Botnet from orbi. There Italian election campaign has been officially released a few days ago, but the disinformation machine – almost exclusively traction Russian – already travels at full speed. And it will be propaganda that will dominate the next few months, while hacker attacks (used in most cases to disable specific websites or steal information) will be exploited in a targeted way. But how does theinfowar, information warfare? And how are bots exploited to spread false news?
Learn more:
Who are the authors of the Draghicide: three names for an almost perfect ‘crime’
What are troll factories?
The expression troll factory, troll factory, emerged in 2015, when the New York Times discovered the existence in St. Petersburg of the Internet Research Agency, a 400-person company, run by oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, dedicated to industrial disinformation. The employee-trolls continuously published praise to the Russian president and criticisms of countries hostile to Russia on social networks. The IRA operated during the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and in the 2016 presidential election won by Donald Trump.
Learn more:
Elections, Tricarico: risk of disinformation on the web? A form of war
How do they work and how do they work?
The employees of the troll factories create fake member profilesl to convey disinformation. Accounts must be credible, so fake biographies are very often created. The profile photos are taken from ready-made databases, in order to fool the search engines. Very often, in order to network, the fake profiles are linked together. Employees work in shifts to ensure a continuous flow of disinformation.
What do troll factories produce?
In addition to misinformation on social media, troll factories create real websites to support their operations and actively comment on traditional forums and news sites. Sometimes they generate fake discussions between controlled profiles to increase the sense of reality.
What are the effects?
The Russian troll factories during the 2016 US election campaign they generated over 3 million tweets and managed to reach around 140 million Americans with their messages. The contents created by the trolls, in fact, are then shared by those who are defined as ‘volunteers’, or people who spontaneously spread propaganda messages, because they are in line with their political opinions.
What exactly are bots for?
The operations of trolls on the web are supported by bot: programs that send messages automatically depending on the detection of specific keywords. The actions of these software are generally not very sophisticated.
When are botnets used?
Troll factories take advantage of these tireless programs to get into social media trends, creating the illusion that a given topic is relevant to public opinion. Bots, for example, are unleashed to obsessively relaunch a hashtag (a keyword preceded by the # symbol, used to facilitate searches), in order to gain popularity. When these programs act in a coordinated manner we speak of botnet, aka bot network. During the presidential debates between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, according to the Computational Propaganda Research Project in Oxford, these software re-launched the tycoon’s messages five times more than those of the former first lady.
What about cyber-espionage operations?
But there is not only communication. The cracker networks (hackers engaged in illegal activities) are used to steal confidential information that can harm Moscow’s political opponents. The Kremlin turns a blind eye to the illegal activities of these IT teams (online scams, credit card theft …) in exchange for their help.
What elections affected the trolls?
In addition to the 2016 US presidential election, the role of Moscow-related trolls was also decisive in determining the exit of Great Britain from the European Union. There is evidence that the Kremlin has also tried to influence the 2017 French presidential elections and the 2019 European presidential elections via the web.