IRA #Midterms Part One: Russia's “Troll Factory” #Instagram Operation.
Information about nearly 80 of Russia’s “Troll Factory” aka The Internet Research Agency, Instagram accounts that ran throughout the midterms.
On election eve we got another nearly 80 new Instagram account names listed on a suspected IRA website. Some time around November 5th, the twitter account @IRA_USA1 is created. The account doesn’t do much other than listing IRA_USA@protonmail.com as a contact email address and the domain usaira.ru in it’s twitter bio. It quote tweets realDonaldTrump and posts a screenshot of an excel document.
Then it starts personal messaging journalists who have covered the troll factory before with a link to website: usaira[.]ru. The website was set up sometime around November 3th or 4th and has a countdown timer at the bottom.
ThinkProgress Casey Michel does a write up about the activity noting the websites links to “Azimut, LLC.” a company listed the February 2018 indictment from Mueller of the Internet Research Agency.
On the day before the midterms, Facebook posts an announcement on it’s blog that it received a tip from law enforcement and removed 85 Instagram accounts and 30 Facebook pages.
On election eve, after the countdown timer expired, the main page of usaira[.]ru is changed. The updates include new text, another screenshot of an excel document and almost 80 Instagram account names.
That night there were about 13 of the 80+ accounts that were still active. Facebook took them down almost immediately after the website posted the account names. They later made an announcement on November 13th with more details but still vague about how many Facebook accounts the IRA operated.
“As we’ve continued to investigate, we detected and removed some additional Facebook and Instagram accounts. Combined with our takedown last Monday, in total we have removed 36 Facebook accounts, 6 Pages, and 99 Instagram accounts for coordinated inauthentic behavior.”
I grabbed as much information as I could from various caches of what the Instagram accounts looked like. Below is a spreadsheet with the account names, follower counts, and account types according to cache information. 1,078,798 total followers for all the accounts I could find information on. They ran basically the same types of accounts that they did before, but this time around with more focus on popular culture. They have also stopped watermarking their memes with logos.
The Atlantic Councils @DFRLab does some detailed analysis here:
And below are previews of what some of the Instagram accounts looked like. These were taken from caches available immediately after the names were posted to usaira[.]ru.
Large format screenshots are available in this Imgur album:
Account names:
Lgbt_poc
Lgbt__warriors_
Dope_blackness__
Not_your_negro_
Problack_afrocentrik
Kendrick_dna_
Riri_one_love
Cannadaily_420
Black.dollar__
Liberal.voice1
__anonymous_news_
Femart365
Ur.melanated.mind
Johnoliverexplains
Be.louder.with.crowder
Against_libtards_
Dr.peterson.fans
Jenlawrencefanclub
Lgbtq.daily_
Lafemme.libre
The.silentmajority_
Outraged.patriot
300_americans_
The.naked.liberty
New.blue.wave
guns.Control
lgbtqplussign
people_speak
act.on.climate
blckbusiness
joe_rogan_speaks
fitblaqueens
save_earth
captain_feminism
thingsihate
black_twitter__
lavidamexicana
feminism_4ever
4merican.m4de
American.liberation
_kidrock_fanpage_
_united.in.diversity
milo.against.feminism
maga.people
intellectual.dark.web
love.eva.lovia
bloodtypedixie
bring.america.back
bill.maher.time
info.warriors
political.show
Nicki.minaj.fans__
Lavernecox__fan
Black.voices__
American.atheist_
lgbt_saga__
the.black.revolution
real_man_cave
_beyhiveelite
Colbertepisodes
_proud_muslims_
Tomi.lahren.fans
_average.american_
Immi.great
Kardashian_golden_clan
its_bardi
kaniest
girlsbeerguns
girlsrepub1ic
blck.roots
blck.boy.joy
voice.of.Black
blknation
anonymous.speak
fem.voice
feminism_inc
f.u.libtards
team_coco_here
