NBC News has published a database of more than 200,000 tweets deleted by Twitter but identified as part of the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency's campaign to impact the 2016 U.S. election.
These accounts, working in concert as part of large networks, pushed hundreds of thousands of inflammatory tweets, from fictitious tales of Democrats practicing witchcraft to hardline posts from users masquerading as Black Lives Matter activists. Investigators have traced the accounts to a Kremlin-linked propaganda outfit founded in 2013 known as the Internet Research Association (IRA). The organization has been assessed by the U.S. Intelligence Community to be part of a Russian state-run effort to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential race. And they're not done.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday, emphasized Russia's intent to return.
"The Russians utilize this tool because it's relatively cheap, it's low risk, it offers what they perceive as plausible deniability and it's proven to be effective at sowing division," he told the annual hearing on worldwide threats. "We expect Russia to continue using propaganda, social media, false flag personas, sympathetic spokesmen, and other means of influence to try to build on its wide range of operations and exacerbate social and political fissures in the United States."
“Frankly, the United States is under attack,” he said.
Twitter is notifying users who interacted with IRA accounts, but it also is deleting those accounts and demanding third parties do too.
Experts say the social media network shouldn't apply the same policies to gadget spammers as to evidence of foreign election interference.
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At the request of NBC News, three sources familiar with Twitter's data systems cross-referenced the partial list of names released by Congress to create a partial database of tweets that could be recovered. The sources asked to remain anonymous to avoid any politicization of their work or being identified as possibly violating Twitter's developer policy.
Click here for NBC News' instructions on how to download and search the tweets.
Twitter deleted 200,000 Russian troll tweets. Read them here. (NBC News)