Jacob Sullum: Turns Out Russian Election Meddling’s Main Impact Was on the Gullible Journos Who Hyped It

The most popular list of Twitter users described as “Russian bots” Inclusion “a bunch of legitimate right-leaning accounts,” An internal email to be sent in 2018 by Yoel Roth, then the social media platform’s “trust & safety” chief. Roth believed the list was compiled by the Alliance for Securing Democracy. “bulls – – t” But, he didn’t say it publicly due to pressure from other Twitter employees.

This episode, by which journalist Last week, Matt Taibbi made the following revelations: This is a prime example of the panic over Russian propagandists pretending to be Americans. Contrary to all the hype about foreign election “interference” Since 2016, we’ve been hearing this.Even if they are fake social media accounts, the threat is still more alarming than the panic they created.

The ASD takes it for granted that the damage done by divisive or dishonest political speech depends on the speaker’s nationality. Americans who comment on US candidates or issues, no matter how ignorant or misguided, are actively participating in democracy. Russians are attempting to undermine democracy by saying the same thing.

This assumption is a bit shaky. There’s little evidence to suggest that Russians pretending they are Americans have had an impact on elections or public opinion. An Nature Communications study published last week casts doubt on this claim.

Survey data was used to assess the impact on “foreign influence accounts” Twitter during the 2016 election campaign They identified 786,634 posts from such accounts between April and November 2016, the vast majority of which were associated with Russia’s Internet Research Agency.

According to the study, “exposure to the Russian influence campaign was eclipsed by content from domestic news media and politicians,” Which was “at least an order of magnitude” more prevalent. “Exposure to Russian disinformation accounts was heavily concentrated,” 70% of exposures are accounted for by 1% survey respondents

These are the Twitter users that saw the most IRA posts “strongly identified as Republicans.” The study concluded “no evidence of a meaningful relationship between exposure to the Russian foreign influence campaign and changes in attitudes, polarization, or voting behavior.”

These results are not surprising. The researchers also noted that “a large body of literature” Indicates that political messages are received from all sources, regardless of forum. “minimal” impact on voting. In 2016, IRA messages accounted only for a small percentage of political content on social media platforms. They were also not very sophisticated.

For example, a Facebook ad that was traced back to the IRA depicted a wrestling match between Satan and Jesus. “If I win Clinton wins,” Satan says. “Not if I can help it,” Jesus replies.

An article in the 2018 New Yorker explaining “How Russia Helped Swing the Election for Trump,” Jane Mayer mentioned this bizarre piece of agitprop in order to demonstrate how skilled Russian operatives are at manipulating American opinions. But Politico reported that the ad — which targeted “people age 18 to 65+ interested in Christianity, Jesus, God, Ron Paul and media personalities such as Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, and Mike Savage” — generated 71 impressions and 14 clicks.

Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times, who warned Russia last fall, is now a reporter for the Times “reactivate(d) its trolls and bots ahead of Tuesday’s midterms,” The futility of these efforts did not affect his determination. Despite the fact that there were many Russian-sponsored messages, “much smaller” Myers claimed that it was more targeted in 2022 than in 2016. “how vulnerable the American political system remains to foreign manipulation.”

Myers’ chief example was Nora Berka, a pseudonymous Gab user with “more than 8,000 followers.” Although most of her posts were written in English, “little engagement,” He reported: “a recent post about the F.B.I. received 43 responses and 11 replies, and was reposted 64 times.”

Russian propaganda seems like a failure, even if it was meant to. “reshape U.S. politics” Or “sow chaos,” As the Times claimed. If the goal was convincing credulous journalists, “the American political system” The campaign was a huge success, despite the fact that it could not survive Nora Berka’s ferociousness.