By Eric King-
Suspected Russian-linked Twitter accounts were used to “extend the impact and harm” of four 2017 terrorist attacks in the UK, according to a study.
Cardiff University researchers who analysed millions of posts from a range of twitter accounts, discovered hundreds of related messages in 47 accounts once tied to Russia.
The report claims that some of the posts were anti-Muslim in nature, while others were critical of those expressing the anti-Muslim views. It is not clear whether the twitter accounts were deliberately trying to worsen matters, or just expressing strong and controversial views in relation to the attack. However, many of the messages were provocative with the potential to worsen matters, according to the report.
Cardiff University’s Crime and Security Research Institute honed in on 70 suspected “sock puppet” Twitter accounts.
Forty-seven of these had previously been tied to Russia by US Congressional investigators, the Russian magazine RBK and others. It was these on which the inquiry then focused.
The researchers then determined that after March’s attack at Westminster Bridge, 35 relevant original messages had been posted by the accounts. Also, after May’s pop concert attack in Manchester, 293 messages had been posted. The following month after June’s London Bridge attack, 140 messages had been posted. Then after June’s Finsbury Park attack, seven messages had been posted
This tally of 475 messages were reposted more than 153,000 times in total by others, the researchers determined.
Examples included: “Another day, another Muslim terrorist attack. Retweet if you think that Islam needs to be banned!”
In one case, an account named @TEN_GOP – which presented itself as belonging to a Tennessee-based American – took issue with a photo of a woman in a hijab supposedly ignoring victims of the Westminster Bridge attack.
“She is being judged for her own actions & lack of sympathy. Would you just walk by? Or offer help?”
said the tweet.
Another Russian-linked account, @Crystal1Johnson – which appeared to belong to a civil rights advocate – took an opposing stance.
“So this is how a world with glasses of hate look like [sic] – poor woman, being judged only by her clothes,”
it posted.
The researchers highlighted that the accounts sometimes tweeted the messages directly at celebrities, including the author JK Rowling, in an attempt to get their posts noticed by their followers.
The researchers further noted that several messages were directed at the English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson and UKIP’s ex-leader Nigel Farage.
“The evidence suggests a systematic strategic political communications campaign being directed at the UK designed to amplify the public harms of terrorist attacks,” the authors stated.
“The implication is that we… should focus upon rapidly establishing what counter-measures are effective in offsetting the impact of ‘soft facts’ propagated by overseas interests as they seek to do the work of terrorist organisations by amplifying the capacity and capability of violent acts.”
The researchers acknowledged that it was difficult to prove the activity had indeed been backed by the Russian authorities, but suggested they were likely additional accounts they had not spotted.
Another independent researcher who has also investigated suspected Russian social media posts said more work needed to be done.
“Using fragmented datasets we have observed unusual activities on Twitter – eg an increase in the number of fake accounts spreading biased information,”
commented Prof Sasha Talavera from Swansea University.
“But we cannot comment definitively about their scale and influence without a large-scale investigation.”