Cybersecurity
Russia’s Bid to Help Trump Revealed as Much Wider Than Once Known
- Fake posts led to hundreds of millions of views, reports say
- Instagram became leading tool for Russia starting in 2017
A staff member arranges a display showing a social media post during a House Intelligence Committee hearing in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 1, 2017.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Russia’s plot to wield social media sites to divide Americans and aid Donald Trump in the 2016 election was even more massive and sophisticated than previously understood, and efforts to disseminate disruptive messages continue.
Those are the findings of two independent groups of researchers tasked by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee. The reports, released Monday, concluded that posts from fake Russian accounts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube led to more than 300 million engagements between 2015 and 2017.