Why We're Sharing 3 Million Russian Troll Tweets

[brooklynite]

Source: FiveThirtyEight

FiveThirtyEight has obtained nearly 3 million tweets from accounts associated with the Internet Research Agency. To our knowledge, it’s the fullest empirical record to date of Russian trolls’ actions on social media, showing a relentless and systematic onslaught. In concert with the researchers who first pulled the tweets, FiveThirtyEight is uploading them to Github so that others can explore the data for themselves.

The data set is the work of two professors at Clemson University: Darren Linvill and Patrick Warren. Using advanced social media tracking software, they pulled the tweets from thousands of accounts that Twitter has acknowledged as being associated with the IRA. The professors shared their data with FiveThirtyEight in the hope that other researchers, and the broader public, will explore it and share what they find. “So far it’s only had two brains looking at it,” Linvill said of their trove of tweets. “More brains might find God-knows-what.”

The data set published here includes 2,973,371 tweets from 2,848 Twitter handles. It includes every tweet’s author, text and date; the author’s follower count and the number of accounts the author followed; and an indication of whether the tweet was a retweet. The entire corpus of tweets published here dates from February 2012 to May 2018, with the vast majority from 2015 to 2017.



Read more: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-were-sharing-3-million-russian-troll-tweets/

[AllaN01Bear]

1. hmmm. i wonder if that happens here as well.??

[watoos]

8. I've also wondered.

There are threads that get us to argue with one another. We need to be vigilant.

Oh, and don't change your handle to "Fancy Bear."

[dalton99a]

2. The "relentless and systematic onslaught" will accelerate before the midterms

[EricMaundry]

3. Twitter and Facebook are the useful idiots of our time

[Chakaconcarne]

4. So shut down the fucking tweets...

We can boycott advertisers, why not twitter?

[msongs]

12. the post count on du would go down by at least half if sense returned lol nt

[procon]

5. With Trump, the US is ill prepared and unequipped to confront the

challenges and dangers of this century. We have rested on our laurels sense WWII, clinging to our success of the past and relying on our reputation to give us the global clout to hold the top of the mountain.

We let Russia steal our lunch, next time -- and they will return -- they will take more. Trump let China take away the Asian market because we can't admit that those other nations are hungering for deals in the global market to achieve the same economic success that made our country strong. Trump made us weaker by pushing away the EU, Briton, Canada, Mexico and So Korea, now they are considering forming their own trade alliance without the US.

[Nitram]

6. This is an awesome trove of data and analysis.

Proof that our system of democracy and free speech is alive and well.

[Hortensis]

7. Agree with Nitrus about alive and even well, but in grave danger.

?w=575

“#Clinton Campaign said they pitched a story to #TheDailyBeast to attack #BernieSanders. Why are we not surprised?” — @BLACKMATTERSUS, Oct. 13, 2016 (14,433 followers)

Over 14K followers (!), many of whom repeated this hostile lie to others who repeated it,...

[LiberalLovinLug]

11. I remember the 'left trolls' dissing Bernie Sanders

pretending to be BLM activists all with the same fake news "Bernie hates black people!"
And it seemed to work on more than a few.

[saidsimplesimon]

9. Thanks Nat Silver,

I take it he has reflected on his 2016 election predictions. He was not alone in creating complacency.

I held a grudge related to the Bill Clinton insults of Barack Obama during the 2008 primary campaign. My vote went to Mrs. Clinton in 2016. My voice was silent during her campaign.

[HelenWheels]

10. Any hints on how to ID these trolls?