Facebook learned through a tip from the FBI that people formerly associated with the Internet Research Agency (IRA), which created a number of influential Twitter and Facebook personas to inflame political tensions in the 2016 election, ran Peace Data and has taken down its known affiliated accounts. It had yet to gain a serious following, said Nathaniel Gleicher, the company’s Head of Cybersecurity Policy.
“It confirms what I think we’ve all thought: Russian actors are trying to target the 2020 elections and public debate in the U.S., and they’re trying to be creative about it.,” Gleicher said.
“But the second thing that it confirms is, it’s not really working,” he said. “You can run a loud, noisy influence campaign like the one we saw in 2016, and you get caught very quickly. Or you can try to run a much more subtle campaign, which is what this looks like. And A, you still get caught, and B, when you run a subtle influence campaign, you’re sort of working at cross purposes with yourself. You don’t get a lot of attention for it.”
Peace Data aimed to court left-leaning voters, said Ben Nimmo, whose firm, Graphika, released a report on the site.
