Russia’s Secondary Infektion Trolls Hit West With Thousands of Fake Leaks and Fake News Stories
Major report from Graphika unveils a six-year campaign by a shadowy Russian troll army to sow division in the West and meddle in elections.
Illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Daily Beast
The Russian troll factory that meddled in the 2016 election isn’t the only unit in Moscow’s troll army. Since 2014, a different and more shadowy disinformation crew linked to the Russian government has been spreading forgeries and disinformation across social media. In a report released Tuesday, the social media tracking firm Graphika has uncovered the online trail of Secondary Infektion stretching across half a dozen years, two continents, and thousands of fake articles.
“When we made the investigative breakthrough in January, we knew we might be on the verge of something major, but we never expected to find over 2,500 pieces of content across more than 300 platforms,” Ben Nimmo, Graphika’s director of investigations, told The Daily Beast. “I’ve seen some cross-platform operations in my career, but nothing even close to this.”
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