Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee made public this week thousands of Twitter ads Russia Today bought during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Twitter has since banned advertising from all accounts owned by the Russian media company, now known as RT, after U.S. investigators concluded it attempted to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. U.S. House and Senate committees and Special Counsel Robert Mueller have reviewed the ads run by RT and other Russia-linked sources on Twitter and Facebook Inc. as part of their separate investigations into Russia’s involvement in the election.
In addition to the thousands of ads being made public for the first time, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee on Monday released additional accounts identified by Twitter as connected to the Russian-backed Internet Research Agency and a sampling of tweets aimed at suppressing voter turnout.
The committee's top Democrat Adam Schiff (D-CA) issued a statement along with the release which read, in part, as follows:
One of the primary ways that we as Americans can begin to inoculate ourselves against a future attack on our electoral processes is to see first-hand the tools that malign actors use to attempt to destabilize and divide us.
By releasing this Twitter data, we hope that researchers will continue their important work exposing any additional Russian operators who used similar tactics and themes, and provide the American people with additional information to protect our elections and political debate in the future. We continue to work with Twitter and other online platforms and technology companies to fully understand the scope and scale of Russian interference during the 2016 election.
Some of RT's election day ads promoted the network's election coverage, but others took an editorial slant that mirrored Donald Trump's rhetoric.
... RT also promoted the following tweet the day of the election: “Security firm exposes voting machine vulnerability before #ElectionDay.” The tweet linked to a story that cited research from a security firm Cylane, and noted Trump’s statement about “a ‘rigged’ election system” that would favor Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Several of the advertised posts aimed to promote RT by painting mainstream media in an untrustworthy light. For example, one tweet that was advertised said: “Download RT news app -- find out what the mainstream media is keeping silent about.”
Another tweet said, “Media & #Clinton campaign hype conspiracy about RT collusion with #WikiLeaks,” referring to the leaking of Democratic National Committee emails in 2016.
Several tweets also questioned Russia’s involvement in stories reported by mainstream media. “Are the Russian ruining the #DemsInPhilly or are Dems doing it themselves? #VoiceYourVote or blame Russia.” Embedded in that tweet is a video with scrolling words that say: “If something has been hacked, it was surely Russia.”
Twitter says it supports lawmakers sharing the ads.
“Twitter has long said we would welcome committees releasing the information we have shared with them, and that because those materials became part of a congressional investigation it was up to the committees when and whether this information would be made public,” the San Francisco-based company said Monday in a statement. “We are glad that these materials we have shared with Congress are now available for the general public to see and study.”
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@RT_COM and @RT_America spent $516,900 in advertising in 2016, with $234,600 devoted to ads that ran in the U.S., Twitter disclosed in its written testimony to the Senate Committee on Intelligence. During that period, the accounts generated 192 million impressions across all ad campaigns, with approximately 53.5 million representing impressions generated by U.S.-based users.
U.S. Lawmakers Release Thousands of Russia Today Twitter Ads (Bloomberg Politics)
Schiff Statement on Release of Twitter Ads, Accounts and Data (press release)