Pro-gun messages are being shared on Twitter by Russia-linked bots in hopes to bring disarray following the shooting at a Florida high school.
A tool launched by the Alliance for Securing Democracy, called Hamilton 68, that tracks ‘Russian propaganda and disinformation efforts online’ found that there was an increase in tweets from these bots in the last 48 hours.
#Falseflag, #fbi, #gunreformnow, #fbigate, #parklandschoolshooting, shooter Nikolas Cruz and Florida were used by the bots to create discord.
The alliance works to ‘defend against, deter, and raise the costs on Russian and other actors’ efforts to undermine democracy and democratic institutions,’ and does not disclose the accounts accused of the post.
#Falseflag, #fbi, #gunreformnow, #fbigate, #parklandschoolshooting, shooter Nikolas Cruz and Florida were used by the bots to create discord
Botcheck.me, a site that tracks social media users that post political propaganda, found that ‘gun control,”Nikolas Cruz,”school shooting,”school shooter,”and fake news’ were often used by 1,500 bots in 24 hours.
Botcheck.me, a site that tracks social media users that post political propaganda, found that ‘gun control,”Nikolas Cruz,”school shooting,”school shooter,”and fake news’ were often used by 1,500 bots in 24 hours
But the news is not surprising to cyber security experts.
‘This pattern of divisive propaganda is becoming a staple in information warfare fueled by social media, but it isn’t exactly new,’ Marco T. Bastos, co-author of a paper on pro-Brexit bots, told CNN.
The researcher at City, University of London added: ‘Similar campaigns can be traced to at least 2014.’
Christo Grozev, senior researcher at New Bulgarian University’s Risk Management Lab, explained that the Russian-bots had been focusing on domestic opinions in 2014-2015.
Grozevhas been looking over 400 Twitter ‘troll’ accounts disclosed in a Russian leak in 2014.
Their profile descriptions are currently a mix of French and Spanish ‘identities’, which Grozev added showed that they may have been reused.
‘Such hashtags serve mostly as bait: they serve to attract ‘opposing view’ readers, which results in explosive and discordant online mutual shouting — in place of any reasonable debate, which would not be in the interest of Russia,’ said Christo Grozev
Grozev explained that these accounts rail on issues like the Parkland shooting to promote ‘extreme and divisive causes’ in an effort to support ‘a distracted and weakened US government.’
‘Gun control is simply one of those causes,’ he added.
‘It is not in any way an ideological preference for Russia to have less gun control in the US. It is, however, the perfect divisive cause.’
He added that the hashtags promoting gun control were simply means to create distinct division.
‘Such hashtags serve mostly as bait: they serve to attract ‘opposing view’ readers, which results in explosive and discordant online mutual shouting — in place of any reasonable debate, which would not be in the interest of Russia,’ Grozev explained.